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WEMT
WEMT (channel 39) is a television station licensed to Greeneville, Tennessee, United States, serving as the Fox affiliate for the Tri-Cities area. It is owned by Cunningham Broadcasting, which maintains a local marketing agreement (LMA) with Sinclair Broadcast Group, owner of Bristol, Virginia–licensed dual NBC/CW affiliate WCYB-TV (channel 5), for the provision of certain services. The two stations share studios on Lee Street on the Virginia side of Bristol (straddling the Virginia–Tennessee line); WEMT's transmitter is located at Rye Patch Knob on Holston Mountain in the Cherokee National Forest.
Channel 39 began in November 1985 as WETO ("East Tennessee's Own"), the market's first independent station, under local ownership and with studios and offices in Greeneville. WETO affiliated with Fox the next year. The undercapitalized local owners sold the station in 1989 to MT Communications, which changed the call letters to WEMT. The station was sold again in 1992; it moved its studios to Johnson City, Tennessee. In 2006, then-WCYB-TV owner BlueStone Television acquired the station's non-license assets, while another group purchased the license; WCYB-TV has operated WEMT ever since under three different group owners. The WCYB newsroom produces a 10 p.m. newscast for WEMT.
Medium Rare Inc., a company headed by Greeneville men Jay Austin and Robert Lochte, filed on October 20, 1982, for a construction permit to build a station on channel 39 in Greeneville. The Federal Communications Commission granted the permit on May 25, 1983; Medium Rare then sold WMGL, an FM radio station it owned in Pulaski, Tennessee.
WETO ("East Tennessee's Own") announced its forthcoming existence in March 1985; the station would have a general-entertainment independent format and studios in a Greeneville industrial park. The antenna, on a tower on Camp Creek Bald of Viking Mountain near Greeneville, was installed in September. The station, which began broadcasting on November 4, 1985, represented a $1.6 million investment for the owners.
WETO affiliated with Fox when the network launched in 1986. This made it the closest Fox affiliate to Knoxville, where it took a year for WKCH-TV to link up with the network.
As a business, WETO-TV suffered for several years. Undercapitalized from the start, Austin and Lochte failed to anticipate a surge in programming costs or changes in federal rules affecting cable systems. At first, East Tennessee's Own Inc. (the former Medium Rare) reached a deal in October 1988 to sell the station to MT Communications of Los Angeles, with most of the purchase price in assumption of debt. The original MT deal never took place, and in the meantime, the station was sued for failing to pay ASCAP dues and thereby broadcasting copyrighted music, including the theme to the Fox series Duet, without permission.
On July 7, 1989, WETO and its assets were put up for public auction. The original winning bid of $1.9 million came from Elvin Feltner and his company, Krypton Broadcasting. When Krypton failed to put together financing for the deal, MT Communications won the auction with its bid of $1.85 million.
MT Communications took over on November 15, 1989, and changed the call sign to WEMT on December 1. This call sign change coincided with similar moves at its Fox affiliates in Memphis (WMKW-TV to WLMT) and Nashville (WCAY-TV to WXMT). MT Communications also acquired WJWT, a struggling Fox affiliate in Jackson, and converted it to a semi-satellite of WLMT with local advertising that December; it became WMTU in January 1990. While revenues at WEMT increased 130 percent in 1990 and another 35 percent in 1991, the MT stations in Memphis and Nashville lost their Fox affiliations in 1990.
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WEMT
WEMT (channel 39) is a television station licensed to Greeneville, Tennessee, United States, serving as the Fox affiliate for the Tri-Cities area. It is owned by Cunningham Broadcasting, which maintains a local marketing agreement (LMA) with Sinclair Broadcast Group, owner of Bristol, Virginia–licensed dual NBC/CW affiliate WCYB-TV (channel 5), for the provision of certain services. The two stations share studios on Lee Street on the Virginia side of Bristol (straddling the Virginia–Tennessee line); WEMT's transmitter is located at Rye Patch Knob on Holston Mountain in the Cherokee National Forest.
Channel 39 began in November 1985 as WETO ("East Tennessee's Own"), the market's first independent station, under local ownership and with studios and offices in Greeneville. WETO affiliated with Fox the next year. The undercapitalized local owners sold the station in 1989 to MT Communications, which changed the call letters to WEMT. The station was sold again in 1992; it moved its studios to Johnson City, Tennessee. In 2006, then-WCYB-TV owner BlueStone Television acquired the station's non-license assets, while another group purchased the license; WCYB-TV has operated WEMT ever since under three different group owners. The WCYB newsroom produces a 10 p.m. newscast for WEMT.
Medium Rare Inc., a company headed by Greeneville men Jay Austin and Robert Lochte, filed on October 20, 1982, for a construction permit to build a station on channel 39 in Greeneville. The Federal Communications Commission granted the permit on May 25, 1983; Medium Rare then sold WMGL, an FM radio station it owned in Pulaski, Tennessee.
WETO ("East Tennessee's Own") announced its forthcoming existence in March 1985; the station would have a general-entertainment independent format and studios in a Greeneville industrial park. The antenna, on a tower on Camp Creek Bald of Viking Mountain near Greeneville, was installed in September. The station, which began broadcasting on November 4, 1985, represented a $1.6 million investment for the owners.
WETO affiliated with Fox when the network launched in 1986. This made it the closest Fox affiliate to Knoxville, where it took a year for WKCH-TV to link up with the network.
As a business, WETO-TV suffered for several years. Undercapitalized from the start, Austin and Lochte failed to anticipate a surge in programming costs or changes in federal rules affecting cable systems. At first, East Tennessee's Own Inc. (the former Medium Rare) reached a deal in October 1988 to sell the station to MT Communications of Los Angeles, with most of the purchase price in assumption of debt. The original MT deal never took place, and in the meantime, the station was sued for failing to pay ASCAP dues and thereby broadcasting copyrighted music, including the theme to the Fox series Duet, without permission.
On July 7, 1989, WETO and its assets were put up for public auction. The original winning bid of $1.9 million came from Elvin Feltner and his company, Krypton Broadcasting. When Krypton failed to put together financing for the deal, MT Communications won the auction with its bid of $1.85 million.
MT Communications took over on November 15, 1989, and changed the call sign to WEMT on December 1. This call sign change coincided with similar moves at its Fox affiliates in Memphis (WMKW-TV to WLMT) and Nashville (WCAY-TV to WXMT). MT Communications also acquired WJWT, a struggling Fox affiliate in Jackson, and converted it to a semi-satellite of WLMT with local advertising that December; it became WMTU in January 1990. While revenues at WEMT increased 130 percent in 1990 and another 35 percent in 1991, the MT stations in Memphis and Nashville lost their Fox affiliations in 1990.