is a
Television station located in
Milwaukee ,
Wisconsin . Its signal covers most of southeastern Wisconsin, including
Racine ,
Kenosha ,
Sheboygan and
Waukesha . WISN is an affiliate of the
ABC television network. Its transmitter is located within Lincoln Park in the northeastern part of
Milwaukee , with
WDJT (Channel 58)'s tower nearby. WISN is one of three flagship stations of
Hearst-Argyle Television .
Former sister radio stations
WISN (1130) and
WQBW-FM (formerly WLTQ-FM, 97.3) are now owned by
Clear Channel , and are unrelated to WISN-TV in any way except for Channel 12 providing weather forecasts for Clear Channel's Milwaukee radio operations.
WISN first signed on the air on
October 27 ,
1954 with the call letters WTVW and branded itself as isconsin's '''T'''ele'''V'''ision indow. By 1955 it had changed to WISN, after being bought by the
Hearst Corporation , who transferred the call letters from their
Radio Station , WISN (AM). From the beginning, the station was an
ABC affiliate. Until
1956 , it also carried programming from the now-defunct
DuMont network.
Hearst kept WISN-TV and WISN (AM) in
1962 after they sold the ''Milwaukee Sentinel'' to Journal Communications that year (owners of the ''
Milwaukee Journal ''), due to Journal already owning
WTMJ-TV (Channel 4) and
WTMJ (AM) (620).
In 1961, WISN would undergo an affiliation switch.
CBS , then carried by
WITI , desired to affiliate with WISN, since the station's radio stations were already affiliated with the network. As a result, WISN and WITI swapped affiliations on
April 2 ,
1961 .
The switch was reversed in 1977. WITI's owner at the time,
Storer Broadcasting , had a bitter relationship with ABC, stemming from the network's departure from Storer's
San Diego UHF station,
KCST , a station the network was forced to affiliate with after KCST fought successfully to have ABC affiliation stripped from
Tijuana, Mexico -based
XETV . At the same time, Storer had a strong relationship with CBS in other markets where they owned stations. Hence, they dropped ABC from WITI to take the CBS affiliation from WISN. Without hesitation, WISN aligned with ABC, then the top network in the country. The switch occurred on
March 27 ,
1977 . To this day, WISN is one of ABC's most successful affiliates, and bills itself thus in promotions.
Channel 12 clears all of the ABC schedule, except for '' due to lack of
E/I content; the station unusually aired ''
Kim Possible '' and ''
Power Rangers SPD '' early Monday mornings before ''
World News Now '' in the 2005-2006 season for the same reason.
The station airs most of the highest-rated programs in
Syndication , with ''
Live With Regis And Kelly '' after ''
Good Morning America '', reruns of ''
Starting Over '' before the ABC
Soap Opera lineup, and ''
Dr. Phil '' and ''
Oprah '' paired up in mid-afternoons together. ''
Entertainment Tonight '' airs before
Primetime , and ''
Access Hollywood '' airs after the 10 p.m. newscast. In 2006, Channel 12 also aired
Green Bay Packers ''
Monday Night Football '' games originating on
ESPN , with the
ESPNHD feed of the games airing on WISN-DT.
WISN also makes the claim based on in
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and
KMBC in
Kansas City, Missouri ).
- WTVW's transmitter building was built under a tent, as rains threatened to delay construction. After the building was finished, a second tent was erected, and used for live automobile commercials, until it collapsed one day in early 1955.
- The station was also the first commercial station in the market to produce an HDTV broadcast, airing the Summerfest "Big Bang" Fireworks show in the format on June 29 , 2006 . Milwaukee Public Television station WMVS (Channel 10) had produced HDTV programming before, and helped WISN with some aspects of the broadcast. This was repeated in 2007. {Link without Title}
- WISN was the flagship station for the Wisconsin Lottery from the agency's inception in 1989 , playing host to the state lottery drawings and the weekly ''Wisconsin Lottery Money Game'' Game Show . The lottery discontinued the ''Money Game'' at the end of 2003 due to budget cuts, and televised drawings at the same time, moving the drawings to the state lottery offices in Madison . WISN continues to announce the lottery numbers on-screen after being drawn in a bottom-screen ticker, and also broadcasts most Powerball drawings with a jackpot over $125,000,000 ( WMLW (Channel 41) airs all Powerball drawings).
- WISN is one of a few select stations which uses permanent digital logo bugs of their station logo in all of their programming (excepting paid programming), including ABC network programs, both in standard definition and high definition.
- Sports director Dan Needles participated in a TV sportscaster edition of the ESPN 's Game Show '' Stump The Schwab ''. Advancing to the Schwab Showdown, the show's final round, he stumped Howie Schwab and won the game after a tie-breaker question.
The station also has a strong commitment to local news, and has found momentum after a month-long tribute to former main anchor Jerry Taff's retirement in
May 2005 , hiring popular local anchors and reporters released from other stations, a stronger ABC schedule, and a period of change at rival WTMJ due to weaker NBC ratings and newsroom changes.
WISN has added more newscasts to their schedule over the last two years, and is unusual in programming hour-long newscasts Saturday at 6 p.m., and Sunday at 10 p.m.. The station also begins all their morning newscasts at 5 a.m., seven days a week, a point made in all of their promotions for what is called ''12 News This Morning''.
The station's news division made a slow climb throughout the 2006-07 television season to overtake their longtime rivals at Channel 4, owing most of it to a strong ABC schedule, along with major personnel shuffles and newscast tone changes at WTMJ. In the November
Sweeps period for 2006, Channel 12 newscasts were rated first in the morning and early evening, while placing second to Channel 4 by 18,000 viewing homes in the 10 p.m. timeslot
In February 2007, Channel 12 won every newscast timeslot, and even unseated longtime 10 p.m leader Channel 4 with an 0.2-point win. [http://www.themilwaukeechannel.com/aboutwisn12/11145425/detail.html . Finally, in May 2007, the station took a clear lead at 10pm, earning a 7,500 household lead over Channel 4 and a clean sweep of all news timeslots [http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=610425].
