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WSMV-TV

WSMV-TV (channel 4) is a television station in Nashville, Tennessee, United States, affiliated with NBC. It is owned by Gray Television alongside low-power Telemundo affiliate WTNX-LD (channel 29). The two stations share studios on Knob Road in west Nashville, where WSMV-TV's transmitter is also located.

WSMV 4

September 30, 1950 (1950-09-30)

WSM-TV (1950–1981)

Analog: 4 (VHF, 1950–2009)

"We Shield Millions" ("V" for "Vision" added to differentiate from WSM radio)

FCC

41232

60 kW

413 m (1,355 ft)

History[edit]

Early years[edit]

WSMV first signed on the air as WSM-TV on September 30, 1950, at 1:10 p.m. CT. It was Nashville's first television station and the second in Tennessee, behind fellow NBC affiliate WMCT (now sister station WMC-TV, then also on channel 4) in Memphis. As a result of the WSM-TV sign-on, WMCT was forced to switch to channel 5 to avoid co-channel interference. WSM-TV was owned by WSM, Inc., a subsidiary of the locally based National Life and Accident Insurance Company, which also owned WSM radio (650 AM) and the original WSM-FM (103.3; shut down in 1951); the AM station is renowned for broadcasts of the country music show The Grand Ole Opry, which has been heard on the station since 1925. The station took its call letters from its parent's slogan, "We Shield Millions".


The television station has been an NBC affiliate from its sign-on, although it also carried some programming from CBS, DuMont, and ABC. Its secondary affiliation with CBS ended in 1953, when WSIX-TV (channel 8, now WKRN-TV on channel 2) signed on as a primary CBS affiliate. WSM-TV shared ABC programming with WSIX-TV for a year until WLAC-TV (channel 5, now WTVF) signed on in 1954 as the market's new primary CBS affiliate, leaving WSIX-TV to take the ABC affiliation. In the late 1950s, the station also shared a short-lived affiliation with the NTA Film Network with WSIX-TV by airing one of its programs, Sheriff of Cochise.[3] During the first few years of operation, AT&T would not run telephone lines for WSM-TV to receive network programming until there was another TV station in town. This problem was solved by the station running a private microwave relay transmission from fellow NBC affiliate and now sister station WAVE-TV in Louisville, Kentucky; this was the longest privately-operated microwave relay link at the time.[4][5]


WSM-TV's studios were originally located at 15th Avenue South and Compton Avenue in south Nashville, near the present Belmont University. In 1957, the station attempted to a build a larger tower in west Nashville, near Charlotte Avenue. During the construction process, the new tower's supporting wires failed. This caused the tower to collapse, which took the lives of several people.[6] Afterward, WSM-TV purchased its present property on Knob Road (farther west than the previous site, and allowable since WMCT in Memphis had switched to channel 5 from channel 4) and built a tower there in a forested section away from potential damage to life and property.[4][7]

Growth into the 1960s and 1970s[edit]

WSM-TV shared its broadcast facilities with non-commercial station WDCN-TV (channel 2, now WNPT on channel 8) when that station signed on in 1962. In 1963, National Life and Accident Insurance built new studios for WSM-AM-TV adjacent to the transmission tower on Knob Road. This left WDCN-TV as the sole occupant of the south Nashville building, where that station remained until 1976. WSM-TV was the first station in Nashville to begin broadcasting in color in 1965.[4] In 1974, NL&AI reorganized itself as a holding company, NLT Corporation, with the WSM stations (by then including a new WSM-FM at 95.5) as a major subsidiary.

Ownership changes[edit]

Beginning in 1980, Houston-based insurer American General–which owned the WLAC stations until 1975–began purchasing blocks of NLT stock, eventually becoming NLT's largest shareholder and setting the stage for an outright takeover. However, American General was not interested in NLT's non-insurance businesses. It opted to sell off the broadcasting interests, the Grand Ole Opry, the then-decrepit Ryman Auditorium, and the now-defunct Opryland USA. Gillett Broadcasting (operated by George N. Gillett Jr.) bought WSM-TV on November 3, 1981, and changed the station's callsign to WSMV on the same day (officially modified to WSMV-TV on July 15, 1982).[8] The new callsign allowed channel 4 to continue trading on the well-known WSM calls while at the same time separating it from its former radio sisters. The change was brought on due to an FCC rule in place at that time forbidding TV and radio stations in the same city but with different owners from sharing the same call letters. However, channel 4 would later engage in news department cross promotions with WSM-AM-FM.


Gaylord Entertainment Company purchased the remainder of WSM, Inc. nearly two years later, in 1983. Soon afterward, the radio stations moved out of the Knob Road facility into new studios on the Opryland Hotel campus.


WSMV-TV was sold on June 8, 1989, to Cook Inlet Television Partners, an Alaska-based company which was a subsidiary of Cook Inlet Region, Inc., an Alaska Native Regional Corporation.[9]

Programming[edit]

Country music programming[edit]

The WSM stations' close ties to Nashville's country music business has meant that the Knob Road facility and/or its personnel was, from time to time, used for the recording of network and syndicated programs featuring Nashville-based performers. This was especially the case during the 1960s and 1970s. Most if not all of these shows were packaged by Show Biz, Inc., headquartered in Nashville and a subsidiary of Holiday Inn. Show Biz, Inc. produced The Porter Wagoner Show, That Nashville Music, The Bill Anderson Show, Dolly! and several other programs seen throughout the United States, especially on stations in the South and rural Midwest. The company dissolved in the late 1970s when its president, Jane Grams, became vice president and general manager of WTVC-TV in Chattanooga, Tennessee. However, the Show Biz programs were seen on some stations well into the early 1980s.

Sports programming[edit]

Since 2006, channel 4 airs any Sunday Night Football games that involve the market's NFL team, the Tennessee Titans. The station also aired Nashville Predators games via NBC's broadcast contract with the NHL that lasted until 2021; this includes the team's appearance in the 2017 Stanley Cup Finals.


From 1987 until March 2002, WSMV-TV was the primary Nashville home to syndicated Southeastern Conference football and men's basketball games originating from Jefferson Pilot Sports, but sharing some broadcasts with WZTV (channel 17) from 1987 to 1990, and WXMT (channel 30, now MyNetworkTV affiliate WUXP) from 1990 onward.[16][17][18] All of those games moved to WUXP in 2002, and stayed with that station until 2009, when Raycom Sports lost the syndication rights to ESPN Regional Television. WUXP carried ESPN Plus-oriented SEC TV until 2014, when the SEC Network was launched.

Past programming preemptions and deferrals[edit]

In 1982, WSMV dropped the Tonight Show to air sitcom reruns such as Three's Company, Alice, Barney Miller, Family Ties, and Rosie. NBC was able to get the show on in Nashville on then-independent station (now Fox affiliate) WZTV. WSMV re-added The Tonight Show in January 1989.[19]


In early 2006, WSMV attracted some attention by becoming the largest NBC affiliate in terms of market size to refuse to carry the controversial NBC show The Book of Daniel on its schedule, after the premiere episode. This action, along with that of several smaller affiliates in the Midwest and South, as well as low ratings, prompted NBC to cancel the series after only three episodes.


On October 26, 2014, WSMV accidentally preempted parts of the first half of the Manchester UnitedChelsea Premier League match and instead aired Poppy Cat from the NBC Kids block. This triggered negative responses from social media.[20]

Technical information[edit]

Subchannels[edit]

The station's signal is multiplexed:

Out-of-market coverage[edit]

South-central Kentucky[edit]

For its first 50 years on the air, WSMV had been the default NBC affiliate of record for the Bowling Green media market in south-central Kentucky, since it did not have an NBC affiliate of its own, especially after Arbitron first assigned Bowling Green into its own media market in 1977 following the success and growth of that area's ABC affiliate (and now sister station) WBKO, which, until 1989, was the only commercial television station in the Bowling Green area at the time.[40] The station, as WSM-TV, once applied to set up a low-powered translator on the campus of Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green in 1968 as part of an arrangement with the University; it lasted a short time in the 1970s.[41][42] WSMV's historical monopoly in providing NBC programming for that area over-the-air and on local cable systems ended on March 27, 2001, when WKNT (channel 40, now WNKY) was forced to drop its Fox network affiliation due to that station's violation of the terms in its affiliation agreement.[43] Immediately after losing Fox, that station became an NBC affiliate[44] as it was renamed as WNKY, causing many Bowling Green area cable systems to drop WSMV. However, even after WNKY switched to NBC in 2001, WSMV remains on Mediacom cable systems serving the Morgantown (Butler County) and Brownsville (Edmonson County) areas.[45] The Glasgow Electric Plant Board also still carried WSMV and its associated subchannels on their lineup until WNKY claimed market exclusivity on that system in terms of NBC and CBS affiliates in late 2017.[46]


Mediacom also carries WSMV on its systems in Hart and Metcalfe Counties (including Munfordville and Edmonton, respectively).[47]

Western Kentucky[edit]

In addition to the station's cable coverage in south central Kentucky, WSMV-TV, and the other two "Big Three" stations are also carried in Murray, Kentucky, in the Paducah, KentuckyCape Girardeau, MissouriHarrisburg, Illinois media market, via Murray Electric Systems. WK&T Cable also carries both WSMV and WTVF on its cable lineup for its customers in Calloway County.[48] WSMV, along with WTVF, are also available to Mediacom's customers in Caldwell and Crittenden counties, respectively including the communities of Princeton and Marion, along with the village of Fredonia. All of those areas are also within the Paducah/Cape Girardeau market, which is the home market to fellow NBC affiliate WPSD-TV.


WSMV was also previously available in some southern areas of the Evansville, Indiana, media market, mainly including northwestern Kentucky towns such as Madisonville, Central City, Beaver Dam, and Owensboro and their corresponding counties. The Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer still lists WSMV on its TV listings page. Cable systems in those areas have since dropped the station making Evansville NBC affiliate and sister station WFIE the sole NBC affiliate on cable and over-the-air in those areas.

West Tennessee[edit]

WSMV, along with WMC-TV in Memphis, was historically carried on cable systems in the Jackson, Tennessee, market on the Jackson Energy Authority's EPlus Broadband system. In November 2014, WSMV was dropped from that cable system when WNBJ-LD (channel 39) signed on as that area's own NBC affiliate.[49] WNBJ replaced WSMV on JEA channel 4, with WMC-TV being left intact. In spite of the existence of WNBJ-LD in Jackson, WSMV remains on WK&T Telecom's cable system in Gibson County, in the northernmost area of the Jackson market.[50] WSMV is also still available on cable in Carroll County as well.

Huntsville/Northern Alabama[edit]

At sometime from 1957 until the 1980s, cable television systems in northern Alabama, including Knology (now Wide Open West) and TelePrompTer (later Group W Cable, now Comcast Xfinity), carried all of Nashville's Big Three stations, only to be dropped from those systems in the 1980s amid the gradual increase of the launches of new national cable channels.[51] The Nashville stations were once seen as far south as Decatur.

Official website

Huntsville Rewound-Huntsville AL TV Memories