WSYX

The station began operations on September 29, 1949, as WTVN, Columbus' second television station.[4] At its launch, the station was owned by Picture Waves Inc., a company controlled by Toledo-based attorney and investor Edward Lamb; Lamb also owned WICU-TV in Erie, Pennsylvania, which went on the air six months earlier. WTVN was an affiliate of the DuMont Television Network at its inception, and was one of only three primary affiliates of that network;[5] it also carried a secondary affiliation with ABC.[6] Channel 6 became a full-time ABC affiliate in 1955, after DuMont closed down its operations. During the late 1950s, the station was also briefly affiliated with the NTA Film Network.[7] The station was first housed within the Lincoln-LeVeque Tower in Downtown Columbus until 1952, when it moved into a new facility on Harmon Avenue in Franklinton. Channel 6's present home, on Dublin Road near the Columbus-Grandview Heights border, has been in operation since 1977.

In March 1953, Picture Waves sold WTVN to Radio Cincinnati, Inc., the broadcasting interests of the Taft family of Cincinnati.[8][9] The following year, Radio Cincinnati purchased WHKC radio (610 AM) in Columbus from the publishers of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, renaming that station WTVN (AM) and subsequently adding a -TV suffix to channel 6's call sign.[10] Radio Cincinnati would later become the Taft Broadcasting Company, and Taft would launch a second radio station in Columbus, WTVN-FM (96.3 FM, now WLVQ), in April 1960.

In the early 1970s, Taft's common ownership of WTVN-TV and WKRC-TV (channel 12) in Cincinnati was given protection under a "grandfather clause" by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from its newly enacted "one-to-a-market" rule. The ordinance prohibited television stations with overlapping signals from sharing common ownership while protecting existing instances. WKRC-TV's signal provided at least secondary coverage to much of the southern portion of the Columbus market. One of WTVN-TV's competitors, Crosley/Avco-owned WLWC (channel 4, now WCMH-TV), was given grandfathered protection through a similar situation with sister stations in Dayton and Cincinnati.

At times, WTVN-TV/WSYX has served as the default ABC affiliate in the western parts of the Wheeling/Steubenville market that couldn't receive WTAE-TV from Pittsburgh, which served as the de facto affiliate in most of that market; some viewers in the market are also able to receive WYTV in Youngstown. This gave viewers in the Wheeling/Steubenville market an option to watch ABC programming in pattern, since the only stations in the market (WTRF-TV and WSTV-TV/WTOV-TV) aired ABC programming only in the off-hours, and largely dropped them altogether by the 1980s. (WTOV-TV is now a sister station to WSYX.) That market finally received its own full-time ABC affiliate in 2008, when WTRF-TV launched one on its third digital subchannel, although WSYX remains available on cable in the western parts of the market.

In 1987, Cincinnati financier (and future Cincinnati Reds owner) Carl Lindner acquired a majority of Taft's shares in a hostile takeover, renaming the company Great American Broadcasting, a subsidiary of his Great American Insurance Company. The manner in which the takeover was structured led the FCC to deem it to be an ownership change. As a result, WTVN-TV lost its grandfathered protection and could not be retained by Great American. A group of former Taft Broadcasting shareholders, led by Texas millionaire Robert Bass (who also participated in the hostile takeover), purchased WTVN-TV for their new company, called Anchor Media. The sale closed on August 31, 1987, and the new owners renamed the station WSYX that same day. The change was required as FCC rules at the time prohibited TV and radio stations with separate ownership in the same market from retaining the same base callsign. WTVN and WLVQ-FM remained owned by Great American for several years.

Anchor Media, who also purchased ABC affiliates WLOS in Asheville, North Carolina (in April 1987) and KOVR in Stockton, California (in January 1989, now a CBS O&O), was purchased by River City Broadcasting in 1993. River City was merged into the Sinclair Broadcast Group in 1996. Sinclair owned Columbus' Fox affiliate, WTTE, but could not keep both stations since the FCC did not allow common ownership of two stations in a single market. Sinclair kept the longer-established WSYX and sold WTTE to Glencairn, Ltd., owned by former Sinclair executive Edwin Edwards. However, the Smith family (Sinclair's founding owners) controlled nearly all of Glencairn's stock. In effect, Sinclair now had a duopoly in Columbus in violation of FCC rules. Sinclair and Glenciarn further circumvented the rules by merging WTTE's operations with those of WSYX under a local marketing agreement, with WSYX as the senior partner.

In 2001, after the FCC allowed duopolies, Sinclair tried to acquire Glencairn outright. However, the FCC would not allow Sinclair to repurchase WTTE for two major reasons. First, the FCC does not allow duopolies between two of the four highest-rated stations in a single market. Also, the Columbus market, despite its relatively large size, has only seven full-power stations—too few to legally permit a duopoly. Glencairn was renamed Cunningham Broadcasting but is still effectively owned by Sinclair because nearly all of its stock is owned by trusts controlled by the Smith family. This situation is one of many that has led to allegations that Cunningham is simply a shell corporation used by Sinclair to circumvent FCC ownership rules. Sinclair would later acquire WKRC-TV in 2012, reuniting the station with WSYX.

In 2004, WSYX (along with other ABC affiliates owned by Sinclair, including sister station WKEF in Dayton [which had recently switched back to ABC from NBC]) pre-empted the special showing of Saving Private Ryan in late 2004 due to concerns that the FCC would impose a fine on them if they had aired the World War II-set movie due to the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show controversy earlier that year. As ABC affiliates owned by E. W. Scripps Company also pre-empted the film (including WEWS-TV in Cleveland and WCPO-TV in Cincinnati), only viewers in the far eastern (WYTV) and northwestern (then-ABC O&O WTVG in Toledo) parts of Ohio were able to view the film. It was later determined that the movie's broadcast was not a violation of FCC regulations.

At one point, WTVN-TV/WSYX was one of five ABC affiliates owned by Taft, owing to a longtime friendship between Taft's chairman Hulbert Taft Jr., and then-ABC president Leonard Goldenson. WSYX is the only one of these stations still affiliated with ABC, the only former Taft station whose ABC affiliation survives that friendship. Following the sale of WCMH-TV by NBC to Media General in 2006 (as well as its subsequent merger with Nexstar Media Group in 2017) as well as WBNS-TV's 2019 sale to Tegna Inc., WSYX currently has the longest active ownership history with one owner among Columbus's "Big Three" affiliates.

WSYX/WTTE/WWHO studios in Columbus.

WSYX presently broadcasts 38 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with six hours each weekday and four hours each on Saturdays and Sundays) on its main signal, as well as 25½ hours for sister station WTTE for a total of 63½ hours of locally produced newscasts; in regards to the number of hours devoted to news programming, it is the highest local newscast output among the Columbus market's television stations, though WCMH-TV has the largest single output.

Historically WSYX has been number three in the local news ratings race. However, in the past several years channel 6 has been competitive in the fight with WCMH-TV for the runner-up position behind long-dominant WBNS-TV. During the 1977-83 era, WTVN-TV often passed WCMH for second place behind WBNS, and during 1987-1992, WSYX and WBNS traded second place ratings, both behind then-number one WCMH. Over the years, the station has featured high-profile Columbus anchors including Tom Ryan (who moved from WBNS to WTVN in 1979), Pat Lalama, I.J. Hudson, Michelle Gailiun, Lou Forrest (known as Louis de la Foret on CNN Headline News), Deborah Countiss, Bob Hetherington, Charlene Brown, and Liz Claman (now an anchor on Fox Business Network) and Carol Costello (former CNN news anchor) were also one time anchor/reporters on WSYX.

WSYX and WTTE did not participate in the wider implementation of Sinclair's now-defunct, controversial News Central format for its newscasts but did air The Point, a one-minute conservative political commentary, that was also controversial and a requirement of all Sinclair-owned stations with newscasts until the series was discontinued in December 2006. WSYX does provides weather forecasts to sister St. Louis ABC affiliate KDNL-TV for their Good Morning America cut-ins; KDNL sub-contracts their news/public affairs programming to an outside provider. WSYX launched their newscasts in high definition on May 10, 2008, making them the last Columbus station to make the upgrade. The WTTE newscasts were included in the switch. In addition, this was the second Sinclair-owned station to launch local newscasts in HD.

Tri-State Network

Advertisement for the Premiere of The Wendy Barrie Show originating from WHIO-TV in Dayton and simulcast on WKRC-TV in Cincinnati and WTVN-TV (now WSYX) in Columbus, all in Ohio

In 1953, three television stations owned by Taft Broadcasting Company and Cox Communications formed the short-lived "Tri-State Network" to compete with entertainment programming produced by Crosley Broadcasting Corporation on Crosley television stations in the Cincinnati, Columbus and Dayton, Ohio broadcast markets. On January 11, 1954, a new The Wendy Barrie Show premiered from the studios of WHIO-TV in Dayton, simulcast on Taft Broadcasting's WKRC-TV in Cincinnati and WTVN-TV (now WSYX) in Columbus.[17] Wendy Barrie's contract was terminated in October, 1954.[18]

• WTVN-TV History Page at the Early Television Foundation

• WSYX "ABC 6"
• WSYX-DT2 This TV
• WTTE "Fox 28"
• Query the FCC's TV station database for WSYX