WOAI-TV (channel 4) is a television station in San Antonio, Texas, United States, affiliated with NBC and The CW. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group alongside Fox affiliate KABB (channel 29); Sinclair also provides certain services to Kerrville-licensed Dabl affiliate KMYS (channel 35) under joint sales and shared services agreements with Deerfield Media. The stations share studios between Babcock Road and Sovereign Drive (off Loop 410) in northwest San Antonio, while WOAI-TV's transmitter is located in northwest Wilson County (near Elmendorf).
History
The station first signed on the air on December 11, 1949, as WOAI-TV. It was the first television station in the San Antonio market, owned by Southland Industries along with AM 1200 WOAI. WOAI-TV and WOAI radio are among the few broadcast stations located west of the Mississippi River that have a call sign beginning with "W." In the early days of broadcasting, most Central Time Zone states were in the "W" territory. In 1923, the dividing line was changed to the Mississippi River. Since WOAI Radio was already on the air, it kept its W call letters and when it put a TV station on the air, it shared that call sign.
WOAI-TV has been an NBC affiliate since its sign-on, due to WOAI (AM)'s longtime affiliation with the NBC Red Network. In its early years of operation, it also carried programming from the three other major networks of the time: CBS, ABC and DuMont. WOAI lost the CBS and DuMont affiliations to KEYL (channel 5, now KENS) when that station signed on in February 1950. The two stations continued to share ABC programming until KONO-TV (channel 12, now KSAT-TV) signed on in January 1957.
On May 27, 1965, Crosley Broadcasting announced that it was purchasing the WOAI stations for $12 million. The FCC approved the sale on September 16, 1965 and Crosley's ownership became effective at midnight on October 27. Crosley would change its name to Avco Broadcasting Corporation effective January 17, 1966.
On November 25, 1974, Avco, which had, at that time, decided to exit broadcasting, announced that 20th Century Fox, through its United Television subsidiary, would be acquiring WOAI-TV. On December 11, 1974, coinciding with the station's 25th anniversary, WOAI-TV changed its call letters to KMOL-TV. The change was brought on by an FCC regulation in place at that time that prohibited non commonly-owned TV and radio stations in the same market from sharing the same base call sign. Avco had sold WOAI radio to local startup Clear Channel Communications earlier in 1974, and the radio station retained the WOAI call letters. The sale to Fox was completed on November 5, 1975, with the new owners officially taking control at 12:01 a.m. the following morning. Chris-Craft Industries gained majority ownership of United in 1981, merging the group with BHC Communications (the owners of KCOP in Los Angeles and KPTV in Portland, Oregon).
When KRRT (channel 35, now KMYS) dropped its affiliation with the United Paramount Network (UPN) to join The WB in January 1998, KMOL began carrying UPN programming during the overnight hours. At the time, Chris-Craft had owned a 50% interest in UPN. The UPN affiliation later moved to Fredericksburg-licensed KBEJ (channel 2, now MyNetworkTV affiliate KCWX), which signed on the air in August 2000.
On August 12, 2000, Chris-Craft Industries sold its television stations to the Fox Television Stations subsidiary of News Corporation for $5.5 billion. The deal was finalized on July 31, 2001. News Corporation then traded KMOL and sister station KTVX in Salt Lake City to Clear Channel in exchange for WFTC in Minneapolis. This tradeoff protected future sister station KABB (channel 29) from losing its Fox affiliation. Not only did the purchase reunite KMOL-TV with WOAI Radio, but channel 4 also became the television flagship of the San Antonio-based conglomerate. Speculation immediately began that Clear Channel would restore the heritage WOAI-TV call sign to channel 4. This officially occurred on September 1, 2002. Although Clear Channel's San Antonio radio cluster is located in Northwest San Antonio, off I-10, WOAI-TV remained based in its downtown studios on Navarro Street.
On November 16, 2006, after being bought by private equity firms, Clear Channel announced that it would sell all of its television stations. On April 20, 2007, Clear Channel sold its entire television group to Providence Equity Partners-controlled holding company Newport Television; the group deal was finalized on March 14, 2008. However, channel 4 continued a news partnership with its former radio sister, and the two stations continued to share a website for two years afterward.