WVIT

Early years (1953–1977)

WVIT signed on for the first time on February 13, 1953, as WKNB-TV, owned by the New Britain Broadcasting Company along with WKNB radio (840 AM, now WRYM). The calls stood for Kensington–New Britain. It is Connecticut's second-oldest television station, and the first on the UHF band. It has been an NBC affiliate for nearly all of its history. However, during its first two and a half years, it carried CBS programming.

In 1954, only a year after channel 30 signed on, Hartford and New Haven were combined into a single television market. However, WKNB's signal was not strong enough to cover southern Connecticut at the time—a problem that would hamper channel 30 for almost a quarter-century. As a result, a few CBS programs continued to be seen in the market on New Haven's WNHC-TV (channel 8, now WTNH) for another year due to this shortfall in channel 30's coverage. In 1955, WKNB dropped CBS and became a primary NBC affiliate. Well into the 1960s, many viewers northeast of Hartford used outdoor VHF antennas to watch NBC programming via WBZ-TV (now a CBS O&O) in Boston or WJAR in Providence, while viewers southwest of Hartford with outdoor TV antennas received NBC via network flagship WRCA-TV (now WNBC) in New York City; reception of either station in either area was often spotty.

NBC itself purchased the WKNB stations in December 1956, and renamed channel 30 WNBC (for New Britain, Connecticut) a month later.^[1] It planned to boost the station's signal to cover all of the market, but these plans never materialized. In its first stint as an NBC-owned station, channel 30 failed to gain much headway in the ratings, largely because television manufacturers were not required to include UHF tuning capability until 1964. Viewers had to buy an expensive converter to watch WNBC, and even with one the picture was barely viewable. Nonetheless, NBC bought channel 30 as part of an experiment to determine whether UHF could be competitive with VHF.

In September 1957, the Hartford-based Travelers Insurance Company signed on independent station WTIC-TV (channel 3, now WFSB), the state's second and last VHF station. Within a year of its debut (and despite its radio sister having been an NBC radio affiliate for over thirty years) WTIC-TV became Connecticut's CBS affiliate, replacing its owned-and-operated station, WHCT-TV (channel 18, now Univision affiliate WUVN). NBC then realized its UHF experiment was a lost cause (it had shut down its other owned UHF station in Buffalo, New York, WBUF-TV, in October 1958), and in June 1959 sold WNBC to Plains Television, a joint venture of Transcontinental Properties and H & E Balaban Corporation (WKNB radio was also included in the sale, but was spun off immediately afterward).^[2][3]

As part of the deal, Springfield Television, the owner of fellow NBC affiliate WWLP in Springfield, Massachusetts, was to have held a one-third stake in channel 30; it abandoned this stake before the deal's completion after concerns arose over their overlapping coverage areas, but continued to hold an option to reacquire it for some time afterward.^[4] In 1960, the calls changed again – this time to WHNB-TV (for Hartford-New Britain).^[5] This change came because NBC wanted the WNBC calls for its flagship radio and television combination in New York City.

In 1966, WHNB-TV became, once again, one of two NBC affiliates in Connecticut; the network signed with Waterbury-licensed WATR-TV (channel 20) in order to get its programming into New Haven on a strong signal. By this time, television manufacturers were now required to include all-channel tuning. Channel 30 itself made up for the shortfall in its market coverage by operating two low-power translators (starting in 1971): W79AI (channel 79) in Torrington^[6] and W59AA (channel 59) in New Haven.^[7]

Later years (1979 - present)

WVIT's NBC30 logo used from 2005 until July 16, 2009. The numeric "30" had been in use in one form or another since 1992.

Plains Television sold WHNB-TV to the original Viacom in 1978, and the station's call letters were changed on July 17 to WVIT (for "Viacom International Television") to reflect its new ownership.^[8] Viacom immediately announced plans to boost WVIT's signal to cover all of the market. In 1980, channel 30 signed on with a new transmitter that more than doubled its coverage area, giving it a clear signal to much of New Haven for the first time, though the channel 59 repeater was kept in service. WVIT became the market's sole NBC affiliate in March 1982, when WATR-TV's affiliation contract with NBC ended and the station became independent WTXX (it is now WCCT-TV). The Torrington translator was turned off in 1987, and the New Haven repeater was shut down in the mid-1990s to allow full-powered WTVU (now WCTX) to begin operations.

Viacom purchased Paramount Pictures in 1994, and all of Viacom's stations became part of the Paramount Stations Group. Within the next year, following the launch of the United Paramount Network (UPN) venture it co-owned with Chris-Craft Industries, Paramount/Viacom began to sell off its non-UPN affiliated stations. WVIT, which was Viacom's first station purchase in 1978, ended up being the last non-UPN outlet sold in 1997. As part of a three-way deal, which closed on December 8 of that year, WVIT was sold to former owner NBC (making WVIT an NBC O&O again), while Paramount/Viacom ended up with WLWC in Providence, Rhode Island and WWHO in Columbus, Ohio, two stations owned by Fant Broadcasting which NBC operated by way of local marketing agreements.

In August 2007, plans were finalized to begin construction of a new high-definition and "green" studio facility on the same plot of land as the station's old studios, which had been in use since the station's inception. Ground was broken in October 2007, and construction was completed in the summer of 2009. On July 16, 2009, WVIT moved into the new facility (the old facility was later demolished), and rebranded from NBC 30 to NBC Connecticut HD.

In the summer of 2016, the station launched the advertising campaign Connecting You which made its on-air debut on August 5, 2016, in conjunction with the opening of the 2016 Summer Olympics; a year later, on July 15, 2017, WVIT's station branding was shortened to NBC CT, and the mic flags now bear the new shorter station branding.

On December 4, 2017, NBCUniversal announced that it would buy Telemundo affiliate WRDM-CD and its Springfield satellite station WDMR-LP from ZGS Communications, as with several other NBC O&Os, WRDM would become a sister station to WVIT, creating the third duopoly in the Hartford–New Haven television market, following the duopolies of Nexstar Media Group's WTNH/WCTX and Tribune Broadcasting's WTIC-TV/WCCT-TV (though as a low-power station, WRDM is exempt from FCC ownership caps, including the duopoly rule).^[9] ZGS had sold WRDM's spectrum in the FCC's incentive auction for $10,574,516 and indicated that the station would enter into a post-auction channel sharing agreement, which will occur with WVIT at the start of the year.^[10] The sale was officially completed on February 1, 2018.^[11]

Digital channels

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

Digital subchannel 30.2 carried NBC Weather Plus; national network operations for that service ended in December 2008. NBC Plus then aired on that subchannel. This channel utilized the same graphics as Weather Plus, with a new 'NBC Plus' logo and without the on camera meteorologist segments. WVIT was the last remaining NBC-owned station to continue to air NBC Plus. On December 20, 2012, WVIT replaced NBC Plus with Cozi TV, a new network featuring classic television series and lifestyle programming. Digital subchannel 30.3 carried Universal Sports; transition for a Digital-only broadcast network into a cable- and satellite-exclusive service was occurred on January 1, 2012 when the station deleted the subchannel along with its fellow affiliates to remove or replace the network from their digital signals. The digital subchannel was reactivated again in 2015, when WVIT added the Spanish-language digital network TeleXitos, a new network featuring classic television series dubbed in Spanish exclusively to the stations owned by Telemundo, making it the only NBC-owned station to carry the Spanish-language digital channel. Following the station's parent's official acquisition of Telemundo affiliated station WRDM-CD/WDMR-LP in February 2018, the TeleXitos affiliation was moved to the newly launched digital subchannel of WRDM-CD and WDMR-LP, with the subchannel was deleted again from their digital signal.

Analog-to-digital conversion

WVIT's ''NBC Connecticut'' first logo, used from July 16, 2009, to July 15, 2017. Still used occasionally as a secondary logo.

WVIT shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 30, on June 12, 2009, as part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television.^[13] The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 35, using PSIP to display WVIT's virtual channel as 30 on digital television receivers. With the transition, the height of the station's transmitter tower was increased to 434 meters (1,424 ft).

Sports programming

In 1979, WVIT began carrying Hartford Whalers hockey games following the name change from New England Whalers to Hartford Whalers and joining the NHL after its merger with WHA. the games on the station eventually to split the rights with regional sports network PRISM New England (later SportsChannel New England and CSN New England, now NBC Sports Boston) beginning with the 1981–82 season. The joint deal lasted until the 1985–86 season, when WHCT-TV (now WUVN) took over the over-the-air broadcasting rights to Whalers hockey games, beginning with the 1986–87 season.

Notable former on-air staff

• Chris Berman - (now at ESPN)
• Van Hackett - (now retired from broadcasting)
• Brian Kilmeade - (now at Fox News Channel)
• Rob Marciano - (now at ABC News)
• Natalie Morales - (now host of Access and West Coast correspondent of The Today Show)
• Rob Morrison - (retired from TV; now a real estate agent)
• Beasley Reece
• Brian Shactman - (now at NECN)
• Erika Tarantal - (now at WCVB-TV)
• Chris Wragge - (now at WCBS-TV)