WWSM

**WWSM** (channel 35) is a television station broadcasting the ACME network in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. It is owned and operated by the network’s ACME Television Stations Group division and maintains studios on Powell Avenue along I-65, while WWSM’s transmitter is located along I-24 in Whites Creek.

## History

On October 5, 1971, the station launched its first broadcasts as **WNKJ** from a modest West Nashville studio. Given the market's established network affiliates, it is understandable that WNKJ did not draw in many advertisers and instead specialized in syndicated fare, old movies, cartoons, and religious programming. Additionally, UHF stations typically only transmit well over short distances, and the Nashville market is fairly sizable geographically. Most local homes likely lacked receivers for the station's signal anyway. On March 10, 1979, WNKJ abruptly ceased broadcasting. The station returned as **WKKT** on February 18, 1984, after a false start dashed hopes for a 1982 comeback.

The TVX Broadcast Group, which had a few stations signed on in other markets, owned WKKT. The station continued to broadcast a general entertainment lineup of comedies, dramas, movies, and cartoons from studios on Jasperson Drive close to the Cumberland River. Despite terminating negotiations with network affiliates, the station provided five hours of locally produced live programming every workday. Despite the station's lack of cable coverage in many of the suburbs, WKKT quickly became popular among Nashville viewers. Controversial Bill Boner, a former mayor of Nashville and a member of Congress, hosted an hour-long interview and call-in program called *Peak Speak* every weeknight. The Nashville Banner sportswriter Greg Pogue and well-known radio host George Plaster appeared on its follow-up, *Sports Look*, where they provided highlights and took calls regarding the day's sporting events. *Sports Look* was given an hour more on Friday nights in the fall and became the first television program in Nashville solely focused on high school football scores.

1987 saw TVX purchase the independent and Fox-affiliated stations from Taft Broadcasting. TVX was heavily leveraged after the deal. Investors started cutting back after the 1987 stock market "bump," which forced TVX to sell some of its struggling medium-market stations. Speer Communications, founded by Home Shopping Network co-founder Roy Speer, purchased WKKT and its sister station in Memphis.

Owners of WSTN, Act III Broadcasting, known for acquiring their rivals' more substantial programming assets, made an offer to purchase the entire syndicated programming inventory from WKKT in 1900 and transfer most of the shows to WSTN alongside those already carried on that station. The original plan for WKKT was to switch to a hybrid format that would have included religious programming for six hours each day and the home shopping for 18 hours. However, Speer Communications insisted on keeping some programming and entertainment shows on the schedule. On January 5, 1995, Act III sold WSTN to the Dorado Media Group. Later on in the year, WSTN and WKKT entered into a local marketing contract. Mission Broadcasting purchased the station from Speer Communications, but WSTN would be in charge of its programming.

Except for *Sports Talk*, all live programming was canceled by September 1996. (partly due to budget constraints and also due to the station expanding its syndicated prime-time lineup to additional nights outside of the initial Sunday and Wednesday slots). Plaster left *Sports Talk*, and the show was renamed *Sports Plu*s before being canceled in 1998. *Sports Plus* included news and weather segments in addition to its sports content.

The number of first-run reality and talk shows increased over time, while cartoons and anime gradually disappeared from the schedule. The Dorado Media Group purchased WKKT altogether in 2000.

### As an ACME affiliate, shift of intellectual property to channel 35

Time Warner and the Dorado Media Group announced their partnership to launch The ACME Television Network on January 25, 2016. As part of a more comprehensive agreement to affiliate its independent stations and MyNetworkTV affiliates with ACME, the latter signed WKKT as the market's affiliate of the network. On June 6, 2016, the network went live, with WKKT serving as its Nashville station.

The station would frequently go off the air due to technical issues with its transmission tower, only to remain broken up and intermittent once the signal was restored. On September 20, 2021, the ACME affiliation and its surrounding syndicated schedule switched virtual channel numbers, moving WKKT to channel 35. Dorado announced that it would concede the license assets of the former channel 51. On August 23, 2022, the station's call letters were changed to the current **WWSM** after Dorado filed and completed a request with the FCC to transfer the license of WWSM to the ACME Television Stations Group division.

## Subchannel history

### WWSM-DT2

The Tube Music Network was first carried by WWSM (as WKKT) on March 23, 2006, as part of an affiliation deal involving several Dorado-owned stations. However, on January 1, 2007, a disagreement over FCC rules for digital subchannels caused that relationship to end temporarily (and ultimately permanently). As a result, Dorado pulled The Tube from all of its stations, including WWSM. Three years later, on September 18, 2010, TheCoolTV was added to digital subchannel 51.2. Nevertheless, it was removed on August 31, 2012, as part of a group-wide network removal on all Dorado stations.

On June 28, 2014, the station launched GetTV, a movie-focused network owned by Sony Pictures Television, on their second digital sub-channel as part of an agreement with Dorado that would expand the GetTV affiliate network by 33 markets.

### WWSM-DT3

On October 27, 2015, WWSM-DT3 went live alongside a WWSM-DT2 testing stream. It launched as a Comet affiliate on the morning of October 31, 2015, at 4:00 a.m. CT.

## Programming

### Sports programming

#### Local sports programming

Beginning with the 2014 season, WWSM broadcasts its own coverage of high school football games throughout middle Tennessee on Friday nights, primarily during the high school football season (late August-November). *Friday Night Rivals* has also been live-streamed online since September 2014. They were previously broadcast on Thursday nights as *Thursday Night Lights* until the end of the 2013 season. Halftime reports include recaps of the first half and a weather segment from WSTN's weather team. Since 2013, the station has also aired TSSAA football championship games as part of a three-year agreement with Mann Communications and PlayOn! Sports.

Additionally, during the football season, *Titans All Access*, a 30-minute game preview program hosted by Titans Radio personality Mike Keith, is broadcast on both WWSM and WSTN.

High school basketball matches started airing on WWSM in January 2015 under the name Friday Night Hoops.

WWSM obtained the rights to broadcast a few Belmont Bruins men's basketball games in December 2017. For at least the 2018 season, WWSM was selected in February 2018 as the local broadcaster of many soccer matches played by Nashville SC of the United Soccer League, including all home matches and some away matches. Nashville SC announced in May 2020 that once the season resumes following the COVID-19 pandemic, local games will be broadcast on WWSM and sister stations WSTN. The WWSM broadcasts of Belmont Basketball and Nashville SC are both house-produced.

## News operation

Each week, WWSM airs 34½ hours of locally produced newscasts (6½ hours on weekdays and an hour each on weekends). The News at 9 was an ABC affiliate WRMX-TV (channel 12)-produced half-hour prime time newscast that debuted on July 7, 1997, on WWSM. It ran from Sunday through Friday evenings. Prior to the launch of the program, this station was one of only a few independent stations in the top 50 markets that did not air any local news programming. The news sharing agreement with WRMX expired on July 9, 2000, and WSTN began producing newscasts for the station.

## Technical information

### Subchannels

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

 **35.2** | QTV
 **35.3** | 480i
 **35.4** | 16:9

### Analog-to-digital conversion

On June 12, 2009, WWSM (as WKKT) stopped broadcasting on its analog signal on UHF channel 51, the date set by law for full-power television stations in the US to switch over to digital broadcasts. The station's pre-transition UHF channel 52, one of the high band UHF channels (52-69) that were no longer in use for broadcasting as a result of the transition, was replaced with channel 30, which continued to use virtual channel 51.

## Out of market coverage

Only two other places outside of the Nashville market have cable or over-the-air access to WWSM. An outdoor antenna can pick up the station in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky's southernmost portion (in the Evansville, Indiana market). Parts of Lincoln County, Tennessee, including Fayetteville, can receive WWSM in the Huntsville, Alabama market with an antenna.