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WSMV-TV
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| WSMV-TV | |
|---|---|
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| Nashville, Tennessee | |
| Branding | Channel 4 News |
| Slogan | Working 4 You |
| Channels | Analog: 4 (VHF) Digital: 10 (VHF) |
| Affiliations | NBC Telemundo (on digital subchannel 4.2) |
| Owner | Meredith Corporation |
| Founded | September 30, 1950 |
| Call letters meaning | We Shield Millions (V for "Vision" added to differentiate from WSM radio) |
| Former callsigns | WSM-TV (1950-1981) |
| Former affiliations | ABC (secondary, 1950-54), CBS (secondary, 1950-53), DuMont (secondary, 1950-1956)[1] |
| Website | www.wsmv.com |
WSMV-TV "Channel 4" is the NBC affiliate serving the Nashville, Tennessee area. It broadcasts its analog signal on VHF channel 4 and its digital signal on VHF channel 10. Its transmitter and tower are located adjacent to its studios in west Nashville, which were opened in 1963.
WSMV also airs programming from the NBC-owned Spanish-language network, Telemundo, on its DT2 subcarrier [2] since the Nashville DMA lacks a Telemundo affiliate of its own. The subchannel began airing in the summer of 2006.
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WSMV signed on as WSM-TV on September 30, 1950 at 1:10 p.m. It was Nashville's first television station and the second in Tennessee, behind WMCT (now WMC-TV) in Memphis. It was owned by the locally-based National Life and Accident Insurance Company along with WSM radio (650 AM & 95.5 FM); the AM station is renowned for broadcasts of the country music show "The Grand Ole Opry," which has been heard since 1925. The stations took their calls from their parent's slogan, "We Shield Millions."
The television station has been an NBC affiliate from the very first day, though it carried some programming from CBS, DuMont, and ABC until 1953, when WSIX-TV channel 8 (now WKRN-TV channel 2) signed on as a CBS primary affiliate. WSM shared ABC programming with WSIX for a year until WLAC-TV (now WTVF) signed on and took CBS. Before the advent of satellite delivery, network programming was delivered to WSM-TV by microwave transmission from WAVE in Louisville, Kentucky.
National Life was taken over by American General, a Houston-based insurer, in 1980. The new owners sold off WSM-AM-FM-TV, the Opry, and Opryland USA in order to maintain focus on the insurance business. Gaylord Entertainment Company bought the Opry, Opryland USA and WSM-AM-FM. Gaylord would have bought WSM-TV as well, but was already at the FCC's television ownership limit at the time; the FCC has since practically abandoned such restrictions. Instead, Gillett Broadcasting (property of George N. Gillett Jr.) bought WSM-TV on November 3, 1981 and changed the callsign to WSMV, in order to trade on the well-known WSM identity while at the same time separating it from its former radio sisters (later, the TV and radio stations would engage in news department cross promotions). WSMV was later sold, on June 8, 1989, to Cook Inlet Television Partners, an Alaska-based company which was a subsidiary of an Alaska Native Regional Corporation; Cook Inlet, in turn, sold it on January 5, 1995 to Meredith Corporation, its present licensee.
The station's famous alumni include Pat Sajak (announcer and weekend weatherman from 1972 to 1977), Robin Roberts (sports anchor and reporter from 1986 to 1988), John Tesh (news anchor in 1975-1976), John Seigenthaler, Jr. (weekend anchor in the late 1980s) and Huell Howser (features reporter in the 1970s). Ralph Emery, the longtime country music disc jockey on WSM-AM for many years, hosted morning (and at times, afternoon) shows on WSM(V) from the mid-1960s until the early 1990s; for much of that time, they were the highest-rated locally-produced early morning shows on American television. They featured performances by prominent country stars like Tex Ritter and current star Lorrie Morgan; also, the studio band consisted of top-notch Music Row session musicians. The newscast that replaced it has been nowhere as successful, often trailing both WKRN and WTVF in the time period.
WSMV has alternated with WTVF for first place in the Nashville ratings for many years. Generally speaking, the station takes a softer approach to news than WTVF. Surprisingly, the reverse was true some 15-20 years ago, as WSMV earned numerous prestigious awards for hard-hitting investigative stories, while WTVF took a more cautious approach. While WTVF usually leads the way in the city of Nashville itself, WSMV generally leads in Nashville's more conservative suburbs. Dan Miller, one co-anchor of its newscasts, has been associated with the station since 1969, despite an eight-year absence (1986-1994) during which he spent time in Los Angeles as a news anchor at KCBS and Sajak's sidekick on his short-lived late-night talk show.
Early in 2006, WSMV attracted some attention by becoming the largest-market NBC affiliate to refuse to carry the controversial NBC show The Book of Daniel on its programming schedule, after the premiere episode. This action, along with that of several smaller affiliates in the Midwest and South, prompted NBC to cancel the series after only three episodes.
During the May sweeps period that began on April 26, 2007, WSMV debuted its own live news helicopter known as Air 4, becoming the second station in Nashville to do so (WTVF's news helicopter Sky 5 debuted a year earlier, in 2006).
The station's digital channel :
Digital channels
| Channel | Programming |
|---|---|
| 4.1 / 10.1 | Main WSMV programming / NBC HD |
| 4.2 / 10.2 | Telemundo |
WSMV will broadcast only on digital channel 10 when the analog channel 4 signal shuts down on February 17, 2009.[3]
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Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones. |
- Alan Frio, a former anchor of the syndicated program Hard Copy, joined WSMV in 2004.
- FOX News anchor Shepard Smith told Brian Lamb in April 2002 on C-SPAN's Washington Journal, that he actually wanted to work at WSMV during his career, but he never got there, although it still may be surprising, considering the fact that Smith was born in Holly Springs, Mississippi, slightly outside of WSMV's broadcast area and much closer to the Memphis, Tennessee market.
- Dan Miller, a longtime anchor of the station's newscasts, left WSMV in August, 1986 for an anchor job at KCBS in Los Angeles. While there, Pat Sajak, his buddy and former channel 4 colleague, hosted a short-lived late-night talk show for CBS (The Pat Sajak Show). Miller joined the cast of the show and was to Sajak what Ed McMahon was to Johnny Carson. Unfortunately for Miller and Sajak, Carson was still the king of late-night television, and Sajak's show was cancelled after just a year and a half. Miller stayed in California until 1992, when he returned to Nashville to host a talk show, Miller & Company, which aired on The Nashville Network. He returned to the anchor chair on March 9, 1995. The initial delay of Miller to the anchor's chair was attributed to anchor Jeff McAtee (who replaced Miller in 1986 and now works for WWMT) refusing to take a demotion to accommodate Miller's return.
- Sports anchor Steve Wrigley can also be seen working as an occasional sideline reporter for The AFL on NBC. Wrigley also hosts FSN South's Predators Tonight, a pregame show broadcast before Nashville Predators hockey home games.
- Former Tennessee Titan Brad Hopkins now works for WSMV as a sports anchor for special stories/occasions.
- For many years, the station used a version of Frank Gari's Hello News as its news theme, from 1983 to 1993. Their "Hello Nashville" campaign was so popular among Nashville residents, that Florence Warner sang it at a "Symphony Sunday" concert in 1986, most likely for the station's 36th anniversary, and a snippet of it was used in a local version of NBC's Be There campaign from 1983.
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WKRN 2 (ABC) - WSMV 4 (NBC), (TEL on DT2) - WTVF 5 (CBS) - WNPT 8 (PBS) - WIIW-LP 14 (Religious / DS) - WZTV 17 (Fox) - Outlying Areas |
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| See also: ABC, CBS, CW, Fox, ION, MyNetworkTV, PBS and Other stations in Tennessee |