is the
CBS affiliate in the
Birmingham /
Tuscaloosa /
Anniston, Alabama television market. It is a UHF television station licensed to Birmingham, on analog channel 42. Its transmitter is located on
Red Mountain , just by the city's southern edge.
The station signed on
December 6 ,
1965 as (standing for '''B'''ir'''M'''in'''G'''ham). It was owned by Bill DuBois, a local investment banker. A minority owner was Southern Broadcasting, owners of radio station WSGN.
As was the case at the time with most UHF stations in markets served by at least two commercial VHF stations (
NBC affiliate WAPI-TV, now
WVTM-TV ; and
ABC affiliate
WBRC-TV ), WBMG experienced considerable competitive disadvantages from the outset. Many households didn't have TV sets capable of viewing UHF signals without a converter, since the
FCC hadn't required TV manufacturers to include UHF tuning until the previous year. The station's signal also left much to be desired. As a result, although on paper WBMG took the CBS affiliation from WAPI, CBS continued to allow WAPI to air some of its more popular programming. WBMG was left with several lower-rated CBS shows, and filled the schedule with some NBC shows that WAPI turned down. One of them was, strangely, ''
The Tonight Show .'' Both stations listed their affiliation as "CBS/NBC."
With a poor signal, the lack of sets with UHF capability and two of the South's oldest and most respected stations as competition, WBMG found the going rather difficult. But many of WBMG's problems were of its own making. Its newscasts often became comedy shows, likely due to the staff's perception of their futility against the longer-established WBRC and WAPI. For instance, sportscaster Tommy Charles wadded up scripts and tossed them over his shoulder after reading them. He also let balloons fly around the set for no apparent reason.
WBMG quickly gained notoriety in
Central Alabama for its local shows, such as live studio wrestling, and the children's show "Sergeant Jack", which featured former WSGN radio
Disc Jockey Neal Miller, who donned the uniform of a sheriff's deputy (and actually was sworn in as an honorary deputy by the
Jefferson County sheriff himself) and engaged in fanciful banter with
Puppets .
WBMG became a full CBS affiliate when Park Communications bought the station in
1970 (nonetheless due to WAPI's decision for NBC, not WBMG's for CBS), and tried to professionalize the newscasts in the
1970s with little success. WBMG had no local newscasts at all from 1980 until 1987 aside from hourly cut-ins. During this time, the station broadcast
Syndicated shows at both 5 and 10 p.m. Even when local news returned in 1987, WBMG had no luck whatsoever competing with WVTM and WBRC. It was perenially one of CBS' weakest affiliates, in marked contrast to its competitors, who were two of their networks' strongest affiliates.
WBMG's ratings were so low that for several years, Birmingham-area viewers opted to watch CBS programming on two other stations in Central Alabama --WCFT-TV in
Tuscaloosa and WJSU-TV in
Anniston . WCFT and WJSU regularly trounced WBMG in their respective cities, especially in Anniston since WBMG's signal didn't cover Anniston very well at the time. When WBRC switched to
Fox , WCFT and WJSU combined with low-powered
WBMA to become the ABC affiliate for Birmingham, making WBMG the only choice for CBS. However, WBMG reaped almost no windfall from this switch and continued its dreadful ratings performance. As a result, CBS affiliated with another Central Alabama station, WNAL-TV (now
WPXH ) in
Gadsden , which put a fairly decent signal into the Birmingham area as well as Anniston.
In
1997 , Park Communications merged with
Media General . However, WBMG stayed in the ratings basement with a mere 1% market share, trailing even reruns. Legend has it that even old repeats of ''
Sanford And Son '' and ''
The Andy Griffith Show '' beat WBMG's evening newscast. After only one year, general manager Eric Land had seen enough. On
New Year's Day 1998 , he cancelled the newscast and shut down the news department. Over the next month, the station went through a serious overhaul from graphics and set to logo and newscast format. During that time, the station showed a picture of a clock at 5 and 10 p.m. -- the slots where the news used to air. The station's call letters were changed to , which stood for '''I'''t's '''A'''bout '''T'''ime, the station's new slogan. The new format debuted on
February 5 ,
1998 -- the same day as the start of the
Winter Olympics --with a new name, "CBS42 Daily News." The station does not have any on-air reporters, which is somewhat unusual for most modern TV stations.
Ratings improved somewhat, but many problems behind the scenes occurred involving on-air talent and management that led to lawsuits. However, that year the station received its first two
Emmy Awards in station history. The station recently updated its graphics, set and newscast title to "News42, It's About Time."
WIAT has steadily improved its ratings in the last decade, and has been far more competitive than ever before. In fact, it has actually finished first in some timeslots.
Beginning in October of 2005 WIAT teamed with
WB affiliate
WTTO to begin producing a 9 p.m. newscast. Using the same set and anchors as WIAT and a modified graphics package, the ''WB News at 9'' airs 7 days per week.
In April 2006, Media General bought four NBC
Owned And Operated Station s, including WVTM. Since the
FCC does not allow one person to own two of the four largest stations in a single market, Media General opted to keep the higher-rated WVTM and sell WIAT to another owner. One of the rumored buyers is CBS, while other local parties have said to be interested. Another rumored buyer is
Raycom Media , which has reportedly wanted a Birmingham station for years.
{Link without Title}
WIAT does not air a morning newscast, but reportedly will begin a morning show in May of 2007.
