WCCB

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WCCB is the Fox affiliate in Charlotte, North Carolina. The station's headquarters are located just outside downtown, off Independence Boulevard across from Cricket Arena. It is the flagship station of its owner and operator, Bahakel Communications. WCCB is carried on channel 11 on most cable systems. Its transmitter is located in Charlotte.

History

WCCB traces its roots to WQMC-TV, which signed on December 7, 1953. It broadcast on channel 36, and was an NBC affiliate with a secondary ABC affiliation. It was North Carolina's second UHF station, after WTAO-TV in Raleigh, as well as the second station in Charlotte. The original owners were George Dowdy and Hugh Deadwyler. In 1954, Deadwyler became the sole owner of the station. Deadwyler already owned WAYS-AM 610 (now WFNZ), so he changed channel 36's call letters to WAYS-TV.

The station went into recievership for a brief period in 1956, in part because it was virtually unviewable without an expensive converter. Television set manufacturers were not required to include UHF tuning capability at the time. Even with a converter, UHF pictures were marginal at best. As a result, it made almost no headway against CBS affiliate WBTV. In 1957, Century Advertisting bought the station and changed the call letters to WUTV. However, soon after Century took over, WSOC-TV signed on and took the NBC affiliation, leaving WUTV with struggling ABC. At that time, ABC was not nearly on the same footing as CBS and NBC. It was further hampered by ABC's decision to permit WBTV and WSOC to cherry-pick its more popular shows. Without the stronger ABC shows to sustain it, the station finally went dark in 1959.

In 1964, Charlotte businessman Cy Bahakel bought the dormant channel 36 license. He returned the station to air on August 15 as WCCB-TV (for Charlotte Cy Bahakel). The station was nominally an ABC affiliate. However, the FCC had only required television sets to have all-channel tuning just a few months before, and most Charlotte homes did not have UHF-capable sets. The more popular ABC shows continued to be seen on WBTV or WSOC, while WCCB picked up some of the CBS and NBC shows that the stronger stations turned down.

In November of 1966, WCCB moved from channel 36 to channel 18 broadcasting from a new tower located on Newell Hickory Grove Road in northeast Charlotte. The station's former tower was located adjacent to the studio in the parking lot of the old Charlotte Coliseum, now Cricket Arena. In 1967, NBC informed WSOC-TV that it wanted a fulltime affiliate in the Charlotte market. NBC's ratings were higher than ABC's, so WSOC dropped its secondary affiliation with ABC. Beginning in the fall of 1967, WCCB was a full-time affiliate of ABC.

By 1978, ABC had become the nation's most watched network and wanted a stronger Charlotte outlet than WCCB. ABC took its programming to WSOC. Conventional wisdom suggested WCCB would simply take the NBC affiliation. But Ted Turner, owner of WRET (now WCNC-TV), a station that had been on the verge of closing down a few years earlier, swooped in from out of nowhere and took the NBC affiliation, leaving WCCB out in the cold as an independent station. Shortly afterwards, it acquired most of the cartoons WRET no longer had time to air since becoming an NBC affiliate, along with some older sitcoms. After-school cartoons were hosted by the costumed Sonic Man space alien character.

WCCB carried on for almost a decade as a typical UHF general entertainment independent station. For almost a decade, it was available on cable in Columbia, South Carolina. In 1987, WCCB became the last top-50 market station to join the newly-launched Fox network as one of its charter affiliates. Since then, WCCB has been one of the strongest Fox stations in the country, particularly since the debut of the NFL's Carolina Panthers in 1995. Panthers games, most of which are on Fox and WCCB, are generally the most-watched programs in their home market of Charlotte during each week of the football season.

After being known as "TV18" since sign-on, it was rebranded as "Fox 18" in 1988 and as "Fox Charlotte" in 2002. Since WLFL in the Triangle switched to The WB in 1998, WCCB has been the only original Fox affiliate in North Carolina.

Old FOX 18 logo used until 2002 before rebranding to FOX Charlotte.

Owner

Cy Bahakel owned WCCB from 1964 until his death on April 20, 2006. Bahakel was an original partner in the Charlotte Hornets, and WCCB was the flagship station of the Hornets television network for the team's first four seasons.

Bahakel was reportedly a member of the Council for National Policy, a secret right-wing group. However, there are no known significant instances where WCCB ever preempted Fox's racier programming for content. It even aired Temptation Island, a program turned down by several Fox stations (most famously WRAZ in the Triangle) who felt it cheapened marriage.

Hosting WOLO-TV

In 2002, Bahakel Communications moved the operations of its ABC affiliate in Columbia, South Carolina (two hours south of Charlotte), WOLO-TV to WCCB, where they stayed for three years. During that time, WCCB's studios played host to WOLO's newscasts. This was one of the first instances of "central casting," in which several stations' operations are hosted by one station. The practice of producing a local newscast in a different market was roundly criticized. WOLO was already dead last in the Columbia ratings, but they plunged even further and have never recovered, even after operations moved back to Columbia in 2005.

Mark Mathis

WCCB employed weatherman Mark Mathis from 2002-04. In the time Mark worked for WCCB his weather segments were notably atypical of a local TV personality. In the clips that can be viewed on the Internet he rarely, if ever, mentions the weather. It is more a montage of joke telling, rapping, and banter with the anchors, who are off camera. Despite many complaints to the station concerning Mark, WCCB's ratings climbed.

In 2004, Mark voluntarily went into a chemical dependency program. This was not the first time Mathis had gone through rehab. Two weeks after finishing and returning to work, he was fired. His General Manager cited Mathis's several failed rehab visits as a reason for termination.

Mark Mathis is currently the Chief Meteorologist at KREX, the CBS affiliate located in Grand Junction, Colorado.

Newscasts

FOX News Rising (Monday-Friday 5:30 AM-8:00 AM)
Anchors: Beth Troutman, Candice Little, Jon Wilson
Weather: Malachi Rodgers

FOX News at Ten (Monday-Friday 10:00 PM-10:35 PM; rebroadcast 4:00 AM-4:35 AM)
Anchors: Brien Blakely, Rebecca Clark
Weather: Reg Taylor
Sports: Kelli Bartik

FOX News at Ten (Weekend Edition 10:00 PM-10:30 PM)
Anchors: Shannon Royster, Morgan Fogarty
Weather: Derek James
Sports: Bruce Snyder

FOX News Edge (Monday-Friday 10:35 PM-11:00 PM; rebroadcast 4:35 AM-5:00 AM)
Anchors: Ramona Holloway, Matt Harris or Derek James & Beth Troutman (Friday Edition)
Weather: Derek James

FOX Got Game (Sunday 10:30 PM, and following Carolina Panthers games and NASCAR races)
Anchors: Bruce Snyder, Kelli Bartik

Note: WCCB's newscasts are simply named FOX News, not to be confused with the actual news channel, Newscorp's Fox News Channel.

External links

• WCCB web site
• Businessman's visions can still be seen around Charlotte (from Charlotte Observer)

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