Editing Sinclair Broadcast Group (section)

===Chesapeake Television Corporation===

Channel 45, with the call sign [[WBFF]], joined on April 11, 1971. By that time, Chesapeake Engineering Placement Service had changed its name to '''Chesapeake Television Corporation'''. The Commercial Radio Institute, by then a division of Chesapeake Television Corporation, founded WPTT (now [[WPNT]]) in [[Pittsburgh]], in 1978, and [[WTTE]] in [[Columbus, Ohio]], in 1984. All three stations originally were [[independent station (North America)|independents]]. In 1986, WBFF and WTTE became charter affiliates of the [[Fox Broadcasting Company]] at its launch. The Fox affiliation in Pittsburgh went to higher-rated [[WPGH-TV]], which was purchased by Sinclair in 1990.

Chesapeake's first foray into [[local news]] came in the early 1980s when it launched a newscast on WPTT, a rarity at this time for stations not affiliated with the then-major networks ([[American Broadcasting Company|ABC]], [[CBS]] and [[NBC]]). This newscast was called ''WPTT News''. In the opening segment, the letters "news" were formed from a [[compass]] indicating the four [[cardinal directions]]. This opening segment, featuring then-anchorman Kevin Evans, appeared briefly, and was audible, in the movie ''[[Flashdance]]'' during a scene where [[Jennifer Beals]]' character returns home and turns on the television. 

The presentation was relatively low-budget, with the anchor simply reading copy, with no field video shots other than the weather read over a stock video shot denoting the conditions outside. It was not a factor in taking ratings away from then-market laggard WIIC-TV, now [[WPXI]], much less solid runner-up [[WTAE-TV]] and then-locally owned [[Westinghouse Broadcasting|Group W]] powerhouse [[KDKA-TV]]. As WBFF did not air newscasts until 1991 and WTTE would not air any newscasts from its 1984 sign-on until Sinclair purchased ABC affiliate [[WSYX]] in 1996, this marked the company's only foray into local news for years, a genre it became much more involved in from the mid-1990s on.