Early years In January 1976, the Commercial Radio Institute (CRI) of
Baltimore announced its intention to file for channel 28. It chose Columbus after passing on prospects in
Boston and
Louisville, Kentucky. Shortly after, a second application was received by Christian Voice of Central Ohio, owner of Christian radio station
WCVO (104.9 FM) in
Gahanna, which proposed a religious and family-friendly outlet in contrast to the more traditional
independent station format contemplated by the Commercial Radio Institute. FCC administrative law judge David Kraushaar ruled in favor of the Commercial Radio Institute application in October 1979 because Christian Voice of Central Ohio already owned a station in the market. Christian Voice appealed, expressing a desire to sell WCVO if necessary to obtain channel 28. It was unsuccessful in overturning the initial decision at the FCC's review board and with the
United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Construction on the station, dubbed WTTE, finally began to move ahead in 1983 after the company secured revenue bonds from
Franklin County; work to add channel 28 to WOSU-TV's tower began. However, WTTE was bogged down by continual delays. By October, the station was still months away from air, even though CRI had secured a studio site at 6130 Sunbury Road. Wet weather left the tower site muddy and made it impossible to maneuver heavy equipment, leading the station to scrap an April 1984 planned sign-on. WTTE began broadcasting on June 1, 1984. It was CRI's third station after independent outlets in Baltimore (
WBFF) and
Pittsburgh (
WPTT-TV). Its format—children's shows, reruns, movies, and religious programs—was familiar to those used to independent stations elsewhere in the country but not so much in Columbus. It also provided an outlet for programming that the local network affiliates passed up, including sporting events not aired by
NBC affiliate
WCMH-TV (channel 4) and
ABC station WTVN-TV (channel 6, now sister station WSYX). WTTE joined the
Fox network at its launch in October 1986. That same year, the Commercial Radio Institute broadcasting division took the name
Sinclair Broadcast Group. As early as 1989, WTTE officials floated the possibility of airing a 10 p.m. newscast, either by setting up an in-house news department or by partnering with another station. In 1990, general manager Mike Quigley told
Columbus Business First that the station was targeting 1991 to debut such a newscast on weeknights, though the $2 million start-up costs had resulted in delays to the plan. A newscast continued to be discussed by Quigley for years. When WCMH-TV debuted a 10 p.m. newscast production on
WWHO (channel 53) in 1994, observers believed it had been hurried to air to spoil a pending joint venture between WTTE and
CBS affiliate
WBNS-TV (channel 10), the market's leading local news station. WTTE became a secondary affiliate of
UPN when the network launched in January 1995. UPN programs aired in alternative time slots to not conflict with Fox shows. Where UPN shows aired on Monday and Tuesday nights in the network's first year, WTTE presented the network on Saturday and Sunday. This arrangement ended in January 1998 after WWHO was sold to
Paramount Stations Group, the network's
owned-and-operated stations division, and added UPN programming to its
WB affiliation.
Consolidation with WSYX and newscasts " is displayed on the bottom row of the front monument sign, signifying the owner of WTTE's license assets. In 1996, Sinclair Broadcast Group announced the purchase of
St. Louis–based
River City Broadcasting, which in Columbus owned ABC affiliate WSYX. The deal was soon amended at the behest of federal regulators to omit WSYX, which Sinclair had originally planned to control under a
local marketing agreement. In spite of Sinclair not immediately buying WSYX, the station became very important to WTTE. On September 16, 1996, WSYX began producing a newscast for WTTE,
Fox News at 10, from its studios. The arrangement was similar to one adopted by Sinclair-owned Fox affiliate
WDKY-TV in
Lexington, Kentucky, the year prior. It was anchored by Lorene Wagner, a former reporter and anchor for WSYX and WBNS-TV. While it had a dedicated set and news anchors, it drew on WSYX for weather and sports personalities.
Fox News at 10 made a strong showing, quickly eclipsing the WCMH-TV–produced WWHO newscast in the ratings. The WWHO news was canceled in October 1997, leaving WTTE with the only 10 p.m. news program in Columbus. The
U.S. Department of Justice approved Sinclair to acquire WSYX's non-license assets, including its facilities and personnel, in 1998. Sinclair then exercised its option to buy the WSYX license and sold the WTTE license to
Glencairn, Ltd. for $2.3 million. The deals triggered the consolidation of the two stations in WSYX's facilities and under WSYX's general manager; Wagner moved to WSYX's evening newscasts and was replaced on WTTE by
Kirstin Cole, a WSYX reporter and weekend anchor.
Fox News at 10 was expanded to a full hour later in 1998. Local newscasts from both stations were combined under the umbrella brand
NewsCenter in September 1999. when its intellectual property moved to WSYX 6.3. In April 2000, WWHO dropped
Kids' WB programming entirely; it downgraded its WB affiliation to essentially secondary status in order to air UPN programming in pattern, though it continued to air all WB prime time shows. While WTTE could not pick up the entire children's lineup because of its own
Fox Kids offering, weekday airings of
the Pokémon anime were added to WTTE's schedule under agreement with The WB. The
NewsCenter partnership extended to morning news beginning in August 2000, when WTTE debuted a 7 a.m. extension of WSYX's morning newscast. An 8 a.m. hour was added in 2005, bringing the stations' total morning news output to four hours. In 2005, WTTE became the home of
Ohio Lottery drawings under an agreement that saw the lottery pay less than it had been to WBNS-TV. By this time, WTTE's 10 p.m. newscast was the highest-rated news program on either station. In May 2014, WTTE was the highest-rated Fox affiliate in prime time in the United States, and its 10 p.m. newscast had twice as many viewers as WSYX at 11 p.m.
Move of Fox to WSYX subchannel On January 1, 2021, Sinclair quietly sent a letter to cable and satellite providers saying that it had consolidated the Fox affiliations of stations in five markets where it had been on a station operated via an LMA onto Sinclair-owned stations, putting those affiliations directly in Sinclair's control. WTTE was one of the affected stations. While most markets transitioned on that day, the transition of WTTE–Fox's programming schedule onto WSYX's spectrum took place on January 7, the day WWHO-TV became the market's
ATSC 3.0 lighthouse station. On that date, Fox 28 moved to WSYX 6.3. It was broadcast from both WSYX and WTTE until February 3, when WTTE's main signal switched to the Sinclair-owned
TBD network. ==Technical information==