WAPT

WAPT (channel 16) is a television station in Jackson, Mississippi, United States, affiliated with ABC. The station is owned by Hearst Television and maintains studios and transmitter facilities on Channel 16 Way (off MS 18) in southwest Jackson.

WAPT was the third commercial station in Jackson. It signed on in October 1970 and was owned by Jackson-based insurer American Public Life Insurance Company. Under several owners, it had generally been the third-rated station for local news in the market, a historic position attributable to its late entrance and smaller coverage area in the 1970s and 1980s. Argyle Television acquired WAPT in 1995, then proceeded to merge with Hearst in 1997. The station has become more competitive in local news under Hearst ownership.

In 1965, two groups sought Jackson's channel 16 allocation: John MacLendon, owner of Jackson radio station WOKJ and a station in Birmingham, Alabama, and an affiliate of American Public Life Insurance Company, a Jackson-based insurer. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) designated the applications for consideration in the same comparative hearing case, and in October, the two merged their applications. At the time, it was stated that channel 16 would begin broadcasting in the fall of 1967. By March 1969, American Public Life had announced in its 1968 annual report to shareholders that construction activities were underway and the station, dubbed WAPT, was negotiating with ABC for affiliation. However, that November, MacLendon died of a heart attack in a Miami hospital; he had fallen ill on a business trip to Central America. American Public Life Insurance Company then acquired MacLendon's 50-percent share from his estate.

On September 1, 1970, the two commercial stations in Jackson, NBC affiliate WLBT and CBS affiliate WJTV, ceased airing ABC programming. However, WAPT was not ready to go on the air; a strike at the RCA factory in Camden, New Jersey, delayed the delivery of its antenna. WAPT began broadcasting on October 3, 1970; a football game between Ole Miss and Alabama was carried that day by WJTV and WAPT, as WJTV had been a backup plan if channel 16 could not start in time. Its arrival brought full three-network service to Jackson: Tom Dupree of The Clarion-Ledger hailed the station for "eliminating the biggest headache which has plagued Jackson since the first TV was plugged in".

American Public Life Insurance Company sold WAPT in 1976 to a consortium of six professional and business investors, known as Television America Sixteen, for $500,000 and the assumption of another $3 million in liabilities; at the same time, its board chairman sold his interest in WRBT-TV in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Three years later, Clay Broadcasting of Charleston, West Virginia, acquired WAPT for $7.5 million from the group, promising improvements in the news department, which continued to badly lag even though ABC was the number-one network at the time. Clay sought to update WAPT's equipment and expand the staff of the station.

Price Communications acquired Clay's four-station group in 1987 for $60 million after Clay began soliciting bids for the company's holdings; Price acquired the TV stations, while Thomson Newspapers acquired its print publications. Two years later, Price executive Dick Appleton led a management buyout of part of the company, paying $120 million for four Price stations, including WAPT; the new ownership was named Northstar Television Group. For a time in 1991, Appleton traveled to Jackson to run the station directly, relieving the general manager, who was recovering from brain surgery. He then fired the news director and told a newspaper reporter that WAPT was the "sick kid" in his station group.

WAPT was one of 57 stations that declined to carry NYPD Blue when it debuted in September 1993; the show's language, nudity, and violence led all five of the state's ABC affiliates to decline to air the program at the outset. The station reversed its stance in January 1995, with general manager Stuart Kellogg citing changes made by ABC.

Argyle Television II acquired three of the four Northstar stations in a deal announced in September 1994 and consummated in January 1995. The company was made up of investors who had sold the original Argyle Television group to New World Communications. In August 1997, Argyle merged with the Hearst Corporation's broadcasting unit to form what was then known as Hearst-Argyle Television. The name continued until 2009, when the Hearst Corporation acquired Argyle's stake in the venture, took it private, and renamed it Hearst Television.