WJHL-TV

WJHL-TV (channel 11) is a television station licensed to Johnson City, Tennessee, United States, serving the Tri-Cities area as an affiliate of CBS and ABC. The station is owned by Nexstar Media Group, and maintains studios on East Main Street in downtown Johnson City; its transmitter is located on Holston Mountain in the Cherokee National Forest.

WJHL-TV began broadcasting on October 27, 1953. It was owned by Hanes Lancaster Sr. and his son Hanes Jr., along with WJHL radio (910 AM, now WJCW; and FM 101.5, now WQUT).

Hanes Jr., who was the radio station's sales manager, foresaw the potential of television, and pushed hard for building a television counterpart to WJHL radio even in a time when few people in the area had sets. Hanes Sr. was skeptical, but Hanes Jr. lined up several potential investors and was ready to stake out on his own to build a television station. Ultimately, Hanes Sr. gave in and took the project under his wing. It would be the second time that the Lancasters had taken a gamble on broadcasting; Hanes Sr. had founded WJHL radio in 1938 at the suggestion of his friend, Jay Birdwell, after his auto parts distribution business failed.

The Lancasters applied for a license in 1948, only to be derailed by the nationwide license freeze that had been imposed a few months earlier. After a 4+1⁄2 year wait, they were granted a license in January 1953. Studios were set up in the former main Post Office building in downtown Johnson City; channel 11 is still based there today.

In the summer of 1953, WJHL-TV was on track to be the first television station to sign on in East Tennessee, projecting to begin operations on October 17. At the time, the station's original transmission tower was being constructed on Tannery Knob in downtown Johnson City. With just a few weeks before sign-on, the guy wires snapped, sending the 550-foot (170 m) tower and its antenna crashing to the ground, falling just three inches (8 cm) from the transmission equipment. Despite the damage, only two people were injured. This enabled WROL-TV in Knoxville (now WATE-TV) to beat WJHL-TV to the air by almost a month. Since many advertisers and banks were already skeptical about television's viability (the tower crash did not help), the Lancasters had to scramble for funding. They were able to get the station on the air more than a week later, but had to side-mount a much smaller replacement antenna on a wooden power pole the Johnson City Power Board installed at the last minute.

Originally, WJHL-TV was affiliated with all four television networks of the time—CBS, NBC, ABC, and DuMont. However, its primary affiliation has always been with CBS, due to that network's long-time affiliation with WJHL radio. In 1954, the WJHL-TV transmitter was relocated to Buffalo Mountain southwest of Johnson City, which is 1,200 feet (366 m) higher than Tannery Knob. From that location, the station was able to better reach Bristol, Kingsport and other areas of Eastern Tennessee, Southwestern Virginia, and Western North Carolina. Meanwhile, NBC moved to WCYB-TV on the Virginia side of Bristol when that station signed on in 1956. WJHL lost Dumont soon afterward when that network shut down. WJHL and WCYB shared ABC until 1969 when WKPT-TV in Kingsport signed on and became the market's ABC affiliate.

The Lancasters sold off their radio interests in 1960, and in turn sold WJHL-TV to Roy H. Park Broadcasting in 1964—earning a handsome return on their original investment from 26 years earlier. Around this time, the station adopted a logo featuring a U.S. highway sign with an "11" inside it, which remained in use until around 1987. The logo was already well known in the area, since alternate routes of US 11, US 11E and 11W, pass through most of the major cities and towns in the Tri-Cities. The shields were, and still are, quite prevalent in the area and became an instant promotional link for the station. Park Broadcasting was renamed Park Communications in the 1970s.

Hanes Lancaster, Jr. succeeded his father as station manager in 1954, and remained as station manager after the sale to Park. In 1989, Lancaster, Jr. was succeeded by Jack Dempsey, who held the post until June 2012, when he went to WCYB. Dan Cates was appointed General Manager of WJHL in August 2012, after being the news director of sister station WSPA-TV in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Many of its employees have stayed on for thirty years or more, which is unusual for what has always been a small market (it is currently the 93rd market, the smallest in the state with three full big three affiliates).