, '''''"FOX6 Milwaukee"''''', is a
Fox Network owned-and-operated
Television Station (
O&O ) located in
Milwaukee, Wisconsin . Its signal covers most of southeastern
Wisconsin , including the cities of
Racine ,
Kenosha ,
Sheboygan and
Waukesha . Its transmitter is located in
Shorewood, Wisconsin .
WITI's call letters stands for "Independent Television, Inc.," the corporation that originally owned the
FCC license granted on
June 11 1955 . The station began broadcasting on
May 21 1956 . On
August 8 1958 ,
Storer Broadcasting bought WITI in hopes of affiliating the station with the
CBS network, which at the time had a
UHF O&O in Milwaukee (WXIX channel 19; now
WVTV channel 18). WITI became a CBS affiliate on
April 1 1959 .
On
April 2 ,
1961 , WITI swapped networks with
WISN and became the
ABC affiliate for Milwaukee for the next sixteen years. The two swapped back on
March 27 ,
1977 .
George Gillett, Jr. bought the station from Storer Broadcasting in
1987 . After a series of mergers and bankruptcies,
New World Communications became owners of the station in
1993 , despite rumors of CBS buying the station (along with WITI's sisters that carried CBS).
In the beginning of November 1994, WITI dropped CBS and instead affiliated with
Fox . The reasoning went beyond the switching of all New World stations to Fox, because the station had carried
Green Bay Packers games since 1977 from CBS, which until 1994 had the
NFC contract for
NFL games; by switching affiliations, except for a period of two months in 1994 (when WCGV was still the Fox affiliate), WITI was able to remain the 'home station' of the Packers since Fox held the NFC contract.
From February 1995 on, the station would be known as ''Six is News'' throughout the day in order to highlight the station's newly-expanded news schedule. Conversely during Fox prime time hours, the station was promoted as ''Fox is Six'' to try to build an audience for the growing network on the stronger Milwaukee station.
In
1996 , Fox's
Television Stations Group bought WITI and the remaining New World stations outright, and after the approval of the sale in January
1997 , the station was rebranded as ''FOX SIX'' for all programming and station promotions, with the channel number still fully spelled out. Channel 6 officially became ''Fox 6'' in April 1998 with the introduction of their current news set.
WITI, being a Fox O&O, airs mostly programming from
Twentieth Television , including sitcoms (such as ''
Malcolm In The Middle ''), court shows (like ''
Divorce Court ''), and reality programming (like ''
COPS ''). WITI double-runs ''
Judge Judy '' and ''
Judge Joe Brown '' in the afternoons, and ''
Seinfeld '' before Fox prime time and in late night. The station airs many of Twentieth's series under test runs before they go into national syndication for non-Fox stations, including ''
Texas Justice '', ''
A Current Affair '', ''
Good Day Live '' and currently, the new
Geraldo Rivera show ''
Geraldo At Large ''.
- A---S---H_(TV_series)" class="copylinks">M---A---S---H '' since the 1977 CBS/ABC affiliation switch, first within its CBS series run and then on into Syndication for at least 24 years, adding up to 29 years, a very long and successful run for a combination of one station and one program.
The station has not chosen to air Fox's children's block, in either the
Fox Kids or the current
4Kids TV iterations, owing to the station's own locally-produced programming on Saturday mornings. The block stayed with WCGV for ten years after WITI took the Fox affiliation, and in September 2004 moved to independent station
WMLW (Channel 41).
The station is also currently celebrating 50 years on the air in 2006, with promotions showing the station's history expected throughout the year which started airing on
New Year's Day .
Since Channel 6 became a Fox O&O, the station has put more emphasis on its local newscasts, and currently runs at least forty hours of news a week. The station's news usually runs in a strong third place behind WTMJ and WISN (both of whom fight it out for first place), though the morning newscast (Fox 6 Wakeup News) is very competitive with the national network shows, and occasionally comes in first in the ratings because of the program's local focus. The station is also one of the few Fox O&O stations to have a newscast at 10pm in the Central and Mountain timezones, with
KSAZ in
Phoenix WDAF in
Kansas City WBRC in
Birmingham and
KDFW in
Dallas-Ft. Worth .
WTVT in
Tampa is experimenting with a newscast in the Eastern Time Zone equivalent timeslot of 11pm.
- FOX6 Wake-Up News - 5 AM-9 AM
- FOX6 News at Noon - Noon-12:30 PM
- FOX6 News at Five - 5 PM-5:30 PM
- FOX6 News at 5:30 - 5:30 PM-6 PM
- FOX6 News at Six - 6 PM-6:30 PM
- FOX6 News at Nine - 9 PM-10 PM
- FOX6 News at Ten - 10 PM-10:30 PM
- FOX6 Saturday Wake-Up News - 8 AM-9 AM
- FOX6 News Saturday Report - 6 PM-6:30 PM
- FOX6 News at Nine - 9 PM-10 PM
- FOX6 News at Ten - 10 PM-10:30 PM
- FOX6 Sunday Wake-Up News - 8 AM-9 AM
- FOX6 News Sunday Report - 5 PM-5:30 PM
- FOX6 News at Nine - 9 PM-10 PM
- FOX6 News at Ten - 10 PM-10:30 PM
