WBRC
WBRC, virtual channel 6 (UHF digital channel 50), is a Fox-affiliated television station located in Birmingham, Alabama, United States. The station is owned by Raycom Media. WBRC maintains studio and transmitter facilities located atop Red Mountain, between Vulcan Trail and Valley View Drive, in southeastern Birmingham (located to the immediate west of the studios of NBC affiliate WVTM-TV, channel 13); the station shares its transmitter tower with local NOAA Weather Radio station KIH-54.
History
Early history
The station first signed on the air on July 1, 1949, originally broadcasting on VHF channel 4 as WBRC-TV (standing for Bell Radio Company, after Fountain Heights physician J.C. Bell, founder of radio station WBRC (960 AM). the "-TV" suffix was dropped from the call sign in June 1999). Although WBRC-TV was the first television station in Birmingham to be granted a license by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), it is the second-oldest television station in Alabama, signing on just over one month after WAFM-TV (channel 13, now WVTM-TV), which debuted on May 29. It was originally owned by the Birmingham Broadcasting Company, run by Eloise D. Smith Hanna, along with WBRC radio (her son, M.D. Smith III, who worked at the radio stations in advertising sales and was later promoted to program director and vice president, ran the television station as its operations manager).
