WDJT-TV

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WDJT-TV is a television station located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin broadcasting on digital channel 46 and has a PSIP that displays WDJT's virtual channel as 58. The station is an affiliate of the CBS television network. Its transmitter is located within Milwaukee's Lincoln Park next to WISN (Channel 12)'s tower, with the station's signal covering southeastern Wisconsin and parts of northeastern Illinois, including Racine, Kenosha, Sheboygan and Waukesha.

WDJT was until the digital transition the only UHF affiliate of CBS in the state of Wisconsin, but retains the highest PSIP channel number in the digital age. The station also gathers news for CBS Radio in Milwaukee due to the lack of any area radio station broadcasting the network's radio newscasts (WOKY had broadcast the network's hourly newscasts until a September 2008 format change, but does not have a news division).

History

File:WDJT-Logo-Old.jpg

WDJT's former logo, used from March 1996 - September 2001. The "58" continued in use until 2008 during the station's morning newscast.

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Aforementioned "Morning News Express" logo

WDJT signed on the air on November 10, 1988 as an independent station. Its call letters were selected in honor of its original owners, Debra Jackson and John Torres. Jackson died before the station took to the air, and Torres decided to sell controlling interest to Weigel in order to get more financing. (Weigel became the station's sole owner shortly after its sign-on.) At that time, its programming fare consisted of second-hand reruns of sitcoms, first-run syndicated shows, and a movie library.

The station struggled at first, as there was barely enough room for a third independent in the city alongside WVTV-TV and WCGV. It was also hampered by their weak signal transmitting from the tower atop of the then Marc Plaza Hotel (a tower originally utilized by WVTV and currently used by low-power operation WMKE-CA), which discouraged the local cable operators from picking up the station for their lineups.

Joining CBS

The Milwaukee television market was in for a major shakeup in 1994 when New World Communications announced that most of its stations, including Milwaukee's WITI, would become Fox affiliates. That prompted CBS to look for a new affiliate in Milwaukee.

As the CBS network's status had dropped, with it having lost "major network" status to Fox, with very few properties to attract major stations. This was a situation that happened in most of these markets; CBS was relegated to a low-power affilate in Detroit (WWJ-TV, channel 62), and was set for one in Atlanta (WUPA, channel 69) before negotiating with a major independent station (WGNX, channel 46).

It approached all four of Milwaukee's major stations--WTMJ-TV, WISN-TV (who was affiliated with CBS from 1961 to 1977), WVTV (which ironically was a CBS O&O in the 1950s) and WCGV. None of those stations were interested, however. This left CBS to negotiate with the city's lower-profile independents, WJJA (now WBME) and WDJT, as well as religious WVCY-TV. After negotiations with both WJJA and WDJT fell through, CBS made an abortive attempt to buy WVCY before its ownership group decided not to sell.

With days to go before WITI was to join Fox, and faced with having to pipe in WISC-TV in Madison, WFRV-TV in Green Bay or WBBM-TV in Chicago for cable customers, the network finally affiliated with WDJT, even though it didn't even have a news department. This was similar to what happened to CBS in Detroit--as was the case in Milwaukee, CBS was forced to affiliate with a lower-profile station after being turned down by all of the high-profile stations in the market. It should be noted that in 1995, a CBS affiliate's status was lower than even the new WB and UPN networks; UPN purchased CBS in 2000.

As WDJT had not expected to go to CBS, a hastily-made logo with the CBS Eye to the left of WDJT's italic Times New Roman '58' of the time in red (and later yellow) was the station's logo for the next year and a half, along with a neutral image campaign using default CBS graphics while Channel 58 built a news department and looked for upgraded studio facilities. The switch took place on the afternoon of December 11, 1994 (the same day as Detroit with their CBS, Fox, and Independent affiliates), and the first CBS program to air on Channel 58 was 60 Minutes.

WDJT's CBS affiliation caused major shuffles among area cable systems as they worked to quickly add it to their systems; it took until March 1995 for some Marcus Cable (the precursor to Charter Communications) cities to carry WDJT. As a result, many Milwaukee-area viewers without set-top or housetop antennas missed several major events, including the PGA Tour, Grammy Awards, Daytona 500, Big Ten Basketball, and the NCAA Men's and Women's Basketball Tournaments, all of which were CBS properties. Channel 58 launched its news operation from new studios on South 60th Street in West Allis in early 1996, moving from their original studio facilities on the top floors of the Marc Plaza, which is now the Hilton Milwaukee City Center.

Three years later in 1999, the station's current Lincoln Park transmitter was put into service, giving the station an over-the-air signal comparable to the city's five other major commercial stations. Weigel would use this tower to launch two additional low-powered sister stations to WDJT (see below).

In 2007, WDJT gained national attention after it's live news truck broke through ice on Big Muskego Lake in Muskego, ironically while covering a story on ice safety. The estimated cost of repair was $250,000. A week after, the station would air a public service announcement on ice safety which premiered during CBS' Super Bowl XLI coverage, making light of the situation by referring to their news department as providing "the most in-depth coverage in Milwaukee."

2008 NFL season

The station asked CBS Sports to allow them to carry as many New York Jets games as were available for the 2008 season, since that team acquired former Packer quarterback Brett Favre on August 7, 2008, and expected high viewer interest from Milwaukee viewers for Jets games. Since CBS holds the rights to the AFC contract, the majority of Jets games are carried on that network. Station general manager Jim Hall asserted that the Jets were the station's "adopted team" .

High Definition Programming

On August 29, 2008, WDJT became the first commercial Milwaukee television station to produce a local program in High Definition without the assistance of Milwaukee Public Television or other stations in the Hearst Television chain, as WISN has done in the past. The one hour program was called 105 Years In The Making, a program which was produced in conjunction with the Harley-Davidson 105th Anniversary celebration that weekend.

Currently the station does not air syndicated programming in high definition, although Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune produce their shows in the format.

Ownership

WDJT-TV is owned by Chicago, Illinois's Weigel Broadcasting. The company also owns full-power WBME (Channel 49) and two LPTV stations, Spanish-language Telemundo affiliate WYTU (Channel 63) and independent WMLW-CA (Channel 41), in the Milwaukee market.

Digital Television

WDJT's digital signal on channel 46 is multiplexed into the following subchannel lineup.

Channel	Programming
58.1	WDJT-TV
58.2	WMLW-CA (Channel 41), IND
58.3	This TV, a digital subchannel network managed by Weigel Broadcasting and programmed by MGM Television

• Additionally, a fourth and fifth digital subchannel have been added in the past for multi-casting of games during the early rounds of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament in mid-March. In 2008 however, only one additional game was aired using WDJT-DT, over 58.3, which will also be in the case in 2009 as This TV is used as a multicast channel . 58.4 & 58.5 were returned to the PSIP channel map in May 2009 to suggest future use, but they are completely vacant and seemed only to come online to map them permanently into channel maps on digital converter boxes and television sets for the possibility of future use.

Main article: WBME-TV

WDJT had carried a digital subchannel called MeTV Milwaukee, which features a lineup of classic sitcoms and dramas resembling that of sister station WWME-CA (Channel 23) in Chicago. The station launched on March 1, 2008 on WDJT-DT3 until October 30, 2008. In mid-April 2008, Weigel acquired Racine-licensed home shopping station WJJA (Channel 49), and immediately began to move MeTV to that station, changing the station's calls to WBME. The simulcast was maintained until a new digital transmitter for WBME on the Weigel tower was turned on in mid-October.

Main article: This TV

On November 1, Weigel launched the digital subchannel network This TV in Milwaukee on WDJT-DT3 in cooperation with MGM Television, which provides the network with many of the programs from their archives. The introduction "man on the street" promotions for the network were recorded throughout Milwaukee, and This TV's imaging voice is that of Robb Edwards, formerly of WTMJ Radio and WOKY, and the public address announcer at Miller Park. Thus in technicality WDJT can be considered a This TV O&O.

After the analog television shutdown and digital conversion took place on June 12, 2009, WDJT continued digital broadcasts on its current pre-transition channel number, 46. However, through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers displays WDJT's virtual channel as 58.

On June 12, 2009, the station shut down its analog transmission over full-power channel 58 at 11:59:59pm, as required by law. However, the station has decided to convert their low power signal on WYTU channel 63 at 9am on the same day to carry WDJT's programming schedule; WYTU-LP's Telemundo schedule continued to transmit digitally over their own digital channel 17 and WBME 49.4 . This is to provide some kind of 'lifeline' service to those who had not yet made the conversion.

Newscasts

Because of its relatively new status in the market, the station had the lowest rated newscast in Milwaukee for years. Only in 2008 and 2009 did it begin to increase from it's lead in and start finishing higher. The station uses the "Ten at Ten" format for its late news, emphasizing the top stories and weather in the first 10 minutes of the program. WDJT has won regional Emmy awards, along with honors from the Associated Press for best newscast presentation. However, even with this critical acclaim, WDJT has yet to notch a ratings win, and syndicated programming on WVTV and WCGV is competitive with WDJT's newscasts, although in the May 2008 sweeps period both WITI and WDJT were separated by only a few thousand homes for the third place slot at 10 pm.

In January of 2009, viewers began to take note of the straightforward approach of the anchor team of Piaskoski and McCormack. Both of the anchors are known to go out and report and edit their own stories and for the first time the station began surpassing it's lead-in, and on several occassions was first in the market for the first ten minutes of the newscast.

But, because it offers the seven day forecast in the first ten minutes, there was drop off in the so called "b" block which lowered the overall ratings average.

Its local content has increased three fold lead by the arrival of McCormack, recruited from the number 4 market, to lead by example and show talking heads out in the field. McCormack is noted for handling the sarcastic Piaskoski and getting him to break a smile.

It is the beginning of their personal identity in the market, solidified by the "Just Ten Minutes" campaign that involves viewers in spots touting the newscast.

In September, 2009 CBS 58's Ten p.m. News finished first in the market for the first time in station history with a 7.0 HH according to Nielsen.

WDJT, during the 2007 World Series produced a 9pm newscast for sister station WMLW-CA, in an attempt to attract non-Baseball viewers who would normally watch news on WITI-TV (but due to pre-emptions weren't able to during the World Series). The station then introduced a 9pm newscast permanently on WMLW beginning on January 1, 2008. WDJT also produces both a 10-minute Spanish language newscast for co-owned Telemundo affiliate WYTU-LP; several of WDJT's reporters are bilingual. The station also puts together and anchors 11-minute newscast for sister station WBND-LP in South Bend, Indiana called "News at 11:00" featuring video shot locally in South Bend and then edited and written by anchor McCormack and Exec. Producer Adam Wilhelm who are based in Milwaukee but have been known to frequently call sources in Indiana to verify information. McCormack is arguably the only main anchor in the country seen in two different markets at the same time; South Bend at 11 p.m. est and Milwaukee at 10 p.m. cst The First Alert Weather team also provides weather forecasts for adult contemporary radio station WLDB (93.3), which brands as B-93.

Personalities

Current On-Air Talent

Current Anchors

• Shari Dunn - weekday mornings "Morning News"
• Veronica Griffin - Saturdays at 5, Sundays at 5:30 and weekends at 10PM
• Michele McCormack - weeknights at 5 and 10PM, 9 p.m. on WMLW, 11 p.m. WBND South Bend, another Weigel property
• Paul Piaskoski - weeknights at 5 and 10PM, 9 p.m. on WMLW, "Eye to Eye" Sunday Public Affairs show
• Mike Strehlow - weekend anchor, prime fill in weekday anchor
• Keith Meka -weekday mornings "Morning News"

   Reporters

• Ashleigh Barry - general assignment reporter
• Stephanie Brown - general assignment reporter
• Alina Machado - general assignment reporter
• Eric Rucker - general assignment reporter
• Kelli Watson - general assignment reporter

First Alert Weather

• Mark McGinnis - Chief Meteorologist; weeknights at 5 and 10PM
• Chris McGinnis - Meteorologist; weekday mornings "Morning News"
• Mike Tamas - Meteorologist; Saturdays at 5, Sundays at 5:30 and weekends at 10PM

Sports Team

• Evan Fitzgerald - Sports Anchor; Saturdays at 5, Sundays at 5:30 and weekends at 10PM (also sports reporter)

Former Personalities

Rebecca Wood (Now at KSTP MN)
Emily Engberg (Now at KSTRP MN)

• Paul Garcia
• Chantel Jensen
• Jae Miller
• Ryan Nolan
• Rock Rote - Sports Director (1997 - 2006)
• Tammie Souza - chief meteorologist

News/Station Presentation

Newscast Titles

• CBS 58 News (1996-present)
• Ten at 10 (10 p.m. newscast; 2007-present)

Station Slogans

• More Stories. More Information. More News. (1998-2001)
• Your Stories. Your Station. (2001-2004)
• First. Fast. When Seconds Count. (2004-present)
• Just Ten Minutes (10PM newscast; 2009-present)

External links

• WDJT Official Website
• MeTV Milwaukee Official Website
• This TV website
• History of Milwaukee television
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