city durham north carolina branding abc 11 general abc 11 eyewitness news newscasts slogan keeping you connected channels digital 11 vhf virtual 11 psip subchannels 11.1 abc 11.2 live well 11.3 laff affiliations abc o & o 1956 1957 1985 present ; secondary 1954 1957 1958 1962 owner disney abc wtvd television llc founded december 1953 1 first air date september 2 1954 ; 62 years ago 1954 09 02 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 1958 1985 secondary nbc 1962 1971 transmitter power 45 kw height 615 metres 2 018 feet facility id 8617 transmitter coordinates 35 40 5 n 78 31 59 w 35.66806 n 78.53306 w 35.66806 ; 78.53306 coordinates 35 40 5 n 78 31 59 w 35.66806 n 78.53306 w 35.66806 ; 78.53306 licensing authority fcc public license information profile cdbs website abc11.com wtvd channel 11 is an abc owned and operated television station licensed to durham north carolina usa . the station is owned by abc owned television stations a unit of the disney abc television group division 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 garner north carolina . contents 1 history 1.1 early years 1.2 switch to abc 2 digital television 2.1 digital channels 2.2 analog to digital conversion 3 out of market cable and satellite carriage 4 news operation 4.1 notable current on air staff 4.2 notable former on air staff 5 references 6 external links history edit early years edit 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 . 1 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 . 2 3 ten months after being granted its permit on september 2 1954 wtvd began broadcasting with a black and white film of the star spangled banner this was followed by you bet your life . 4 it was originally a primary nbc affiliate with a secondary abc affiliation . channel 11 is the triangle s oldest surviving television station having signed on a few months after cbs affiliate wnao tv channel 28 . the station s initial studios were located in a former tuberculosis sanitorium at broad street in durham with a transmitter located atop signal hill in northern durham county . 5 6 wral tv channel 5 owned by the locally based capitol broadcasting company debuted in december 1956 and took over as the triangle s nbc affiliate leaving channel 11 with only abc . wnao tv ceased operations at the end of 1957 due to financial difficulties and cbs moved its primary affiliation to wtvd . 7 during the late 1950s the station was also briefly affiliated with the nta film network . 8 on may 22 1957 the station s original owners sold their interest in wtvd to albany new york based hudson valley broadcasting company owners of wcda tv now wten to form capital cities television corporation predecessor of capital cities communications . 9 10 around 1958 wtvd built a 1 500 foot 460 m tower at its present transmitter site in auburn to increase its signal coverage in the market . that same year the station first began broadcasting network programs in color although it would not be until 1966 before the same was true for local programming . after wral tv took the abc affiliation full time in 1962 wtvd was forced to shoehorn cbs and nbc programming onto its schedule . 11 this was a very unusual arrangement for what was then a two station market . the triangle was at least on paper big enough even then to support three full network affiliates . however the only other vhf license in the market channel 4 had already been taken by national educational television outlet wunc tv . uhf was not considered viable at the time . not only were television manufacturers not required to include uhf tuning capability until 1964 but the available uhf frequencies were not thought to be nearly strong enough to cover a market that stretched from chapel hill in the west to goldsboro in the east . this situation was similar to that of wapi tv now wvtm tv in birmingham alabama . however unlike wapi tv wtvd managed to find room for the ed sullivan show the cbs evening news with walter cronkite and the tonight show starring johnny carson . although the market got a third commercial station six years later when a new channel 28 signed on as wrdu tv now wrdc wtvd continued to cherry pick the most popular cbs and nbc programs for another three years leaving wrdu with the lower rated shows from both networks . in 1971 the fcc intervening on behalf of wrdu s owners and in the interest of protecting the development of uhf ordered wtvd to select one network . 12 13 channel 11 decided to go with cbs full time allowing wrdu to become an exclusive nbc station it is now affiliated with mynetworktv . in 1978 wtvd attempted to expand its broadcast coverage to the fayetteville area which had been without a television station of its own for nearly two decades . its studios were relocated to their current location on liberty street in downtown durham on a parcel of land it shares with the durham county library ; it also built its current 2 000 foot 610 m tower in auburn . a fire on march 4 1979 caused extensive damage to the newly built studio building ; 14 however the newsroom and a number of other key components had been rebuilt within a month . by that time much of wtvd s operations had returned to normal although it had resorted to temporary setups during the interim such as holding the newscasts in one of the meeting rooms that survived the fire unscathed . switch to abc edit wtvd s logo from 2007 to 2013 . on march 18 1985 wtvd s owner capital cities announced it was purchasing abc . 15 five months later on august 4 1985 wtvd traded networks with wral tv and became an abc affiliate . 16 at that time wtvd and wral tv joined the small list of stations that have held primary affiliations with all of the big three networks . the transaction was finalized on january 3 1986 making wtvd an abc owned and operated station the first network owned television station in north carolina . in 1996 the walt disney company acquired capital cities abc . on the night of december 6 1991 a helicopter carrying a pilot and three wtvd employees from a high school football game in wilmington north carolina crashed killing three of the four people on board . 17 sports reporter tony debo was the only survivor . 18 on april 30 2000 a dispute between disney and time warner cable forced wtvd off cable systems within the raleigh durham fayetteville market for over 24 hours during the may sweeps period . other abc stations in markets served by time warner cable such as new york city los angeles and houston were also affected by the outage as well before the fcc forced twc to restore service to those areas on may 2 . 19 in july 2010 disney announced that it was involved in another carriage dispute with time warner cable which involved four abc owned and operated stations including wtvd disney channel and the networks of espn . if a deal was not in place the entire disney cluster would have been removed from time warner and bright house cable systems across the country . on september 2 2010 disney and time warner cable reached a long term agreement to keep the disney family of channels on its systems . digital television edit digital channels edit the station s digital signal is multiplexed channel video aspect psip short name programming 20 11.1 720p 16 9 wtvd d1 main wtvd programming abc 11.2 wtvd d2 live well network 11.3 480i 4 3 wtvd d3 laff analog to digital conversion edit wtvd discontinued regular programming on its analog signal over vhf channel 11 at 12 30 p.m. on june 12 2009 the official date in which full power television stations in the united states transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate . the station s digital signal relocated from its pre transition uhf channel 52 which was among the high band uhf channels 52 69 that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition to its analog era vhf channel 11 . 21 on september 23 2009 the station filed an application to the federal communications commission to increase its effective radiated power from 20.7 to 45 kilowatts . 22 out of market cable and satellite carriage edit in recent years wtvd has been carried on cable in multiple areas outside of the raleigh media market . that includes cable systems within the greensboro greenville myrtle beach sc and wilmington markets in north carolina and the roanoke market in virginia . on directv wtvd has been carried in alamance county which is within the greensboro market . 23 in the 1970s and 1980s through catv wtvd was once carried in wilmington mount airy brunswick county emporia va and bennettsville sc . 24 news operation edit current 4 p.m. eyewitness news open used since 2013 . current abc 11 eyewitness news logo . wtvd presently broadcasts 41 hours of locally produced newscasts each week with 6 hours on weekdays and 4 hours each on saturdays and sundays ; in regards to the number of hours devoted to news programming it is the highest local newscast output of any television station in the triangle market . for most of the last four decades wtvd has been a solid second in ratings across the market behind wral . this is in contrast to most of its abc stablemates including former capital cities sisters wpvi tv in philadelphia and kfsn tv in fresno which dominate their markets news ratings . however it is still one of the strongest abc stations in the country . in recent years wtvd has had to fend off a spirited challenge for second place from a resurgent wncn . as with abc s other owned and operated stations wtvd features forecasts provided by accuweather for the weather segments of its newscasts . it operates its own weather radar called first alert doppler xp at its transmitter site in garner . in addition to its main studios the station operates bureaus in fayetteville on green street and raleigh on fayetteville street . wtvd has a fleet of regular news vans and