WLTX

WLTX

Columbia, South Carolina United States
Channels	Digital: 15 (UHF) Virtual: 19
Branding	WLTX News19
Programming
Affiliations	19.1: CBS for others, see § Subchannels
Ownership
Owner	Tegna Inc. (Pacific and Southern, LLC)
History
First air date	September 1, 1953 (70 years ago) (1953-09-01)
Former call signs	WNOK-TV (1953–1977)
Former channel number(s)	Analog: 67 (UHF, 1953–1961), 19 (UHF, 1961–2009) Digital: 17 (UHF, 2002–2019)
Former affiliations	All secondary: DuMont (1953–1955) ABC (1956–1961) UPN (1995–1997)
Call sign meaning	From former owner Lewis Television
Technical information[1]
Licensing authority	FCC
Facility ID	37176
ERP	700 kW
HAAT	531.7 m (1,744 ft)
Transmitter coordinates	34°5′50″N 80°45′50″W / 34.09722°N 80.76389°W / 34.09722; -80.76389
Links
Public license information	Public file LMS
Website	www.wltx.com

WLTX (channel 19) is a television station in Columbia, South Carolina, United States, affiliated with CBS. Owned by Tegna Inc., the station maintains studios on Garners Ferry Road (US 76–378) in southeastern Columbia, and its transmitter is located on Screaming Eagle Road (southeast of I-20) in rural northeast Richland County.

WLTX is Columbia's oldest continuously operating television station, going on the air in September 1953 as WNOK-TV on ultra high frequency (UHF) channel 67. Built by Columbia radio station WNOK (1230 AM), it struggled in its first years on air as Columbia's lone very high frequency station, WIS (channel 10), used that position to become the dominant TV station in central South Carolina. The station endured in the shadow of its much larger competitor and moved to the lower channel 19 in 1961. The WNOK stations were sold to Julius Curtis Lewis Jr. in 1977; the TV station was given its present call letters, WLTX.

For most of its first four decades on the air, the station was a distant runner-up to WIS. For much of that time, it only offered one daily newscast, even after a substantial power increase in 1985. However, in the final years of Lewis ownership and after WLTX's purchase by Gannett in 1998, the news department was significantly expanded in facilities, personnel, and newscasts offered. In the quarter-century since Gannett, now Tegna, acquired the station, it has become the most substantial challenger ever faced by once-dominant WIS and has even overtaken it on occasion.