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WTAT-TV is the Fox-affiliated television station for South Carolina's Lowcountry that is licensed to Charleston. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 24 from a transmitter in unincorporated Charleston County near Woodville. Owned by Cunningham Broadcasting, WTAT is operated through a local marketing agreement (LMA) by the Sinclair Broadcast Group. This makes it a sister station to MyNetworkTV and ABC affiliate WCIV although Sinclair effectively owns WTAT due to Cunningham's ownership structure. The two outlets share studios on Arco Lane in North Charleston (with a Charleston postal address). ==History== The station began operations on September 7, 1985 as Charleston's first Independent outlet under the ownership of Act III Broadcasting. It aired an analog signal on UHF channel 24 from a transmitter near Woodville. A local group originally held its construction permit but sold it to Act III before the station went on-the-air. On October 6, 1986 as part of a corporate deal between Act III and News Corporation, it became a charter affiliate of the fledgling Fox network. It should be noted, however, that WTAT would have been the obvious choice as Charleston's Fox affiliate even without the Act III affiliation deal, as it was the area's only general-entertainment independent station at the time. Abry Communications bought the Act III group in early 1994. Abry merged with Sinclair later that year, but WTAT and WRGT-TV in Dayton, Ohio were sold to Sullivan Broadcasting in compliance with Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ownership limits of the time. Sullivan, in turn, outsourced the operation of its entire station group (including WTAT) back to Sinclair. In 1995, WTAT picked up UPN as a secondary affiliate until 1997 when former WB affiliate WMMP joined the UPN network. By the time Sinclair tried to acquire Sullivan's stations outright in 2001, it already owned WMMP, which it had purchased outright from Max Media Properties (a company partially related to the present-day Max Media) in July 1998. Sinclair could not legally keep both WTAT and WMMP because Charleston has only six full-power stations--too few to legally permit a duopoly. Although WTAT was longer-established, Sinclair opted to keep WMMP and sold WTAT to Glencairn, Ltd. That company was owned by Edwin Edwards, a former Sinclair executive, and appeared to be a minority-owned company. However, nearly all of Glencairn's stock was controlled by the Smith family, founders of Sinclair. In effect, Sinclair now had a duopoly in the Charleston market in violation of FCC regulations. Glencairn and Sinclair further circumvented the rules by crafting a local marketing agreement with WMMP as the senior partner, allowing Sinclair to continue operating WTAT. In 2001, the FCC fined Sinclair $40,000 for illegally controlling Glencairn. Later that year, this was renamed Cunningham Broadcasting. However, nearly all of Cunningham's stock is still controlled by trusts in the names of the children of the Smith brothers. Then as now, all of Cunningham's stations are located in markets where Sinclair cannot legally form a duopoly, and are operated by Sinclair stations via LMAs. Glencairn, and later Cunningham, have been accused of serving as a shell corporation that allows Sinclair to circumvent FCC ownership rules. On May 15, 2012, Sinclair and Fox agreed to a five-year extension of the network's affiliation agreement with Sinclair's 19 Fox stations, including WTAT, allowing them to continue carrying Fox programming until at least 2017.〔(Sinclair Reups With Fox, Gets WUTB Option ), ''TVNewsCheck'', May 15, 2012.〕 On March 20, 2014, as part of a restructuring of Sinclair's August 2013 deal to purchase Allbritton Communications (owner of ABC affiliate WCIV, channel 4) in order to address ownership conflicts with the deal involving WMMP's local marketing agreement with WTAT, Sinclair announced that it would terminate the shared services agreement with Cunningham Broadcasting (which would make WTAT the first Cunningham station in which Sinclair does not hold any operational interest). Cunningham, which would acquire the non-license assets of WTAT, will seek a shared services agreement with the prospective owner of WMMP, which Sinclair will sell in order to receive approval of its purchase of WCIV.〔(Sinclair Offers to Sell Stations Ahead of FCC Decision ), ''TVSpy'', March 21, 2014.〕〔(Sinclair Proposes Restructuring Of Allbritton Transaction In Order To Meet Objections Of The Federal Communications Commission ), ''The Wall Street Journal'' (via PRNewswire), March 20, 2014.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「WTAT-TV」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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