WTWO

Encyclopedia : W : WT : WTW : WTWO

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WTWO is an NBC affiliate in Terre Haute, Indiana. It operates on analog channel 2. Through a joint sales agreement (JSA), it operates the local Fox affiliate, WFXW. Its transmitter and headquarters are located in Farmersburg, Indiana.

The station's callsign was originally assigned to Bangor, Maine station WLBZ, which returned it to the FCC in 1963.

History

WTWO first signed on the air on September 1, 1965 at 7am. The first network program was, naturally, The Today Show. A primary NBC affiliate, the station also carried ABC network programs either on tape delay or by occasionally pre-empting NBC programs (the most famous being a prememption of ). Local primary CBS affiliate WTHI-TV (channel 10) also carried some ABC programs in the same way.

This practice ended by 1973, when Terre Haute finally obtained a full-time ABC affiliate, WIIL-TV, channel 38 (now, ironically enough, Fox affiliate WFXW).

WTWO has broadcast local news since it first began over 40 years ago. "W-2 News" was the first newscast, running with that title until 1967. When Iliana Telecasting sold channel 2 to Booth Newspapers, some on-air and branding changes occurred. That year, the station became "TV-2" (while retaining a hyphen in the call sign, "W-TWO"), and the local news adopted the name "Total News Tonight".

The first newscast in full-color aired in 1971. Two years later, the newscast rebranded again to "TV-2 Eyewitness News", the name it bore until 1994. "NewsChannel 2" was then adopted. After the sale of the station in 1997 to Nexstar Broadcasting from TCS Television Partners, the station amended the title to "WTWO NewsChannel 2". Starting around March of 2006 the station dropped reference to its analog channel number, using the call letters "WTWO" only. While the revised branding includes the phrase "NewsChannel", it is never mentioned on air. Newscasts are referred to individually as "WTWO Today", "Live at Five", "Evening Edition", "Late Edition", and "Weekend Edition".

The television stations in the Terre Haute DMA cover two different time zones (Eastern and Central), which affects viewership to an extent. Case in point: WTWO's "Live at Five" is actually seen at 4pm Central Time in nearly half of the viewing area, and its "Evening Edition" is actually seen at 5pm (as opposed to 6pm for Eastern Time viewers). As a result, in May of 2006 WTWO began rebroadcasts of its 6am and 6pm newscasts one hour later on local Fox affiliate WFXW-TV. These rebroadcasts, which would air at 6am and 6pm Central Time, would in theory be a viewing option to those who might miss the newscasts when they aired live on WTWO an hour earlier due to the time difference.

Controversy

WTWO made national news in early 2006 by declining to air the controversial (but short-lived) NBC program The Book of Daniel, citing protesting calls and emails from viewers as the rationale for its decision. "Our relationship with NBC always provided for the right to reject programming. I am reaffirming that right to let them know I will not allow them to make unilateral decisions affecting our viewers." WTWO General Manager Duane Lammers said in a statement on the WTWO website. [link] [link] Due to poor ratings NBC cancelled the show after only three episodes. Many observers believe the incident is a harbinger of the increasing influence of cultural conservatism in the U.S. broadcasting industry, and as western Indiana and eastern Illinois are home to a high number of evangelical Protestants and traditionalist Roman Catholics, WTWO likely acted in its best interest, to preclude possible boycotts or license challenges by offended parties.

Also in 2006, WTWO aired a controversial 1 minute promotion criticizing WTHI over its weather coverage. The commercial claimed that WTHI's Doppler radar was inferior to WTWO's because WTHI's doppler was located within downtown Terre Haute, thus its "dead zone" was over thousands of residents instead of WTWO's whose "dead zone" was over a corn field. The ad also mentioned that the combined experience of WTWO's weather team was more than that of WTHI's staff, and that WTHI's power had multiple points of failure in contrast to WTWO's. [link] The promotion became a source of amusement on Comedy Central's The Daily Show because of its use of hyperbole and techniques reminscent of political attack ads. [link] After WTWO's general manager called the Daily Show "hard-up for material" in a local newspaper[link], Jon Stewart [mocked the station further] in the following night's opening.

A response video to The Daily Show and Stewart that was supposed to be for internal uses at the station was leaked on YouTube recently. [link]

Logos

Image:Wtwo.png|Previous WTWO logo, discontinued March 2006 Image:WTWO2006.jpg|Current WTWO logo, used since March 2006

• Jeopardy!
• Judge Judy
• The Insider
• Martha
• The Montel Williams Show
• The Oprah Winfrey Show
• Wheel of Fortune

External links

• [WTWO home page]
• [Query the FCC's TV station database for WTWO]

'''NBC Network Affiliates in the state of Indiana
WTWO 2 () - WTHR 13 () - WFIE 14 () - WNDU 16 () - WISE 33 ()
See also: , , , , , , and stations in the state of Indiana

 

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