Technical Profile: WKRG-DT

TV Technical Profile: WKRG

Channel:: 20
Programming:: 5.1 - CBS; 5.2 - ION television; 5.3 - Memorable Entertainment Television
5.4 - Court TV
55.1 - The CW
Transmitter Location:: [map] Northeast of Spanish Fort. North of the intersections of Coleman Lane and Jessie Road with US-31 in Baldwin County. Co-located with several FMs: WMXC, WABD, WHIL and WRKH.
Power (ERP):: 961 kW
Height Above Average Terrain (HAAT):: 1,896 feet (CP)
Antenna:: Directional
Other Information:: 41 dBu protected contour map, from the FCC. (OSM Link); Owned by Nexstar Media Group, Inc.; [FCC]
[FCCdata]
[RabbitEars]; [Wikipedia]
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[Screenshot] Image of the notice regarding the discontinuation of the weather radar on the -.2 subchannel, from 29 October 2015.
[Studio] Street View imagery of the WKRG TV (and iHeart Radio) studios on Broadcast Drive.
[Image] Street View imagery of the iconic WKRG sign on the microwave tower behind the studios.
[Image] Image of the WKRG TV towers in Spanish Fort. The old one is on the right, in red and white; the newer and taller one is visible on the left.
[Photo Sphere] Google 360° imagery of the studio as it looked as of September 2015.
[Information] Highlights from a Mobile Press-Register article from 1990 titled, “WKRG Stays On The Cutting Edge”, from the News and Information About Television and Radio in Southwest Alabama website.
[Article] WKRG News article on the demolition of the station's 70 year old, 1,000 foot old broadcast tower in Spanish Fort in January 2022.
History:: This station dates back to an original construction permit filed in 1951 by Kenneth R. Giddens and T. J. Rester (as Giddens and Rester) for a new television station on RF channel 5 to be WKRG-TV. The original application was for just 1.59 kW of visual power, from a transmitter located at the same site as WKRG AM and FM transmitters off Telegraph Road, just north of downtown Mobile. Less than a year later, the application was modified to put the transmitter site .58 miles west of the intersection of Cottage Hill Road and Azalea Road, on the north side of Cottage Hill Road. The antenna height above terrain was listed as 520 feet. They also sought to bump power to the full 100 kW visual power allowed by law. The original studio location was listed as 150 St. Louis Street in downtown Mobile in what was once a gas station. They also changed the licensee name to WKRG-TV, Inc. The transmitter (eventually) listed on the application was a GE TT-22-A. The Mobile Press-Register was a co-partner with Giddens in owning the license.

The application wasn't granted until March of 1955. By then was quickly getting ready to make initial broadcasts, and by Labor Day — 5 September 1955 — the station debuted on air with a movie titled Park Row. From the beginning, it's been a CBS affiliate, and was built from the beginning with the ability to pass color TV programming, despite the lack of capable televisions at the time. It wasn't until well after they were on the air that a license to cover for the fully-built facility was granted in October 1956.

The year 1956 was not just the "official" beginning of the station, however. That summer they had already filed a modification to increase the station's coverage by moving the transmitter site to Spanish Fort in Baldwin County. The initial chosen location was 0.8 miles east of the intersection of US-31 and US-90, which would have put the prospective 1,080 foot tower near the area of the present-day Spanish Fort Baseball Fields. In 1957 that was changed again, this time to a site 5.1 miles east of that highway junction. It would be that location where the station would construct an approximately 1,000 foot tall tower, for which a license to cover was filed in February 1958.

The station acquired its first tape machine in the early 1960's, which allowed it to time shift the national news programming to a later slot while local news aired. The station would convert to full color operation in 1965, meaning they could not only pass network color programs but also originate color programs in the studio locally. The station would later convert from film to all video tape for local production.

In the 1970's, the FCC would eliminate the ability for one company to own an AM, FM and TV in one market. However, WKRG was grandfathered in and allowed to remain as-is.

The studios would move to their current location behind Bel Air Mall (at the corner of Television Avenue and Broadcast Drive) in 1981. The three story building was 55,000 square feet and "state of the art" according to an article in the Press-Register written in 1991 (see link, above). Some time in either 1984 or 1985 the station would move to its current 2,000 foot tall tower on the same property as the old shorter tower. This would allow the station to reach significantly more people in Mobile and Baldwin Counties in Alabama and Escambia County, Florida.

The Giddens family retained ownership of all three properties until the mid-90's, when they first sold off the radio stations. When the TV station was sold to Spartan Broadcasting Company in 1998, WKRG-TV was the only remaining VHF station in a top 60 market still locally owned and not part of some big corporate group. In the late 90's, the Spring Hill Collage public radio station WHIL was able to relocate the transmitter site from the campus in Mobile to the old WKRG-TV tower. It would remain there until the old tower was demolished in early 2022.

The station was granted a digital companion channel in 1999, on RF 25. A license to cover for that facility would not be filed until 2005.

In 2008, the station added its first subchannel, carrying the Retro Television Network.

The FCC would eventually sunset all full power analog broadcasts, but allowed some stations to go off the air earlier if they wanted. WKRG elected to keep their analog signal active until the final deadline day of 12 June 2009.; The station announced in the summer of 2011 the intent to pick up METV (Memorable Entertainment TV) in late September; it replaced Retro TV on 5.3 on 26 September 2011. The station announced plans to drop its long-running weather radar/forecast subchannel on 5.2 in late October for the ION television network; the change was expected to occur over the Halloween weekend, but it happened early on 2 November 2015 instead. The station added Laff TV to the -.4 subchannel in October 2017, despite it already being carried on WALA-DT.

The station received a permit in July 2017 to relocate from RF channel 27 to 20 as part of the FCC repacking process.

The station was slated to pick up the newly-relaunched Court TV in May 2019, replacing Laff on the —.4 subchannel.

The station was granted a Special Temporary Authority in August 2019 to operate with a lower-than-normal antenna height while work is done on the tower in relation to the TV repacking process. It moved to its post-repack RF channel 20 allocation on 6 September 2019. The station announced in the summer of 2020 the need to re-scan for over-the-air viewers, first a date in August, then 22 September 2020. It was pushed back again, due to Hurricane Sally, to 21 October 2020. On that date, the station added a subchannel from sister station WFNA, while that channel began broadcasting in ATSC 3.0.

In 2022, the station demolished its old 1,000 foot tower (see article link, above).