WMOR-TV (channel 32) is an independent television station licensed to Lakeland, Florida, United States, serving the Tampa Bay area. Owned by Hearst Television, the station maintains studios on Hillsborough Avenue in east Tampa, and its transmitter is located in Riverview. Channel 32 began broadcasting on April 15, 1986, as WTMV, owned by Lakeland Public Interest Telecasters. Branded as "V-32", its original format consisted primarily of music videos, along with a local talk show. In the late 1980s, in response to low ratings and revenue, WTMV dropped the music videos and became a general-entertainment independent station with classic TV series and sports telecasts, as well as programs not aired locally by network affiliates. It became an affiliate of The WB in 1995. In 1996, Hearst acquired WTMV. It overhauled the programming and facilities of channel 32, which relaunched as WWWB on September 15, 1996. Under Hearst, channel 32 became the primary over-the-air telecaster of Tampa Bay Devil Rays baseball. In 1999, the station lost The WB to WTTA (channel 38) and became WMOR-TV, originally branded as "More-TV". WMOR-TV is Tampa Bay's ATSC 3.0 (NextGen TV) station.
History
WTMV: Startup and music video format In November 1979, Lakeland Telecasters filed an application seeking the unused channel 32 allocation at Lakeland. By May 1980, a total of seven applicants had filed seeking the channel. Most were owned by out-of-state interests, among them Kenneth R. Giddens, owner of WKRG-TV in Mobile, Alabama. By February 1983, the field had winnowed to four, and these firms agreed to a settlement, hours before comparative hearings were to begin. The winning firm was Lakeland Public Interest Telecasters, a merger of Lakeland Telecasters and the Public Interest Corporation of St. Petersburg Beach. Channel 32's programming plans were announced in June 1985. Instead of being a general-entertainment independent station, WTMV would broadcast mostly music videos. However, channel 32's start-up was postponed due to construction delays as well as holdups in securing a tower site. WTMV began broadcasting on April 15, 1986. Broadcasting from a transmitter site at Mulberry, southeast of Tampa and southwest of Lakeland, the station had a fringe signal in western portions of Tampa Bay, such as St. Petersburg. It was known on-air as V-32. WTMV featured hosted music video segments—George Lowe was one of its first video jockeys (VJs)—as well as a talk show featuring Richard Shanks, formerly of WPLP (570 AM). On one edition of The Richard Shanks Show, the host mooned his viewers in support of a high school student who was punished for doing the same thing. Though the Shanks program was canceled months later, the mooning incident was later cited by The Ledger as having sowed anti-WTMV sentiment in the community. The music video format never had the audience acceptance or revenue it needed to survive. Owner Dan Johnson noted in a 1988 interview that ratings services required viewers to have a telephone to be measured, hindering their ability to report viewership for people under the age of 30. On September 21, 1987, some of the music video programming was dropped; Lowe, Buehl, and Shanks were dismissed; and WTMV added classic TV series, cartoons, talk shows, and syndicated college sports telecasts to its lineup. The new format won WTMV increased interest from local cable systems, some of which did not previously offer channel 32 in their lineups. By 1988, WTMV was airing music videos nine hours a day and was the last over-the-air music video station in the country. That year, the station moved most of its operations from Lakeland, where the lease on its original studio ended, to a facility in east Hillsborough County that had once housed offices for Group W Cable. To improve its picture in Pinellas County, WTMV began being rebroadcast on a low-power TV station on channel 63 in St. Petersburg in 1991. After carrying baseball games from several team networks including the St. Louis Cardinals, Cincinnati Reds, and Toronto Blue Jays, the station became the Tampa Bay–area home of Florida Marlins baseball when the team debuted in 1993. In the early 1990s, WTMV added programming discarded by Tampa Bay network affiliates. In addition to airing rebroadcasts of local newscasts from WTVT (channel 13), it began airing CBS's Saturday cartoons when WTVT dropped them for a newscast. From NBC affiliate WFLA-TV (channel 8), it picked up a game of the 1991 NBA Finals that WFLA preempted for a telethon; and NBC's package of Notre Dame Fighting Irish football games, which WFLA-TV discarded to air syndicated Southeastern Conference football. WTMV became Tampa Bay's affiliate of The WB when it launched on January 11, 1995.
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