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.

WISN

WISN may refer to:

WISN (AM)

WISN (1130 kHz) is an AM talk radio station in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It is owned by iHeartMedia, Inc., and is the home of local afternoon radio host Mark Belling, who occasionally substitutes for Rush Limbaugh on his national program. Its studios are located in the Milwaukee suburb of Greenfield and the transmitter site is in Dover. WISN operates at the maximum power for AM stations of 50,000 watts in the daytime and reduces power to 10,000 watts at night, when it must protect other stations on the 1130 kHz frequency. WISN can also be heard on the HD 2 channel of its FM sister station 97.3 WRNW.

WISN became the new home for Milwaukee Panthers basketball broadcasts in 2007-08, including the Coach Rob Jeter Radio Show. The station was the home of Marquette basketball broadcasts from 1971 to 2006 before opting not to renew its contract with Marquette.

As of January 2015, WISN was sixth of 10 rated stations during the last ratings sample of the Milwaukee market.

Programming

WISN airs both local and nationally syndicated talk shows, most of them from Premiere Networks, a subsidiary of iHeartMedia. Weekdays begins at 5 a.m. with an hour of news known as "The WISN Morning Briefing." At 6 a.m. Jay Weber hosts a local wake-up show, followed by Vicki McKenna at 10 a.m. At noon, WISN carries The Rush Limbaugh Show followed by local host Mark Belling at 3 p.m. At 6 p.m. it's Sean Hannity, at 9 p.m. Mark Levin is heard. WISN airs five hours of Coast to Coast AM with George Noory overnight.