WXIA-TV

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WXIA-TV
Atlanta, Georgia
Branding	11Alive
Slogan	"The News You Expect. The Balance You Deserve." (news); "Atlanta's HD News Leader." (station)
Channels	11 (VHF) analog, 10 (VHF) digital
Affiliations	NBC NBC Weather Plus (DT2)
Owner	Gannett
Founded	September 30, 1951
Call letters meaning	W XI(11 in Roman numerals) Atlanta or XI (11) Alive
Former callsigns	WLTV (1951-53) WLWA-TV (1953-62) WAII-TV (1962-68) WQXI-TV (1968-74)
Former affiliations	ABC (1951-80)
Website	www.11alive.com/

WXIA-TV 11Alive is the NBC television affiliate in Atlanta, Georgia. Along with WATL, it is owned by Gannett. The station's transmitter is located at 110 Arizona Avenue Northeast in Atlanta. Studios and offices are located at 1611 West Peachtree Street on the north end of Atlanta's Midtown area.

Contents 1 History 2 "11Alive" 3 Trivia 4 See also 5 External links

[edit] History

The station signed on the air on September 30, 1951 as WLTV, an ABC affiliate, on channel 8. It was owned by the Crosley Broadcasting Corporation. In 1953, the station changed its call letters to WLWA-TV and moved to channel 11. It was purchased in 1962 by Richard Fairbanks of Indianapolis as part of a settlement between Crosley and Fairbanks. Crosley had started WLWI-TV (now WTHR) in Indianapolis in 1957, but Fairbanks insisted that the last VHF allocation in Indianapolis should go to a local owner. Eventually, the two companies agreed to what amounted to a trade, in which Crosley kept WLWI while Fairbanks bought WLWA. The Atlanta station's calls then became WAII-TV, using the slogan "The Eyes of Atlanta", and the calls standing for Atlanta's 11 (II)".

The station began calling itself "News Watch 11" in 1963 and began broadcasting news in color for the first time March 1967. The station was sold to Pacific & Southern Broadcasting of Phoenix, Arizona in 1968 and became known as WQXI-TV (the calls were originally used on Channel 36, currently WATL, in the mid 1950's). Pacific & Southern later merged with Combined Communications. The station assumed the WXIA-TV call letters in 1974 and first used the branding 11Alive in 1976. In 1979, Combined merged with Gannett in what became the biggest media merger in history up to that time.

On September, 1980, WXIA became an NBC affiliate, due to market leader WSB-TV's signing with ABC. This could be traced to ratings: NBC slid to a very poor third place; meanwhile, ABC was in first place for most of the late 1970's and was seeking out stronger and better affiliates in many markets including Atlanta. So during the summer of 1980, the two stations conducted an experiment unusual for a large market: WXIA aired NBC daytime shows in the morning and ABC daytime shows in the afternoon, while WSB aired ABC shows in the morning and NBC shows in the afternoons. When the experiment was over, both stations finally swapped affiliations for good.

WXIA also airs the NBC Weather Plus service on its digital on-air signal, as well as on Comcast's digital cable system in the Atlanta area. WXIA formerly had a partnership with The Weather Channel to use their weather forecasters and provide local forecasts.

WXIA began airing its daily local newscasts in HDTV, the first Atlanta station to do so, on February 2, 2006. To signal the conversion to HD, a HD-friendly new studio from Production Design Group, Ltd. was built and graphics from Giant Octopus were created.

On June 5, 2006, Gannett agreed to purchase WATL from the Tribune Company, now affiliated with MyNetworkTV. The purchase price was $180 million. [1]. Since WATL is not among Atlanta's four largest TV stations, the FCC permitted this sale. The sale was finalized on August 7, 2006; as a result, Gannett is now the owner of Atlanta's first television duopoly, as well as duopolies in Denver and Jacksonville. WATL may take up airing NBC programs when WXIA is not able to in a news-related emergency.

[edit] "11Alive"

11Alive has been WXIA's on-air branding since 1976, when then-owner Combined Communications adopted the practice of using the word "Alive" as part of the monikers at most of their stations. The use of "Alive" in station names was popular in the mid-to-late-1970s. New York's WPIX used the legendary "11 Alive" nickname from 1977 to 1986.

After Gannett acquired Combined in 1979, many of the former Combined stations stopped using "Alive" in their names, though WXIA continued calling itself "11Alive," as it had established a very strong following under that name. Fort Wayne's WPTA, another ex-Combined station, continues to call itself "21 Alive" today.

In 1994, Gannett dropped the "11Alive" moniker as part of an image makeover. However, only a year later, WXIA began calling itself "11Alive" once again. In its news opens, however, the station calls itself "WXIA-TV."

[edit] Trivia

• Channel 36 signed on as WQXI-TV in 1954. The callsign was used on Channel 11 from 1968 to 1974. Today, Channel 11 and Channel 36 are owned by the same company, Gannett.

• An unusual situation occurred in 1999. The station's former weekend weather forecaster had left, but his replacement hadn't arrived at the station yet. Four years earlier, Gannett bought WLTX in Columbia, South Carolina; 200 miles east of Atlanta. It had recently hired Jim Gandy from WIS, but Gandy could not appear on WLTX for one year under the terms of a non-compete clause in his contract. There was nothing that said Gandy couldn't work anywhere else. However, Gandy was named a consultant to the meteorological department at Gannett Television to work around the ban. Gannett hired Gandy as the temporary weather forecaster on weekends at WXIA in order to fill in until the new forecaster arrived. That, and the proximity of the two stations, permitted the two Gannett stations to share doppler radars, calling itself the "Double Doppler" at WLTX.

[edit] See also

• WXIA-TV personalities
• WQXI (AM)
• WSTR-FM
• WATL
• WROM

[edit] External links

• 11Alive Homepage
• Query the FCC's TV station database for WXIA-TV

v • d • e

Television stations in the Atlanta market (Nielsen DMA #9)

WSB 2 (ABC) - WUVM-LP 4 (Azteca América) - WAGA 5 (Fox) - WGTV 8 (PBS/GPB) - WXIA 11 (NBC) - WPXA 14 (ION) - WTBS 17 (TBS) - WCLP 18 (PBS/GPB) - W24AL 24 (HSN) - WANX-LP 26 (Jewelry TV) - WPBA 30 (PBS) - WANN-LP 32 (Ind) - WNEG 32 (CBS) - WUVG 34 (UNI) - WATL 36 (MNTV) - W38CU 38 (TEL) - WIRE-CA 40 (MTV2) - WAGC-LP 42 (Ind) - WGCL 46 (CBS) - WDTA-LP 53 (DS) - WYGA 55 (Ind) - W55BM 55 (JCTV) - WATC 57 / WSKC-CA 22 (Religious) - WHSG 63 (TBN) - WUPA 69 (The CW)

Local digital television channels WTHC-LP 42 (TIS)

Local/Regional cable/satellite television channels SportSouth - FSN South - CSS - AIB - Cobb edTV (Cobb County)