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CBS 8 NEWS TEAM CBS 8 CONTACTS CBS 8 LINKS CBS 8 HISTORY
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The history of CBS 8 is unique among America's television stations. While we have always broadcast on Channel 8, we haven't always been WAKA or even a CBS affiliate. In fact, our offices weren't always in Montgomery!
Our history was filled with struggles early on but much recent success thanks to you, our viewers.
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These are some of the people who helped WSLA provide programming in the early 1960s
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The Early Years
Channel 8 first hit the airwaves as Selma TV station WSLA on March 17, 1960. In the beginning, it was an independent station but soon became an ABC affiliate. Network programs were picked up from Birmingham's WBRC through an antenna and then rebroadcast to our part of the state. It was a makeshift way to receive and transmit network programming -- primitive even by the standard of the day, which was to receive network programs through telephone lines. It would be decades before satellites would be the standard way stations received outside programming.
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"Gospel Time" was one of the locally-produced shows on WSLA
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In those days, Selma was a separate TV market from Montgomery. But because Montgomery didn't have an ABC station of its own, WSLA was the only way to receive the network's programming for the entire area. The problem was that Channel 8's signal from its 360-foot tower in Selma could barely reach the Capital City. It would be several years before Montgomery would get an ABC station of its own. At that time, ABC itself was a fledgling network with few hit programs.
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Much of the broadcast day was filled with locally-produced programs that aired from WSLA's studio in Selma. That studio and the station's offices were in a pre-fabricated home. In fact, the news studio was the home's one-car garage!
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WSLA news anchor John Rogers delivers the news from the station's first news set -- a picnic table set up in the garage
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It would be years before Channel 8's newscasts would be called "Action News", but in 1966 the station was "Where the Action Is"
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Bitter Battles
WSLA's owners were confident brighter days were just around the corner. The Brennan family and their company Deep South Broadcasting also owned WBAM AM 740, a powerhouse Montgomery radio station. When they received the FCC license for Channel 8 in 1954, weeks before Montgomery's WSFA Channel 12, they immediately planned to move the station's tower closer to Montgomery and increase the station's transmitting power.
Those moves would require government approval. Standing in WSLA's way was Montgomery's then-CBS affiliate, WCOV Channel 20. Starting in 1954 and lasting 30 years, WCOV fought every attempt WSLA's owners made to improve Channel 8's signal.
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"Batman" and "Bewitched" were two popular ABC shows in the 1960s, but the network was no threat to CBS or NBC in the ratings
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WCOV's fear was that it would lose its CBS affiliation to WSLA if Channel 8 was allowed to move its transmitter closer to Montgomery or to boost power. In the days before cable TV, stations on the VHF band (Channels 2-13) were much easier to receive on home antennas than UHF stations (Channels 14-83). Some people's TV sets couldn't even receive UHF channels at all. WCOV saw that tiny WSLA would be a big threat.
So Channel 8 made due with only 3,000 watts of visual power. All the while, the owners believed it wouldn't be long before the FCC would allow them to make much-needed technical improvements.
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Two men pose outside the original WSLA building which burned to the ground in 1968
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Dark Days
The dreams of owners and workers at WSLA went up in flames on August 1, 1968. The entire station burned to the ground in a fire. The station went dark and would stay that way for years. Maybe because of the legal fight with WCOV, the potential of Channel 8 didn't seem to be clear to anyone.
WCOV actually investigated buying WSLA, lowering its power, so that legally it could simulcast WCOV's programming to West Alabama. This time, WCOV was dealt a defeat when the FCC said no. No one knows why WCOV's owners didn't simply buy WSLA and operate it as a full-power station -- taking the action they had long feared that others would.
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A New Beginning
Better times finally arrived in 1972, when Charles Grisham, the owner of CBS affiliate WHNT in Huntsville, bought the station. WSLA was rebuilt in Selma and returned to the air in 1973 broadcasting in color. This time, Channel 8 was a CBS affiliate -- a direct challenge to WCOV's CBS affiliation.
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Advertisements for Channel 8's sports and weather coverage from 1974
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By 1979, Channel 8's newscasts were called "Action News" and were winning numerous awards -- six from the Associated Press and one from the Alabama Farm Bureau
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Grisham picked up the same fight to boost the station's power. One idea was to move the tower from Selma to a location that would give the station coverage into Birmingham and Tuscaloosa while keeping the signal as strong as possible in Selma and into Montgomery. UHF stations in Tuscaloosa and Birmingham that were also CBS affiliates opposed that possible move.
During this time, WSLA's facilities made dramatic improvements with new equipment and a growing commitment to covering the news. But without a stronger signal, the station's ability to reach all viewers still couldn't be realized.
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Control room for the newly-named WAKA in Selma in 1984. All the equipment that was state of the art then is woefully obsolete today
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Victory At Last
By the 1980s, the FCC was beginning to loosen its heavy regulations on local TV stations. At the same time, WCOV was running out of arguments to prevent WSLA from reaching more Alabama families.
In 1984, Grisham was finally allowed to boost the transmitter's power and build a new, taller tower in Lowndes County. Hundreds of thousands of people would now be able to watch Channel 8 for the first time in places like Montgomery, Alexander City, Troy and Andalusia. What had been the Selma TV market would be absorbed into the Montgomery market.
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1985 logo for the new WAKA. To this day, the station's official government location is "Selma/Montgomery"
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This was just the first of many major changes at the station. The call letters were changed from WSLA to WAKA on Oct. 28, 1984 so that viewers wouldn't confuse the station with Montgomery's NBC affiliate, WSFA.
Bahakel Communications of Charlotte, NC, bought the new WAKA in 1985, the same year that Channel 8 started broadcasting from its new 1,757-foot tower with a full 316,000 watts. Now Channel 8 could be seen from the suburbs of Birmingham and Tuscaloosa to the Florida panhandle and from near the Mississippi state line to extreme East Alabama. It is the largest coverage area in the state of Alabama.
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This is how Action 8 News looked in 1985, the final year in Selma. Stations like ours followed CNN's lead in creating a newsroom backdrop behind the anchor.
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The Action 8 News team in 1992. By then, WAKA was firmly established throughout the area for news and community service
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Those weren't the only changes. Soon, portions of "Action 8 News" would be broadcast, not from the main studios in Selma, but from the station's brand new building on East Boulevard in Montgomery. For a while, some station functions remained in Selma, but eventually, the entire operation moved to the Capital City.
Even then, the station has never forgotten its roots in Selma. It has always kept an office there with a full-time news reporter and an account executive dedicated to the needs of West Alabama.
Meanwhile, WCOV's fears were realized when CBS dropped the station as an affiliate on Jan. 1, 1986. The station came under new ownership and joined the upstart Fox network.
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Some of the men and women of CBS 8 News in 2006. Every day, it takes about 50 people in the news, production and engineering departments to bring you our daily newscasts.
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Today's CBS 8
With legal battles, power upgrades and the move to Montgomery behind us, the station has never stood still. In 2002, we began calling ourselves "CBS 8" to better connect the station to the nation's #1 broadcast network.
A short time later, we began a new commitment to our viewers in South Alabama by opening the CBS 8 South Alabama Newsroom. You'll find that newsroom in downtown Greenville. From there, our news crews can easily cover that part of the state and reporters can broadcast Live.
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Part of the current CBS 8 News set which features plenty of plasma widescreen monitors
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The future of television has arrived at CBS 8 with the launch of our digital channel. We were the first station in Montgomery to broadcast a full-power digital signal.
Not bad for a station that started in a converted home with a garage for a studio.
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CBS 8 THIS MORNING DIGITAL DEADLINE HISTORY OF CBS
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© 2009 WAKA. All rights reserved.
