27 Facts About WBRC

WBRC is a television station in Birmingham, Alabama, United States, affiliated with the Fox network.

In September 1950, WBRC established a coaxial cable link with fellow NBC-DuMont affiliate WRGB in Schenectady, New York, allowing the station to broadcast NBC and DuMont network programs both live and live-to-air.

On February 19,1953, WBRC-TV moved to channel 6 as part of a frequency realignment ordered by the FCC, resulting from the Sixth Report and Order issued the year prior in 1952.

On March 1,1961, WBRC-TV signed an agreement with ABC to become a full-time affiliate of the network.

The station became exclusively affiliated with ABC on September 7,1961; on that date, channel 13 assumed rights to CBS and NBC programming, although WBRC continued to occasionally carry certain CBS shows that WAPI chose not to carry through 1965.

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In 1966, WBRC-TV began broadcasting local programming in color, after the station purchased two color cameras; among the first local programs to be produced in color was the Alabama Crimson Tide football coaches' program, The Bear Bryant Show, which aired on WBRC until 1970, when it moved to WAPI-TV.

Meanwhile, WBRC-TV had become one of ABC's strongest affiliates, a position it retained for the next quarter-century.

In 1982, WBRC began receiving ABC network and syndicated programming, and news footage via satellite.

WBRC became a Fox owned-and-operated station on September 1,1996, ending its affiliation with ABC after 47 years; however, the station had begun airing the network's short-lived morning program Fox After Breakfast for one month prior to the switch after it dropped Good Morning America from its schedule.

At that time, WBRC phased out its longstanding "Channel 6" brand and began branding itself as "Fox 6", becoming one of three Fox stations affected by the affiliation deal between the network and New World to adopt Fox's standardized station branding conventions prior to the group's 1996 merger with Fox Television Stations.

WBRC would become the only remaining station in the Birmingham–Tuscaloosa–Anniston market that was owned by a major commercial broadcast television network, after Media General completed its acquisition of WVTM from NBC Television Stations on June 26,2006.

In May 2011, WBRC launched a digital subchannel on virtual channel 6.

In May 2014, WBRC added an additional subchannel on virtual channel 6.

In July 2018, WBRC added an additional subchannel on virtual channel 6.

WBRC became the first television station to broadcast the United Cerebral Palsy Telethon, an event to raise money for the cerebral palsy research organization that premiered in 1949; it was from WBRC that the event emerged into national prominence, with national celebrities even making appearances on the telecast.

WBRC began producing live local programming in 1950 after it converted the building that formerly housed WBRC-FM into a makeshift television studio; the station acquired additional studio camera equipment, including shows such as Coffee Break, Supersonic Sam and Cowboy Theatre.

WBRC cemented viewer allegiances by carrying a heavy schedule of local programs during the 1960s and 1970s, most notably two long-running morning shows.

York's program, meanwhile, was so popular that, when ABC debuted AM America in January 1975, WBRC declined to carry it—preferring not to alter, let alone cancel, what had become a local television institution in The Morning Show; this continued after ABC replaced the more news-driven AM America with Good Morning America, which maintained a format similar to York's program, in November of that year.

WBRC began to clear the first hour of GMA in the early 1980s, and began airing the two-hour program in its entirety after York retired from the station in 1989.

Preemptions and out-of-pattern scheduling of some ABC programs would continue in later years; for example, WBRC aired All My Children on a one-day delay from its 1970 debut until it became a Fox station, and preempted the soap opera Loving throughout its 1986 to 1994 run.

WBRC declined to carry Weekend Marketplace, the infomercial block that Fox replaced its remaining Saturday morning children's programming block with in January 2009; the rights were instead acquired by WABM.

WBRC has been the ratings leader in the market for most of the last half-century, dating back to its tenure as an ABC affiliate.

Several members of the news department staff in its early years started at WBRC radio including news anchors Harry Mabry and Joe Langston, and sports anchor Tom York.

In 1969, former WSGN radio anchor Bill Bolen joined WBRC to replace Harry Mabry as the station's main news anchor; Bolen would remain a fixture at channel 6 for 42 years until his retirement in 2010.

In 1978, WBRC became the first television station in the Birmingham market to acquire a microwave truck for electronic news-gathering purposes, and became the first to provide live breaking news coverage on-scene.

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In 2009, WBRC became a founding member station of the Raycom News Network, a service created to allow the sharing of news resources among the four Raycom-owned television stations that serve Alabama – including NBC affiliate WSFA in Montgomery, NBC affiliate WAFF in Huntsville and ABC affiliate WTVM in Columbus, Georgia – which combined, cover almost half of Alabama's population.

On October 26,2009, WBRC became the second television station in the Birmingham-Tuscaloosa-Anniston market – and the third station in Alabama – to begin broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition; the news set and the graphics were redesigned as part of the transition.