WISN-TV

WISN-TV, virtual channel 12 (digital channel 34), is an ABC-affiliated television station located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States. The station is owned by the Hearst Television subsidiary of the Hearst Corporation (and is one of the group's three flagship stations – alongside WCVB-TV in Boston and WBAL-TV in Baltimore – as well as the second-oldest television station to remain with the company in all of its various iterations). WISN maintains studio facilities located at North 19th Street on the west end of the Marquette University campus, and its transmitter located in Lincoln Park in the northeastern part of Milwaukee (next to the Weigel Broadcasting tower, which is used by CBS affiliate WDJT-TV, channel 58, and its sister stations).

History

First tenure with ABC

The station first signed on the air on October 27, 1954 as WTVW (for its on-air slogan "Wisconsin's TeleVision Window"). WTVW's transmitter building was built under a tent, as rain had 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. In early 1955, the station was purchased by the Hearst Corporation, publishers of The Milwaukee Sentinel and owners of WISN radio (1130 AM); the new owners changed channel 12's call letters to WISN-TV, after its radio sister (whose calls were derived from now-defunct newspaper The Wisconsin News, which merged with the Sentinel; the WTVW calls are now used by the CW-affiliated station in Evansville, Indiana). The station originally operated as a primary ABC affiliate with a secondary DuMont affiliation. WISN-TV lost the DuMont affiliation when that network ceased operations in 1956, leaving it exclusively with ABC.