A strangely nautical mishmash of buildings in varying mid-century styles make up the broadcast studios for WDEF-TV Channel 12 are located on Broad Street/TN State Highway 2 in Chattanooga TN.
The studio-transmitter link tower is located on the roof of the main studio building, beaming programming that originates in the station's studios to the station's main long-range transmitter on Signal Mountain.
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"WDEF-TV, virtual and VHF digital channel 12, is a CBS-affiliated television station licensed to Chattanooga, Tennessee, United States. The station, whose call letters came from its former AM and FM sister stations, is owned by Morris Multimedia. Its studios are located on Broad Street in Chattanooga, while its transmitter is located in nearby Signal Mountain. On cable, WDEF-TV is carried on Comcast Xfinity channels 13 and 433, and on EPB Fiber Optics channels 12 and 312 in the Chattanooga area. Although parts of the Chattanooga market are in the Central Time Zone, all schedules are listed in Eastern Time.
History
The station signed on the air on April 25, 1954, carrying programming from all four networks, though it has always been a primary CBS affiliate. It was owned by Joe Engel, who owned the Chattanooga Lookouts minor league baseball team as well as WDEF radio (AM 1370, now WXCT) and WDEF-FM (FM 92.3). It took the CBS affiliation from WROM-TV (now WTVC, (channel 9). It lost NBC to WRGP-TV (now WRCB-TV) in 1956, and lost ABC to WTVC (the former WROM) in 1958. During the late 1950s, the station was also briefly affiliated with the NTA Film Network.
For many years, WDEF was owned by Park Communications, which was bought by Media General in 1997. In 2006, Media General sold the station to Morris Multimedia.
Analog-to-digital conversion
WDEF-TV shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 12, on February 17, 2009, the original target date in which full-power television stations in the United States were to transition from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate (which was later pushed back to June 12, 2009). The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition UHF channel 47 to VHF channel 12 for post-transition operations. Immediately before the shutdown, anchor Joe Legge gave a brief retrospective of the station's history as well as the farewell message for all analog viewers. The message ended with images of the past newscasts.
Programming
Syndicated programming on WDEF includes Judge Judy, The Insider, and The Andy Griffith Show.
In its early years, WDEF was locally oriented, offering a mix of children's shows, talk and variety programs, including Point of View, one of the longest–running local public affairs programs in the United States.
WDEF has been the local home of Tennessee Titans (based in Nashville) games since 1998 (when the team was still called the Oilers). This comes with its CBS affiliation, as CBS carries all National Football League games played in the afternoon that feature a road team from the American Football Conference, which the Titans play in."