WNWO-TV

WNWO-TV

Toledo, Ohio United States
Channels	Digital: 23 (UHF) Virtual: 24
Branding	NBC 24
Programming
Affiliations	24.1: NBC for others, see § Subchannels
Ownership
Owner	Sinclair Broadcast Group (WNWO Licensee, LLC)
History
First air date	May 2, 1966 (58 years ago) (1966-05-02)
Former call signs	WDHO-TV (1966–1986)
Former channel number(s)	Analog: 24 (UHF, 1966–2009) Digital: 49 (UHF, 2001–2018)
Former affiliations	Independent[a] (1966–1969) United Network (1967) ABC (1969–1995)
Call sign meaning	Northwest Ohio
Technical information[1]
Licensing authority	FCC
Facility ID	73354
ERP	275 kW
HAAT	423.5 m (1,389 ft)
Transmitter coordinates	41°40′3″N 83°21′22″W / 41.66750°N 83.35611°W / 41.66750; -83.35611
Links
Public license information	Public file LMS
Website	nbc24.com

WNWO-TV (channel 24) is a television station in Toledo, Ohio, United States, affiliated with NBC. Owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, the station maintains a transmitter facility on Cousino Road in Jerusalem Township. Its studios are located on South Byrne Road in Toledo.

Channel 24 was the only television station built by entrepreneur Daniel H. Overmyer. It signed on May 2, 1966, as WDHO-TV, Toledo's third local station. It had no primary network affiliation until 1969, when it became the area's ABC outlet, though it aired shows from the major networks not already seen in the market and was the local affiliate for the short-lived United Network, which Overmyer helped start, in 1967. For most of its first 20 years in operation, the station was burdened by Overmyer's other troubled businesses. The sale of his other TV station permits led to a congressional investigation, and Overmyer's warehouse interests experienced financial reverses. As a result, in 1971, Overmyer pledged stock in WDHO-TV to the First National Bank of Boston as collateral. After Overmyer's warehouses filed for bankruptcy reorganization in 1973 under the weight of their own debt, the bank sued, seeking payment of the collateral. WDHO-TV was involved in two lengthy bankruptcy cases, during which Overmyer committed bankruptcy fraud and the building housing the news department was repossessed by the bank. Drained of resources, channel 24 never adequately competed in the area of news, becoming a distant third to the established stations, WTOL and WTVG.

The station was acquired by Toledo Television Investors in 1986 and immediately renamed WNWO-TV. The new owners tried to improve the station's news department, but met by viewer indifference and continued low ratings, the station cut back to one newscast a day in 1990. In October 1995, the station switched affiliations from ABC to NBC after WTVG, previously the NBC affiliate in Toledo, was purchased by Capital Cities/ABC. The affiliation switch did not immediately serve as an impetus to revitalize the news operation. That changed after Malrite Communications Group acquired WNWO-TV in 1996 and launched a comprehensive effort including building expansion and expanded newscasts. While the newscasts briefly found some footing under Raycom Media ownership, a corporate-mandated shift to a tabloid news format caused ratings and morale to sink.

Raycom Media acquired the Liberty Corporation's portfolio of television stations, including WTOL, in 2006. It chose to keep WTOL and sold WNWO-TV to Barrington Broadcasting. The news department withstood a round of layoffs and gradual decreases in headcount, remaining the laggard in local TV news in spite of a relaunch effort in 2011. Barrington's stations were purchased by Sinclair Broadcast Group in 2013; shortly after the purchase, Sinclair entered into a seven-month-long retransmission consent dispute with Buckeye CableSystem that saw most Toledo-area cable viewers lose access to WNWO. After the dispute ended, Sinclair attempted another revamp of the news department, to no avail in raising the station's flagging ratings fortunes. In March 2017, presentation of its newscasts was outsourced to South Bend, Indiana, and local news was discontinued altogether in May 2023.

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