WOWT-TV
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WOWT-TV channel 6 is the NBC affiliate in Omaha, Nebraska. With its strong signal, it also serves the state capital 52 miles away in Lincoln.
Channel 6 signed on the air in the summer of 1949 as WOW-TV, the first television station in Nebraska and one of the oldest in the Upper Midwest. It was first owned by Meredith Corporation along with WOW radio. In 1956, it switched affiliations with KMTV and became Omaha's CBS affiliate. When Meredith sold the stations in 1975, WOW-TV changed its call letters to WOWT under special FCC approval and was sold to Chronicle Broadcasting, later rejoining NBC under a special agreement with KMTV in 1986. In 1999, Chronicle sold its media holdings and WOWT was sold to Benedek Broadcasting via LIN TV in a three-way deal for WWLP in Springfield, Massachusetts; three years later, Benedek Broadcasting was bought out by current owner Gray Television.
WOWT was the first station to broadcast locally in color, starting in the mid-1950s; it was the first station to provide live reports during its daily newscasts; it was the first of the three local stations to broadcasts three live daily newscasts, at 5, 6, and 10pm; and in 1993, WOWT was the first of all local stations to offer a web site.
In 1991, WOWT changed the name of its news division from "Action News 6" to its current moniker of "Channel 6 News". In 1995 Channel 6 began live simulcasts and taped replays of its daily newscasts on Omaha Cox Cable channel 1. The venture is known as "NEWS on ONE". That same year WOWT's sports division launched a weekly 30 minute sports news program titled "Channel 6 Sunday Sports Extra". It is the only program of its kind in Omaha, and it has been hosted since its inception by Sports Producer Ross Jernstrom.
The station's studios are located near 35th and Farnam streets, near downtown Omaha. Its transmitter tower is located on a "tower farm" near North 72nd and Crown Point.
Former employees of WOWT include The Tonight Show host Johnny Carson, who worked at WOW-TV in the early 1950s, and former ABC Good Morning America reporter Steve Bell, who worked for Channel 6 in the early and mid-1960s. He was the only local reporter to go to Dallas in November 1963 to cover the aftermath of the John F. Kennedy assassination. Bell left channel 6 in 1967 to join ABC News, where he stayed until 1986.
In October 2005, WOWT-DT launched UPN Omaha on digital sub-channel 6.2. It is likely that this secondary service will be renamed or shut down when The WB and UPN networks merge in September 2006. KXVO, the local WB affiliate, will carry The CW, while KPTM, the local Fox affiliate, will show My Network TV on a digital subchannel of its own.
External links
- [Official site]
- [Query the FCC's TV station database for WOWT]
- [Query the FCC's TV station database for K58AE]
| Broadcast television in the Omaha market [(Nielsen DMA #75)] |
|---|
| KMTV 3 (CBS) - WOWT 6 (NBC) (UPN on DT2) - KETV 7 (ABC) - KXVO 15 (The WB/The CW) - KYNE 26 (PBS/NET) - KBIN 32 (PBS/IPTV) - KPTM 42 (Fox) (MNTV on DT2)- KAZO-LP 67 (Azteca America) |
| K11TW 11 () - KTVG 17 / KSNB 4 () - WOWT-DT 22.2 () | |
| See also: , , , , , and Stations in Nebraska | |
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