WTTO
WTTO is a television station serving the Birmingham/Anniston/Tuscaloosa market as a WB affiliate. It broadcasts its analog signal on UHF channel 21 and its digital signal on UHF channel 28. It is licensed in Homewood.
WDBB is a satellite of WTTO, and is licensed to Bessemer, but primarily serves the Tuscaloosa area. It broadcasts its analog signal on UHF channel 17 and its digital signal on UHF channel 18.
Both stations are owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, which also owns sister station WABM, the local UPN affiliate.
History
WTTO began originally on April 21, 1982 as Alabama's second independent station, signing on a few months after WPMI-TV in Mobile. It was a typical UHF independent that aired numerous cartoons, movies, and sitcoms. The first program it broadcast was a rerun of the 1970s action show, Buck Rogers in the 21st Century. The station was owned by Chapman Broadcasting. Arlington Broadcasting bought WTTO in 1983. It was sold to HR Broadcasting in 1987. It turned down the Fox affiliation when that network started up. The station did very well even without Fox, and in fact was one of the top independent stations in the countrry. HR Broadcasting sold WTTO to Abry in 1989.
Meanwhile, WDBB had its start on October 1, 1984 as an independent station licensed to Tuscaloosa, also serving Birmingham. In 1986, the station began broadcasting from a tower near Bessemer in an attempt to become the Birmingham area's second independent station, simulcasting with co-owned WNAL (channel 44, now WPXH) in Gadsden. At the same time, WDBB/WNAL became a Fox affiliate. However, neither station covered Birmingham with a signal and couldn't get on all of the local cable systems. In January of 1991, Fox moved its affiliation to WTTO after all efforts to get better cable coverage for WDBB/WNAL failed. Soon after, WDBB and WNAL began simulcasting WTTO for all but two hours of the broadcast day. By 1993 WNAL and WDBB became full-time satellites of WTTO, which nonetheless only called itself "FOX21". Within a few years, WTTO was one of the strongest Fox affiliates in the country.
In 1994 Abry began a local marketing agreement with WABM, which joined UPN in 1995, a few months after Abry merged with Sinclair. Meanwhile, that same year, New World bought WBRC from Citicasters. At the same time, it bought WVTM-TV from Argyle. This posed a serious problem for New World. It not only owned two stations in the same market, but now owned more stations than the FCC allowed. A few months later, however, New World and Fox reached a deal in which New World would switch all its stations to Fox affiliates. This gave New World a chance to solve its Birmingham ownership problem by selling WBRC directly to Fox.
ABC wanted to affiliate with WTTO, but at the time Sinclair did not budget for local newscasts on its stations. Also, Sinclair was only interested in ABC's prime time shows, sports, and ABC News, not a full affiliation. ABC found this offer unattractive, and WTTO and WDBB continued as Fox stations until WBRC's affiliation deal with ABC ran out in September 1996. The two stations then became independents, though WTTO held onto Fox Kids after WBRC didn't pick it up. In the meantime, WNAL was sold to Fant Broadcasting and became the CBS affiliate for Gadsden and northeast Alabama.
In February 1997, WTTO and WDBB affiliated with the WB network.
In the late 1990's WTTO evolved gradually away from movies, classic sitcoms, and cartoons to more talk/reality shows, court shows, as well as recent sitcoms (which they ran all along). WTTO dropped Fox Kids programming in the Fall of 2000 and WBRC did not pick it up, as Fox had stopped requiring its stations to carry it. The main reason for this change was because the stations were having a tougher time making a profit running such programming. This was due to new FCC regulations in terms of the amount of ads allowed during children's programming as well as the content of such advertising. This made advertisers for children rely more on cable and caused syndicators to move their programming to cable.
Still WTTO continued cartoons in the afternoons as they ran Kids WB programming until that ended nationwide in January of 2006. Kids WB still runs on Saturday Mornings. In September 2003, WTTO finally began to produce its own local newscast, titled "WB21 News at 9:00". However, in October 2005, the market's CBS-affiliate, WIAT, began producing the newscasts for WTTO.
The WB will shut down in September 2006, along with UPN, to form "The CW", a network featuring programming from both networks. Sinclair announced on May 2, 2006 that WTTO would become the CW affiliate. As a CW affiliate, the station will be branded as "CW21".