WATE-TV

Channel 6 was East Tennessee's first television station, signing on the air at 8 p.m. on October 1, 1953, as WROL-TV. The race to be the first television station in the eastern part of the state was won by WROL-TV when the 300-foot (91 m) tower of WJHL-TV in Johnson City (ironically, now a sister station to the Knoxville station) collapsed a few months earlier. That station would have been first to sign on, but WROL claimed the title by 26 days. Its first studios were underneath the 800-foot (244 m) self-supporting tower on Sharp's Ridge which was one of the tallest man-made structures in Tennessee at the time. It was signed on by Greater East Tennessee TV, Inc.,[2] owned by local insurance executive Paul Mountcastle and a small group of investors along with WROL AM 950. At the time, Mountcastle was chairman of the board of the Life and Casualty Insurance Company of Tennessee in Nashville, which signed on WLAC-TV (now WTVF) in that city in 1954. Despite that connection, the stations were not considered to be co-owned.

WROL-TV signed on as a primary NBC affiliate because of WROL-AM's longtime affiliation with NBC Radio and also shared ABC programming with CBS affiliate WTSK-TV (later WTVK, now WVLT-TV), whose Channel 26 analog signal did not travel nearly as far. Although NBC held a firm grip on WROL, DuMont tried unsuccessfully several times to get a secondary affiliation with the station when it was not broadcasting NBC and ABC. Channel 6 opted to fill its non-network schedule with local programming, a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) mandate, and as a result, DuMont was forced to join WTVK on a secondary basis. CBS also made many attempts to grab a primary affiliation with Knoxville's only VHF station, but the owners of WROL held firm despite many financial incentives from the other networks, especially CBS.

The station changed its call letters to WATE-TV in 1955 with the new call letters not really standing for anything; the licensee also was renamed to WATE, Inc.[2] John Reese, the station's program director at the time stated "those call letters were the next available at the FCC." In 1956, WATE dropped ABC when WBIR-TV signed on and took the CBS affiliation from WTVK, leaving WTVK the ABC station by default. At that time, Knoxville became one of the smallest TV markets in the country to have affiliates of all three networks. WROL later changed its call letters to WATE to correspond with the television station. WATE-TV had a role in the failure of WBIR to have its second antenna tower on House Mountain in 1965 for better coverage. The station used a rather ingenious way to force its chief rival station to build a 1,751-foot (534 m) tower on Zachary Ridge instead of on the much higher House Mountain. WATE simply leased all of the property on the top of House Mountain from the lot owners. With no property for a proposed tower base on the Mountain, WBIR had no choice but to spend millions of dollars more to build a taller tower on much-shorter Zachery Ridge nearby, two years later.[3]

As was broadcast tradition with many stations in the 1950s, the channel's sales offices moved to downtown Knoxville and the studios were moved to a new building on North Broadway. In 1965, Mountcastle and his group sold WATE-TV to Nationwide Communications of Columbus, Ohio. That same year, the station moved into and renovated the historic 19th century Greystone Mansion, now on the National Register of Historic Places. At the same time, WATE (which had changed frequency to 620 kilohertz) was sold off changing its call letters to WETE. It is now WRJZ, at AM 620. The self-supporting tower on Sharp's Ridge was dismantled in 1975 when the station built a 1,153-foot (351 m) broadcasting tower alongside it. That tower was dismantled in July 2016, owing to a newer, 1,525-foot (465 m) multi-plexed tower built beside it. The taller tower is owned by American Tower, Inc., formerly Spectracite Broadcast Towers, Inc.

On September 17, 1979, WATE swapped its NBC affiliation with WTVK to become an ABC affiliate. The years 1979 to 1980 saw the ABC television network become the highest-rated in the country and ABC wanted a stronger station in Knoxville. At the time, WATE-TV joined other former NBC affiliates WSB-TV in Atlanta, KSTP-TV in Minneapolis–Saint Paul, WRTV in Indianapolis and WSOC-TV in Charlotte who also switched to ABC. At the time, WATE was the market leader with a strong VHF signal in East Tennessee, Southwestern Virginia, and Southeastern Kentucky. WTVK's UHF signal on channel 26 was marginal at best in much of the Knoxville area and many viewers in East Tennessee and Southeastern Kentucky treated ABC as though it were a new television network (which it was anything but at the time). Some of them would not see NBC again until September 10, 1988, when WBIR-TV joined that network that day. After that, CBS was no longer seen in many of these households until December 8, 1988, when CBS moved its affiliation to WTVK (which coincided with its call letter change to WKXT-TV and switch to VHF channel 8 on that day; it is now WVLT-TV). Coincidentally, seventeen years later, WATE's digital signal would be broadcast on digital channel 26.

During its first fifty years, WATE pioneered many locally produced programs like The Homemaker Show hosted by Mary Starr. Housewives were glued to television sets as Mary showed them the latest recipes and homemaking tips. Star Time, hosted by local businessman Jim Clayton, featured many local country music acts and The Cas Walker Show, a local country music show hosted by former Knoxville Mayor Cas Walker who also owned a chain of grocery stores in East Tennessee, Southwest Virginia, and Southeast Kentucky. The show also featured Dolly Parton who made her television debut on WATE-TV before she became famous. In 1981, the station premiered PM Magazine with MayCay Beeler and Calvin Sneed. The popular syndicated show highlighted unusual people, places, and things from the East Tennessee/Southeastern Kentucky area.

In 1993, Nationwide sold its three ABC-affiliated television stations (WATE, WBAY-TV in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and WRIC-TV in Richmond, Virginia) to Young Broadcasting. Young Broadcasting emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in June 2010, and the new company was renamed New Young Broadcasting, Inc. As a contingency of the reorganization plan, Young signed a limited management agreement with Atlanta-based Gray Television to allow that company to operate all of Young's stations except WATE, WLNS-TV in Lansing, Michigan, and KRON-TV in San Francisco. Gray was not allowed to operate WATE or WLNS because it also owned WVLT in the Knoxville market and WILX-TV in Lansing. Young Broadcasting merged with Media General on November 12, 2013,[4] which united East Tennessee's first and second TV stations (WATE and WJHL, Johnson City) as sister stations. In 2017, Media General merged with Nexstar Broadcasting.

WATE-TV adopted its current "Circle 6" logo in 2011. Due to the design and similar callsigns, the logo has received comparisons to fellow ABC affiliate WTAE-TV in Pittsburgh, who has used the current version of its "Circle 4" logo since 1995 and has used a variation of it since 1973. Aside from the ABC affiliation, the two stations are not related.[5][6]

WATE-TV owes its early existence to locally produced music programs owing to East Tennessee's country music history. 1950's programs like Bonnie Lou and Buster, The Cas Walker Show, and Jim Hill's Star Time were later joined by Nashville-produced country music programs like The Porter Wagoner Show, The Wilburn Brothers Show and the Flatt and Scruggs show featuring guitarist Lester Flatt and banjoist Earl Scruggs. All of these were popular programs on Channel 6 in the mid 60's and 70's.

In the early 80's, WATE-TV also produced the East Tennessee version of PM Magazine, the syndicated series from Westinghouse-Group W that spotlighted local people and events in the area. The show, co-hosted by MayCay Beeler and Calvin Sneed, who had moved over from the news department, ran for three seasons.

During the month of August, WATE broadcasts Tennessee Titans preseason football games regionally syndicated by sister station and fellow ABC affiliate WKRN-TV in Nashville.

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