WMYT-TV, virtual channel 55 (UHF digital channel 47), is a MyNetworkTV owned-and-operated television station serving Charlotte, North Carolina, United States. It is licensed to Rock Hill, South Carolina; as such, it is the only major commercial station in Charlotte that is licensed on the South Carolina side of the market. The station is owned by the Fox Television Stations subsidiary of Fox Corporation, as part of a duopoly with Belmont, North Carolina-licensed Fox owned-and-operated station WJZY (channel 46). The two stations share studios on Performance Road (along I-85) in unincorporated northwestern Mecklenburg County (with a Charlotte mailing address); WMYT's transmitter is located in Dallas, North Carolina. The station is branded as My 12, in reference to its channel location on most Charlotte area cable providers.
On cable, WMYT-TV is available on Charter Spectrum channel 12 (channel 15 on legacy Charter systems), Comporium Communications channel 112 and AT&T U-verse channel 55.
History
Early history
From 1974 to 1978, the UHF channel 55 allocation in Rock Hill belonged to W55AA, a low-powered repeater of PBS member network South Carolina Educational Television. On January 3, 1978, SCETV programming moved to full-powered WNSC-TV on channel 30.
The present station on channel 55 first signed on the air on October 21, 1994, as WFVT, an independent station owned by Indiana-based Family 55. The station was operated under a local marketing agreement with Capitol Broadcasting Company, then owner of WJZY. Under this agreement, WJZY bought WFVT's entire broadcast day, and filled the schedule mostly with syndicated programs that WJZY did not have time to air.
WFVT became a charter affiliate of The WB Television Network when it debuted on January 11, 1995, and changed its on-air branding from "TV55" to "WB55" shortly afterward. WJZY joined the United Paramount Network (UPN) when that network debuted five days later on January 16. In February of that year, the station was added to most Charlotte area cable systems. In the city of Charlotte, it was placed on Time Warner Cable channel 17, a slot that had long been held by The Disney Channel (then carried by most area providers as a premium service). The station ran ads in local newspapers that featured Bugs Bunny (ironic considering he was not the mascot of The WB network itself) pulling off a pair of Mickey Mouse ears and suggesting that viewers should re-program their televisions and VCRs lest they think "some rodent still lives there."
On August 5, 1999, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) reversed its longstanding regulations against permitting common ownership of two full-power stations in the same television market; Capitol Broadcasting bought channel 55 outright the following year, creating a duopoly with WJZY. (This was one of two duopolies formed in the Charlotte market during the 2000 calendar year, the other involving the purchase of WAXN-TV (channel 64) by WSOC-TV (channel 9)'s owner Cox Enterprises). WFVT subsequently changed its callsign to WWWB in 2001, to reflect its network affiliation. For most of The WB's run, channel 55 was one of the network's strongest affiliates.
MyNetworkTV affiliation
Shortly after Fox Entertainment Group's February 22, 2006 announcement of the formation of MyNetworkTV, WWWB was announced as the network's Charlotte affiliate. Sister station WJZY had already decided to join The CW, a network created out of CBS Corporation and Time Warner's decision to shut down UPN and The WB, effective that September. This made Charlotte the first city in the nation with a duopoly involving affiliates of both The CW and MyNetworkTV.
On April 28, 2006, WWWB changed its call letters to WMYT-TV, in anticipation of its new affiliation. WMYT officially affiliated with MyNetworkTV upon the network's debut on September 5, 2006, branding on-air as "MyTV12," in reference to the channel slot that the station moved to on Time Warner Cable a few years earlier and where it was also carried on area cable providers. For a time in 2006 and 2007, WMYT erected several advertising signs around the Charlotte area describing several Charlotte landmarks as "my ___."
WMYT served as the over-the-air home for the NBA's Charlotte Bobcats from 2006 until the team moved all of its local broadcasts to regional sports network Fox Sports Carolinas (now co-owned with WMYT and WJZY) after the 2007–08 season.
Sale to Fox Television Stations
On January 14, 2013, Fox Television Stations entered into an agreement to acquire WMYT and WJZY from Capitol Broadcasting Company for $18 million (the sale was formally announced on January 28). This marked a re-entry into North Carolina for Fox, which owned WGHP in High Point from 1996 to 2008. The deal included a time brokerage agreement clause that would have had Fox take over the operations of WJZY and WMYT, and acquire the duopoly's non-license assets for $8.24 million, if the deal was not closed by June 1. The FCC granted its approval on the sale on March 11, and the deal was consummated on April 17.
As MyNetworkTV is owned by Fox parent 21st Century Fox, the acquisition made WMYT the first owned-and-operated station of a commercial broadcast network in the Charlotte market. On May 9, WMYT introduced an updated logo that more closely resembles the logos used by its sister stations, and also changed its on-air brand to just "My 12"; WMYT is currently the only MyNetworkTV O&O that uses its cable channel position in its branding instead of its virtual channel number. Sister station WJZY acquired the Fox affiliation from WCCB (channel 18) on July 1, which made WJZY the first station in Charlotte to be an owned-and-operated station of one of the "Big Four" networks.
FCC spectrum auction and WJZY spectrum merge
On April 13, 2017, the FCC identified that Fox Television Stations sold the spectrum of WMYT. FTS was compensated $46.4 million for WMYT to go off-the-air as part of the spectrum auction, with FTS choosing to merge WMYT's spectrum onto that of WJZY via a channel sharing arrangement. The merge was done on June 6, 2018.
| TV stations in South Carolina |
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| WKTC, Columbia/Sumter |
| TV stations in the Charlotte, North Carolina area |
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| WBTV 3 (CBS) WSOC 9 (ABC) WHKY 14 (Ind) WCEE-LP 16 (ESTRELLA) WUNE 17 (PBS) WCCB 18 (CW) W21CK-D 21 (3ABN) WHWD-LD 21 (Daystar) WDMC-LD 25 (Daystar) WGTB-CD 28 (Ind) WNSC 30 (PBS) WCNC 36 (NBC) WVEB-LD 40 (Cozi) WHEH-LD 41 (AZA) WTVI 42 (PBS) WJZY 46 (Fox) WMYT 55 (MNTV) WUNG 58 (PBS) WAXN 64 (Ind) |