WDTN

Contents
1949–1953	1953–1956	1956–1960	1960–1965	1965–1969	1969–1972
1972–1976	1976–1979	1979	1979–1980	1980–1982	1982–1995
1995–2002	2002–2004	2004–2012	2012	2012–present

WLWD

1949–1953

Originally signed on the air on March 15, 1949 as WLWD, a primary NBC affiliate on VHF channel 5, owned by the Crosley Broadcasting Corporation.

1953–1956

LOGO MISSING

1956–1960

LOGO MISSING

1960–1965

1965–1969

1969–1972

1972–1976

WDTN

1976–1979

Variant from 1978

In 1975, Avco decided to exit broadcasting. As a result, WLWD lost its grandfathered protection, and had to be sold off separately from WLWT and WLWC. WLWD ended up being the last of Avco's television stations to be sold off, going to Grinnell College in Iowa for $13 million in June 1975; the acquisition made Grinnell College one of the few universities to own a commercial television station. The school changed the call letters to the current WDTN shortly after the sale closed in spring 1976, and introduced this "flower 2" to go with the change.

1979–1982

1979

Monochrome version

1979–1980

Logo with callsign

1980–1982

On January 1, 1980, WDTN and WKEF swapped network affiliations with channel 2 joining ABC. Five months after joining ABC, Grinnell College announced that it would sell WDTN to the broadcasting division of the Hearst Corporation. The sale was finalized over a year later, in September 1981 for a price of over $47 million.

1982–1995

Station ID (1984–1989)

"Turn to 2" ID (1989–1993)

Station ID (1993–1996)

1995–2002

Designer:  Hearst Broadcasting

Typography:  Bank Gothic Avenir Black ("2")

Launched:  1995

In August 1997, Hearst's television group merged with Argyle Television Holdings II to form what was then known as Hearst-Argyle Television. Argyle had purchased WDTN's former sister station, WLWT, that January, as part of a trade deal between Argyle II and Gannett which caused WLWT and its Oklahoma City sister station, KOCO-TV, to swap ownership with WZZM in Grand Rapids, Michigan and WGRZ in Buffalo. For the same reason that forced the breakup of Avco's television group 20 years earlier, Hearst-Argyle could not keep both stations (common ownership of stations with overlapping city-grade signals would not be allowed until 2000). It opted to keep the larger WLWT and trade WDTN, together with WNAC-TV in Providence, to Sunrise Television for WPTZ in Plattsburgh, WNNE in Hartford, Vermont, and KSBW in Salinas. The sale was finalized on July 2, 1998. In February 2002, LIN Broadcasting purchased WDTN alongside six stations from Sunrise in other markers.

2002–present

The 'red oval' 2 has been used by the station since 2002, surviving a network affiliation swap.

2002–2004

2004–2012

SVG NEEDED

WDTN returned to NBC on August 30, 2004, reversing the 1980 affiliation swap; WKEF would return to ABC.

July–October 2012

SVG NEEDED

This logo was unveiled on July 21, 2012.

2012–present

SVG NEEDED

WDTN unveiled its new logo on October 7, 2012. In 2014, LIN merged with Media General, which owns then-sister station WCMH-TV (channel 4) in Columbus.

External links

• WDTN.com