WHAS-TV (channel 11) is a television station in Louisville, Kentucky, United States, affiliated with ABC. Owned by Tegna Inc., the station maintains studios on West Chestnut Street in Downtown Louisville, and its transmitter is located in rural northeastern Floyd County, Indiana (northeast of Floyds Knobs). History The station first signed on the air on March 27, 1950. Originally broadcasting on VHF channel 9, it was the second television station to sign on in the Louisville market and the Commonwealth of Kentucky (after NBC affiliate WAVE-TV, which started in November 1948). WHAS-TV was founded by the Bingham family, publishers of morning newspaper The Courier-Journal, afternoon newspaper The Louisville Times and operator of WHAS (840 AM), Louisville's oldest radio station. It operated from brand-new studios in the Courier-Journal/Times Building at 6th & Broadway, in downtown Louisville. Even though WHAS-TV's construction permit was issued in 1946, before WAVE-TV's (1947), the Bingham family waited until the new TV facility was finished to go on the air. As a result, channel 9 signed on 16 months after WAVE-TV, who adapted an existing building at Preston and Broadway. The station originally operated as a primary CBS affiliate, owing to its sister radio station's longtime affiliation with the CBS Radio Network, with a secondary affiliation with ABC. It moved to VHF channel 11 on February 7, 1953, one of several channel shifts resulting from the Federal Communications Commission's 1952 Sixth Report and Order. Under the same decree, WAVE-TV relocated from channel 5 to channel 3. Following the move to channel 11, the station became to first to increase its effective radiated power to 316,000 watts, the maximum allowed for a high-band VHF station, resulting in a greatly increased signal coverage area. When the FCC gradually enforced print-broadcast cross-ownership restrictions in the early 1970s, the Commission granted the Binghams a grandfathered cross-ownership waiver to retain their Louisville holdings. Barry Bingham, Sr., patriarch of the family media empire, handed over control to his son Barry, Jr. upon his retirement from active involvement in 1971. But following nearly fifteen years of family infighting, the senior Bingham decided to break up the family's media holdings in early 1986. The decision resulted in the sales of WHAS radio (and its sister FM station, WAMZ) to Clear Channel Communications; the Courier-Journal and the Times to the Gannett Company; and WHAS-TV to the Providence Journal Company. The Journal Company merged with the Belo Corporation