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WTVY is the CBS-affiliated television station for the Wiregrass Region of Southeastern Alabama and the Florida Panhandle. Licensed to Dothan, Alabama, it broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 36 (or virtual channel 4.1) from a transmitter in Bethlehem, Florida. Owned by Gray Television, WTVY is sister to low-powered NBC affiliate WRGX-LD. The two outlets share studios on North Foster Street in Downtown Dothan. ==History== WTVY's first broadcast was on February 12, 1955, originally on channel 9, as a CBS affiliate. During the late-1950s, the station was also briefly affiliated with the NTA Film Network.〔 〕 In a massive reallocation of signals in Alabama and Georgia mandated by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to minimize signal interference, the station moved to channel 4 around 1960. At the time of the reallocation, WTVY also moved to new studios with a 1,209 ft (368.5 m) tower in Webb, five miles (8 km) east of Dothan. At the time, the tower was the tallest structure in the state of Alabama. WTVY-FM still utilizes the tower to transmit its signal. In the early-1970s, WTVY became one of the first stations in the country to broadcast 24 hours a day. In 1978, WTVY moved to its current 2,035 ft (ASL) tower in Bethlehem (28 miles/45 km southwest of Dothan). The tower is the tallest structure in the state of Florida and one of the tallest broadcasting towers in North America. The tower is so tall that on clear nights the strobe warning lights on the tower have been seen as far as 50 miles away in certain locations. The move was made in part to improve its signal in Panama City and along the Florida Gulf Coast, where it had been the default CBS affiliate since 1961. The new tower gave WTVY one of the largest coverage areas in the Southeastern United States. It provides at least grade B coverage as far east as the Florida side of the Mobile/Pensacola market (including Fort Walton Beach and Destin) and as far northwest as the fringes of the Montgomery market. In 1993, WTVY moved its studios to the historic Houston Hotel building in downtown Dothan (now known as the Woods Building) and operates on the first two floors. The news studio is actually located in what used to be the grand ballroom of the hotel. The building is tall enough (eight stories) that the station's studio-to-transmitter microwave dish is located on top of the building, not requiring a smaller tower to be built on the property. For many years Charles Woods, a perennial aspirant to the governorship of Alabama and occasional minor-party presidential candidate, owned WTVY through his Woods Communications. As such, it was a sister station to WCOV-TV in Montgomery for a time. The station ownership was transferred to Chemical Bank and operated under the corporate name of Dothan Holdings, LLC. Benedek Broadcasting bought WTVY from Chemical Bank/Dothan Holdings in 1995 for a price of $28 million. WTVY was one of the Benedek stations that was purchased by Gray Television in 2002. For much of its history, WTVY was the designated CBS affiliate for the Panama City market where Gray also owns that city's NBC affiliate, WJHG-TV. In exchange, WJHG had long been available in Dothan on cable since the area did not have its own NBC affiliate. In fact, WTVY's transmitter is located in the Panama City market even though it is only 28 miles from Dothan. This status ended on September 24, 2012 when Gray launched WECP-LD as a Panama City-based CBS affiliate. However, most cable systems in that market continued to carry WTVY in lieu of WECP until October when the latter replaced WTVY on area systems. Gray likewise launched WRGX-LD as a Dothan-based NBC affiliate on June 1, 2013 replacing WJHG and Montgomery's WSFA on area cable systems. 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「WTVY (TV)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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