WTVC

WTVC is the ABC television affiliate in Chattanooga, Tennessee. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on VHF channel 9 from a transmitter on Signal Mountain in the town of Walden. Owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group, the station has studios on Benton Drive in Chattanooga. Sinclair also operates This TV/Comet affiliate WDSI-TV (owned by New Age Media) and CW/MyNetworkTV affiliate WFLI-TV (owned by MPS Media);

On Comcast cable systems, the station is aired on channel 10. On EPB Fiber Optics, it airs on channel 9 and 309.

History

As WROM-TV

The station signed on-the-air in 1953 as WROM-TV, a NBC affiliate licensed to Rome, Georgia, with signal coverage that originally favored Chattanooga. It transmitted a full-powered analog signal on VHF channel 9 at 316,000 watts from a tower on Horseleg Mountain west of Rome. WROM-TV also had secondary affiliations with CBS, the ABC, and the DuMont Television Network. The station lost CBS when WDEF-TV signed on in 1954. WROM-TV then carried NBC, ABC, and DuMont until 1956 when Dumont went off-the-air and WRGP-TV (now WRCB-TV) signed on and took the NBC affiliation. At that time, ABC opted for secondary affiliations with WDEF and WRGP because the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) had reduced WROM-TV's Grade A signal, which had made it difficult to be picked up in Chattanooga. WROM-TV continued as an independent station until late 1957. During its tenure as a Rome station, it claimed to be "Dixie's Largest Independent." The station ran a late-afternoon and prime-time schedule of old movies, "hillbilly" music performances (which were common on southern TV stations in the 1950s) and occasionally, ABC TV network fare such as "Omnibus."