WUTB

WUTB

Baltimore, Maryland
Branding	My 24
Slogan	Very Local. Very Baltimore.
Channels	Digital: 41 (UHF)
Affiliations	MyNetworkTV
Owner	Fox Television Stations
First air date	December 24, 1985
Call letters' meaning	United (or UHF) Television Baltimore (former owners)
Sister station(s)	WTTG WDCA
Former callsigns	WKJL-TV (1985-1987) WHSW (1987-1992) WHSW-TV (1992-1998)
Former channel number(s)	Analog: 24 (UHF, 1985-2009)
Former affiliations	religious independent (1985-1987) HSN (1987-1998) UPN (1998-2006)
Transmitter power	290 kW
Height	313 m
Facility ID	60552
Transmitter coordinates	39°17′15″N 76°45′38″W
Website	my24wutb.com

WUTB, digital channel 41, is the MyNetworkTV owned-and-operated television station for Baltimore, Maryland. Its transmitter is located near Gilson Park in Catonsville. The station has studios on Seton Drive in Baltimore near the city and county line. Syndicated programming on WUTB includes: The Big Bang Theory, Two and a Half Men, Everybody Loves Raymond, The Office, My Name Is Earl, Divorce Court, and Judge Alex. It is the only Fox-owned MyNetworkTV affiliate not part of any Fox / MyNetworkTV duopoly. In other words, it is the only standalone MyNetworkTV station under network ownership. The station is one of two network owned-and-operated stations in Baltimore alongside CBS affiliate WJZ-TV.

History

On March 1, 1967, WMET-TV began broadcasting on channel 24 as the first UHF signal in Baltimore touted as "Baltimore's fourth television station" in the Baltimore Evening Sun on March 3. It was a low-budget and low-powered station that was sister to WFAN in Washington, D.C. Both stations were owned by United Broadcasting (which is unrelated to the United Television that was owned by Chris-Craft Industries that later owned channel 24). The original channel 24 was headquarted in the former Avalon Theatre on Park Heights Avenue. In 1972, both stations ceased broadcasting due to financial difficulties.

A new channel 24, Christian station WKJL-TV (owned by Family Broadcast Group) launched on December 24, 1985. The call letters stood for Where the Kingdom of Jesus Lives. Initially, the station was on the air about 8 hours a day with religious shows.

In early-1986, the station expanded to an 18-hour broadcast day featuring 6 hours of religious programming and 12 hours of family entertainment. The station began broadcasting 24 hours a day in June 1986 airing programming from the Home Shopping Network overnight. HSN announced its purchase of the station in September 1986. By November, the station aired HSN programming about 15 hours a day. The sale to HSN was finalized on January 23, 1987. It then began running HSN programming 24 hours a day and changed its call letters to WHSW. In January 1998, WNUV dropped UPN in favor of The WB so Chris-Craft Industries (co-owner of UPN) bought channel 24 to make it a network owned-and operated-station. On January 20, the call letters were changed to the current "WUTB". Chris-Craft ran the station out of WWOR-TV's facilities in Secaucus, New Jersey and fed the station to its transmitter site in Baltimore. On September 11, 2001, WUTB aired WWOR's local news coverage of the terrorist attacks.

On July 25, 2001, Fox Television Stations purchased Chris-Craft's stations including WUTB. It was rumored in November 2002 that the station would become a Fox affiliate but WBFF made a deal to keep its affiliation with that network. On January 24, 2006, The WB and UPN announced that they would cease broadcasting and merge to create a new network. The new combined network would be called The CW. The letters would represent the first initial of its corporate parents: CBS (the parent company of UPN) and the Warner Bros. unit of Time Warner. WUTB immediately dropped its "UPN 24" branding and became known on-air as "WUTB 24". Similar changes were made to Fox's other UPN affiliates including its nearby sister station WDCA in Washington D.C.

The CW announcement again touched off speculation that Fox would pull affiliation from WBFF and move it to WUTB. On February 22, News Corporation announced that it would start up another new broadcast television network called MyNetworkTV. This new network, which would be sister to Fox, would be operated by Fox Television Stations and its syndication division, Twentieth Television. MyNetworkTV was created in order to give UPN and WB stations, not mentioned as becoming CW affiliates, another option besides becoming independent. It was also created to compete against The CW. It was later announced that WNUV would become Baltimore's CW affiliate with WUTB joining MyNetworkTV. On August 11, WUTB adopted the standard MyNetworkTV logo and gradually rebranded itself as "My 24". It began broadcasting MyNetworkTV on September 5. WNUV began broadcasting The CW on September 18, 2006.

Digital television

WUTB shut down its analog signal on June 12, 2009, as part of the DTV transition in the United States. The station remained on its pre-transition channel 41, using PSIP to display WUTB's virtual channel as 24.

Newscasts

On September 4, 2006, sister station and Fox affiliate WTTG began simulcasting its weekday morning and 10 p.m. newscasts on WUTB. Known on-air as My 24 News, there was a "My 24 News" network bug seen in the bottom left hand corner of the screen. The higher-ups at both stations cited the decision to simulcast as a by-product of cross-regional news interests and increasing overlap between the Baltimore and Washington media markets. During the 2006 MLB postseason, WTTG's 10 p.m. newscast aired on Washington, D.C.'s MyNetworkTV affiliate WDCA under the name Fox 5 News at 10 Special Edition while continung to be simulcasted on WUTB. The same occurred in 2007, but the newscast was known as My 20 News at 10. When Fox Sports or other programming delayed the 10 p.m. newscast from airing on WTTG, it was still produced for WUTB. The station dropped the morning news simulcast after the November 30, 2007 edition and the 10 o'clock simulcast was discontinued by January 2008. It cited low ratings as a reason for an end to the simulcasts. However, many viewers who commute to the Washington area have expressed a desire to see the simulcasts restored.

External links

• WUTB website
• WTTG website
• Query the FCC's TV station database for WUTB