WTIC-TV (channel 61) is a television station in Hartford, Connecticut, United States, serving the Hartford–New Haven market as an affiliate of the Fox network. It is owned by Tegna Inc. alongside Waterbury-licensed CW affiliate WCCT-TV (channel 20). The two stations share studios on Broad Street in downtown Hartford; WTIC-TV's transmitter is located on Rattlesnake Mountain in Farmington.

The station was established in 1984 as an independent station, securing the Fox affiliation at the network's launch in 1986. The affiliation gave the station ratings success and the backing to launch a local newscast. From 2000 to 2013, the station was co-owned with the Hartford Courant, which led to newsroom collaboration and a significant expansion of local news programming as well as legal cases and criticism of the cross-ownership of the newspaper and the TV station. Tegna acquired WTIC-TV in 2019 as the result of divestitures related to the merger of Tribune Media with Nexstar Media Group.

Even though ultra high frequency (UHF) channel 61 had been allotted to Hartford since the mid-1960s, it was still not used by a full-power TV station by the end of the 1970s. However, there had been some interest in the allocation. Under the name of Kappa Television Corporation, a man from Rowayton applied in 1965 for a construction permit. His proposed station, WUHF-TV, would have focused on local sports and news coverage. It was intended to launch in 1967, but Kappa was unable to raise the money to build the station in the face of increased costs for color television equipment. As a result, in late 1968, the firm filed to sell its permit to Evans Broadcasting Corporation, a business of Thomas Mellon Evans. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved the deal in April 1970, but Evans never went through with the purchase, and the permit was forfeited in 1971. There was also one group that stated its intention to file for the permit in 1973.

As the full-power allocation of channel 61 lay fallow, the FCC permitted its use by two translator stations during the 1970s. The first was established by Connecticut Public Television (CPTV), which built a translator to improve service to Waterbury in 1973. A second went on the air from Hartford in September 1980, rebroadcasting the programming of Spanish-language station WXTV in the New York City area.

The successful advent of subscription television (STV) in the late 1970s led a number of applicants to express their interest in channel 61 in Hartford. The first two groups to do so each had plans to introduce STV on their stations: Golden West Broadcasters, the Los Angeles-based media company owned by Gene Autry, and Hartford Television, a subsidiary of the fledgling Sinclair Broadcast Group.

A third company, Arch Communications, entered the bidding in November 1979. Arch was a locally based consortium headed by Arnold Chase, the 28-year-old son of developer David Chase, owner of WTIC AM-FM in Hartford. The minority partners included Edna N. Smith, a Hartford educator; Randall Pinkston, a reporter for Hartford's WFSB (channel 3); and James Grasso, son of Connecticut governor Ella T. Grasso. Arnold Chase had become smitten with independent TV after seeing the depiction of a news crew in the movie The China Syndrome. This consortium was joined by a fourth contender, The Great Hartford County Telecasting Corporation, which was associated with an owner of nursing homes and a man with television and real estate interests in Los Angeles.

The FCC designated these four applications, plus a fifth for a station to be located in nearby Middletown, for comparative hearing in August 1981. Two years later, the commission delivered its ruling and awarded the construction permit to Arch Communications in September 1983. Arch announced it would name its station WETG—in memory of Grasso, who had died in 1981—and laid out plans for an independent station, the market's second after WTXX-TV (channel 20), to begin broadcasting in June 1984. By this time, Pinkston had sold his shares in Arch back to the company. The station began to purchase syndicated programming to fill out its broadcast day, helping to raise prices that Connecticut stations paid for syndicated shows. A 1,339-foot (408 m) tower on Rattlesnake Mountain near Farmington was approved definitively in July 1984.

Less than two months before going to air, channel 61 made one more change. In December 1983, the FCC liberalized its rules around call signs. This allowed David Chase to grant his son permission—with an FCC waiver—to name the station WTIC-TV, allowing the new channel 61 to trade on the WTIC call letters' 60-year heritage in Connecticut. Arnold Chase had wanted to use the WTIC call letters for some time, knowing they would give his new station instant visibility and credibility. However, he had been unable to do so before the rule change. This made channel 61 the second station in Connecticut to bear the WTIC-TV call sign; it had previously been used on channel 3 from its sign-on in 1957 until its sale in 1974 required a rename. The station remained dedicated in Grasso's memory and would use images of Grasso at sign-on and sign-off. The station would also be housed in One Corporate Center, a building owned by David Chase also colloquially known as the "Stilts Building". Channel 61 was cleared by CPTV and by the WXTV translator, which moved to channel 47 in advance of WTIC-TV signing on and is today WUTH-CD.