WISN-TV (channel 12) is a television station in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States, affiliated with ABC and owned by Hearst Television. The station's studios are located on the west end of the Marquette University campus, and its transmitter is located at Lincoln Park in the northeastern part of Milwaukee.
History First tenure with ABC The station first signed on the air on October 27, 1954, as WTVW (for its on-air slogan "Wisconsin's Television Window"). In early 1955, the station was purchased by the Hearst Corporation, publishers of The Milwaukee Sentinel and owners of WISN radio (1130 AM); the new owners changed channel 12's call letters to WISN-TV, after its radio sister (whose calls were derived from now-defunct newspaper The Wisconsin News."Hearst acquires WTVW (TV) Milwaukee; NBC buys WKNB-TV New Britain, Conn." Broadcasting - Telecasting, January 10, 1955, p. 7. https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-BC/BC-1955/1955-01-10-BC.pdf The station originally operated as a primary ABC affiliate with a secondary DuMont affiliation. WISN-TV lost the DuMont affiliation when that network ceased operations in 1956, leaving it exclusively with ABC.
In January 1958, WISN-TV became the flagship station of the Badger Television Network, a three-station network serving Wisconsin that also included WFRV-TV in Green Bay and WKOW-TV in Madison. Programs broadcast by the network included Homemaker's Holiday, a quiz show; Good Housekeeping, titled after the Hearst magazine of the same name; and Pretzel Party, a variety program originally. All three programs originated from WISN-TV's studios. During March 1958, the network also aired U.S. Senate Investigation Committee hearings during late-night hours. The network ceased operations on August 8, 1958. WISN-TV and WISN radio gained an FM radio sister when Hearst signed on WISN-FM (97.3, now WRNW) in 1961.
Switch to CBS In 1961, CBS affiliated with WISN-TV, as its sister radio station had been a longtime affiliate of the CBS Radio Network. As a result, Storer Broadcasting-owned WITI-TV (channel 6) and WISN swapped networks: channel 12 switched its affiliation to CBS and channel 6 became an ABC affiliate on April 2, 1961."Milwaukee stations to switch networks. " Broadcasting, January 30, 1961, pg. 9.
During channel 12's time with CBS, it was the home station for the NFL's Green Bay Packers for the Milwaukee market, airing the team's first two Super Bowl appearances.
Second tenure with ABC
On September 26, 1976, CBS announced it was moving its Milwaukee affiliation back to WITI-TV."In Brief." Broadcasting, September 27, 1976, pg. 28. https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-BC/BC-1976/1976-09-27-BC.pdf (the text incorrectly states that WISN-TV had been a CBS affiliate since 1954, omitting the 1961 affiliation switch.) Storer Broadcasting had much better relations with CBS than it reportedly had with ABC; weeks earlier, ABC opted to drop Storer's San Diego station KCST-TV from the network after a four-year dispute stemming from KCST's successful battle to strip that market's ABC affiliation from XETV-TV in nearby Tijuana, Mexico. Meanwhile, ABC had become the top-rated television network in the United States, thanks in large part to two Milwaukee-set sitcoms: Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley. WISN-TV and ABC agreed to a new affiliation contract about a month later;"Milwaukee connection." Broadcasting, October 18, 1976, pg. 36 https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-BC/BC-1976/1976-10-18-BC.pdf the two stations swapped networks once again on March 27, 1977; the final CBS program to air on channel 12 was an episode of The Carol Burnett Show with guest Ken Berry, which aired at 9 p.m. Central Time on the night before the station rejoined ABC (the station also aired the United Cerebral Palsy Telethon ahead of its return to ABC at 6 p.m. that Sunday evening). WISN even used Happy Days star Henry Winkler (in character as Arthur "Fonzie" Fonzarelli) to herald its return to ABC with the slogan "Happy Days are Here Again" in on-air and print campaigns leading up to the switch. To this day, WISN-TV has been one of ABC's most successful affiliates, and bills itself as such in its own promotions.
Around the same time, the station was the first which utilized newscast composer Frank Gari's "Hello News" package, which included an imaging song individualized to each market's city; in this case "Hello Milwaukee", which remains well-remembered and remains used in various ways by WISN-TV to the present day, and was cited as one of the factors in driving viewers to the station in the late 1970s and allowing it to be competitive.
For most of its years with ABC, the station did not include the network's logo next to theirs, branding solely with the channel number and/or call letters vocally and visually (outside of network-created radio promos which referred to the station as "12 ABC") until 2012, when the network began to contractually require the ABC logo be included with any affiliate's logo redesign. In November 2014, the station unveiled their current logo with the call letters beneath the long-used "12" logo form and the ABC logo on the right side of the "12" number mark, the first with the ABC logo blended in for all uses, including for news and entertainment programming, and ending a long run where the station's call letters were rendered in Bank Gothic font. Vocally, the station remains "WISN 12". The station is among the few in the nation which has their logo in a transparent bug at all times, including ABC network and news programming, though not during commercial breaks or paid programming.
Channel 12 was the first commercial station in the market to produce a high-definition broadcast, airing the Summerfest "Big Bang" fireworks show in HD on June 29, 2006. Milwaukee Public Television assisted WISN-TV in the production of the broadcast, and have continued to do so each year since, with additional help from sister stations in Sacramento and Boston in later years.
Hearst sold WISN radio and what by then became WLTQ to Clear Channel Communications in 1997, and the third floor WLTQ/WISN radio studios were vacated in 2000 after their move to the expanded WOKY facility in Greenfield. During the transition, WLTQ's live on-air personnel, who also acted as hosts for WISN's local programming and Wisconsin Lottery drawings and its game show, The Money Game (allowing the news department to avoid any on-air role with the lottery outside relaying winning numbers), became employees of Clear Channel, and after The Money Game ended production in the mid-2000s, the station virtually ceased local productions not connected to newscasts, advertising, or charity efforts. All ties between WISN-TV and its former sister radio stations were severed when a longtime agreement with channel 12 to provide forecasts for WISN (AM) and the then-WQBW (now WRNW) and four others within Clear Channel's Milwaukee radio cluster ended on July 27, 2009 (though WRNW continues to transmit from WISN-TV's tower), as WITI began its own weather/news content agreement with the stations.Accord puts Channel 6 weather, news on Clear Channel radio stations , Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, July 24, 2009. WISN-TV then began a news content agreement with Saga Communications for its five area radio stations (WKLH, WHQG, WJMR-FM, WJYI and WNRG-FM),Foxx tells 'Idol' contestants 'the real deal' , Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, July 29, 2009. along with providing weather forecasts to WGXI in Plymouth. Due to the now separate ownership of the two stations, WISN-TV's news staff disclaim both on-air and through their social networking channels that the station has no connections with WISN radio's conservative talk format other than sharing the same call letters, a point of contention and confusion during events such as live shots at the Wisconsin State Capitol for the 2011 state budget debate.Veteran WISN Reporter Nick Bohr Heckled by Protestors in Madison , TVSpy, February 22, 2011.
In February 2014, the station added an SAP audio channel, allowing the station to carry ABC programming featuring audio description or a Spanish-language dub, and complying with the FCC's requirements to offer audio description.
On April 30, 2021, the station added a third subchannel carrying Shop LC over-the-air as part of a broader year-long channel carriage agreement between that network's owners and Hearst (ShopLC already purchases several channel slots on pay television providers, thus Hearst does not need to seek cable carriage for that subchannel). A fourth subchannel carrying programming from theGrio launched at the end of September of the same year, though it is mapped to 12.5 rather than 12.4. 12.4 was activated for Weigel's Story Television at the end of March 2022, and 12.3 went dark upon the end of Shop LC's carriage deal with Hearst.
Summer 2012 Time Warner Cable carriage dispute As Hearst and Time Warner Cable entered into a retransmission consent dispute that resulted in Hearst's stations being removed from TWC's systems in certain markets on July 10, 2012, WISN was not immediately removed from its Milwaukee area systems in an eleventh hour announcement, as the direct fiber connection between WISN and TWC was then the same line utilized to Charter Communications; before the two companies merged in 2017 as Spectrum, Charter served the outer portions of the market such as western Waukesha County and most of Washington, Fond du Lac and Sheboygan counties. Under a side agreement between the providers, TWC was bound to keep the fiber connection on the air, along with Hearst for Charter. It was the only Hearst station to remain on TWC during the dispute, but with both Start Over video on demand and the ability to record station programming to TWC DVRs completely removed. Charter then tried to pursue a different method of transmitting WISN's signal to remove itself as an intermediary from the dispute, and was able to make the arrangements by July 12, allowing WISN's removal from Time Warner Cable one day later, with WISN's SD and HD channel slots replaced with Hallmark Movie Channel. The dispute was resolved on July 19, returning the station to TWC's systems that evening.
Programming Sports programming WISN airs any Milwaukee Bucks games that are selected to be broadcast on the NBA on ABC; this included the team's victory in the 2021 NBA Finals, the team's and the city's first championship in 50 years. The station also carries Monday Night Football games featuring the Green Bay Packers by virtue of Hearst's 20% ownership of ESPN.
News operation WISN-TV presently broadcasts 39 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with six hours each weekday and hours each on Saturdays and Sundays); WISN is one of the few Hearst-owned stations that carries an hour-long midday newscast. The station utilizes two weather radars as part of its "Doppler 12 Radar Network", using radar sites based at the National Weather Service forecast office in Sullivan, and atop Froedtert's Community Memorial Hospital in Menomonee Falls, which is operated by the station. It is the only Milwaukee station to have a helicopter for newsgathering.