ADTV Alabama

**ADTV Alabama** (Formerly known as **Birmingham Television** until 2010) is an ADTV member network serving the U.S. state of Alabama, and operates nine television stations across the state.

## History

Like any other station in ADTV (exception; Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Guam), ADTV Alabama started broadcasts on March 15th, 1960, launching along side most other stations in the network.

### (1958-1968) Early Years

After the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) greenlit ADTV, a network was required to serve the Alabama state area. As a result, 45-year-old Andrew Vargas put in a bid for the region with his company Birmingham Television, competing against Alabama Broadcasting Company and Blue Quartz Network. Birmingham Television was ultimately awarded the contract because the other two bidders failed to meet the American Divisional Network Authority's quality standards, and to avoid legal issues between Alabama Broadcasting Company and rival network American Broadcasting Company.

Birmingham Television finally officially launched on March 15, 1960, along with the other ADTV networks at the time, with it's first program being a festival held for the launch of ADTV. The program helped the new station gain much attention, and soon after, Birmingham Television had officially begun production on it's first show, "**Down In Beaverdam**", and it's news program, "**BTV News with Jeff Chapman**".

This show, while sparking controversy upon it's initial premiere, did prove quite popular, and was aired on various stations around the ADTV Network.

On September 3, 1965, Birmingham Television started producing programs in color. The first program to be produced in color by BTV was "**Days Never Forgotten"**, a documentary about the survivors in Auschwitz Camp during WWII in Nazi Germany. However, the channel did not start broadcasting in full color until February 13, 1967, considerably later than neighboring stations ATBC and Orlando Television. To help sell color to the Alabama market, Birmingham Television started an advertising campaign titled "**See It and Believe It**". The campaign proved surprisingly popular, and by the end of 1968, over 75% of Birmingham Television's market had switched to color television.

### (1969-1979) Steady Growth & Potential Buyouts

For the 1969 fall season, Birmingham Television premiered four new shows, "**Speak Up!**", a charades-type game show, "**All's Well Won't End Well**", a sitcom centered around a small family in Nebraska City, Nebraska, **"Love Me Like You Do"**, a romance drama between two people named Robert and Paula, and **"Downtown Rampage"**, An action-horror soap opera setting in a fictional big city called "Irwin" with a group of serial killers seeking to kidnap random civilians, and a group called "The River" that stops the killers from kidnapping the civilians. While **Speak Up!** and **Love Me Like You Do** would end up lasting for 3 seasons, and **Downtown Rampage** lasting for 2 seasons, **All's Well Won't End Well** didn't last long, and was cancelled after only 15 episodes.

In late 1970, Jeff Chapman left BTV News for family issues (now renamed "**Journal Alabama**") and was replaced by Issac Jordan and co-host Tim Brandon. Both Issac Jordan and Tim Brandon would regularly present Journal Alabama for over 3 decades, with Tim Brandon leaving in 2004 and getting replaced by Kim Sung-In. Issac Jordan, along with the rest of Birmingham Television's in-vision team, left BTV in 2010.

Although Birmingham Television was growing steadily in the mid-late 70s, talks were occurring between Birmingham Television, and Liberty Television (New York's ADTV station) of a buyout. However, near the end of 1978, the buyout fizzled out. Liberty eventually went on to overtake the stations directly north, east and southeast of Birmingham Television, Nashville Network, ATBC and Orlando Television (Tennessee, Georgia and Florida's ADTV stations).

### (1980-1983) "BTV Nightlife" & Programming Controversy

On February 14, 1980, Birmingham Television announced it would be experimenting with a nighttime block that aired from 11PM-1AM known as "**BTV** **Nightlife**". The block, much like it's successor "**ADTV Night Time**", would air popular films before shutting down for the night. The block proved to be popular and on September 30, Birmingham Television had officially extended BTV Nightlife to 11PM-3AM, showing exclusive programming such as "**Let's Get There with Tom Trevolte**", a comedy sketch show attempting to rival NBC's "**Saturday Night Live**". The show would not survive past Season 2.

Controversy struck BTV Nightlife on March 3, 1983 after the station aired a sketch of Let's Get There with Tom Trevolte that was seen as sexist by many viewers. Many viewers refused to watch the program after the sketch's broadcast, some BTV affiliates such as WYNC, WKKJ, and BTV's largest affiliate, WBMH refused to air the program outright, and many ADTV stations pulled the show. This eventually led to the cancellation of the show 3 weeks later, as well as a public apology from Birmingham Television.

### (1984-1988) New Identity & Presentation

On June 17, 1984, "**Sunrise Morning TV**" launched nationally, causing Birmingham Television's startup time to start at 7:30 AM. This would later be pushed back even farther to 6:00 AM after the launch of ADTV Night Time on February 26, 1986.

On February 3, 1985, Birmingham Television announced it would be going through a brand change to "refresh the station for a new and exciting audience" as said by then BTV CEO, Nicholas Vargas, brother of BTV founder Andrew Vargas. Initially this sparked confusion among viewers, as many assumed the company meant the station would now be aimed for children, however the network clarified in a following statement that it would still be airing the same programs, just with a new look.

The new look launched on April 12, 1985 to positive reception, with many liking the update in identity, claiming it "improved upon the dated visuals of the company's previous branding".

### (1989-1994) Broadcasting Round & 1994 Strikes

Unfortunately, while the new look did draw some eyes to the station, BTV viewership sharply declined around the late 80s, and would prove to not let up until around the year 2000.

During this period of time, the American Divisional Network Authority was also noticing a decline in ADTV viewership and decided to save money by hosting a broadcasting round for less profitable stations, that being Birmingham Television, Iowa State Broadcasting (ADTV's Iowa Station), New Mexico Network (ADTV's New Mexico Station), and Volcanic Broadcasting Company (ADTV's Wyoming Station). This round would shortly later grow nationwide due to support from ADTV viewers. In the broadcasting round, two stations bid for ADTV Alabama's license, with Longleaf Television bidding 3 million USD, and Camellia Broadcasting Company bidding 4.2 Million USD. However, although Birmingham Television was struggling for cash at the time, they were able to outbid both stations with 6 Million USD.

Due to this bid however, Birmingham Television had severe budget cuts that affected many departments in the station, including deduced pay to employees. Because of deduced pay, on August 12, 1994, multiple technical directors turned off certain regional signals during an edition of ChicagoTV's **ADTV Report**, causing the program to be knocked off the air fully in Birmingham, Auburn, and Montgomery, while only temporarily for around 5 minutes in Huntsville. Birmingham Television received backlash from angry viewers due to this fault, however executives at BTV decided not to raise the technical directors' pays.

On October 4, 1994, during an airing of the 6'O clock edition of Journal Alabama, the technical directors yet again walked out, however they were soon joined by production staff and even Journal Alabama co-host Tim Brandon. A picket protest was held in front of BTV's headquarters, with media attention from competing networks, and even other ADTV stations such as ATBC and Orlando Television taking notice of the action. This strike ended up knocking out BTV for much of the remaining day, until the broadcast was abruptly switched to the nationally aired ADTV Night Time at around 11:30 PM, midway through an airing of "Terminator 2: Judgement Day".

The strike was resolved before BTV's broadcast day the next morning, and all workers received a 15% pay increase.

### (1995-2010) Nicholas Vargas' Death & ADTV Rebranding

On September 17, 1995, Nicholas Vargas, then CEO of BTV, passed away due to ongoing heart problems. The funeral was broadcasted live a week later on September 24th's edition of BTV News at 11. The death sent shockwaves across the company, leading many that were close to Nicholas to either leave the company, or go on an extended break.

A new CEO, named Micheal Oswald, was appointed on January 22, 1996. Soon after the CEO was appointed, three new shows were approved for broadcast on BTV, being a revival of Golden Television's popular game show "**The Weekly Paper**", which was cancelled the previous year, a sitcom centered around a crew working at a television station named "**WHAT-TV**", a drama series named "**People's Law**", an anime in collaboration with TV Asahi in Japan and GMA in The Philippines called "**Obudachi**", and a reality TV series about five contestants surviving a month in the Amazon Jungle called "**Call To The Wild**". However, **Call To The Wild** got cancelled after 28 episodes because of the five contestants' ability to survive in The Amazon Jungle.

Although **People's Law** did well in ratings, critics initially panned it for being overly derivative of other dramas at the time. **WHAT-TV** had a near opposite reaction however, as although the show had quite the loud following, the show overall did poorly in ratings compared to other shows that shared it's timeslot. **Call To The Wild** had similar ratings to **WHAT-TV**, but some critics consider this to be an "Insane, but a real amazing reality TV series". However, The most successful show of the five series was **The Weekly Paper**, which pulled in very healthy ratings for BTV, and to this day is one of the only BTV programs to still be produced on ADTV, like Brawl Stars since 1965 and Tonight, Tonight from 2003. **Obudachi** on the other hand had some international success and critics called it "The Best Anime Of 1996". Unfortunately, in 2004, **Obudachi** would get cancelled after nine seasons and eight years of airing.

For the next few years, ratings were steady for BTV, however yet again in late 1998, Liberty Television attempted to buy out Birmingham Television. While nearly going through, the two CEOs of the companies had personal disagreements, and the deal was called off by August 1999. Shortly thereafter, Oswald started talks with his South Carolina counterpart and they agreed to form what is then known as the "Deep South Pact". New Mexico-based IncantaTV joined the pact later in October, renaming the alliance as the "Sun Belt Convergence Pact".

On January 1, 2000, BTV held it's largest celebration since it's birth to celebrate the new millennium, titled "**So Long, All That!**". The special gained more than 1 million viewers, and proved to be a massive success for BTV, as well as Jackson Network, Nashville Network, ATBC, IncantaTV and South Carolina Network who also broadcasted BTV's event.

On March 15, 2007, 47 years after the station's launch, BTV officially started it's Digital TV service (along with the rest of the ADTV Network, Liberty included), with the station now broadcasting in HD and Widescreen. A few years later on June 12, 2009, BTV officially shut down it's Analog TV service after nearly 50 years of broadcasting.

On January 1, 2010, Birmingham Television was officially renamed to ADTV Alabama, similar to the rest of the ADTV network (sparing Liberty and territory stations). Many series still in production by BTV were scrapped, and the continuity team was let go in favor of ADTV's national team.

On July 12, 2015, the ADTV Alabama name was dropped in favor of simply "ADTV", officially ending all regional output after 55 years since the channel's launch, except for news purposes.

Around May 15th, 2018, A museum of ADTV nostalgia opened in Washington D.C., And some BTV ident pictures, props, and music were preserved.

On March 3, 2022, BTV's main headquarters were demolished, and a mall is set to occupy the former space. As of December 2023, construction work delayed into January 2024.

## Logos

Birmingham Television (1960-1966)Birmingham Television (1966-1971)Birmingham Television (1971-1979)Birmingham Television (1979-1981)Birmingham Television (1981-1985)Birmingham Television (1985-1996)Birmingham Television (1996-2001)Birmingham Television (2001-2007)Birmingham Television (2007-2010)ADTV Alabama (since 2010)