WRCB, virtual channel 3 (VHF digital channel 13), is an NBC/Ion Television-affiliated television station licensed to Chattanooga, Tennessee, United States, serving southeastern Tennessee, northwestern Georgia, northeastern Alabama and extreme southwestern North Carolina. The station is owned by Sarkes Tarzian, Inc. and maintains studios on Whitehall Road on Chattanooga's north side; its transmitter is located in the town of Walden on Signal Mountain. On cable, WRCB is carried on Comcast Xfinity channels 4 and 432, and on EPB Fiber Optics channels 3 and 303 in the Chattanooga area. Although parts of the Chattanooga market are in the Central Time Zone, all schedules are listed in Eastern Time.
History[]
The station began broadcasting on May 6, 1956 on analog Channel 3 as WRGP-TV. The call letters came from its founder, Ramon G. Patterson. It picked up the NBC affiliation from WROM-TV in Rome, Georgia (now WTVC, located today in Chattanooga proper). Its studios were first located at 1214 McCallie Avenue, between downtown and Missionary Ridge.
The station has belonged to several owners over the years. In 1959, Friendly Broadcasting, owner of WSTV-TV in Steubenville, Ohio (now WTOV-TV) bought WRGP from Patterson's group. In 1961 WSTV and WRGP were sold to the Massachusetts-based United Printers And Publishers, who later became Rust Craft Broadcasting, named after its greeting card line, which has since been acquired by American Greetings. These owners changed the station's call letters to WRCB-TV in 1963, to reflect the initials of the licensee. In 1968 the station moved to new facilities on Whitehall Road, on Chattanooga's north side, across the Tennessee River from downtown. Those new studios and equipment enabled channel 3 to begin broadcasting in color. In 1979, Rust Craft merged with magazine publisher Ziff Davis, who, in turn, sold WRCB to current owner Sarkes Tarzian, Inc. of Bloomington, Indiana, in 1982.
| TV stations in Tennessee |
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| WSMV, Nashville WMC, Memphis |
| TV stations in Tennessee |
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| WNPX, Cookeville |
| TV stations in Southern East Tennessee and Northwest Georgia, including Chattanooga |
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| WRCB 3 (NBC) WOOT-LD 6 (HRTLND) WTVC 9 (ABC) WDEF 12 (CBS) WNGH 18 (PBS) WELF 23 (TBN) W18DS-D 26 (3ABN) WHUA-LP 44 (Youtoo) WTCI 45 (PBS) WDNN-CD 49 (Ind) WFLI 53 (CW) WDSI 61 (THIS) |