in Knoxville, and several groups consisting of local investors. One of these groups included then-state senator Gary George. This field thinned quickly to six applicants and then to two in October. In March 1985, the FCC rejected another applicant and issued a decision in favor of TV 58 Limited, a minority-owned firm headed by Debra M. Jackson and Milwaukee media veteran John Torres, who had worked for multiple radio stations and local Spanish-language newspaper . Debra Jackson originally suggested naming the station WJMT—Torres's initials—but the designation was not available, thus the selection of WDJT-TV, combining both their initials. TV 58 Limited faced financial trouble from the start when it agreed to pay out settlements to other applicants, including George, in exchange for them withdrawing their applications. A new burden surfaced when Jackson was diagnosed with a terminal illness—dying in January 1987—and the lenders that had originally committed interim financing backed out of their deals. In February 1986, one of the applicants with which TV 58 Limited had settled forced the company into involuntary bankruptcy. The Carley Capital Group of Madison negotiated to provide funding to keep the business afloat, but it withdrew by early August, and a new company entered the picture: Weigel Broadcasting, the Chicago-based owner of WCIU-TV in that city. Torres agreed to sell controlling interest in the station to Weigel, while the call letters were retained. Weigel, in association with Torres, spent the next two years trying to put WDJT-TV on the air. Weigel proposed construction of facilities in various suburbs, including Glendale, where it was rebuffed twice in two years, and Germantown, where the village rejected Weigel's plans. Objections to the proposed tower called it unsightly. To get the station on the air, Weigel instead decided to locate at a downtown site with a lengthy TV history: the Marc Plaza Hotel. The antenna on the original mast atop the building—first used as a transmitting site by early UHF station WCAN-TV in 1953 and at the time utilized by low-power outlet W08BY—was replaced in October in preparation for the station's launch. After a $2.3 million expenditure, WDJT-TV began broadcasting on November 10, 1988. Known as "Classic 58", it presented a mix of older sitcoms and movies with a family orientation, a programming philosophy favored by Torres. The next year, Weigel also launched W46AR, a low-power station carrying Univision, giving it three signals in the area along with