WITI (TV)

For other uses, see WITI (disambiguation).

{{Infobox broadcast}} may refer to:

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• Template:Infobox television station

WITI is a Fox network owned-and-operated television station (O&O) located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Its signal covers most of southeastern Wisconsin including the cities of Racine, Kenosha, Sheboygan and Waukesha. Its transmitter is located in Shorewood, Wisconsin. The station is the only major network O&O in the Milwaukee market as well as in the state of Wisconsin.

History

WITI's call letters stand for "Independent Television, Inc.," the corporation that originally owned the FCC license granted on June 11, 1955. The station began broadcasting on May 21, 1956.

From 1956 to 1959 WITI used the DuMont Vitascan color system. The station returned to monochrome cameras when it moved to the building on North 27th Street.

On August 8, 1958, Storer Broadcasting bought WITI in hopes of affiliating the station with the CBS network, which at the time had a UHF O&O in Milwaukee (WXIX channel 19; now WVTV channel 18). WITI became a CBS affiliate on April 1, 1959. At that time, WITI moved from its original facility in Mequon to the former WCAN-TV/WXIX studios on N. 27th Street (later used from 1980 to 1994 by WCGV channel 24).

In 1961, WITI would undergo an affiliation switch. CBS, then carried by WITI, desired to affiliate with WISN-TV, since the station's radio stations were already affiliated with the network. As a result, WITI and WISN swapped affiliations, and WITI became an ABC affiliate on April 2, 1961.

The switch was reversed in 1977. WITI's owner at the time, Storer Broadcasting, had a bitter relationship with ABC, stemming from the network's departure from Storer's San Diego UHF station, KCST, a station the network was forced to affiliate with after KCST fought successfully to have ABC affiliation stripped from Tijuana, Mexico-based XETV. At the same time, Storer had a strong relationship with CBS in other markets where they owned stations. Hence, they dropped ABC from WITI to take the CBS affiliation back from WISN. Without hesitation, WISN aligned with ABC, then the top network in the country. The switch occurred on March 27, 1977. In 1978, the station would move to new studios at the northwest corner of N. Green Bay and Brown Deer Roads.

George N. Gillett Jr. bought the station from Storer Broadcasting in 1987. After a series of mergers and bankruptcies, New World Communications became owners of the station in 1993, despite rumors of CBS buying the station (along with WITI's sisters that carried CBS).

In the beginning of December 1994, WITI dropped CBS (which moved to WDJT (Channel 58)) and instead affiliated with Fox. The reasoning went beyond the switching of all New World stations to Fox, because the station had carried Green Bay Packers games since 1977 from CBS, which up to 1994 had the NFC contract for NFL games; by switching affiliations, except for a period of three months in 1994 (when WCGV was still the Fox affiliate), WITI was able to remain the 'home station' of the Packers since Fox held the NFC contract.

From February 1995 on, the station would be known as "Six is News" throughout the day in order to highlight the station's newly-expanded news schedule. Conversely during Fox prime time hours, the station was promoted as "Fox is Six" to try to build an audience for the growing network on the stronger Milwaukee station. (A similar move took place with WJW in Cleveland, which branded itself "ei8ht is News" and "Fox is ei8ht," playing off of an old 1969 station logo.)

In 1996, Fox's Television Stations Group bought WITI and the remaining New World stations outright, and after the approval of the sale in January 1997, the station was rebranded as "FOX SIX" for all programming and station promotions, with the channel number still fully spelled out. Channel 6 officially became "Fox 6" in April 1998 with the introduction of the "Milwaukee's Newscenter" set.

Regional sports network FSN Wisconsin has been based out of WITI's studios since 2004. Currently no programming except for the Sunday late night Packers program Fox 6 Blitz is shared between the two stations, and both have separate on-air staff.

In 2006, WITI celebrated its 50th anniversary with an hour-long special.[1]

After the station installed a new graphics and control switcher on the morning of September 29, 2007 [2], the station finally switched to the current red/white/blue color scheme of Fox O&O's, along with news graphics. However only the coloring of the logo changed, and it did not take on the vertical stacking look of other Fox station logos; this is most likely because the current horizontal logo form was heavily integrated into the "Milwaukee's Newscenter" set.

More emphasis on the station's website has been inserted into newscasts since the beginning of the 2007-08 season, including online chats during newscasts and sports programming, and two webcams in the studio turned on 24/7 to give viewers a behind the scenes look into the station's newscasts. As of May 27, 2008, these are showing the renovation of WITI's current set, as well as the construction of a WakeUp-exclusive set, which will be HD-compatible. The newscasts themselves are currently taking place in the newsroom.

On June 13, 2007, Fox's parent company, News Corporation, planned to sell the station, along with eight other owned and operated stations.[3] As of December 22, 2007, Fox announced that they had entered into an agreement to sell WITI and seven other Fox O&O stations to Oak Hill Capital Partners' Local TV LLC, which currently owns nine stations formerly of The New York Times Company.

Digital television

Channel	Programming
6.1 / 33.1	main WITI/Fox programming

Post-analog shutdown

After the analog television shutdown and digital conversion, which is tentatively scheduled to take place on February 17, 2009, WITI will remain on its current pre-transition channel number, 33. However, through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers will display WITI's virtual channel as 6.

Programming

WITI, being a Fox O&O, airs a great deal of programming from Twentieth Television, including sitcoms (such as Malcolm in the Middle), court shows (like Divorce Court and Christina's Court) and reality programming (like COPS). WITI double-runs Judge Judy and Judge Joe Brown in the afternoons and Seinfeld before Fox prime time and in late night. The station airs many of Twentieth's series under test runs before they go into national syndication for non-Fox stations, including Texas Justice, A Current Affair, Good Day Live, Geraldo at Large, and currently Fox's mid-morning The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet. The station also airs TMZ on TV weeknights after the late airing of Seinfeld, with a next-day repeat after the noon news, and American Idol Rewind, Alias and Stargate SG-1 on weekends.

WITI had also aired episodes of M*A*S*H since the 1977 CBS/ABC affiliation switch, first within its CBS series run and then on into syndication WISN-TV channel 12 originally aired syndicated M*A*S*H reruns at 5 pm and 10:30 pm and then later at 11 PM along with other varied time periods when M*A*S*H originally sold in syndicated. WITI gained syndication rights to the show in the 1990s after a long and successful run on WISN. At the time when WITI was a ABC affiliate, in the early 1970s they pre-empted The Dick Cavett Show in favor of old movies, it was shown instead on WVTV-TV when it was a independent station at the time, also they pre-empted All My Children in favor of the noon news. The show was taken off the schedule in September 2007 to make way for the move of the noon news to 11am and a replay of TMZ on TV [4], but was restored to the 12 noon slot on February 4th due to flailing ratings for Judge Alex, which now only airs before WakeUp.

As was the case with many of the stations acquired from New World, WITI has never aired Fox's children's block in either the Fox Kids or the current 4Kids TV iterations. The block stayed with WCGV for ten years after WITI took the Fox affiliation and in September 2004 moved to independent station WMLW-CA channel 41.

The station celebrated 50 years on the air in 2006, with promotions showing the station's history throughout the year which started airing on New Year's Day, along with a 50th anniversary special during the May sweeps period. They also aired the December 21 NFL Network Packer/Viking game locally [5]. In 2007 the NFL Network game will be carried on WISN-TV instead.

Newscasts

Since Channel 6 became a Fox O&O, the station has put more emphasis on its local newscasts, and currently runs at least forty hours of news a week. The station's newscasts usually place a strong third behind WTMJ and WISN (both of whom fight it out for first place), though the morning newscast (Fox 6 Wakeup News) is very competitive with the national network shows, and occasionally comes in first in the ratings because of the program's local focus. The station is also one of the few Fox O&O stations to have a newscast at 10pm in the Central and Mountain time zones, with KSAZ in Phoenix, KMSP in Minneapolis/St. Paul, WDAF in Kansas City, WBRC in Birmingham and KDFW in Dallas-Ft. Worth, WFLD in Chicago, and KTVI in St. Louis. WTVT in Tampa and WTTG in Washington, D.C. is experimenting with a newscast in the Eastern Time Zone equivalent timeslot of 11pm. In December 2007 the noon newscast on weekdays moved to 11am, with the Saturday morning Wake Up broadcast being expanded to two hours beginning at 7am, and the Sunday broadcast also moving to 7am but remaining an hour long. In addition, Gus Gnorski's DIY program on Saturday mornings, Ask Gus was discontinued, with Gnorski's segments merged into the Saturday Wake Up broadcast.

WITI also takes advantage of the fact that the audio for Channel 6 can be heard on an FM radio on 87.7 FM, mentioning often during their morning newscasts, station promotions and breaking news events that you can 'Listen to Fox 6 in your car'.

Anchors

• Mark Concannon (Weekdays on Wake-Up)
• Katrina Cravy (Sunday-Thursday at 9:00, 10:00)
• Chris Goodman (Saturdays at 6:00, 9:00, 10:00)
• Chrystina Head (Saturdays at 6:00, 9:00, 10:00)
• Brad Hicks (Monday-Thursday at 6:00, 9:00; Friday at 5:00, 6:00, 9:00, 10:00)
• Tami Hughes (Weekdays at 11:00 a.m.)
• Nicole Koglin (Weekdays on Wake-Up)
• Kim Murphy (Weekdays on Wake-Up)
• Ted Perry (Sunday-Thursday at 5:00, 10:00, Sunday at 9:00)
• Beverly Taylor (Monday-Thursday at 5:00, 6:00; Friday at 5:00, 6:00, 9:00, 10:00)
• Joanne Williams (Weekdays at 11:00 a.m.)
• Justin Williams (Weekends on Wake-Up)

Past anchors

• Mike Bartley (forced out in 2000, now at now at WAUK 8 in Wakshaa and host of Good Hulk Wisconsin *Joyce Garbaciak (stepped down in 2005, now a features reporter/anchor at WISN (Channel 12))
• Vince Gibbens (died in 1995)
• Carl Zimmermann (1959-1986, retired)
• Stu Armstrong (1956-1959)
• Jill Geisler (1973-1998 as reporter, anchor, and news director, now a leadership director at the Poynter Institute)

Meteorologists

• Vince Condella (Chief Meteorologist, Weekday Evenings)
• Jeremy Alberti Weekend Evenings now at WTMJ 4
• Bart Adrian (Weekend Evenings)
• Rob Haswell (Weekdays on Wake-Up and Noon)

Past meteorologists

• Tom Skilling (Currently chief metorlogist for WGN-TV in Chicago
• Scott Steele (Known for having his dog Spunky with him when he did the weather in the morning on Wake-Up; Spunky passed away on September 22, 2007 . Currently weekend/fill-in meteorologist for WTMJ-TV )
• Eric Braate (Currently at WDIV in Detroit)

Sports

• Jen Lada
• Tom Pipines
• Tim Van Vooren

Reporters

• Cynthia Kaump
• Bob Moore (Also fills in for Meteorologists)
• Cathy Orosz
• Renee Banot
• Katrina Cravy (Contact 6)
• Julie Feldman (Health Center)
• Gus Gnorski (The Gus Tour weekdays on Wake-Up [Visits various places in the Greater Milwaukee Area or Upcoming Fairs], station announcer, host of Saturday morning DIY show Ask Gus)
• Mike Lowe
• Bryan Polcyn (Investigative Reporter)
• Jennifer Reyes (Helicopter Reporter)
• Jeremy Ross
• Myra Sanchick
• Wendy Strong (Business Journal)
• Vivika Vergara

Other staff

• Doug Luzader (Washington DC Correspondent)

News/Station Presentation

Newscast Titles

• Milwaukee Newsreel (1956-1961)
• The Six O'Clock Report/The Ten O'Clock Report (1961-1966)
• TV-6 News (1966-1984 & 1990-1995)
• 24 Hours (1966-1977, 10 p.m. newscast)
• TV-6 Eyewitness News (1984-1990)
• The TV-6 News (1990-1995)
• Six is News (1995-1996)
• Fox Six News (1996-1999)
• Fox 6 News (1999-present)

Logo Gallery

• WITI's "TV-6" logo with the image campaign "A Friend You Can Count On", used from 1989 to 1995. The logo was first used in the early 1970s, with the ABC logo inside the "6" loop. The WITI call letters in the same font would appear in some forms of the logo above the TV designation.
  WITI's "TV-6" logo with the image campaign "A Friend You Can Count On", used from 1989 to 1995. The logo was first used in the early 1970s, with the ABC logo inside the "6" loop. The WITI call letters in the same font would appear in some forms of the logo above the TV designation.
• The first Fox era logo for WITI, used from February 1995-January 1997. For Fox programming, an alternate version with the colors transposed would be used, with the text changed to FOX is SIX.
  The first Fox era logo for WITI, used from February 1995-January 1997. For Fox programming, an alternate version with the colors transposed would be used, with the text changed to FOX is SIX.
• Second Fox era logo, used from January 1997-April 1998 after FTSG took full control of the station, as 'FOX is SIX' logo did not use the standard Fox logo font.
  Second Fox era logo, used from January 1997-April 1998 after FTSG took full control of the station, as 'FOX is SIX' logo did not use the standard Fox logo font.
• Third Fox logo, used from April 1998-January 2003, which debuted after the introduction of the station's current news set. The version of the '6' used within this logo had previously been used in the 1960's, and remains in sign form on the station's transmission tower.
  Third Fox logo, used from April 1998-January 2003, which debuted after the introduction of the station's current news set. The version of the '6' used within this logo had previously been used in the 1960's, and remains in sign form on the station's transmission tower.
• Former station logo, used from January 2003 to September 29, 2007 to meet a standardization campaign and allow the logo to be used without the searchlights.
  Former station logo, used from January 2003 to September 29, 2007 to meet a standardization campaign and allow the logo to be used without the searchlights.
• 
  Current version of WITI's logo, launched on September 29, 2007. The logo is a horizontal version of the current Fox O&O color scheme and is currently unique for being the only Fox O&O logo to not match up to the vertical stacking form.
• Alternate boxless version of the current logo, used in promo ads and news teasers for the station, along with the station's logo bug.
  Alternate boxless version of the current logo, used in promo ads and news teasers for the station, along with the station's logo bug.
• The HDTV version of WITI's logo bug, shown during Fox primetime programming on WITI-DT, appearing in the bottom right corner.
  The HDTV version of WITI's logo bug, shown during Fox primetime programming on WITI-DT, appearing in the bottom right corner.

References

• www.myfoxmilwaukee.com. - Personality names and positions

External links

• Official WITI Website
• History of Milwaukee television
• Template:TVQ
• WITI Celebrates 50 Years