WRDC

Infobox_Broadcast
call_letters = WRDC
city =
station_
station_slogan = My Raleigh
My Durham
My Chapel Hill
station_branding = MyRDCTV
analog = 28 (UHF)
digital = 27 (UHF)
other_chs =
affiliations = MyNetworkTV
network =
founded =
airdate = November 4, 1968
location = Durham/Raleigh, North Carolina
callsign_meaning = Raleigh
Durham
Chapel Hill
former_callsigns = WRDU-TV (1968–1978)
WPTF-TV (1978–1991)
former_channel_numbers =
owner = Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc.
licensee = nowrap|Raleigh (WRDC-TV) Licensee, Inc.
sister_stations = WLFL
former_affiliations = NBC (1968–1995)
UPN (1995–2006)
effective_radiated_power = 5000 kW (analog)
915 kW (digital)
HAAT = 585 m (analog)
610 m (digital)
class =
facility_id = 54963
coordinates = coord|35|40|35.1|N|78|32|7.2|W|type:landmark_scale:2000 (analog)
coord|35|40|29.1|N|78|31|39.2|W|type:landmark_scale:2000 (digital)
homepage = [http://www.myrdctv.com/ www.myrdctv.com]

WRDC, channel 28, is currently an affiliate station of MyNetworkTV in the Raleigh-Durham-Fayetteville, North Carolina (commonly known as The Triangle) television market. The station is licensed to Durham, but its studios are in the Highwoods office park just outside downtown Raleigh. It is co-owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group along with CW affiliate WLFL-TV (channel 22).

WRDC shows on cable channel 12 in Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, Fayetteville and most of their suburbs, and channel 10 in Cary, Garner, Clayton, Smithfield, and Carrboro.

History

WNAO-TV (1953-59)

On July 12, 1953 at 5:25 p.m., WNAO-TV signed on channel 28 as the Triangle's first television station (a few months before WTVD) and the state's first UHF station. It was owned by "The News & Observer", which had only gotten into broadcasting six years earlier, when it began WNAO-AM and FM (now WRBZ-AM and WBBB-FM). However, television manufacturers weren't required to include UHF tuning capability on their sets at the time. Until the Federal Communications Commission required all-channel tuning in 1964, UHF stations were unviewable without a converter. Even with one, the picture was barely viewable. WNAO was also hampered by the fact that it was affiliated with the then-struggling ABC network. WNAO-TV struggled for viewership, but its fate was sealed when WRAL-TV (channel 5) signed on in 1956. WNAO suspended operation at the end of 1957 and channel 28 went dark in 1959, as the fiscal loss for the "News & Observer" was so great that it decided to get out of broadcasting entirely.

As an NBC affiliate (1968-95)

Channel 28 stayed dark until November 4, 1968, when WRDU-TV, licensed to Durham and totally unrelated to the earlier station at the same channel, signed on as an NBC affiliate. The new station had studios located on NC Highway 54 in southern Durham, with a transmitter located near Terrell's Mountain in Chatham County.

WRDU came under ownership of Triangle Telecasters, founded by prominent husband-and-wife lawyers Reuben and Kathrine Everett and their son Robinson (who was then a law professor at Duke University). The new ownership group had a tremendous opportunity on its hands with an audience clamoring to see network shows they hadn't seen in six years. NBC had not had a full-time affiliate in the Triangle since 1962, when WRAL-TV dropped NBC in favor of ABC, leaving CBS affiliate WTVD to shoehorn NBC programming onto its schedule. However, channel 28 not only squandered this opportunity, but over the next quarter-century proved to be a textbook example of how "not" to be a network affiliate.

For one thing, it had to deal with longer-established NBC affiliates in nearby Winston-Salem (WSJS-TV, now WXII), Washington (WITN-TV) and Wilmington (WECT) being available over the air with strong VHF signals in much of the surrounding area. For another thing, its transmitter was located on the border of Orange and Chatham Counties and could barely make it into Raleigh. Furthermore, its local newscast could not compete with WRAL and WTVD's. Additionally, WRDU's main competitors, WTVD and WRAL, were two of the strongest performers for their respective networks, having built up followings over the previous dozen years or so on VHF channels--the same problem that derailed WNAO-TV essentially remained unchanged. Perhaps the worst thing was the fact that WTVD's previously established secondary affiliation with NBC (since 1962) gave that station first refusal rights on that network's schedule. In 1971, the FCC forced WTVD to choose one network; it chose CBS. Though WRDU now had the whole NBC line-up, it often pre-empted network shows with syndicated ones.

The Durham Life Insurance Company, which owned the Triangle's oldest radio station, WPTF-AM, bought WRDU-TV in May 1977 and changed its callsign (WPTF-TV) to match a year later. This was Durham Life's second attempt to get into television, which had previously bid for the channel 5 allotment in 1956 before the FCC awarded the license to the much smaller Capitol Broadcasting as WRAL-TV. Durham Life invested a large amount of money into its new purchase, including a news department and a move to a new 1,300 foot tower located near Apex to provide better coverage to Raleigh and the entire Triangle area. However, largely because of the network and audience-loyalty problems it inherited from Triangle Telecasters, experienced little success over time. Its news department still had no luck whatsoever competing against WRAL and WTVD. This was in marked contrast to its radio sister, one of the most respected radio news operations in North Carolina. WRAL and WTVD switched affiliations in 1985 after WTVD's owner, Capital Cities Communications, bought ABC, but WPTF saw little windfall from the switch. At one point in the 1980s, even with NBC's powerful primetime lineup, WPTF-TV was dead last in the Triangle television ratings. It even trailed WLFL, an independent station (and later, a Fox affiliate) that had only been on the air since 1981.

Understandably enough, by the summer of 1991, Durham Life wanted out of broadcasting entirely. Durham Life broke up its entire broadcasting unit and sold off individual stations to various owners. WPTF-TV went to FSF TV, Inc., who changed the callsign to WRDC-TV. The new owners made the station profitable almost immediately. However, in a cost-cutting move, on July 31, 1991, FSF TV, Inc. fired the entire news department (save for one anchor/reporter who was kept for newsbreaks) and most of the production crew. One disgruntled ex-employee, in a bitter joke, suggested that the station's new callsign really stood for "We Really Don't Care." WRDC lost a good deal of credibility as a result and never recovered.

As a UPN affiliate (1995–2006)

By the mid-1990s, NBC, obviously embarrassed and angry about its poor performance in one of the country's fastest-growing markets, had finally had enough with WRDC and was looking to move its programming to another station. It got its chance in 1995 after WNCN (channel 17, formerly WYED-TV), based in Goldsboro, boosted its signal to 5 million watts to provide greater coverage to the Triangle market. WNCN's owner, Outlet Communications, also owned WJAR-TV in Providence, Rhode Island and WCMH-TV in Columbus, Ohio, which were two of NBC's strongest and longest-standing affiliates. Although WNCN had just affiliated with the WB Television Network, NBC quickly cut a deal with Outlet to move its Triangle affiliation to WNCN. However, NBC's contract with WRDC didn't run out until September 1995. Starting in January 1995, WNCN began airing all of the NBC programming that WRDC turned down. When NBC's contract with WRDC ran out in September, WRDC became a UPN affiliate. It had already been airing UPN programming out of pattern since January. As such, WRDC no longer had a decent amount of programming to pre-empt, with UPN providing far fewer hours of network fare per week than any of the major networks. WRDC also picked up several syndicated shows that WNCN no longer had time to air.

Glencairn Ltd. bought WRDC in 1995. Glencairn was owned by Edwin Edwards, a former executive with WLFL's owner, Sinclair. The Smith family, founders and owners of Sinclair, held 97 percent of Glencairn's stock, leading to allegations that Glencairn was really a corporate shell that Sinclair used to make an end-run around the FCC's regulations of that time prohibiting ownership of more than one station in a market. Sinclair and Glencairn further circumvented the rules by merging WRDC's operations with those of WLFL's under a local marketing agreement. Although WLFL was the senior partner, the two stations' operations were based at WRDC's former studios. Similar arrangements were in place at Glencairn's other eight stations.

The FCC eventually fined Sinclair $40,000 for its illegal control of Glencairn. The station briefly dropped its UPN affiliation in the spring of 1998, as a result of a dispute between UPN and Sinclair (which had been controlling the station's programming by this point), before reinstating the affiliation several months later. Sinclair purchased WRDC outright in 2001. This was possible because WNCN had by this time passed WRDC as the fourth-rated station in the Triangle. The FCC's duopoly rules do not allow one person to own two of the four largest stations in a single market.

As a MyNetworkTV affiliate (2006-present)

In January 2006, The WB and UPN (which has only used its initials as its official name since 2000) announced that they would merge into a new network, The CW. The news of the merger resulted in Sinclair announcing, two months later, that WRDC would join MyNetworkTV, a new service formed by the News Corporation, who also owns the Fox network. Sister station WLFL, which had been a WB affiliate since 1998, took the CW affiliation, giving North Carolina two My Network TV/CW duopolies (the other being WMYT-TV/WJZY in Charlotte).

Select Charlotte Bobcats games are aired on My RDC.

Digital television

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

In 2009, WRDC will remain on channel 28 when the analog to digital conversion is complete.http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-06-1082A2.pdf]

TV Tower

In 1986, WPTF erected a 2,000 foot tower near Auburn, North Carolina, in an attempt to increase its signal coverage to include Fayetteville and other cities located south and east of Raleigh. That same tower collapsed in December 1989 during an early morning winter ice storm that also claimed the nearby tower of WRAL-TV. WPTF managed to get back on the air several hours later by rebroadcasting its signal on both WYED-TV (now WNCN) for the Raleigh-Durham area and WFCT-TV (channel 62, now WFPX) for the Fayetteville area.

A month following the WYED/WFCT simulcast, WPTF reactivated its old tower near Apex, which it had used from 1978 to 1986, allowing the station to resume its broadcasts on Channel 28 as usual. That same tower was dismantled several years later and then donated to classical radio station WCPE-FM, who reassembled it at a spot near its studios in Wake Forest, North Carolina in 1993. WPTF would eventually return to the newly-built broadcast tower completed in early 1991 near Garner, which also included the transmission signal for WRAL-TV, as well as WRAL-FM, WQDR-FM, and a couple of low-power TV stations in the area.

Trivia

* From 1978 until 1983, WPTF had its very own kids' show entitled " [http://www.barneysarmy.com Barney's Army] ."
* WRDC currently hosts a two-minute segment called " [http://www.brandnewz.com/ Brand Newz] " hosted by Christopher Martin, one half of 1980s hip-hop comedy duo Kid 'n Play.

References

External links

* [http://www.myrdctv.com/ My RDC Website]
* [http://www.oldradio.com/archives/warstories/WRAL.htm Raleigh Tower Disaster] - includes pictures of the WRAL and WPTF-TV towers, which were destroyed in a December 1989 ice storm
*TVQ|WRDC
*BIA|WRDC|TV|TV