WFTO-TV

WFTO-TV, Channel 24, is an Independent Station serving the Liberty City and Alderney City Broadcast Area. It operates on Channel 24 (Analog) and Channel 57 (Digital) and is owned by Berfield/Willis Broadcast Corporation. WFTO serves as the main flagship station of Berfield/Willis along with WFOX in Lakeland, Florida.

Station History
WFTO-TV was founded on December 17th, 1994 by media mogul Victor Willis III, but signed on nearly two years later on July 1st, 1996 at 8 pm eastern. When the station originally signed on, it signed on as an independent. WFTO’s inaugural program was Dirty Harry starring Clint Eastwood after airing a countdown clock since midnight followed by archived footage of Apollo 8’s launch; this was inspired by MTV’s launch. Programming that aired initially aired on WFTO were reruns of older sitcoms (such as Dobie Gillis, I Love Lucy, The Three Stooges and The Andy Griffith Show, the latter of which still airs today as of September 2015), classic movies, children’s and religious programs. WFTO’s owner and GM Victor Willis originally opted not to form a news department for the station, fearing competition from then FOX affiliate WLFO as well as WB affiliate WLCT, but eventually WFTO premiered a 10 o'clock newscast on Thursday, May 21st, 1998 titled 24 NewsPulse @ Ten. In 2000, WFTO, formed a 2 hour morning news show titled 24 NewsPulse Morning Edition from 7 am to 9 am. On September 11th, 2001, WFTO aired nonstop coverage of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center by extending their morning news program to 11 am that morning and airing nonstop CNN Headline News coverage. WFTO also extended their 10 pm newscast to one hour that day. This practice was done for one whole week before the schedule was reverted back to its regular format. Due to low ratings on their newscasts, WFTO made expansion to their news department starting in 2004. These expansion would continue until 2010. WFTO started by expanding their morning newscast to 3 hours, from 6 am to 9 am. WFTO also added in a 6 pm newscast that aired from Monday to Friday. This newscast was now directly competing with WEHK (NBC), WLIX (ABN), WLFO (FOX), WLIB (CBS), and WELC (ABC) In 2005, WFTO expanded their newscasts to weekends: starting with 24 NewsPulse Morning Edition which aired Saturday and Sunday Mornings from 7 am to 10 am and adding a 10pm Newscast on both Saturday and Sunday Evenings. Beginning in 2006, WFTO made more expansions with their news department by adding a one hour, 4:00 pm newscast, a half hour 5:00 pm newscast, a half hour noon newscast and pushing their morning newscast back one hour earlier, now airing in a 4 hour time span from 5-9 am. In 2007, the 5 pm and the 6 pm newscasts were now shown on weekends. Also in 2007, as a way to expand its news coverage, WFTO bought and used a Bell LongRanger 206L newsgathering helicopter called Chopper 24. In 2008, 2 new locally produced shows were put on the air. One of which was a one hour public affairs talk show called Your Voice, Your City airing on Sunday Mornings and a 30 minute sports program which airs on Sunday Nights titled Sports Blitz Sunday. In 2010, WFTO upgraded news programming and programming to HD and unveiled a new set, logo, graphics and music package. WFTO made even more expansions starting with the morning news cast; expanding it to 5 hours, beginning at 4 am and ending at 9 am. Expansions were also made to other news casts on WFTO: The noon newscast was extended to one hour, the 5 and 6 pm newscasts were extended to one hour, the 10 pm newscast was extended from 30 minutes to one hour and adding a new 11:00 pm newscast. In 2013, WFTO extended their morning newscast to 6 hours from 4-10 am, directly competing with WLFO. The 6th hour of the morning newscast was a lifestyle program titled On Location with Lillian Sharma. This program, as the title states, was not filmed in a news set, rather so “on location” such as at Middle Park. This program was cancelled in September 2014 due to Lillian’s departure from WFTO and to make way for the premiere of The Meredith Vieira Show. Beginning on June 1st, 2015, WFTO re branded as "The 'FTO 24" and unveiled a new logo. Despite these changes, programming and news operation as it is will not change. The last program to use the old logo was Leverage airing at 2 am on Monday Morning, June 1st, followed by the usual five hour block of morning news. The first program that used the new logo was Rachael Ray airing at 9 am on Monday Morning, June 1st. Along with the branding changes, WFTO added a new network: Escape, which airs programming directed to women aged 25-54 years old airing on digital subchannel 24.4. WFTO signed an agreement with HTN Communications to air all of their syndicated football, basketball and hockey games during their respective seasons. Along with the agreement, WFTO will air the annual CHL Playoffs and Finals (also supplied by HTN Communications) through at least 2021. In the event that these programs will air, WFTO will transfer regularly scheduled programming over to WFTO-DT3. In late 2015, WFTO's owners, Berfield/Willis Broadcast Corporation, purchased local station and former Argosy Network affiliate WTEE and has since converted the station to a full time translator station for WFTO. However starting in July, WTEE will no longer operate as a translator station for WFTO. Instead, WTEE along with several other Berfield-owned Argosy affiliates across the US will operate as separate independent stations airing a mix of older and newer sitcoms, dramas, movies, etc. WTEE also has plans of entering a news-share agreement with WFTO which will result in a straight from the ground up news operation using WFTO’s news staff. Plans were underway to develop a full time translator of WFTO for Carcer City, Liberty, however those plans have since been terminated. On December 28th, 2015, WFTO made an agreement with Sabana American Broadcast Holdings and ABN Domestic Television Corporation to allow WFTO to air UBC programming on the station's digital subchannel, 24.5. For a brief period of time in 2016, WFTO's 24.6 subchannel carried an audio simulcast of radio sister station, WJSM-FM. As of June 2016, that subchannel is currently airing color bars. It was announced on June 3, 2016 that 24.6 will become an affiliate of the newly formed Country Music Network channel. It is set to affiliate with the new network on July 1st. On June 24, 2016, WFTO announced that they would carry 3 affiliates on their xx.7 subchannel: GetTV, Z Channel, and MyTV. GetTV specializes in classic television programs and feature films from the Sony Pictures library. Z Channel specializes in the art of cinema and showcases feature films. MyTV is a general entertainment format network specializing in Americanized versions of television series from the UK and from Australia. MyTV is expected to have a morning newscast and a nightly newscast. On August 3, 2016, WFTO added the newly formed Couch Potato Television network to it's xx.8 subchannel. Couch Potato specializes in classic sitcoms and dramas from the 1950s-'90s, much like competing network, Antenna TV, which WFTO also airs programs from.

News Operation
WFTO currently broadcasts 67 Hours of news programming each week, one of the highest amounts in the Liberty City DMA alone. In addition to news programming, WFTO produces ''Your Voice. Your City, a Sunday morning public affairs program that airs at 10 am; Sports Blitz Sunday, a sports-related program airing Sunday Nights at 11:30 pm; and Know Your Rights'', a phone-in show discussing certain legal topics which airs Sunday nights at 10:30 pm. WFTO produces a one hour long 9pm newscast for it's sister station, WTEE titled WTEE News at Nine. This newscast competes with WLCT which also has a newscast at 9pm. It originates from the WFTO studios at the Berfield/Willis Broadcast Corporation building in Liberty City. WFTO operates a Bell LongRanger 206L newsgathering helicopter titled "Chopper 24". WFTO operates two, live, local radars at their station: LIVE StormTrak Doppler First Fury Radar and KRYPTON Live Doppler One Million. The first of which is supplied by Advanced Design Corporation and has been in use since 2001 and the latter being a Baron Serviceslive doppler radar, originally installed in 2011; then upgraded in Fall 2014 to contain Dual-Pol capabilities, making it the only station in Liberty City to have a live, dual-polarimetric doppler radar. WFTO also relies on a data feed from the National Weather Service NEXRAD radar located at Francis International Airport. WFTO also has a partnership several radio stations in Liberty City; the main ones being WZVP-FM and WJSM-FM. Hourly news & weather updates as well as simulcasts of severe weather coverage can be heard on these stations.

Early Years and Today
For the first several years as a station, WFTO's news operation wasn't a huge success, usually ranking 7th in the Nielsen ratings behind WLIX (ABN), WEHK (NBC), WLIB (CBS), WLFO (FOX), WELC (ABC), WLCT (The WB) in that order. However in the mid to late 2000's, news director Jeff Inglewood was brought in and made drastic changes to the news station by employing a harder emphasis on news reporting and by adding more hours dedicated to news programs. This in turn caused ratings to increase dramatically from where they were at when they started the operation. During the February 2015 Nielsen Sweeps period, WFTO ranked 4th behind long dominant stations WLIX (ABN), WEHK (FOX), and WLIB (ABC) in that order.

StormRover
WFTO, WTEE and WLIZ are the only stations in Liberty City that currently operate a news vehicle specifically meant for storm chasing. The vehicle, named StormRover, has an on board laptop with NEXRAD radar and hyper local GPS software, 3 NOAA weather radios, 2 handheld CB radios, dash mounted HAM radio, dash mounted HD GoPro camera, weather sensors, 1080p PTZ 360 degree camera, 2 scrolling LED message lights displaying weather information, flashing amber lights and a 40” water resistant flat screen television in the back of the vehicle. When the vehicle is in operation, it will be followed by a WFTO ENG truck in order for live shots to be sent back to the station and sent out over the airwaves.

StormLab Weather Action Day
WFTO is one of many stations in the US and one of the very few in Liberty City that will declare a “StormLab Weather Action Day” if the weather in the Liberty City metropolitan area is considered very threatening, severe and will cause high impact on life and property. These “StormLab Weather Action Days” usually will occur whenever there is severe weather (tornadoes, supercells, squall lines), winter weather (snow/ice storms, blizzards), tropical weather (hurricanes, tropical storms), heat waves, etc. affecting the Liberty City area.

Newscast Titles
24 NewsPulse (1998-2006) 24News (2006-2010) News 24 (2010-Present)
 * 24 NewsPulse @ Ten (1998-2006)
 * 24 NewsPulse Morning Edition (2000-2006)
 * 24 NewsPulse @ Six (2004-2006)
 * 24News Morning Edition (2006-2010)
 * 24News Live @ Noon (2006-2010)
 * 24News First @ Four (2006-2010)
 * 24News Live @ Five (2006-2010)
 * 24News Live @ Six (2006-2010)
 * 24News Live @ Ten (2006-2010)
 * 24News Weekend (2007-2010)
 * News 24 First Edition (2010-Present)
 * News 24 DayBreak (2010-Present)
 * News 24 In The Morning (2010-Present)
 * News 24 Live at Noon (2010-Present)
 * News 24 First at Four (2010-Present)
 * News 24 Live at Five (2010-Present)
 * News 24 Live at Six (2010-Present)
 * News 24 Live at Ten (2010-Present
 * News 24 Live at Eleven (2010-Present)

Station Branding History

 * 1996-2003 Super 24!
 * 2003-2015 WFTO
 * 2015-2016 The 'FTO 24
 * 2016-Present WFTO 24

Ownership History

 * 1996-2015 Willis Communications, Inc.
 * 2015-Present Berfield/Willis Broadcast Corporation

News Music Packages
1998-2006 Impact (V.1, V.2, V.3, V.4, V.5) (615 Music)

2004-Present Production Music: Complete Coverage (Megatrax) (Theme for traffic updates in the mornings and afternoons.)

2006-2010 Lighthouse (360 Music)

2008-Present Production Music: Industry (The Music Bakery) (Theme for Your Voice. Your City)

2008-Present Streaming News (Cue11) (Theme for Sports Blitz Sunday)

2010-Present Right Here, Right Now (615 Music)

2010-Present Propulsion V.1 (615 Music) (Theme for News 24 First Edition and DayBreak)

Station Slogan History

 * "Super 24! The Best in Entertainment!" (1996-1999)
 * "Super 24: Liberty's SuperStation" (1999-2003)
 * "WFTO. We've got your Laughs!" (2003-2006)
 * "We are You. We are WFTO/Liberty City" (2006-2015)
 * "We are You. We are The 'FTO 24/Liberty City" (2015-2016)
 * "#WeStandWithWDBJ" (August 28th, 2015-October 4th, 2015)
 * "#PrayersForParis" (November 13th, 2015-December 13th, 2015)
 * "#WFTO20" (2016)

News Slogan History

 * "Coverage You Can Count On!" (1998-2004)
 * "First. Fast. Live." (2004-2010)
 * "Fast. Accurate. Dependable." (2010-2015)
 * "Liberty's Only LIVE, Million Watt Radar. Only on News 24!" (2014-Present)
 * "More News. More Often." (2016-Present)

Website History

 * 1996-Present wfto.com