WJCL (channel 22) is a television station in Savannah, Georgia, United States, affiliated with ABC. Owned by Hearst Television, the station maintains a transmitter in unincorporated western Chatham County, near Bloomingdale. Its studios are located in the Savannah Morning News building on Chatham Parkway in Savannah. The building also houses its former sister station, Hardeeville, South Carolina–licensed Fox affiliate WTGS (channel 28, now owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group), which now operates separately from WJCL. History The station began operations on July 18, 1970. It was the fourth television station to launch in Savannah and immediately became the area's first-ever primary ABC affiliate. Prior to channel 22 signing on, CBS affiliate WTOC-TV (channel 11) and NBC affiliate WSAV-TV (channel 3) shared secondary affiliations with ABC. Originally owned by former Savannah mayor and avid amateur radio operator Julius Curtis Lewis, Jr. (whose initials provided the call sign), the station marked many "firsts". At the time, it built the tallest broadcast tower in the market rising some above sea level. Local color news film and reel-to-reel videotape were introduced to the Savannah market by WJCL. It claims to have been the first station in the area to televise a live event (President Richard Nixon's Savannah visit and ride in a parade on Skidaway Road) as well as broadcasting in stereo. WJCL-TV and WJCL-FM (96.5 FM) were both run by Lewis Broadcasting's Executive Vice President, J. Fred Pierce, from 1972 until the television station's first sale in 1999. Channel 22 dropped the -TV suffix from the callsign in 1981. In 1982, WJCL swapped affiliations with WSAV (due to the latter's action) and became an NBC affiliate. In 1985, WSAV was one of several ABC affiliates nationwide unhappy with the network's weak prime time programming offerings. However, a mere three years later, it returned to ABC in 1985, while WSAV reverted to being an NBC affiliate full-time. When Lewis purchased the WNOK television and radio stations in Columbia, South Carolina in 1977, he quickly sold off WNOK radio (for an undisclosed price) and immediately changed the television outlet's callsign to WLTX. In 1982, he purchased WYEA in Columbus, Georgia from AFLAC and changed its calls to WLTZ to follow a similar call letter format used for his station in South Carolina's capitol ("LT" meaning "Lewis Television"). In the early 1990s, Lewis sold two of his radio stations, WSTZ-FM and WSTZ-AM in Jackson, Mississippi for