WTSP

Independent and ABC affiliation[edit]

The station first signed on the air on July 18, 1965, as WLCY-TV, becoming the fourth commercial television outlet in the Tampa Bay region in a 12-year timeframe, and the fifth overall. The station debuted a week and a half after^[2] the conclusion of a decade-long court battle between five prospective owners seeking the Channel 10 license, including the St. Petersburg Times.^[3] It was owned by Rahall Communications, along with WLCY radio (1380 AM, now WWMI; and 94.9 FM, now WWRM). The station was affiliated with ABC, but spent its first month and a half of operation as an independent station, as previous ABC affiliate WSUN-TV (channel 38; frequency now occupied by WTTA) went to court to keep the affiliation. The city of St. Petersburg, owners of WSUN-TV, had been one of the applicants for the Channel 10 license, having jumped in out of fear of losing its ABC affiliation. WLCY ultimately won and formally switched to ABC in a special ceremony on September 1, 1965. As a condition for being placed on VHF channel 10 instead of a UHF placement, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) required the station to produce 20 hours of public service programming each week. When WLCY landed the ABC affiliation, it finally gave the Tampa Bay Area market all three commercial television affiliates on the VHF dial alongside WFLA-TV (channel 8) and WTVT (channel 13), respective affiliates of NBC and CBS.


Until 1981, the station was licensed to Largo, north of St. Petersburg, but its studios have always been based in St. Petersburg. The station's first studio facilities were located at 2426 Central Avenue. Its current studios on Gandy Boulevard, originally known as the "Rahall Color Communications Center" were dedicated on October 15, 1968. In-studio broadcasts were fully in color by 1966, but field reports during the station's newscasts remained in black and white until 1972.


The station aired several local children's programs as Submarine 10, Romper Room with June Hurley, 10 Ultimate and This Side Up, and local talk shows such as Russ Byrd's Morning Show, The John Eastman Show, The Liz Richards Show and Murphy in the Morning. From 1966 to 1967, the station produced 10 á Go Go, a teen dance show hosted by WLCY-AM disc jockey Roy Nilson. Another early local program was a morning exercise show, The Fran Carlton Show. The most popular program on channel 10 during that era was the syndicated The Lawrence Welk Show. In the mid-1970s, the station aired Bowling for Dollars with host Jim Bradley.


In October 1971, WXLT (now WWSB, channel 40) signed on to provide ABC network programming to the Sarasota area as WLCY's signal was mediocre to poor in most of Sarasota County. WLCY's transmitter was located at 1754 Solar Drive in Holiday, an unincorporated community in the southwestern corner of Pasco County^[4] (where it would remain until 2011). Tampa Bay residents had to use a special VHF antenna that faced away from Riverview in order to view WLCY (this setup was called the "Tampa Bay Special"). Ratings for the station during the early to mid-1970s were dismal, however, compared to WTVT (channel 13) and WFLA-TV (channel 8) and, as a result, channel 10 nearly lost its ABC affiliation. Its transmitter location in Pasco County was the primary contributor to WLCY's low viewership (all of other stations serving the Tampa Bay area operated their transmitters in Riverview, in Hillsborough County). It also operated at a lower power than the other Tampa Bay stations.


In 1977, WLCY-TV was purchased by Dallas, Texas-based Gulf United Broadcasting. New owner Alan Henry (of WINS New York fame), general manager Larry Clamage, and news director George "Bud" Faulder began to turn the station around, changing the call letters to WTSP-TV on September 12, 1978, and hiring several new on-air staff members who changed the face of the station. In June 1979, WTSP began using a logo known as the "sunset 10" (which was later duplicated by its sister station KTSP in Phoenix, Arizona) along with the "Action News" format.


WTSP is also a station of firsts: in October 1979, the station acquired "Sky 10", Tampa Bay's first television news helicopter which was the only one to broadcast live aerial coverage of the aftermath of the infamous Skyway Bridge disaster in May 1980. Another technological advance was Tampa Bay's first satellite news truck called "Star 10" which was introduced in 1984, that beamed signals from distant locations to WTSP's Gandy Boulevard studios. WTSP also acquired Tampa Bay's first Doppler weather radar called "StormSeeker" in 1980, was one of the first television stations in the country to use a computer in weather forecasting called "WeatherEye" in 1979 and was the first station in the market to provide a seven-day forecast in 1992. The station pioneered the use of satellite technology among local television stations in the United States, deploying its own satellite dish in 1979.


In 1979, the station launched an aggressive marketing campaign, and in April of that year, the station built a taller transmission tower, improving the station's broadcast signal. By 1982, WTSP had passed WFLA in the evening news ratings where it remained until the latter part of the decade. WTSP has won many prestigious awards, including the George Foster Peabody award in 1983. Taft Broadcasting (soon to be rebranded Taft Television and Radio) purchased the station along with four other Gulf properties in 1985. Then, in 1988 after a hostile takeover, Taft Television and Radio was forced to sell its independent stations and Fox affiliates to TVX Broadcast Group, while Taft's remaining network affiliate properties, including WTSP, became part of the restructured Great American Broadcasting (which became known as Citicasters by 1995).