WMET-TV was a television station operating on channel 24 in Baltimore, Maryland, from 1967 to 1972. It was owned by the United Broadcasting Company and served as a semi-satellite of its WOOK-TV/WFAN-TV in Washington, D.C., with some locally originated programs. Due to a series of financial and license difficulties at United, WMET-TV closed in January 1972, a month before WFAN-TV.
History
Construction permit
Even though the station did not come on the air until March 1967, WMET-TV's construction permit was issued more than 13 years prior in December 1953, as WTLF on channel 18. The channel specified on the permit was changed from 18 to 24 in 1961, as part of a four-way shuffle that primarily served to cluster the operating TV channels in the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, area, by changing channels 55 and 71 there to 21 and 33.
Activity was minimal for most of the first decade. In 1962, United turned its efforts to constructing WOOK-TV, channel 14 in Washington, D.C., and noted that it hoped to put WTLF on the air within six to twelve months of signing on WOOK-TV. However, channel 24 still was not on the air by 1965, when the Federal Communications Commission put pressure on the owners of dark UHF construction permits—including WTLF—to explain why they should not be withdrawn; also at that time, the FCC denied an application by United to allow WTLF to begin operations on channel 18 before moving to 24. In August 1965, the FCC approved changes to the construction permit reflecting the facilities it would build; the next month, WTLF changed its call letters to WMET-TV.
By November 1966, the station neared completion, though it missed its stated launch date. General manager J. Herman Sitrick noted that channel 24 would carry 80 percent of WOOK-TV's African American-oriented programming. Channel 24 was also announced to be the Baltimore outlet for the Overmyer Network when it debuted.
On the air
WMET-TV, Baltimore's fourth TV station and its first in nearly two decades, finally signed on March 1, 1967. Much as WOOK-TV had pivoted to at the same time, channel 24 aired a lineup of mostly news and panel shows at launch, along with a syndicated Western series and Teenarama Dance Party, its Washington sister station's signature show. It also sought to air network programs not being cleared by the other three stations in town. The station's first live program from its Baltimore studios was a three-hour special on April 17, presenting films on both sides of the Vietnam War argument. Channel 24 also aired The Las Vegas Show, the only program of the renamed United Network (no relation to United Broadcasting Company), at midnight when it debuted on May 1; that day, Trails West and the United Network offering were the only programs not shared with WOOK-TV. The station soon added more movies and syndicated programming. It also aired a weekly variety show, Coffee House U.S.A., with regional performers. Pauline Wells Lewis, then a disc jockey at WSID and in the middle of a 50-year career in gospel music and local radio, hosted a Saturday night half-hour.
In March 1968, the station appointed a sports director, Frank Holston, and channel 24 began airing a sports call-in show called Sports View. A year later, the station started airing a locally produced children's show, Pogo the Clown, in early evenings. In 1971, the station's news director was 19-year-old John Domenick, a college sophomore who delivered a half-hour newscast at 4:30 p.m. each weekday compiled from wire service material.
Channel 24's studios were a converted movie theater, the former Avalon Theater on Park Heights Avenue, which also housed the United Baltimore radio stations; the radio studios occupied the former manager's office and production room, and the auditorium was converted into a studio.
