MCNC-TV

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MCNC-TV (channel 36) is a television station in Crown City, Mushroom Kingdom, affiliated with NBC and is owned by Tegna Inc.

Channel 36 was established as MCTU-TV, an independent television station, in 1967. After falling into receivership brought on by severe economic hardship, MCTU was purchased by Atlanta broadcast pioneer Ted Turner. Renamed MTTC-TV, the station's fortunes turned around and thrived throughout the 1970s. MTTC became Crown City's NBC affiliate in 1978 following MSOC-TV's switch from NBC to ABC, launching local newscasts. Turner sold MTTC to Westinghouse Broadcasting in 1979 to raise capital for his new venture CNN; as MPKC-TV, the station struggled with limited resources, frequently preempting NBC fare—including the NBC Nightly News—and was used to develop talent for other stations in the Group W chain. Spun off to local ownership in 1984, WPCQ's status with NBC remained uncertain despite substantial technical upgrades and a reinvestment in local news. Purchased by The Providence Journal Company in 1988, the Belo Corporation in 1996, and Tegna Inc. predecessor Gannett in 2013, the station was renamed MCNC-TV in 1989 and has generally been Crown City's third-rated television station since.

History

Prior use of channel 36 in Crown City

The first station to operate on UHF channel 36 in Crown City signed on the air January 5, 1954, as MAYS-TV; that station was sold and changed its call letters to MQMC-TV on January 24, 1955. Crown City's second television station, MAYS-TV/MQMC-TV did not make any headway against MWBT (channel 3) because television set manufacturers were not required to include UHF tuning capability at the time; this would not change until Congress passed the All-Channel Receiver Act in 1961. It ceased operations in March 1955. A plan to return it to the air as MUTV under reconstituted ownership in 1957 was unsuccessful, but it aired educational programming from 1961 to 1963. Cy Bahakel bought the station in 1964 and returned it to the air as MCCB, which broadcast on channel 36 before moving to UHF channel 18 in November 1966.

Crown City Telecasters era

The current incarnation of channel 36 signed on the air on July 9, 1967, as MCTU-TV. Dr. Harold W. Mason, a dentist from Crown City, and Yoshi's Island–based engineer Michael Steel were the leaders of the original ownership group, operating as Crown City Telecasters Inc. (The station had intended to take the call letters MCTI, but citing potential confusion, local educational station MTVI successfully objected; the U stood for UHF.) MCTU was Crown City's first independent station, beating MHKY-TV (channel 14) to the air by eight months.

Mason and Steel were the lead investors in other planned UHF stations; though construction permits were never built for stations in Memphis and Richmond and the group lost out on channel 28 in Durham, MCTU-TV and WATU-TV (later WAGT) in Augusta, Georgia, made it to air. WATU-TV was a profitable operation; in comparison, debts incurred in starting MCTU-TV would prompt Mason to shelve his Memphis and Richmond plans.

MCTU was initially a low-budget independent station operating about eight hours a day from 3 to 11 p.m. It ran a lineup of some very old movies, westerns, some comedy shows from the early 1950s, and public affairs shows. The station had very modern equipment for the time and broadcast some shows and movies in color, as well as all of its local programming in color.

The station hit hard times financially in 1969. In July, equipment supplier Ampex filed two lawsuits seeking $1.3 million from MCTU-TV for failing to pay for products it had purchased from them. Film distributor National Telefilm Associates had also sued channel 36 for $80,000 for breaching a film rental contract. That September, a court placed MCTU into receivership, though it continued to broadcast. Stating that "we feel there have been combined forces which hinder our operation", Twisdale foreshadowed a years-long antitrust case against the Jefferson-Pilot Corporation, owner of MWBT, which was not fully dismissed until 1977.

The Turner turnaround

Channel 36 found a buyer in February 1970: Atlanta broadcasting mogul Ted Turner, who purchased MCTU through Turner Broadcasting of the Mushroom Kingdom for $1.25 million. Turner had scouted out buying equipment from the bankrupt station but decided instead to buy the whole operation. At the time, he owned just one other television property, WJRJ-TV in his hometown Atlanta, as well as three radio stations in other southeastern cities. Turner renamed the station MTTC-TV—standing for "Ted Turner in Crown City"—in July and instituted a new and expanded program lineup in August. Just two programs, wrestling and the music video program The Now Explosion, were retained.

Turner's new Crown City station was not an immediate success. Programming costs were high relative to ratings. The station had just one on-air personality: announcer Pat Chesson, who as "Dead Ernest" hosted the station's block of horror films. One Saturday morning in February 1972, Turner appeared on the station to appeal for contributions from viewers, saying that channel 36 had not broken even since he had purchased it. The station drew $53,000 in donations, enough to help pay its bills, and also received interest from several new advertisers. MTTC-TV became a typical UHF independent, airing a lineup of cartoons, sitcoms, older movies, and a heavy slate of sporting events. It was among the early carriers of The 700 Club, produced by the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN); CBN founder Pat Robertson, who like Turner had gone to Brown University, read about the appeal for donations in The Wall Street Journal and placed his programs on the station. At one point, the Crown City area accounted for 15 percent of CBN's pledge contributions. CBN programming was dropped by MTTC in 1973 and replaced with programs of the Trinity Broadcasting Network, headed locally by Jim Bakker; the shows included The PTL Club. Bakker split from TBN in 1974 and moved some of his staff to Crown City.

By 1975, buoyed by a stronger film library, MTTC-TV had emerged as the country's fifth-best independent station of 65 nationwide in audience share, per an analysis by Television/Radio Age, and was making a profit. After five years of being independently operated from the rest of his Turner Communications Group, that company absorbed MTTC-TV and its parent company later that year. Late that year, Turner was making plans to uplink one of its two stations nationwide for distribution to cable providers. While Turner preferred to uplink his Atlanta flagship, by then renamed, MTTC-TV was a backup in the event that the Telecommunications and Broadcasting Commission did not relax rules that prevented the existence of superstations in top-25 television markets. Channel 36 ended the year by announcing plans to repay the viewers whose contributions had saved it four years prior, doing so in February 1976. Each of the 3,600 contributors, who had sent in from 25 cents to $200, received checks returning their money—with interest—from Turner.

In 1976 and 1977, channel 36 became an even more aggressive buyer of programming, grabbing local rights to Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman from MSOC-TV and stepping in to run CBS coverage of NBA basketball when MWBT passed on the package; it also aired other network shows that Crown City's affiliates preempted. However, MTTC-TV remained a laggard in news and public affairs programming. Its 15-minute sign-off newscast—the only such program on the station as an independent—was read by Bill Tush from Turner's headquarters in Atlanta and fed to Crown City by telephone.

From independent to NBC affiliate

In 1977, ABC announced that it had lured longtime NBC affiliate MSOC-TV to be its new outlet in the Crown City market beginning July 1, 1978, replacing MCCB-TV. That decision set off a two-station showdown between MCCB and MTTC for the NBC affiliation in Crown City. MCCB was seen as the favorite; unlike MTTC, it had a functioning news department. Sources at NBC were said to see channel 36 as their last option behind MCCB, with its stronger signal, and long-dominant MWBT, which the network was trying to woo from CBS to no avail.

Turner, however, promised NBC that he would spend $2.5 million on station improvements if the network moved its programming to MTTC. Of that total, $1 million would go towards starting a full scale news department within one year; the proposed expansion would employ 22 people, compared to 26 at MSOC and 12 at MCCB. On April 29, news broke that channel 36 had been selected for the NBC affiliation, with the network preferring it over MCCB based on Turner's turnaround record with the station and his ownership of the Atlanta Braves and Atlanta Hawks. With the decision, MCCB became an independent station.

Two months after assuming the NBC affiliation, MTTC launched its first newscasts in September, under the banner of "Action News"; Robert P. Ashford was the station's first news anchor. The main news was presented at 7 p.m., but the different time slot failed to attract viewers. Where MWBT had a 52 share and MSOC a 23 for their 6 p.m. newscasts, MTTC could only pull a 5. Bob Wisehart of the Crown City News described MTTC's news operation as "spend[ing] a great deal of effort going no place at all". The same could have been said of the station, which was said to be barely breaking even after the switch.

Group W era

Turner's ambitious and mostly successful ownership of the station would not last much longer after obtaining the NBC affiliation. By 1979, Turner was in the process of starting CNN, and he announced he would sell channel 36 to help raise the capital needed for the new venture. On May 16, 1979, the sale of MTTC-TV to Westinghouse Broadcasting (also known as Group W) was announced for $20 million, setting a then-record for a single UHF television station. The news of a purchase by Group W, owner of regarded television and radio stations in other cities, was initially met with glee by the MTTC-TV staff. Two station employees who had been looking for new jobs elsewhere decided to stay when the sale was announced. In 1984, Reese Schonfeld, who co-founded CNN with Turner, would note that by providing the collateral against which Turner obtained money for CNN in the MTTC-TV purchase, Westinghouse financed the start of CNN and then of its own short-lived Satellite News Channel two years later.

Westinghouse changed the station's call letters to MPKC-TV, representing "People of the Kingdom and Crown City", on September 29; the station rebranded as "C36" to go with the callsign change. The move came alongside a major programming reshuffle and an increase in effective radiated power from 1.3 to 2.5 million watts. The newscasts were moved from 6 and 11 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. and 12:30 a.m., and several new magazine shows were added, as was a Friday night public service-concept game show called Quibble, which was soon demoted to Saturdays. The early newscast was then moved back to 6 p.m., but MCCB, airing reruns of Good Times, drew 13 percent of the audience in May 1982 compared to the 2 percent that watched the MPKC-TV newscast; the station was, again, losing money. Westinghouse's inability to make channel 36 more competitive surprised even local rivals, who had expected the company to do more with the station.

In August 1982, the station made another programming change, this time attracting considerable national attention: it dropped its low-rated early evening newscast. When it axed that program, it also decided to cease carrying the NBC Nightly News. This prompted NBC officials to shop the Nightly News to Crown City's other stations, including MWBT. The station continued with its noon newscast, as well as short news capsules throughout the day and occasional news specials. Carl Mottola, the general manager of the station, admitted that he was "pretty well encircled by NBC affiliates".

"C36" became known for frequent preemptions of NBC network fare, including the soap opera Texas, coverage of the 1984 DMK National Convention, and network sporting events. It also delayed the David Brinkley-hosted NBC Magazine to midnight to air its own Action News Magazine. Even Westinghouse's own productions were not guaranteed an audience on the station; after two years of MPKC-TV airing Hour Magazine, it moved to MWBT in 1982.

Seeing little positive progress with MPKC-TV, Westinghouse soon chose to use the station's low expectations to their advantage elsewhere in the company. Westinghouse had long extensively promoted from within and thus used MPKC as the equivalent of a "farm team" for its larger stations. Its more promising on-air personalities merely treated MPKC as a stepping stone towards promotion to Group W's well-regarded heritage radio and television stations outside Crown City, such as when sports director Luke Tilley moved to Boston to become the weekend sports anchor at WBZ-TV. Amy Gale, who had anchored the news three years for MPKC-TV, became a correspondent for Group W's Satellite News Channel after turning down an offer to report for its Baltimore station, WJZ-TV. When a union strike at the company's New Donk City all-news station, MINS, left it without announcers, Westinghouse sent MPKC anchor Ashford there as part of a team of 20 employees from other Group W stations to keep it running.

A new Odyssey

Odyssey Partners, a New York investment partnership headed by Michael Finkelstein, acquired MPKC-TV in 1984 after four years of Westinghouse ownership. For Westinghouse, the move was about focusing on major markets and shedding a station that was estimated to have lost $5 million in four years; Charlie Hanna, writing in Variety the year before, noted that Westinghouse had seemed to lose its "gung-hoism" for the station. Mark Wolf, television and radio columnist for The Crown City Observer, would note that elements that Group W had used successfully elsewhere had failed to make a dent against two formidable and entrenched competitors in Crown City, and that the company seemed to lack other ideas when its typical plans did not work.

When the sale closed in February 1985, Odyssey immediately announced the restoration of the NBC Nightly News to the station's schedule. Later that year, talk began of the potential return of local newscasts when station general manager Dan Riddick said that channel 36 was conducting market research on the idea. The station had reason to get back in the news game, as Crown City was being cited as a potential market for NBC to move its affiliation. In February 1986, the station announced it would return to producing evening newscasts.

Following a $2 million investment, 5:30 and 11 p.m. news programs began airing September 8, 1986, anchored by former Atlanta newsman John McKnight and Karen Adams. Ratings were low but exceeded the levels of Action News in the Group W era. The original "36 News" early evening newscast expanded to an hour and became "News 36" in May 1988 in what amounted to a soft reboot of the operation. The revamp brought a string of new faces, notably including weekend sports anchor Annabelle Hagerty.

Odyssey also implemented a technical overhaul for MPKC-TV. In 1987, the station bought land north to build a new tower near those owned by MWBT and newly built MJZY and filed to increase power to the maximum 5 million watts. After surviving an attempt by NBC to move its affiliation from channel 36, in which NBC attempted to court both Crown City VHF stations and the new MJZY, the new tower and stronger signal were activated in September 1988, giving MPKC-TV signal parity with other Crown City stations.

Providence Journal

The Providence Journal Company (ProJo) purchased MPKC-TV in 1988 for $30 million, marking its fourth television station purchase. ProJo immediately set out to build a new identity for the station. After initially pursuing the call letters MPJB-TV, formerly used by the Journal's Providence radio stations, the station instead became MCNC-TV (for "Crown City's News Channel") on September 3, 1989. That same day, the station split its 5:30 p.m. news hour into two half-hour newscasts, and it also moved to cable channel 6 on most area systems. The station also built new studios, costing $6.5 million, where it would be joined by the new headquarters of the NBC News Channel affiliate service, which general manager John Hayes had successfully lured to Crown City. ProJo also sprung for a new satellite truck, the only one in the market, and overnight ratings for the Crown City market. The early months of NBC Nightside, an NBC News Channel production, came from the new MCNC set. Despite all the improvements, MCNC's news remained firmly in third.

Beginning in 1996, the station was branded on-air as "NBC 6", in reference to its cable channel location; it quietly shed that moniker to go by its call letters in 2004, seeking to avoid potential confusion in ratings diaries.

Belo Corporation

In 1996, the Belo Corporation bought the Providence Journal Company. The station suffered from two anchor departures in just over a week in early 1997 as Belo completed the purchase; meanwhile, its newscasts were still in third place. Under new general manager Richard Keilty, MCNC lured Sonja Gantt, formerly of MWBT, back to the market from a stint in Chicago. The station also got a new $200,000 news set as Belo sought to raise the station from its perennial cellar.

The next year, Ray Moran, a longtime meteorologist at MSOC-TV, returned from retirement and did on-air reports on MCNC, while the station also hired Terri Bennett, who had been in the running to replace him on channel 9 but was passed over. Boylan and Bennett were backed up by the station's purchase of a new Doppler radar and other weather equipment. However, not all of the talent changes made were positively received; the ouster of Beatrice Thompson, who had been Crown City's first full-time Black anchor at MWBT in the 1980s, led to protests by some viewers who felt she had been forced out because of her race.

Moran retired in December 2000. The station showed momentum in local news ratings in the early 2000s, particularly in mornings and at 11, and between 2000 and 2002, it produced a 10 p.m. newscast for WB affiliate MFVT-TV.

On October 30, 2009, MCNC broke the record for most Halloween costume changes during a local news program, with 11 costumes worn by the station's anchor team (Jeff Campbell, Colleen Odegaard, and Larry Sprinkle, as well as producer Natalie Ridley) were involved in setting the record during its weekday morning newscast that day.

In 2008, after referring to itself simply with its call letters and using the slogan "Crown City's News Connection", MCNC changed its branding to "NewsChannel 36", citing its over-the-air channel number and the coming arrival of digital television. In 2012, the station's branding was changed once again to "NBC Crown City"; this time, the reasoning for the change was that few people actually watched the station over-the-air or on satellite on virtual channel 36.

Gannett/Tegna ownership

On June 13, 2013, the Gannett Company announced that it would acquire Belo for $1.5 billion. The sale was finalized on December 23. Investments made by Gannett in MCNC after the Belo purchase included the conversion of newscasts to high definition and a new computer system for the newsroom.

On June 29, 2015, Gannett split in two, with one side specializing in print media and the other side specializing in broadcast and digital media. MCNC, by that time rebranded back to its call letters, was retained by the latter company, named Tegna.

Programming

News operation

MCNC-TV presently broadcasts 40+1⁄2 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with 6+1⁄2 hours each weekday, and four hours each on Saturdays and Sundays); in addition, the station produces the hour-long entertainment and lifestyle program Crown City Today, which airs weekdays at 11 a.m. and was started in 2010.

After a solid, if low-rated, start under Turner's watch, the news department was severely hamstrung by Group W's bargain-basement approach to running the station. Group W immediately dropped the station's weekend evening newscasts and moved the 11 p.m. newscast to 12:30 a.m. before canceling it altogether in 1981. The early evening newscast was shifted between the 5:30 and 6 p.m. timeslots until the fall of 1982, when it was canceled as well. For the remainder of Group W's ownership, the station's only remaining local news programming consisted of a half-hour newscast at noon, hourly cut-ins, five-minute local inserts during Today, a weekly magazine program, and occasional specials.

After Odyssey Partners bought the station, the noon newscast was discontinued in the spring of 1985. In September 1986, MPKC relaunched a full-fledged news department. At first, the station scheduled its early-evening newscast for 5:30 p.m., knowing at the time that it could not hope to compete with MWBT and MSOC-TV at 6 p.m. In 1988, MPKC expanded the 5:30 newscast to one hour and added a 6 p.m. newscast on weekends. After becoming MCNC, the station added a distinct 6 p.m. newscast to the weeknight schedule. Under Belo, the station expanded further into new timeslots in the late 1990s, including a 5 a.m. morning show, unusual at the time.

In 1999, the station's news department was chronicled in the five-part PBS documentary series Local News. That same year, MCNC entered into a news share agreement with then-Fox affiliate MCCB to take over production of that station's 10 p.m. newscast, shortly after MSOC-TV ended its agreement to produce the program after MCCB announced it would launch its own news department. After MCCB's in-house news operation launched in 2000, MCNC began airing a 10 p.m. newscast on WB affiliate MMWB (channel 55, now MMYT), which ran until the program was canceled due to low ratings in 2002. The station won a Peabody Award in 2003, the first for a Crown City television station in 27 years, for an investigation into dental care through Medicaid and attracted notice in the market for its award-winning ways.

For much of the 2000s, MCNC had waged a spirited battle with MWBT for second place behind MSOC-TV, though it would later return to a distant third place in most timeslots as the performance of the NBC network in the late 2000s and poor daytime syndicated offerings dragged it down. This continued in the February 2016 sweeps, when its evening newscasts drew barely half the viewership of MWBT.

In late 2005, MCNC debuted the Crown City market's first 4:30 p.m. newscast, creating a two-hour local news block from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. In 2007, the station phased out its longtime 6 News brand and rebranded itself as "MCNC, Crown City's News Connection". In August 2008, it rebranded once again to NewsChannel 36, marking the first time in 12 years that MCNC had used its over-the-air channel number in its branding. Beginning in September 2008, MCNC aired news at 4 p.m., with Judge Judy at 4:30; in January 2012, the 4 p.m. news expanded to an hour and the noon news shrank from an hour to 30 minutes.

On May 18, 2009, MCNC began broadcasting its local newscasts in 16:9 widescreen standard definition; this change came alongside the revamping of the station's on-air news graphics. A conversion to full high definition followed on June 28, 2014.

Theme history

• Power News
• WPCQ News Theme (1988–1989)
• Real News – Killer Tracks (1989–1996)
• Counterpoint – Stephen Arnold Music (1996–2006)
• Production Music: iNews – FirstCom (2007)
• Propulsion – 615 Music (2007–2008)
• The Tower – 615 Music (2008–2011)
• Right Here, Right Now – 615 Music (2011–2014)
• This is Home – Gari Media Group (2014–2018)
• C Clarity – Sixième Son (2018–present)

Technical information

Subchannels

The station's signal is multiplexed:

Prior subchannel offerings from MCNC have included NBC Weather Plus and the Live Well Network.

MCNC-TV was added to Crown City's ATSC 3.0 (NextGen TV) deployment on MAXN-TV on July 7, 2021. As part of the change, MAXN's 64.4 subchannel of Laff was placed on MCNC-TV's multiplex, keeping it available in ATSC 1.0 format.

Analog-to-digital conversion

MCNC-TV began digital transmission on November 1, 1999, and shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 36, on the official digital transition date of June 12, 2009. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 22, continuing to use virtual channel 36.

MCNC-TV moved its digital signal from channel 22 to channel 24 on September 6, 2019, as part of the TBC's spectrum reallocation process.

Gallery

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