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WTVR-TV (channel 6) is a television station in Richmond, Virginia, United States, affiliated with CBS and owned by the E. W. Scripps Company. Its studios are located on West Broad Street on Richmond's West End, and its transmitter is located in Bon Air near the studios of PBS member stations WCVE-TV. WTVR-TV's former transmitter is located behind the station's studio, and only WTVR-FM broadcasts from that tower today. It still remains as part of WTVR-TV's history.
WTVR-TV is one of only a few stations in the country to have been affiliated with all three of the original major American television networks.
As it was one of the last stations to get a construction permit before an FCC-imposed freeze on new permits, WTVR was the only station in town until 1955. It carried programming from all four networks of the time—NBC, CBS, ABC and DuMont—but was a primary NBC affiliate. In 1953, WTVR switched to its former tower, a self-supporting tower near its studios. The tower has long been reckoned as a fixture of the Richmond skyline.
Channel 6 finally got competition in 1955, when WXEX-TV (channel 8, now WRIC-TV) signed on from neighboring Petersburg and took the NBC affiliation. WTVR then had a brief stint becoming a primary CBS affiliate; this ended in 1956 when Larus-owned WRVA-TV (channel 12, now WWBT) signed on and took the CBS affiliation due to WRVA radio's long history as a CBS radio affiliate. WTVR then carried on as an ABC affiliate until 1960, when CBS cut a new deal with Havens due to channel 12's low ratings. WTVR has been with CBS ever since and is one of the few stations in the country to have been a primary affiliate of all of the "Big Three" networks, like WWBT locally. During the late 1950s, the station was also briefly affiliated with the NTA Film Network. Although Richmond Broadcasting was nowhere near as large as Larus and Richmond Newspapers, WTVR's eight-year head start allowed it to become the ratings leader in Richmond for the better part of its first three decades on the air.
Havens sold WTVR, WMBG, and WCOD to Roy H. Park Communications in 1966, earning a handsome return on his original $500 investment when he started WMBG in 1927. After taking ownership of the properties, the radio stations adopted the TV station's "WTVR" call letters. When Park died in 1993, the company's assets were sold to a Lexington, Kentucky group of investors that sold the radio properties separately to various owners, with WTVR-AM-FM going to Clear Channel (now iHeartMedia) in 1995. WTVR-FM is now owned by Audacy, who acquired iHeartMedia's Richmond stations in 2017, while the AM station, bought by Salem Communications in 2001 and programmed as Christian radio Talk radio, was later sold by Salem and is now Spanish religious station WBTK. The WMBG call letters are currently used on an WMBG in Williamsburg, Virginia.
WTVR began suffering in the ratings in 1994 when CBS lost the rights to broadcast National Football League games to Fox (CBS returned to NFL broadcasting in 1998). However, it recovered by the turn of the century and since then has been a solid runner-up, sometimes waging a spirited battle for second place with WRIC in news ratings.
WTVR-TV was the only CBS station between Richmond and Roanoke until WCAV-TV signed on in Charlottesville in 2004.
Local features and community programs have included "For Kids' Sake", "Paws for Pets", and Battle of the Brains and a 24-hour weather news channel called "CBS 6 Xtra" broadcast on broadband, digital cable, and digital subchannel 6.2 in the area. The station carried Raycom's 24/7 music television format "The Tube" on WTVR-DT3 until its shutdown on October 1, 2007. In March 2011, WTVR-DT3 became the new home of CBS 6 Xtra, while 6.2 carries Antenna TV (see below).
On January 6, 2009, Raycom resolved the ownership issue by trading WBRC, the Fox affiliate for Birmingham and $83 million to Local TV LLC in exchange for WTVR-TV. The transfer closed on March 31, 2009. As a result of the trade, Local TV owned Virginia's two largest CBS affiliates; it already owned WTKR-TV, the CBS affiliate in Norfolk, the market just to the east of Richmond. Local TV added Hampton Roads CW affiliate WGNT in 2010 after buying it from CBS.
For three months after the swap deal was completed, WTVR's website remained in the old Raycom-era format. This changed in late June 2009, a few days after WBRC relaunched its website, when WTVR migrated its website to the Tribune Company Interactive platform used by the websites of other Local TV-owned stations. As of 2012, Local TV migrated its websites to WordPress.com VIP. On July 1, 2013, Local TV announced that its stations would be acquired by the Tribune Company. The sale was completed on December 27. Company Completes Final Steps of Transaction Announced in July , Tribune Company, December 27, 2013
On August 21, 2015, WTVR-TV's newsroom was named in honor of Stephanie Rochon, who anchored the weeknight newscasts from 1999 to 2014. Rochon had died that June after a long struggle with cancer.
On May 8, 2017, Sinclair entered into an agreement to acquire Tribune Media for $3.9 billion, plus the assumption of $2.7 billion in debt held by Tribune. It intended to keep WTVR, selling WRLH and eight other stations to Standard Media Group. The transaction was designated in July 2018 for hearing by an FCC administrative law judge, and Tribune moved to terminate the deal the next month.
On August 10, 2010, starting with the Noon newscast, WTVR became the second commercial station (behind WWBT) to broadcast local news in high definition. The change also came new graphics, music (an updated version of "The CBS Enforcer Music Collection" by Gari Media Group) and a new news set. On January 23, 2013, WTVR used on-air graphics that were also used on then sister station KDVR, a Fox affiliate in Denver, Colorado until April 20, 2015, when they debuted new graphics and music ("Moving Forward" by 615 Music) that are also used by then sister station WTTV (which became a CBS affiliate in January of that year) in Indianapolis. These were changed to Scripps' standardized graphics package and custom-made music from Stephen Arnold Music, in September 2020, almost a year after the company bought the station.
Between 2016 and 2018, WTVR produced a half-hour newscast for then Washington, D.C., sister station WDCW, with presentation originated from the former's studios, along with reporters based in Washington. It was cancelled on September 28, 2018, after Tribune announced budget cuts amid the failed Sinclair transaction.
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On April 11, 2022, WTVR-TV began hosting WUPV's 65.2 subchannel, as a result of WUPV converting to ATSC 3.0; in turn, WUPV simulcasts WTVR-TV in the ATSC 3.0 broadcast standard.
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