WAKA (TV)

Channel 8 debuted on March 17, 1960 as WSLA (call letters representing Selma). The station was originally owned by the Brennan family and their company, Deep South Broadcasting, along with WBAM radio in Montgomery (740 AM, now WMSP), and broadcast from a converted home in Selma with the studio located in the garage. Deep South originally sought the WBAM-TV call letters for channel 8. However, in those days, Selma and Montgomery were separate markets, and Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations at the time would not allow companion call letters to be issued to stations located in different markets. Originally an independent, it picked up an ABC affiliation soon afterward.

Channel 8 was the only primary ABC affiliate in south-central Alabama. In Montgomery, ABC was relegated to off-hours clearances on NBC affiliate WSFA-TV and CBS affiliate WCOV-TV. Originally, Deep South could not afford a direct network feed. Instead, station engineers switched in and out of the signal of WBRC-TV in Birmingham whenever ABC programming was available. Often, if the engineer was not paying attention, local WBRC breaks and IDs would air on WSLA.[1] It operated from a tiny 360-foot (110 m) tower just west of Selma, with only 3,000 watts of power. This effectively limited its coverage area to Dallas County.

In 1964, WKAB-TV (later WHOA-TV and now WNCF) started up as Montgomery's ABC affiliate, but WSLA continued to broadcast ABC programming to the western part of the market because of UHF's limited coverage at the time. It could be argued that WSLA was almost always a CBS affiliate. Once it ended a brief stint as an independent station and affiliated with ABC, it also established a secondary affiliation with CBS by carrying one hour of that network's programming every week with Ted Mack's Original Amateur Hour.

On the morning of July 31, 1968, WSLA employee Bailey Bowline, Jr., drove to work at 3:30 a.m. to discover the station had been set on fire, completely destroying the facility on Land Line Road and causing more than $100,000 in damage. The night before, the station had been airing a religious program, during which the station received a phone call from a viewer, promising to "settle it with TNT". It was also reported that filing cabinets had been pulled open before the fire.[2] George Singleton, who worked at the station as a teenager and later became its general manager, noted that WSLA's loss was not a large one for the community, saying that "it really wasn't much of a station".[3]

Channel 8 had been for sale prior to the fire, and negotiations continued with H. Guthrie Bell, whose Gay-Bell Broadcasting owned WCOV-TV and a station in Lexington, Kentucky.[4] Gay-Bell agreed to buy WSLA in August for $115,000; it would have operated the station as a semi-satellite of WCOV-TV.[5] However, the application was dismissed on August 25, 1969.[6] Ten months later, on June 11, 1970, the Brennans filed to sell the station to Central Alabama Broadcasting, which owned WHNT-TV in Huntsville and WYEA in Columbus, Georgia.[7] Central Alabama also filed to rebuild WSLA with 25,100 watts of effective radiated power—the station had previously broadcast with 2,510 watts—which was approved by the FCC in 1971. A second increase to 53.8 kW followed in 1975.[6]

It would not be until November 1, 1973, when WSLA began broadcasting again.[8] The new WSLA was a full-color CBS affiliate.[7] However, it broadcast in one of the smallest markets in the United States, ranked 211th out of 215;[9] in 1981, its small news department produced just one early evening newscast, and the sports and weather presenters doubled as a swimming pool salesman and a station sales executive.[10]

Both under the Brennans and subsequent ownership, attempts were made to increase WSLA's power and thus substantially expand its viewing area. In May 1954, three months after the Brennans received the original construction permit, they filed to relocate the transmitter to a new 1,750-foot (533 m) tower just north of Prattville—later amended to a site near Strata in southern Montgomery County and broadcast with an effective radiated power of 316,000 watts—the most allowed for a high-band VHF station. The proceeding saw arguments from WCOV-TV, which feared that WSLA's move would jeopardize the development of UHF in Montgomery (and put its own CBS affiliation in jeopardy) and WSFA, but it was ultimately a defect in the proposed tower plan that prompted the FCC to deny the application in September 1958.[11]

By this time, the channel 8 allocation in Selma had caught the attention of Post Stations, the broadcasting division of The Washington Post. In the late 1950s, in an effort to maximize the 12 VHF channels available, the FCC proposed relaxing its mileage separation rules for these channels. The separations were proposed to be decreased only a few miles to minimize interference; however, the channel 8 at Selma would be one of a handful of channels that could fall under this action. Had the proposal been implemented, the channel 8 license would have been moved to Birmingham (Channel 8 at Nashville, then occupied by WSIX-TV, under 10 miles (16 km) too close to Birmingham according to established FCC interference separation rules, had prevented this in the past). The Post made it clear that it would like to move the channel 8 allocation to Birmingham. Meanwhile, the Brennans seemed to have no immediate plans to activate channel 8 at Selma. This was logical, since Selma was just barely large enough to support a full-service television station, and the only way for the station to be profitable would be if it operated from a transmitter powerful enough to cover Montgomery. Probably afraid the license would be in jeopardy, Deep South went on the air from its originally-specified (quite spartan) facilities in Selma about eight months afterward. Later, Deep South applied to build a 2,000-foot (610 m) tower in West Blocton that could serve Birmingham, Tuscaloosa, and Selma. This request also failed after two other UHF stations—WCFT (now WSES) in Tuscaloosa and WBMG (now WIAT) in Birmingham—objected out of concerns for fostering UHF's growth. WCFT and WBMG had construction permits for new towers, but stated they would not do so if channel 8 was granted a tower at West Blocton.

In 1976, under Central Alabama Broadcasting ownership, Grisham filed once more for an application to build a maximum-powered site, this time from a tall tower near Lowndesboro; it could not build a taller tower in Dallas County because of existing flight patterns.[9] WCOV fought again, this time suggesting the de-intermixture of the Selma and Montgomery markets to make all stations UHF; in 1978, it proposed moving channel 8 to Tuscaloosa for educational use and channel 12 to Columbus,[12] with WSFA being reassigned channel 45.[13] The FCC denied the WCOV proposal in May 1980.[14] In July, it then proceeded to approve the WSLA application.[15] Appeals from WCOV and WKAB dragged on for several more years[16] until final approval from the FCC was granted in 1983[17] and a federal appeals court denied further pleas from the UHF stations the next year.[18]

As planning began on expanded WSLA facilities, nature took aim at the existing channel 8 tower. On May 3, 1984, a tornado toppled the mast, sending its base crashing into the trailer that housed the station's news department. There were no injuries, and the transmitter was not damaged,[3] allowing the station to return to the air within weeks.

The Dallas County Commission approved the tower in September, clearing the final hurdle to allow construction to begin.[19] At the same time, to avoid confusion with WSFA in preparation for the move, WSLA changed its call letters to WAKA—unofficially claimed to stand for "We Are Kicking Ass"—on October 29 and began its $4 million facilities improvement program.[20]

The move-in also brought a new owner. In November 1984, Bahakel Communications, owner of WKAB, announced plans to buy WAKA and sell off the Montgomery UHF station.[20] The Bahakel acquisition immediately sparked speculation about a potential affiliation shuffle in the Montgomery market, with rumors of ABC making the move to WAKA.[21] In June, WCOV officials said that, for "business reasons", CBS had pulled its affiliation from channel 20, effective in March 1986, even though CBS had earlier stated it had no such intentions;[22] additionally, Bahakel's contract with the buyer of WKAB had stipulated that Bahakel maintain CBS affiliation for WAKA for at least two years. The sale of WCOV to Woods Communications brought forward the switch to January 1, 1986.[23]

That February, WAKA's revamped local news department debuted from the new WAKA studio site on East Boulevard in Montgomery.[24] For a time, newscasts were split between the Selma and Montgomery studios. Before the end of the 1980s, channel 8 moved its entire operation to Montgomery. However, the station maintains a West Alabama news bureau in Selma. On July 7, 2011, WAKA announced ambitious plans to purchase WBMM and operate a shared services agreement with WNCF. The plans called for merging all three stations' operations at a new, ultra-modern, HD-ready facility at WNCF's studios, though WAKA is the senior partner. Ironically, Bahakel was the founding owner of channel 32 (now WNCF), selling it in 1985 in order to buy WAKA. However, it still owned the Harrison Road facility, leasing it to channel 32's various owners over the years. WAKA's original Montgomery studio had long been hampered by its location close to downtown, which limited its ability to expand.[25] WAKA moved its operations to WNCF's facility in 2012.

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

WAKA shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 8, on November 28, 2008. The station was the first station in the Montgomery market to broadcast in stereo and is the only one to transmit with a full one megawatt in digital (equivalent to five megawatts for an analog transmitter). Because of WAKA's original digital allocation on UHF channel 55, and a belief by ownership that a return to VHF channel 8 for digital service may create reception issues, WAKA petitioned to the FCC to move its post-transition channel to channel 42 since any channel above 51 would not be allocated for digital television after February 17, 2009. In order to get its post-transition channel up and running.

At that time, the analog antenna and broadcasting equipment were removed from its tower and replaced with digital equipment for channel 42 (digital channel 55 continued to operate via a side-mounted antenna at full power). Digital channel 42 signed-on January 19, 2009 while digital channel 55 signed off on the mandated date on February 17. Although for only a month, the station has the distinction of being the only facility in the country to actually operate two digital channels at the same time (42 and 55) as part of the digital transition. WAKA is the only Big Four station in the market to operate at full power (1 megawatt),[27] using PSIP to display the station's virtual channel as its former VHF analog channel 8.