WOLO-TV (channel 25), branded on air as ABC Columbia, is a television station in Columbia, South Carolina, United States, affiliated with ABC and owned by Bahakel Communications. Its studios and business offices are located on Shakespeare Road in Arcadia Lakes; master control is based at company flagship WCCB in Charlotte, North Carolina. WOLO-TV's transmitter is located on Rush Road in unincorporated southwestern Kershaw County, near Camden. History Early years The First Carolina Corporation, a group of local investors, obtained a construction permit from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to build a new channel 25 television station in Columbia on June 1, 1961, after applying on August 5, 1960. It would be the second attempt at establishing the channel in Columbia. The first, WCOS-TV, had been the first television station in the state, but it folded in January 1956 when competitor WNOK-TV purchased its business assets. Construction was in full swing by the summer. The former physical plant of WCOS-TV on Shakespeare Road was purchased for use by the new station, and a new tower was erected on the site. Broadcasting for WCCA-TV began on October 1, 1961, using the former WCOS-TV facilities and downtown sales offices in the Hotel Columbia. Bahakel purchase In 1964, Cy Bahakel bought the station out of bankruptcy and changed its call letters to WOLO-TV, seeking a fresh start. Immediately, work began to add height to the station's tower to increase its coverage area. WOLO announced another upgrade in 1966, with the height going from to and an increase in power to 550,000 watts. This ultimately materialized in 1969 as an increase to 904,000 watts, followed up in 1981 by a boost to 3.6 million watts. The case of WOLO-TV was not unique. Instead of one VHF station in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Bahakel bought three similar UHF stations: WOLO, WKAB-TV in Montgomery, and WCCB in Charlotte—all ABC affiliates at the time, and two of them off the air—in the same year. All three were then upgraded to increase their coverage areas at the same time that the All-Channel Receiver Act meant that all new sets could receive UHF stations; the three stations had become profitable operations by the early 1980s. Cash flow increased fivefold from 1975 to 1979, and the staff tripled in size. In 2001, WOLO activated a new transmitter tower along I-20 outside Camden, one of the tallest structures in South Carolina at . Prior