WZTV

WZTV (channel 17) is a television station in Nashville, Tennessee, United States, affiliated with Fox and The CW. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group alongside MyNetworkTV affiliate WUXP-TV (channel 30) as well as WNAB (channel 58), which Sinclair manages on behalf of Tennessee Broadcasting. The stations share studios on Mainstream Drive along the Cumberland River; WZTV's transmitter is located along I-24 in Whites Creek.

Channel 17 in Nashville was first activated in August 1968 as WMCV, owned by local consortium Music City Video. It was the first ultra high frequency (UHF) station in Nashville and its first independent station, but it was unable to sustain itself financially and left the air in March 1971. Two years later, it was sold at bankruptcy auction to radio executive Bob Hudson, who attempted to return channel 17 to air as WTLT. Had Hudson been able to resume service, channel 17 would have been the first Black-owned television station in the United States. However, an economic downturn prevented him from raising sufficient capital to begin operations, and it fell to Reel Broadcasting Corporation, owned by Robert K. Zelle, to put the station back on air as WZTV in March 1976. In 1980, Zelle sold WZTV to Multimedia, Inc., which used Nashville as a base to distribute country music-related TV series. WZTV also remained the market's leading independent despite competition from two new startups in the decade.

Act III Broadcasting acquired WZTV in 1988 and purchased the Fox affiliation for the Nashville market in 1990, moving it from WCAY-TV (channel 30), where it had been since the network's inception. Act III was purchased in 1995 and became Sullivan Broadcasting, during which time the station began airing a local newscast for the first time. Sinclair purchased the Sullivan stations, including WZTV, in 1998 and has continued to expand the station's local news programming. The CW programming moved to a subchannel of WZTV from WNAB in 2021.

On January 25, 1966, Music City Video, Inc., a consortium of local investors with connections to several local radio stations, applied to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for a construction permit to build a new TV station on channel 24 in Nashville. The application was spearheaded by Alven S. Ghertner, who proposed to build studios on land he owned that was occupied by a service station. At the time, Nashville had no independent station, nor did it have any stations in the ultra high frequency (UHF) band; the Music City Video station was intended to fill both voids with a heavy emphasis on live programming The FCC granted the permit application on July 7, 1966, by which time channel 24 had been switched to channel 17 because of a national overhaul of the UHF table of allocations.

WMCV was not built for another two years. In 1968, however, activity increased with the construction of studios and a transmitter facility on 38th Avenue North. There had been turnover in investors in the intervening years, with new investors including congressman Richard Fulton and secretary of state Joe C. Carr, but the station continued to promise a series of new local programs, including a dance show and professional wrestling produced in the studios. The station began broadcasting on August 5. WMCV owned a mobile production unit, the "Jolly Green Giant", which allowed it to produce the first regular local telecasts of high school basketball games. Channel 17 also brought viewers such local programs as auto racing from the Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway, interviews with visiting celebrity athletes on Celebrities and Sports, the first regular coverage of Tennessee State University and Fisk University sports, and all-night movies.

However, two and a half years after WMCV began telecasting, Music City Video entered into financial difficulties. It announced it would leave the air on March 14, 1971, for what it hoped would be a period of no longer than 90 days to reorganize or find new investors. Instead of finding new investors and returning to the air, it filed for bankruptcy protection in May 1971 and was adjudicated bankrupt in January 1973. A receiver was appointed and became the licensee.

On July 9, 1973, a bankruptcy court approved the sale of the WMCV license and some office furniture to the Hudson Broadcasting Corporation, a company owned by local radio executive Bob Hudson. The purchase held the prospect of ensuring the station's place in television history; if he put WMCV back on the air, it would be the first Black-owned television station in the United States. While Hudson promised to return channel 17 to use by January 1974 and later by June, the FCC did not approve the transaction until July 31, 1974, conditioning approval on a return to service within 90 days.

The call letters on the permit were changed to WTLT, for "Total Local Television", on September 6. Hudson had previously promised that the station would serve the entire community with a special emphasis on minority issues and also on training minorities for careers in broadcasting, later describing his program lineup as "60 percent Black-oriented, 40 percent other". Work also began on updating equipment, with color cameras being ordered to replace the black-and-white units that WMCV used. The studio also needed attention; when Hudson's team first entered, they found cigar and cigarette butts on the floor, coffee cups untouched since 1971, and a half-opened letter.