User:Lolcatistan/sandbox-MTMstations

KMTM-TV channel 3 Bellingham/Seattle/Tacoma, WA + CKMT-TV channel 3 Abbotsford/Vancouver/Victoria, BC

 * Flagship of regional “Network Northwest” stations.
 * KMTM was one of the very first TV stations in the PNW: KX03BY from 1930-45, KBY-TV from 1945-1949, KKBY from 1949-1953, KDO-TV from 1953-1961, and KQRC from 1961-1970. Mary Tyler Moore’s company bought out the station in 1970, making it into one of the first Superstations.
 * CKMT was formerly on channel 31 as CJBA, launched in 1963. It was moved to channel 3 in 1995, as it had became a repeater of KMTM across the border, and had been so since 1979 (having been operated through an LMA with the Jim Pattison Group which owned the station; the CRTC weren’t very happy about an American company (MTM/Argosy) operating a Canadian station, but could do nothing about it anyway, due to that pesky free market). The CKMT callsign was adopted in 2002 to harmonize the identities of the stations.
 * As a result of consisting both of a US and a Canadian station, has to comply with both FCC (E/I, EAS) and CRTC (CanCon, AlertReady) regulations.
 * Never an affiliate of any of the big networks; at the time the station launched during the Interwar Period, most of the big networks were based in NYC, and the only way to get network programming from there to Seattle was via copper phone lines, which were prohibitively expensive. However, it did use Global in Ontario’s branding elements (and air some of their programming) before Canwest expanded their network across Canada, as well as using BBS (Baton Broadcast System) branding and programming for a while in the mid-90s. The *MTM stations also aired Operation Prime Time programming, and in fact during the 80s, advertised themselves as being “part of the Operation Prime Time network” (by which point OPT was just another brand belonging to Argosy/MTM).

WMTM-TV channel 7 Charlotte/Concorde/Kannapolis, NC

 * Founded in 1943 as WUGN-TV, taking its callsign from its sister radio station (which itself deliberately chose its calls to be similar to the more well-known WGN radio in Chicago). In 1973, it became an MTM station, and got its current callsign.
 * Used to have its own syndication infrastructure “UGNBC”. That name disappeared when Argosy and MTM bought the station, in favour of “Argosy Telecommunications”.

JMTM-TV channel 5 Tokyo, Kanto

 * Founded in August 1952, not that long after the USA annexed Japan (which had a coup to restore the pre-WWII Imperial government ITTL, which was only stopped by US intervention and annexation), as JKTO-TV. One of the first English-language stations in Japan. Acquired by MTM in 1981; received current callsign in 1989.
 * Still one of the few English-language stations in Tokyo on a VHF channel rather than UHF.

Other stations within MTM group

 * KCER-TV channel 42 Benton/Little Rock/Hot Springs, Arkansas (acquired from Field Communications in 1983)
 * WSUI-TV channel 7 Pittsburgh, PA (acquired in 1985)
 * WJM-TV channel 12 Minneapolis, MN (acquired in 2019 with AMTM’s acquisition of Sunbeam-DGN Media)
 * Sunbeam stations: WSVN-7 in Miami and WHDH-7 in Boston (acquired in 2019 with AMTM’s acquisition of Sunbeam-DGN Media)

Former MTM stations

 * WHQZ-TV channel 2 Castineland, SA (acquired in 1983, sold off along with other Sintopia-based former Corus assets to the Blanding and Cassatt families in 2006 as part of the split of American Corus assets)