WSTR-TV

On June 30, 1977, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) granted a construction permit to Buford Television of Ohio, Inc., for a new channel 64 television station in Cincinnati, Ohio.[2] WBTI signed on the air on January 28, 1980.[3] It broadcast with one million watts of power and operated from studios on Fishwick Drive in the Bond Hill area; the station's original transmitter was located on Chickasaw Street.[2]

During the early days of WBTI, it signed on at 10:00 a.m. and operated as a general-entertainment independent station until 7 p.m. each day.[4] At that time, the station's signal was scrambled as it carried programming from the ON TV service, which provided movies, sports, and live events to viewers through a paid subscription and required a decoder to receive ON TV programs.[3] (Buford, which had planned a multi-city expansion into subscription television and even a national network of translators through its Residential Entertainment subsidiary,[5] licensed the ON TV name from Oak Communications in the Cincinnati market and also would build STV operations in Chicago and Minneapolis under the brand name Spectrum.) Eventually, WBTI expanded its broadcast day by signing on earlier; the station began carrying movies and cartoons until 10 a.m., when the Christian Broadcasting Network program The 700 Club aired until 11:30.

The afternoon lineup consisted of movies, cartoons, and sitcoms such as I Love Lucy and The Dick Van Dyke Show. Morning cartoons included Underdog, Tennessee Tuxedo and Popeye. Weekends were heavily laden with classic movies and adventure shows such as The Outer Limits, The Wild Wild West and Bonanza. WBTI also began airing World Championship Tennis and Notre Dame football games. The weekly "Hollywood Gold" movies on Saturdays and Sundays were hosted by one-time theater operator and Hamilton native Fred Baum.[2] who most recently owned the Holiday Auto Theater; Baum died in 2007.

In January 1981, the station added more sitcoms to its lineup during the week such as Mister Ed, The Addams Family, The Munsters, and The Beverly Hillbillies. ON TV programming expanded on weekend evenings, signing on at 5 p.m. ON TV ran for several hours each night usually ending around 2 a.m. On some nights, WBTI would resume unencrypted broadcasts and air general entertainment programs until it signed off. In August 1981, Buford Television changed its name to HEN Incorporated (its initials standing for "Home Entertainment Network").

On April 1, 1982, the ON TV service expanded to 20 hours per day. At that time, the FCC required that broadcast stations be on-the-air for at least four hours per day. The station ran New Zoo Revue at 8 a.m., Jimmy Swaggart at 8:30, The PTL Club at 9 a.m., The 700 Club at 10 a.m., and INN Midday Edition at 11:30. After noon, ON TV now made up the rest of the broadcast day. The station at that point went 24 hours a day. There was a short time in January 1983 when WBTI extended some afternoon programming from noon to 2 p.m. running the hour-long edition of The 700 Club and some other religious programs. That June, however, in a cost-cutting move, WBTI cut back its commercial programs to the 90-minute edition of The 700 Club on weekdays, with ON TV the rest of the day and weekends except for three further hours of religious programs on Sunday mornings.[6] ON TV was beginning to face a tough road. After much delay, the Warner-Amex cable service QUBE became available within the Cincinnati city limits in early 1983, making ON TV less attractive to viewers. In October 1983, United Cable, which had acquired 80 percent of Buford's three STV operations, wrote down the entire unit and offered the systems for sale.[7]

United sold 90 percent of WBTI in November 1984 to Channel 64 Joint Venture for $9.4 million, at which time ON TV had just 12,500 local subscribers (75 percent of which subscribed to adult programming),[8] compared to 45,200 in June 1982. The station relaunched as WIII, "The Eyes of Cincinnati", on January 1, 1985; it restored a general-entertainment schedule, with ON TV programming being relegated to overnight hours only.[8] With a mere 3,200 subscribers remaining and Oak shutting down its satellite feed, ON TV in Cincinnati ended on June 1, 1985, at which time WIII converted into a full-time general-entertainment independent station.[9]

Channel 64 soon ran into financial trouble. In April 1986, the station almost went off air after United Cable, which had retained a 10 percent stake after the 1984 sale to Channel 64 Joint Venture, sued the other partners, who refused to accept funding provided by the company to keep the station going. In a proceeding that saw the appointment of general manager Stephen A. Kent as receiver, it was revealed that the station owed more than $175,000 to program suppliers and had less than $5,000 in the bank.[10] A Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing soon followed;[11] the lengthy battle, marked by conflicts between United and the other partners,[12] as well as cable penetration in the market, hurt the station, which had to exit several programming contracts.[13] Talks with several potential buyers, including the Home Shopping Network, continued;[14] Gerald J. Robinson, owner of the Cincinnati Gardens arena, made an offer,[15] but it was ultimately United Cable that won out, immediately reselling the station to a consortium that included itself and two other investors.[16]

Under United, the station left behind its status as what Cincinnati Enquirer media columnist John Kiesewetter called "the IOUs of Cincinnati" and began to spend again on syndicated programming.[17] However, the other investors opted not to buy the remainder of WIII from United Cable, resulting in the station—now with better ratings and reduced program costs—being put back on the market in August 1988.[18]

Star 64 station identification in 1995. WSTR used variations of this logo from 1990 to 1998. A star design returned to WSTR's logo in 2009.

United sold WIII to Cincinnati TV 64 Limited Partnership, under the ownership of Andrew Banks and Royce Yudkoff, in November 1989.[19] Their initials served as the name for ABRY Communications. Soon after, stronger programming was added to include more recent sitcoms and better movies, and ABRY also invested in improved equipment.[20] On September 15, 1990, coinciding with a total program lineup overhaul, the station changed its call sign to WSTR-TV and its on-air branding to "Star 64".[21] In 1991, the station increased its transmitter power from one to five million watts at a brand new tower and transmitter site in Cincinnati's College Hill neighborhood. That tower would be known as the "Star Tower" and would eventually be home to several radio stations and other communications services.[22]

Under ABRY's ownership, the station acquired additional syndicated programs; WSTR then became a charter affiliate of the United Paramount Network (UPN) on January 16, 1995.[23] In 1996, Sinclair Communications (now Sinclair Broadcast Group) acquired WSTR-TV (for $22 million) and KSMO-TV in Kansas City, Missouri, after already having purchased the remainder of the company's stations in 1993.[24] In July 1997, Sinclair signed an affiliation deal with The WB, that resulted in a number of the company's UPN affiliates and independent stations switching to the network;[25] WSTR became a WB affiliate in January 1998, while former WB affiliate WBQC-CA (channel 25) joined UPN.

On January 24, 2006, the Warner Bros. unit of Time Warner and CBS Corporation announced that the two companies would shut down The WB and UPN and combine the networks' respective programming to create a new "fifth" network called The CW.[26][27] On February 22 of that year, News Corporation announced the launch of a new "sixth" network called MyNetworkTV, which would be operated by Fox Television Stations and its syndication division Twentieth Television. MyNetworkTV was created to compete against The CW and to give UPN and WB stations that were not mentioned as becoming CW affiliates another option besides converting to independent stations.[28][29]

WSTR-TV discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over UHF channel 64, on February 17, 2009, as part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television (which was pushed back until June 12, due to an extension granted by Congress).[30] The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 33, using PSIP to display WSTR-TV's virtual channel as 64 on digital television receivers, which was among the high band UHF channels (52-69) that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition.

During the analog era, WSTR-TV operated a translator station in Dayton, W66AQ, on channel 66. This translator signed on in May 1981, rebroadcasting then-WBTI's ON TV service and other programming.[31][32] When WSTR-TV subsequently gained network affiliations, Dayton had local affiliates of those networks as well. When WSTR-TV was a UPN affiliate, the network had a secondary affiliation with Dayton's WRGT-TV. When WSTR-TV was a WB affiliate, that network aired in Dayton first on WUCT-LP (now WRCX-LP), then on WBDT. When WSTR-TV became a MyNetworkTV affiliate, Dayton had its own affiliation on WRGT-TV's second digital subchannel, WRGT-DT2 ("My TV Dayton"). FCC filings indicate that W66AQ was silent by sometime in 2007. In 2009, after the digital television transition, Sinclair used the W66AQ license to broadcast a low-power analog signal in Dayton on channel 22, repeating its "My TV Dayton" programming. On June 30, 2010, W66AQ's call letters were changed to W22DE. Cincinnati's WCPO-TV moved its digital operations to channel 22 on December 8, 2010 (according to RabbitEars, this knocked W22DE off the air;[33] however, W22DE filed for a license renewal with the FCC on June 3, 2013).[34]

My64 logo until September 2009.

WSTR seemed likely to become The CW's Cincinnati affiliate being a full-power station and WBQC being a Class A low-power outlet. On March 2, however, Sinclair announced that WSTR would affiliate with MyNetworkTV.[35][36] The announcement seemingly opened the door for WBQC to potentially become the area's CW affiliate. Instead, the network agreed on April 19 to be carried on a new second digital subchannel of WKRC-TV (channel 12) forcing WBQC to become an independent station. With its new MyNetworkTV affiliation, WSTR adopted the "My 64" brand similar to most of the network's other stations. On September 21, 2009, WSTR reintroduced its 1990s brand, dropping the "My" branding in favor of "Star 64", while keeping the network's logo color and style scheme.[37] This followed a similar trend with some other MyNetworkTV affiliates after the network became a syndication service.

On May 15, 2012, Sinclair Broadcast Group and Fox agreed to a five-year affiliation agreement extension for Sinclair's then-19 Fox-affiliated stations until 2017. This included an option, exercisable between July 1, 2012 and March 31, 2013, for Fox's then-parent News Corporation to buy a combination of six Sinclair-owned stations (two CW/MyNetworkTV duopolies and two standalone MyNetworkTV affiliates) in three out of four markets; WSTR-TV was included in the Fox purchase option, along with stations in Raleigh (WLFL and WRDC), Norfolk (WTVZ) and Las Vegas (KVCW and KVMY).[38] In January 2013, Fox announced that it would not exercise its option to buy any of the Sinclair stations in those four markets.[39] On July 19, 2012, Sinclair announced that it would sell the WSTR-TV license to Deerfield Media (which in turn is owned by the principals of Manhan Media, which purchased WWHO in Chillicothe, serving the Columbus market, earlier in 2012) to comply with the FCC's ownership regulations following the acquisition of WKRC-TV from Newport Television; Sinclair continues to operate WSTR under a local marketing agreement.[40] The sale was completed on December 3, 2012.[41]

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

From September 23, 2010 to August 31, 2012, WSTR-TV aired TheCoolTV on its second digital subchannel. From June 30, 2014 to December 5, 2015, WSTR-TV aired GetTV on its second digital subchannel. On October 31, 2015, WSTR-TV began to air Sinclair's Comet network on its third digital subchannel.[43] On December 5, 2015, WSTR-TV began to air Antenna TV on its second digital subchannel; moving GetTV to its fourth digital subchannel.[42][44] The station debuted Sinclair's TBD network on its fourth subchannel on February 28, 2017, replacing GetTV.[45]

• Brad Johansen – sports director; weeknights at 10 p.m.; also host of Sports Authority (later at WRAL-TV in Raleigh, North Carolina)

• Station Information – station information and a brief history