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| - The station began broadcasting on New Year's Day 1963 as WTEV-TV from studios on 430 County Street in New Bedford. Its analog transmitter was located in Tiverton and aired on VHF channel 6. In the 1950s and 1960s, the FCC had allocated only two VHF frequencies to Rhode Island. Providence had three stations allocated to it but UHF was not considered viable at the time. To make the market viable given Rhode Island's small size, New Bedford and surrounding Bristol County were added to the Providence television market even though the rest of southeastern Massachusetts is in the Boston market. ABC had a curious history in Rhode Island prior to WTEV's sign-on. WNET-TV launched on channel 16 in 1953 as an ABC affiliate only to go dark in 1956 due to the aforementioned difficulties facing UHF stations. For the seven years prior to channel 6's sign-on, ABC programming was secondary to NBC on WJAR. Even though Providence was big enough to support three full network affiliates, it soon became apparent that channel 16 would not be resurrected in -TV]]). the near future. The owners of the future WTEV thus decided to seek a license for channel 6 in New Bedford, since it was the only available VHF allocation on the Massachusetts side of the market. WTEV was founded by a group that included New England Television, the holder of the license for the old WNET-TV, as a minority owner. In 1966, WTEV was purchased by Steinman Stations of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. In 1977, WTEV swapped affiliations with WPRI and became a CBS affiliate after Knight Ridder Television, which had just purchased WPRI, cut an affiliation deal that switched two of the three television stations it owned at the time to ABC. In 1979, the Steinmans sold WTEV and their flagship station, WGAL-TV in Lancaster, to Pulitzer Publishing. This sale reunited them with KOAT, which had been sold to Pulitzer in 1969. Pulitzer changed channel 6's call letters to the present-day WLNE-TV in 1980. The WTEV call sign is now used on a CBS affiliate in Jacksonville, Florida. In 1983, Pulitzer sold WLNE to Freedom Communications. This sale was necessary because Pulitzer had acquired WFBC-TV (now WYFF) in Greenville, South Carolina and WXII-TV in the Piedmont Triad that same year. This left the company one VHF station over the FCC's ownership limit of the time. Around this time, WLNE relocated its studios and offices from New Bedford to its current location in downtown Providence. On September 10, 1995 in a reversal of the 1977 affiliation swap, WLNE became an ABC affiliate again when CBS purchased WPRI. Early in the afternoon of May 4, 2005, WLNE's analog transmitter was knocked off the air due to a faulty section of transmission line on the tower. The transmitter had been running at 80% power due to another unrelated technical problem that occurred approximately two weeks earlier. Although Dish Network satellite and some cable systems continued to receive broadcasts through fiber optic connections, over-the-air and DirecTV satellite subscribers were left without a local ABC affiliate (DirecTV gets its signal via antenna). Some cable providers made special temporary arrangements to carry Boston ABC station WCVB-TV during this outage. The WLNE transmitter was operational again late Thursday evening after 32 hours off the air. In August 2006, The Providence Journal reported that WLNE was put up for sale. The key reason for the decision was the lack of a second station for Freedom to operate in the market that would improve synergies for the Providence operation. On March 12, 2007, Freedom announced it was selling WLNE to Global Broadcasting, a Delaware corporation headed by Robinson Ewert and Kevin O'Brien. The FCC granted approval of this sale in mid-September and ownership was officially transferred on October 9. Freedom continued to operate WLNE's website until November 30, 2007 when it was revamped by Broadcast Interactive Media. In April 2010, abc6.com was updated by WorldNow. For many years, WLNE carried the syndicated shows Dr. Phil, Rachael Ray, Entertainment Tonight, The Insider, and Inside Edition from CBS Television Distribution. However, in mid-2009, the station was unable to reach a carriage agreement with the syndicator, formerly known as King World. At that time, the station was carrying Dr. Phil, Entertainment Tonight, and Inside Edition. As a result of the situation, the shows were dropped on June 5 and quickly moved to WNAC. Temporarily put in their place were Cristina's Court, Family Court with Judge Penny, and Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. On June 16, CBS filed a lawsuit against the station's owner, Global Broadcasting, for failing to fully pay license fees for the shows and a breach of contract. The syndicator is seeking $5 million from the company. On June 23, NewsBlues reported that Global Broadcasting co-owner Robinson Ewert had left the company amidst the dispute with CBS. He was replaced by Rob Holtzer, general sales manager at Sunrise Sports and Entertainment, owner of the NHL's Florida Panthers and the BankAtlantic Center in Sunrise, Florida. He is also a former national sales manager at the YES Network in New York. Holtzer's official title at Global is vice president and director of sales. Global Broadcasting filed for receivership (Rhode Island's equivalent to bankruptcy) on July 29, 2010 due to declining advertising revenues, a move that may result in the sale of WLNE. Providence attorney Matthew McGowan was appointed receiver and will operate the station as normal.
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