WDTN

The construction permit for what is now WDTN was awarded to the Crosley Broadcasting Corporation of Cincinnati on April 4, 1947. It was the first broadcast television license granted by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to Dayton. However, due to several delays, the station did not actually go on the air until March 15, 1949 as WLWD, on channel 5,[2] twenty days after CBS affiliate WHIO-TV began broadcasting. From the very first day, it has operated from a studio and office facility located in a former skating rink on Dixie Drive in Moraine. (The property has changed jurisdictions since the original airdate: first it was within the now-defunct Van Buren Township, which voted to incorporate as Kettering in November 1952; in 1953, the western portion of Kettering, which included the property, voted to secede, forming Moraine Township, which in turn incorporated as Moraine in 1957.)

WLWD was the second link of a group of inter-connected stations which made up the "WLW Television Network", and was named for Crosley's flagship Cincinnati radio station WLW (World's Largest Wireless) + Dayton. The other stations were WLWT in Cincinnati and WLWC (now WCMH-TV) in Columbus, both also owned by Crosley. The three outlets shared common regional programming, most of which was produced in Cincinnati and sent by way of microwave link to Dayton and Columbus (such as The 50-50 Club with Ruth Lyons, and later Bob Braun; The Paul Dixon Show; and Midwestern Hayride).[3][4] All three stations were also NBC affiliates, and had secondary relationships with the DuMont Television Network; WLWD also carried ABC programs. The first program shown on WLWD was NBC's Texaco Star Theater, with Milton Berle. To reflect their connection to each other, the WLW Television stations hyphenated their call signs on air; the Dayton outlet was known as WLW-D. The Crosley television group would later expand to include WLWA (now WXIA-TV) in Atlanta, WLWI (now WTHR) in Indianapolis, and WOAI-TV in San Antonio.

WDTN's studio in Moraine, Ohio

The release of the FCC's Sixth Report and Order in 1952 resulted in shifts of VHF channel assignments in the Midwest region. In Ohio, WLWD's channel 5 allocation was moved to Cincinnati and given to sister station WLWT, with the Dayton station reassigned to transmit over channel 2. WLWD's channel change took place on April 27, 1953.[5][6][7][8] WHIO-TV, Dayton's only other station at the time, also shifted channels (from 13 to 7) as a result of the same ordinance. Along with the channel shift WLWD was also forced to operate with a shorter transmission tower, to reduce the overlap of its new channel 2 signal with the relocated signals of WLWT (which moved from channel 4 to channel 5) and WLWC (which shifted to channel 4 from channel 3).

WLWD lost DuMont in 1955, a few months before the network shut down. It lost ABC in 1965 (though it cleared some ABC daytime programming until 1971 as a secondary affiliate) when then-independent WONE-TV (channel 22, now WKEF) picked up ABC's prime time programming.

In 1968 the Crosley group took on the name of its parent company and became known as Avco Broadcasting, a subsidiary of the Aviation Corporation (later known as Avco). After the FCC restricted the common ownership of stations with overlapping signals in the late 1960s, it grandfathered Avco's common ownership of WLWD, WLWT, WLWC and of WLW radio in Cincinnati, whose 50 kilowatt signal covered nearly all of Ohio and overlapped with all three television stations.

In 1975, Avco decided to exit broadcasting. As a result, WLWD lost its grandfathered protection, and had to be sold off separately from WLWT and WLWC. WLWD ended up being the last of Avco's television stations to be sold off, going to Grinnell College in Iowa for $13 million in June 1975; the acquisition made Grinnell College one of the few universities to own a commercial television station.[9][10][11][12] The school changed the call letters to WDTN shortly after the sale closed in spring 1976.[13] Not long after Grinnell took over, WDTN increased the height on its broadcast tower and began operating at full effective radiated power, increasing its coverage area. (The WLWD call sign was used from April 2003 until April 2010 for an FM radio station serving Lima, now WBKS. The call sign has been used since October 12, 2010 by Daystar station WLWD-LD (channel 20), licensed to Springfield.)

By the mid to late-1970s, ABC was searching for stronger affiliates in order to cement its status as the leading network in the United States. Its existing Dayton affiliate, WKEF, was a distant third in the ratings, and only ran ABC's primetime and sports programming, plus whatever daytime programming was pre-empted by two Taft Broadcasting-owned ABC affiliates in adjacent markets, WKRC-TV in Cincinnati and WTVN-TV (now WSYX) in Columbus. WKEF also did not have a functioning news department until 1979. Meanwhile, WKRC-TV and WTVN-TV were not only preempting ABC's daytime programs, but also its late night shows and some of its Saturday morning cartoons. ABC also wanted a station in Dayton with both stronger ratings and signal, and one which could reach portions of the Cincinnati and Columbus markets. In summer 1979, ABC approached WDTN and reached an affiliation deal.[14] Almost by default, NBC was then left to go with WKEF. On January 1, 1980, WDTN and WKEF swapped network affiliations. Five months after joining ABC, in May 1980, Grinnell College announced it would sell WDTN to the broadcasting division of the Hearst Corporation.[15] The sale was finalized over a year later, in September 1981 for a price of over $47 million.[16]

In August 1997, Hearst's television group merged with Argyle Television Holdings II to form what was then known as Hearst-Argyle Television. Argyle had purchased WDTN's former sister station, WLWT, that January, as part of a trade deal between Argyle II and Gannett Broadcasting which caused WLWT and its Oklahoma City sister station, KOCO-TV, to swap ownership with WZZM in Grand Rapids, Michigan and WGRZ-TV in Buffalo, New York. For the same reason that forced the breakup of Avco's television group 20 years earlier, Hearst-Argyle could not keep both stations (common ownership of stations with overlapping city-grade signals would not be allowed until 2000). It opted to keep the larger WLWT and trade WDTN, together with WNAC-TV in Providence, Rhode Island, to Sunrise Television for WPTZ in Plattsburgh, New York, WNNE in Hartford, Vermont, and KSBW in Salinas, California. The sale was finalized on July 2, 1998.

In May 2002, Sunrise merged with LIN TV. After the LIN TV acquisition, One Life to Live was added to the station's schedule as well. From this point on, WDTN aired the entire ABC schedule in pattern until the station returned to NBC in 2004.

In early 2004, NBC landed a new affiliation agreement with LIN TV; in response to this agreement, ABC signed an affiliation deal with Sinclair Broadcasting Group, which renewed the network's affiliations with the group's existing ABC affiliates and caused WKEF and its sister stations in Springfield/Decatur, Illinois (WICS and WICD) to switch to that network. On August 30, 2004, in a reversal of the 1980 switch, WDTN became an NBC affiliate for the second time to take advantage of the network's then stronger programming. Ironically, several months after the affiliation shift, ABC's ratings overtook those of NBC and the network wouldn't rebound for nearly a decade; in 2014, NBC had regained the lead over ABC.

On May 18, 2007, LIN TV announced that it was exploring strategic alternatives that could have resulted in the sale of the company. In early June, WDTN's website (along with those of several other LIN TV-owned stations not affiliated with Fox such as WNDY-TV, WWHO, WAND, WWLP, and WLFI-TV) underwent a redesign. The web addresses were then operated by the Local Media Network division of World Now for a little over a year until October 2008, when LIN TV relaunched most of its station websites through Fox Interactive Media (later spun off as the independent company known today as EndPlay). Prior to the World Now contract, the web addresses were powered by Web Pros.

On October 3, 2008, LIN TV pulled WDTN (and its other stations) from Time Warner Cable, due to a dispute over "retransmission fees."[17][18][19] Time Warner replaced WDTN with a free preview of HBO Family.

On October 29, LIN TV and Time Warner Cable reached an agreement, restoring WDTN, as well as offering it in high definition on the cable system for the first time.[20][21][22]

On June 4, 2010, it was announced LIN TV would begin operating CW affiliate WBDT (then owned by ACME Communications) through shared service and joint sales agreements.[23][24] Three months later, LIN TV exercised an option to purchase that channel along with another LIN-operated ACME station, fellow CW affiliate WCWF in Green Bay, Wisconsin.[25] LIN TV requested WBDT's license be assigned to a subsidiary of Vaughan Media (owner of Austin, Texas CW affiliate KNVA, which is also operated by LIN TV). The company holds a 4.5% equity stake in Vaughan Media, but controls most of that company's voting stock, effectively making it a shell corporation for LIN TV.[26] WBDT was integrated into WDTN's facilities and the merger between the two stations occurred sometime around October, 2010. WBDT originally had studios at Corporate Place in Miamisburg, along Byers Road.

On March 4, 2011, LIN TV's contract with DISH Network expired, and all TV stations owned or operated by LIN, including WDTN and WBDT, were pulled from DISH.[27][28][29][30][31] On March 13, LIN and DISH entered into a retransmission consent agreement, and all affected channels were restored.[32][33][34][35]

On March 21, 2014, Media General announced that it would buy LIN.[36] The FCC approved the merger on December 12, 2014, but a condition of the deal requires Media General to end the JSA between WBDT and WDTN due to tighter scrutiny such deals are getting by the FCC. Media General received a two-year waiver to end the JSA between WDTN and WBDT.[37] The merger was completed on December 19, reuniting WDTN with WCMH-TV (the former WLWC).[38]

On January 27, 2016, it was announced that Nexstar Broadcasting Group would buy Media General for $4.6 billion, and WDTN became part of "Nexstar Media Group".[39] The deal was approved by the FCC on January 11, 2017, and it was completed on January 17.[40]

A carriage dispute with AT&T, lasting from 11:59 p.m. on July 3 to August 29, 2019, resulted in the removal of WDTN, along with more than 120 other Nexstar stations across 97 markets, from AT&T's DirecTV, DirecTV Now and U-verse platforms.[41][42]

A carriage dispute with Dish Network, beginning at 7:00 p.m. on December 2, 2020, resulted in the removal of WDTN and sister station WBDT from the platform, along with 164 Nexstar stations in 115 markets.[43]

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

On January 1, 2016, WDTN added the Escape network (now Court TV Mystery) to its lineup on its second digital subchannel, replacing a standard definition feed of the main WDTN programming previously airing on that subchannel.[45] On January 31, 2016, the station added the Justice Network to its third digital subchannel. On February 1, 2018, the Justice Network was dropped, replaced by Ion Television, which was moved from sister station WBDT's DT3 subchannel.

On June 7, 2018, unrelated WKOI-TV began sharing WDTN's digital channel, with Ion Television programming appearing on virtual channel 43.1.[46] WDTN also continued to carry Ion Television on virtual channel 2.3.

Sister station WBDT began sharing WDTN's digital channel on June 29, 2018;[46][47] on that date, virtual channel 2.3 was dropped.

WDTN moved its digital signal from channel 50 to channel 31 on November 8, 2019, as part of the FCC's spectrum reallocation process.[46][48]

WDTN shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 2, on June 12, 2009, the official date in which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 50.[49][50] Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former VHF analog channel 2.

• Len Berman – news and sports reporter, now retired (formerly at NBC Sports and WNBC-TV)[70][71]
• Fran Charles – weekend sports anchor (now at MLB Network)
• Julie Chen – reporter & anchor; now host of the U.S. version of Big Brother, former co-host of The Talk, both on CBS)[72][73]
• Jodine Costanzo – reporter (now at WPXI)
• Phil Donahue – host of The Phil Donahue Show, as described above
• Johnny Gilbert – local talk-variety show host in mid-1960s, as described above (now announcer on Jeopardy!)
• Gordon Jump – host of Gordon Jump's Fun Time and High Time; also WLWD's director of special broadcast services (1961-1965)
• Kris Long – news anchor late 1970s–early 1980s (now at KPSP-CD)
• Jessica Moore – reporter (now at WCBS-TV)[74]
• Dan Patrick – sports anchor (now at NBC Sports)[75][76]