Act III Broadcasting

Act III Broadcasting was a company that owned several television stations that started as independents, and later became Fox affiliates. The stations were located in medium-sized DMA's (markets) and were primarily UHF stations. Act III Broadcasting was in business from 1985 to 1994 when it was sold to ABRY Partners for $500 million. Legendary TV producer Norman Lear owned a controlling stake in Act III Broadcasting through his company Act III Communications.

Prior to the formation of ACT III, Lear had a history in Broadcasting beginning with the acquisition of WNJU by Lear with his longtime partners Jerry Perenchio and Bud Yorkin. WNJU was located in Linden, New Jersey and served the Spanish language market in the New York City area. The station offered religious English speaking programming in the mornings and Spanish programming weekday afternoons and evenings. On weekend afternoons, the station offered a variety of ethnic brokered programming. Under their ownership, the station phased out the ethnic shows in favor of more Spanish entertainment programming.

This ownership group then acquired WVAH-TV, channel 23 in Charleston, West Virginia which had signed on as the first independent station in the state. Prior to that, Huntington-Charleston was the largest market without an independent station. WVAH's sign-on was possible because the West Virginia legislature forced the state educational broadcasting authority to withdraw its application for the channel, which had tied up its assignment for over a decade.

They then signed on channel 45 in Dayton, Ohio in the fall of 1984 as WRGT-TV. Before WRGT came, WTJC (now WBDT), a religious-based independent station that had been on the air for a few years had some entertainment programs, the only real over-the-air source of non-network programming in Dayton.

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