WTVD Tower
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Durham/Raleigh/ Fayetteville, North Carolina United States |
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| City | Durham, North Carolina |
| Branding |
ABC 11 (general) ABC 11 Eyewitness News (newscasts) |
| Slogan | Keeping You Connected |
| Channels |
Digital: 11 (VHF) Virtual: 11 () |
| Subchannels | 11.1 ABC 11.2 Live Well 11.3 Laff |
| Affiliations | ABC (O&O) (1956–1957, 1985–present; secondary: 1954–1956, 1957–1962) |
| Owner |
Disney/ABC (WTVD Television, LLC) |
| Founded | December 1953 |
| First air date | September 2, 1954 |
| Call letters' meaning | TeleVision for Durham |
| Former channel number(s) |
Analog: 11 (VHF, 1954–2009) Digital: 52 (UHF, until 2009) |
| Former affiliations |
Primary: NBC (1954–1956) CBS (1957–1985) Secondary: CBS (1954–1957) NTA (1956–1961) NBC (1962–1971) |
| Transmitter power | 45 kW |
| Height | 615 m (2,018 ft) |
| Facility ID | 8617 |
| Transmitter coordinates | 35°40′5″N 78°31′59″W / 35.66806°N 78.53306°W |
| Licensing authority | FCC |
| Public license information: |
Profile CDBS |
| Website | abc11 |
WTVD, virtual and VHF digital channel 11, is an ABC owned-and-operated television station, licensed to Durham, North Carolina, United States. Owned by ABC Owned Television Stations, a unit of The Walt Disney Company, the station serves the areas of Durham, Raleigh, and Chapel Hill (known as the "Triangle") and Fayetteville. WTVD's main studios, offices, and newsroom are located on Liberty Street in downtown Durham, along with additional studio facilities in both Raleigh and Fayetteville. The station's transmitter is located in Auburn, North Carolina. On-air branding uses ABC 11 as a station identifier, with the call letters taking a secondary role.
On cable, the station is carried on channel 9 in the Raleigh area, and channel 6 in Durham and Chapel Hill. In most outlying areas of the market, the station is carried on channel 11. On Charter Spectrum, WTVD is shown in high definition on digital channel 1200.
In 1952, two rival companies each applied for a construction permit to build a television station in Durham on the city's newly allotted VHF channel 11 – Herald-Sun Newspapers (publishers of the Durham Morning Herald and the Durham Sun as well as the owners of radio station WDNC) and Floyd Fletcher and Harmon Duncan, the then-owners of WTIK radio. In December 1953, the two sides agreed to join forces and operate the station under the joint banner Durham Broadcasting Enterprises. Originally christened with the WTIK-TV call letters, the station had to make a name change after the partners sold WTIK radio as a condition of the permit grant. Ownership chose WTVD and was granted the change, but they had to wait – the call sign had been used in the 1953 20th Century Fox film Taxi for a fictional television station appearing in the movie. At the time, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) allowed unassigned call letters to be used in fictional works for an exclusive two-year period, making them unavailable for actual broadcast use.
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Wikipedia