WZTV
WZTV (channel 17) is a television station in Nashville, Tennessee, United States, affiliated with Fox. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group alongside MyNetworkTV affiliate WUXP-TV (channel 30) as well as CW affiliate WNAB (channel 58), which Sinclair manages on behalf of Tennessee Broadcasting. The stations share studios on Mainstream Drive along the Cumberland River; WZTV's transmitter is located along I-24 in Whites Creek.
Channel 17 in Nashville was first activated in August 1968 as WMCV, owned by local consortium Music City Video. It was the first ultra high frequency (UHF) station in Nashville and its first independent station, but it was unable to sustain itself financially and left the air in March 1971. Two years later, it was sold at bankruptcy auction to radio executive Bob Hudson, who attempted to return channel 17 to air as WTLT. Had Hudson been able to resume service, channel 17 would have been the first Black-owned television station in the United States. However, an economic downturn prevented him from raising sufficient capital to begin operations, and it fell to Reel Broadcasting Corporation, owned by Robert K. Zelle, to put the station back on air as WZTV in March 1976. In 1980, Zelle sold WZTV to Multimedia, Inc., which used Nashville as a base to distribute country music-related TV series. WZTV also remained the market's leading independent despite competition from two new startups in the decade.
Act III Broadcasting acquired WZTV in 1988 and purchased the Fox affiliation for the Nashville market in 1990, moving it from WCAY-TV (channel 30), where it had been since the network's inception. Act III was purchased in 1995 and became Sullivan Broadcasting, during which time the station began airing a local newscast for the first time. Sinclair purchased the Sullivan stations, including WZTV, in 1998 and has continued to expand the station's local news programming.