Product Code Database
WFTC (channel 9.2) is a television station licensed to Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, broadcasting the MyNetworkTV programming service to the Twin Cities area. It is owned and operated by Fox Television Stations alongside Fox outlet KMSP-TV (channel 9). The two stations share studios on Viking Drive in Eden Prairie; WFTC's KMSP Tower is located in Shoreview, Minnesota. KFTC (channel 26) in Bemidji, Minnesota, rebroadcasts the main subchannels of WFTC and KMSP-TV, alongside a network of translators across Minnesota.
This station began broadcasting on October 6, 1982, as WFBT-TV on channel 29. Owned by Channel 29 Television and the Faith Broadcasting Network, it intended to be a family-friendly independent station with Christian ministry programming and classic TV shows. Ratings were low, and in 1984 the Beverly Hills Hotel Corporation acquired the station. It relaunched in May 1984 as a more conventionally programmed independent under the KITN-TV call sign. KITN became a major sports station under the ownership of Beverly Hills and Nationwide Communications, at various times in its history holding rights to telecast games of the Minnesota North Stars, Minnesota Timberwolves, and Minnesota Twins. In 1988, it became the Fox affiliate for the Twin Cities after KMSP-TV dropped the network over its underperforming Saturday night lineup.
Clear Channel Television acquired the station in 1993 and changed its call sign to WFTC ("Fox Twin Cities") in September 1994. WFTC was Clear Channel's largest-market TV station and, by 2001, its highest-billing. The station began airing a 9 p.m. local newscast in April 2001, but this was overshadowed by Fox parent News Corporation's acquisition of Chris-Craft Television, the owner of KMSP-TV. Speculation circulated for more than a year that KMSP-TV, with its existing news department and higher profile, would become the new Fox affiliate for the Twin Cities. This proved correct: on September 8, 2002, KMSP-TV became a Fox affiliate and WFTC a UPN affiliate. WFTC's news department was partially absorbed into KMSP's operation, with the 9 p.m. news moved to 10 p.m., but ratings fell even as they rose for KMSP's newscasts, leading to the cancellation of WFTC's news on June 30, 2006.
When UPN and The WB merged into The CW in September 2006, Fox's UPN stations were not invited, with competing stations in many markets (though not the Twin Cities) announced as affiliates. Fox started MyNetworkTV to serve stations not chosen for The CW, including WFTC. The station rebranded as Fox 9+ in 2017 and began airing a 7 p.m. local newscast.
In 1980, Buford Television dropped its bid for channel 29 and bought 80 percent of Viking Television, the channel 23 permittee. However, tower siting woes continued to snarl channel 29's attempts to get on air. The FCC in the late 1960s had required that the VHF television stations give room to new UHF stations that wished to broadcast from Shoreview, and KMSP-TV's mast was supposed to accommodate channel 23 and channel 29. However, when KSTP-TV obtained permission for a height extension to its tower (which also held WCCO-TV), only the KMSP Tower was left out because it could not be extended with the UHF stations on it. This prompted KMSP-TV to rescind the agreement, resulting in legal action. Faith sold 90 percent ownership in the station, forming Channel 29 Television, to strengthen its financial qualifications and obtained a lease on the KMSP tower. The station was given a construction permit in July 1981. An attempt to locate the station's studios in a historic barn in Brooklyn Center fell through, channel 29 set up in a building in Brooklyn Park.
WFBT-TV ("We're Family Broadcasting for the Twin Cities") began broadcasting on October 6, 1982. Half of its programs were religious, with local Christian ministries and national producers from the Christian Broadcasting Network and PTL Satellite Network, while the other half consisted of shows deemed to be family-friendly. It was one of three television stations to debut in 1982 alongside KTMA and KPXM-TV in St. Cloud, Minnesota.
WFBT-TV made comparatively little impact on the Twin Cities television market. The combination format of Christian programming and classic TV series confused viewers and reduced potential advertising revenue. Some Christian viewers were displeased by programming such as The Merv Griffin Show, and the station's October 1983 telethon fell $80,000 short of its goal. Its highest ratings came from telecasts of Minnesota Golden Gophers men's hockey games.
The new ownership took over on May 1, 1984, and the station changed its call sign to KITN-TV ("Independent Twenty-Nine"). On May 6, the station launched a new program lineup with syndicated programming and movies. Beverly Hills Hotel Corporation sold KITN-TV to Nationwide Communications, the broadcasting subsidiary of Columbus, Ohio–based Nationwide Insurance, in 1985 for $24 million. The station called itself "The KITN That Roars"; one station promotion featured Oscar, a growling pet cougar.
With its new orientation, KITN-TV became an aggressive competitor for sports rights. In 1984, channel 29 became the new home of Minnesota North Stars hockey telecasts that fall, airing a 25-game regular-season package and ending a six-year relationship between the team and KMSP. A bid to air Minnesota Twins baseball was unsuccessful, as the team renewed with KMSP. In 1985, it added Big Ten Conference football, followed the next year by a package of Minnesota Golden Gophers hockey and basketball events, outbidding KMSP-TV. The relationship with the University of Minnesota expanded in 1987, though channel 29 lost the North Stars to KXLI because the team was interested in reaching more fans in outstate Minnesota.
While channel 29 had become more aggressive, KITN-TV remained the second-rated independent in the Twin Cities. Hoping to spark a change, Nationwide dismissed Fransen in October 1987 and replaced him with Gail Brekke, who had been running WGBO-DT in the Chicago market.
After the announcement, Fox began negotiating an affiliation agreement with KITN-TV. KITN-TV replaced KMSP-TV as the Fox affiliate in September, carrying the full network schedule. In 1989, KITN added two professional sports teams to its lineup. Under a deal with WCCO-TV owner Midwest Communications, channel 29 began airing 30 Minnesota Twins baseball games a year; with KSTP-TV, it split the rights to the NBA's expansion Minnesota Timberwolves, airing 17 games a season. That same year, the station lost University of Minnesota athletic events to WCCO-TV.
Nationwide Communications, citing "an offer we couldn't refuse", sold KITN to Clear Channel Television for $36 million in 1993. Clear Channel owned seven other TV stations, of which six were Fox affiliates. At the time, Minneapolis was the largest market in which the company operated in radio or television. With Fox's increasing network offerings, the station dropped its local sports coverage. The Twins remained on KITN through the 1993 season, after which time station management dropped them due to the increasing preemptions of network programming that baseball games necessitated and the games moved to WUCW. The Timberwolves followed suit, with KLGT replacing KITN for the 1994–95 NBA season. On September 16, 1994, the station changed its call sign to WFTC, for "Fox Twin Cities", as part of a push to "Fox-ify and localize" the station. The call sign change came even though Rupert Murdoch visited KSTP-TV in hopes of persuading it to switch from ABC to Fox.
Rip Riordan was named channel 29's general manager after Clear Channel took it over and remained in the post until being promoted to head of operations for the entire station group, based in Minneapolis, in 1995. Riordan remained associated with the station. In 1997, an educational children's program, Algo's FACTory, was produced at the WFTC studios, with Riordan as executive producer; it aired nationally on UPN but in the Twin Cities on channel 29. Riordan's connections with the Minnesota Vikings football team, which at the time was facing ownership turmoil, led him to put the owners in touch with Red McCombs, who eventually bought the team in 1998.
In 1999, Clear Channel acquired the construction permit for KAGR (channel 26) in Bemidji from Media Properties Inc. The station began broadcasting October 1, 1999, as KFTC, a satellite station of WFTC.
Fox 29 News @ 9 debuted on April 23, 2001. It was the third 9 p.m. newscast in the Twin Cities after offerings from KMSP-TV, whose late newscast was among the highest-rated in the country, and KSTC-TV. In its first ratings survey, it captured 3% of the audience compared to 8% for KMSP. That July, the station signed a deal to become the over-the-air broadcast home of the Timberwolves for the first time since 1994, airing 35 games per season for three years.
The FCC approved News Corporation's acquisition of the Chris-Craft stations on July 25, 2001. Days later, News Corporation announced a station trade with Clear Channel by which it traded KTVX in Salt Lake City, a market where Fox already owned a station and thus had to sell, and WOAI-TV in San Antonio, Clear Channel's headquarters city, for WFTC, which had been Clear Channel's highest-billing TV station. This created a duopoly of KMSP and WFTC.
Concurrent with the affiliation change was a restructuring of WFTC's news offerings. The 9 p.m. newscast—which had aired five nights a week—was replaced by a seven-day-a-week newscast at 10 p.m. This removed competition with KMSP, which at the same time dropped its newscast in that time slot. Though the two stations' newsrooms and other operations such as sales were combined at an expanded KMSP facility in Eden Prairie, leaving behind the leased quarters occupied by WFTC, the two stations retained separate news identities and their existing anchor talent. Channel 29 lost the Timberwolves to KSTC-TV after 2004, but it picked up a 28-game package of Twins games in 2005 as part of a five-year deal including the Fox-owned regional sports network Fox Sports North.
After the switch, the balance of news ratings and resources tipped toward KMSP, which experienced increases in ratings for its morning and late evening news and expanded to a 5 p.m. newscast under the leadership of news director Ted Canova. In November 2004 alone, KMSP added three percentage points of the viewing audience while WFTC lost more than half of its viewership. With low ratings and poor lead-in programming, the WFTC 10 p.m. newscast was discontinued on June 30, 2006, and replaced with a new newscast from KMSP that debuted on August 28. Conangla and Green, the channel 29 anchor team, were not retained, but 23 other WFTC news staffers were absorbed into the KMSP newsroom.
From 2013 to 2016, WFTC broadcast a local entertainment program, On the Fly, late on weeknights. Hosted by local radio personality Tony Fly, the program featured interviews with celebrity guests and interactive segments. In 2016 and 2017, the station broadcast Minnesota United FC soccer, covering their last season in the North American Soccer League and first season in Major League Soccer.
On August 11, 2017, WFTC rebranded as "Fox 9+", a brand extension of KMSP-TV, and debuted a half-hour 7 p.m. newscast.
In February 2025, WFTC aired matches from the Coachella Valley Invitational preseason tournament featuring Minnesota United FC of Major League Soccer. Later in 2025, WFTC announced an agreement with the St. Paul Saints, the Triple-A affiliate of the Minnesota Twins, to air 11 games.
|
|
