WNWO-TV (channel 24) is a television station in Toledo, Ohio, United States, affiliated with NBC. Owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, the station maintains a transmitter on Cousino Road in Jerusalem Township. Its studios are located on South Byrne Road in Toledo.
History
Overmyer Broadcasting founded the station on May 3, 1966, as WDHO-TV (for Daniel H. Overmyer). Overmyer also owned 20% of each of three stations that signed on in the 1968–69 period, WATL in Atlanta, WXIX-TV in Cincinnati and WPGH-TV in Pittsburgh. This group was jointly owned with the U.S. Communications Corporation of Philadelphia holding the other 80% of each of the three stations. Logically, WDHO should have signed on either as a full-time ABC or NBC station. However, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) had just required all-channel tuning two years earlier. As a result, even though Toledo was big enough to support three full network affiliates, NBC opted to retain its secondary affiliations with WSPD-TV (channel 13, now WTVG) and CBS affiliate WTOL (channel 11), and have WIMA-TV (now WLIO) in Lima cover the southern part of the Toledo market. ABC opted to retain its primary affiliation with WSPD-TV. Instead, WDHO signed on as the unlikely flagship of "The Overmyer Network," very soon renamed "The United Network" (no relation to Chris-Craft Industries' United Television division or UPN), which began operations one year later on May 1, 1967. The sole program on The United Network, The Las Vegas Show starring comedian Bill Dana, was canceled along with the network after being on the air for only a month.
WDHO then became Toledo's first independent station, carrying syndicated and local programming plus any network shows WSPD-TV and WTOL turned down. Finally, in 1969, WDHO persuaded ABC to move all its programming there. However, outside circumstances stunted any progress WDHO tried to make against their VHF competition. Its fortunes were hampered by the easy availability of then-ABC O&O station WXYZ-TV from Detroit over-the-air and on some cable systems in the Toledo market, which provided northwest Ohio ABC viewers with a higher-quality signal than WDHO could hope to have. WEWS-TV in Cleveland and WPTA in Fort Wayne, Indiana, also transmitted Grade B signals in parts of the area.
As a result, channel 24 spent most of its tenure as an ABC affiliate in the ratings basement. The station also struggled financially as well. On several occasions, creditors nearly forced the station into receivership. At one point, the portable building housing its news department was in danger of repossession.
Overmyer Broadcasting declared bankruptcy during the 1980s. WDHO was seized by the Bank of Boston (now part of Bank of America) in 1982. The Bank of Boston sold the station through bankruptcy to a local group, Toledo Television Investors, Ltd. for $19.6 million in 1986. The new owners changed the station's call letters to the current WNWO-TV on June 1, 1986. However, the change in call letters did not bring a change in the station's fortunes, and channel 24 remained the third station in what was essentially a two-station market. (Exposure on cable in some of the more southern Downriver Detroit suburbs didn't help much either, even when the Trenton lineup of United Cable Television could only receive channel 24 due to a perimeter law.)
NBC era
WNWO would make a network switch to NBC as the result of a domino effect initiated by other deals instigated by a long-term affiliation deal New World Communications signed with Fox, seeing most of their stations switching to that network between 1994 and 1996. New World's KSAZ-TV in Phoenix was one of these stations, with CBS securing a replacement via Meredith Corporation's KPHO-TV; Meredith also committed WNEM-TV in Flint, Michigan, to switch from NBC to CBS. After SJL was rumored to switch Flint's ABC affiliate WJRT-TV to NBC, Capital Cities/ABC bought WJRT and WTVG for $155 million on October 1994. As a result, WTVG would switch affiliations back to ABC in what became a swap with WNWO, the two stations exchanging networks on October 28, 1995, two months after ABC's purchase was finalized.