WSTR-TV (channel 64), branded Star 64 (stylized as STAR64), is a television station in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. It is programmed primarily as an independent station, but maintains a secondary affiliation with MyNetworkTV. WSTR-TV is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group alongside dual CBS/CW affiliate WKRC-TV (channel 12) and the two stations share studios on Highland Avenue in the Mount Auburn section of Cincinnati; WSTR's transmitter, Star Tower, is located in the city's College Hill neighborhood. WSTR-TV began broadcasting in 1980 as WBTI, which broadcast a mix of commercial advertising-supported and subscription television (STV) programs. The STV programming was relegated into overnight hours (before being dropped altogether) at the start of 1985, making way for the station to become an independent station under the callsign WIII. After financial trouble, channel 64 stabilized under ABRY Communications before being purchased by Sinclair in 1996. It was briefly an affiliate of UPN before switching to The WB in 1998 and becoming part of MyNetworkTV in 2006. WKRC-TV produces dedicated morning and late evening newscasts for air on WSTR-TV. The station is one of Cincinnati's two ATSC 3.0 (NextGen TV) transmitters, serving the market's major commercial stations, which each broadcast some of WSTR-TV's subchannels on its behalf.
History
Construction and subscription television years On June 30, 1977, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) granted a construction permit to Buford Television of Ohio, Inc., for a new channel 64 television station in Cincinnati, Ohio. WBTI signed on the air on January 28, 1980. It broadcast with one million watts of power and operated from studios on Fishwick Drive in the Bond Hill area; the station's original transmitter was located on Chickasaw Street. WBTI was conceived and began broadcasting as a hybrid. During the day, it was an advertiser-supported, general-entertainment independent station from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. each day, with a program schedule primarily consisting of classic reruns. In the late evening hours, the station's signal was scrambled as it carried programming from the ON TV service, which provided movies, sports, and live events to viewers through a paid subscription and a decoder to receive ON TV programs. (Buford, which had planned a multi-city expansion into subscription television and even a national network of translators through its Residential Entertainment subsidiary, licensed the ON TV name from Oak Communications in the Cincinnati market and also would build STV operations in Chicago and Minneapolis under the brand name Spectrum; it created the Home Entertainment Network division for this business.) Local sports programming included a small package of Cincinnati Reds home games, a major advance for a team that had not permitted the telecast of more than three home games in a season on television since 1966. WBTI's ratings were less than stellar, while ON TV was being well received but already sensed that competition with cable was going to increase and present a difficulty in keeping subscribers. The subscription operation examined increasing to 20 hours a day—then the maximum amount of hours of non-free programming permitted by the FCC—as early as December 1981, and it carried out that expansion on April 1, 1982, relegating ad-supported WBTI programming to weekday mornings. In June 1983, the station cut back its commercial programs to the 90-minute edition of The 700 Club on weekdays, with ON TV the rest of the day and weekends except for three further hours of religious programs on Sunday mornings. It was able to do so because the FCC had abolished the so-called "28-hour rule"—which required stations to provide a minimum of, on average, four hours a day of non-subscription programming—in June 1982. ON TV was beginning to face a tough road. After much delay, the Warner-Amex cable service QUBE became available within the Cincinnati city limits in early 1983, making ON TV less attractive to viewers. In October 1983, United Cable, which had acquired 80 percent of Buford's three STV operations, wrote down the entire unit and offered the systems for sale. All of this programming was also seen in Dayton, where Buford established translator W66AQ in 1981 to extend the marketing area of ON TV and WBTI's commercial fare.
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