Editing WBRC (section)

===Early history===
The station first signed on the air on July 1, 1949, originally broadcasting on VHF channel 4 as WBRC-TV (standing for Bell Radio Company, after [[List of neighborhoods in Birmingham, Alabama|Fountain Heights]] physician J. C. Bell, founder of radio station [[WERC (AM)|WBRC]] (960 AM, now WERC);<ref name="bob"/> the "-TV" suffix was dropped from the call sign in June 1999).<ref name="Billboard">{{cite magazine|title=WBRC-TV To Debut July 1, First in Ala.|magazine=[[Billboard (magazine)|Billboard]]|page=13|date=June 11, 1949}}</ref> Although WBRC-TV was the first television station in Birmingham to be granted a [[broadcast license|license]] by the [[Federal Communications Commission]] (FCC), it is the second-oldest television station in Alabama, signing on just over one month after WAFM-TV (channel 13, now [[WVTM-TV]]), which debuted on May 29. It was originally owned by the Birmingham Broadcasting Company, run by Eloise D. Hanna, along with WBRC radio.  Hanna's first husband, M. D. Smith, had bought WBRC radio from Bell in 1928. Her son, M. D. Smith III, who worked at the radio stations in advertising sales and was later promoted to [[program director]] and vice president, ran the television station as its operations manager. His son, M. D. Smith IV later organized Smith Broadcasting, which purchased WAFG-TV, Channel 31 in Huntsville, Alabama in 1963, with himself as operations manager. The call letters were immediately changed to [[WAAY-TV]]. M. D. Smith III is also named a remote general manager of WAAY-TV from Birmingham.

Originally broadcasting for three hours per day, it operated as a primary [[NBC]] affiliate (earning the affiliation as a result of WBRC radio's longtime affiliation with the [[NBC Red Network]]), and also carried secondary affiliations with [[American Broadcasting Company|ABC]] and the [[DuMont Television Network]]; during the late 1950s, the station was also briefly affiliated with the [[NTA Film Network]].<ref name="Boxoffice7">{{cite journal|title=Require Prime Evening Time for NTA Films |url=http://issuu.com/boxoffice/docs/boxoffice_111056-1 |journal=[[Boxoffice]] |page=13 |date=November 10, 1956 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090614204506/http://issuu.com/boxoffice/docs/boxoffice_111056-1 |archive-date=June 14, 2009 }}</ref> WBRC-TV originally operated from WBRC radio's facilities on 19th Street and 2nd Avenue, near downtown Birmingham, which originally only housed business and [[master control]] operations; the station originally relied mainly on network and film content for much of the programming it broadcast. The station's transmitter was originally purposed as the transmitter facilities for radio station WBRC-FM (102.5, now [[WBPT]] at 106.9 FM; original frequency now occupied by [[WDXB]]), which signed on in 1947 with the highest radiated power of any radio station worldwide, operating at 500,000 watts; after the FM station suspended operations in June 1948 due to continued revenue losses due to the lack of radios equipped with FM tuners, Hanna borrowed $150,000 to build a new studio facility and transmitter atop Red Mountain for the television station. In September 1950, WBRC established a [[coaxial cable]] link with fellow NBC-DuMont affiliate [[WRGB]] (now a [[CBS]] affiliate) in [[Schenectady, New York]], allowing the station to broadcast NBC and DuMont network programs both live and live-to-air.

On February 19, 1953, WBRC-TV moved to channel 6 as part of a frequency realignment ordered by the FCC, resulting from the ''Sixth Report and Order'' issued the year prior in 1952. This move was made to alleviate signal interference problems between WBRC and WSM-TV (now sister station [[WSMV-TV]]) in [[Nashville]], which also transmitted on channel 4, that were present in portions of northern Alabama. Later that year, Hanna also sold the WBRC television and radio stations to [[Storer Broadcasting]] for $2.3&nbsp;million—a handsome return on her first husband's purchase of WBRC radio 25 years earlier.<ref>{{cite web|title=Storer options fifth TV as two others reach limit|url=http://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-BC-IDX/53-OCR/1953-03-30-BC-0027.pdf|periodical=[[Broadcasting & Cable|Broadcasting – Telecasting]]|page=27|date=March 30, 1953}}{{Dead link|date=August 2018 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> George B. Storer, the company's founder and chairman, was a member of the board of directors at [[CBS]], and most of his television stations were affiliates of that network. Storer may have used his leverage to secure a primary CBS affiliation for WBRC-TV, which joined the network on July 4, 1954. NBC programming subsequently moved to channel 13 (by then, using the call sign WABT); both stations, however, retained a secondary affiliation with ABC.

On September 17 of that year, the WBRC stations moved to a new, much larger studio facility located on Red Mountain that was built by Storer, where channel 6 continues to operate from to this day. The building, like many of those built by Storer to serve as studios for its broadcast properties, resembled an [[antebellum architecture|antebellum]] mansion. While it may have been out of place in most of Storer's other markets (many of which were located outside of the Southern United States), it was a perfect fit for Birmingham. Unusual for a commercial broadcaster, Storer supported [[educational television]], and the company donated two transmitters and frequencies in the Birmingham market (channels 7 and 10, which were respectively occupied by WCIQ and WBIQ when both stations signed on in 1955) to Alabama Educational Television (now [[Alabama Public Television]]). This also, however, may have been a move to forestall future commercial competition in the market; WBRC and WABT remained the only commercial stations in Birmingham, which would not get a third commercial broadcast television outlet until WBMG (now [[WIAT]]) debuted in October 1965, on UHF channel 42, a signal considerably weaker than that of either channels 6 or 13, and a problem which hampered that station's progress until the early 2000s.

In 1957, Storer sold the WBRC stations to Radio Cincinnati Inc., the forerunner of what would become [[Taft Broadcasting]], for $2.3&nbsp;million.<ref>"This week's receipts: $26 million." ''Broadcasting – Telecasting'', April 8, 1957, pp. 31–32. [http://www.americanradiohistory.com/hd2/IDX-Business/Magazines/Archive-BC-IDX/57-OCR/1957-04-08-BC-OCR-Page-0031.pdf] [http://www.americanradiohistory.com/hd2/IDX-Business/Magazines/Archive-BC-IDX/57-OCR/1957-04-08-BC-OCR-Page-0033.pdf]</ref> Storer had to sell its broadcast holdings in Birmingham after it purchased radio station WIBG (now [[WNTP]]) in [[Philadelphia]] and its television sister, WPFH (later [[WVUE (Delaware)|WVUE]]) in [[Wilmington, Delaware]] (whose frequency is now occupied by [[WHYY-TV]]), to comply with the FCC's ownership limits of that time period.