Renaissance Broadcasting
| Public | |
| Industry | Broadcasting, Television |
| Fate | Acquired by Tribune Broadcasting |
| Successor | Tribune Broadcasting |
| Founded | 1982 |
| Defunct | 1997 |
| Headquarters | Greenwich, Connecticut, United States |
|
Key people
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Michael Finkelstien |
Renaissance Broadcasting, founded in 1982 by Michael Finkelstien, was a company that owned several UHF television stations, it was sold to Tribune Broadcasting in 1997. The company was headquartered in Greenwich, Connecticut.
Renaissance Broadcasting began operations in February 1982 under the name Odyssey Media Partners, a partnership headed by Greenwich businessman Michael Finkelstein with the purchase of WATR-TV in Waterbury, Connecticut, an NBC affiliate that was nearing disaffiliation after New Britain-based WVIT upgraded to cover all of Connecticut. For the previous five years or so, the Hartford/New Haven television market had been without a general independent station after the sale of WHCT-TV to Dr. Eugene Scott in 1972 and that station's gradual evolution to religious programming from 1973 to about 1977 and their evolution to only Doctor Gene Scott programming by 1981. This left a massive hole in the market and the rise of cable television had Connecticut viewers watching independent stations from New York City and Boston, however a hole for a locally based independent station in the market—the largest without such a station—existed.
When WATR-TV's affiliation with NBC expired in March 1982, the station filled that hole and took on the new calls of WTXX (now WCCT-TV), a general entertainment independent who would soon undergo their own upgrade to cover the entire state. As the only independent in the state, WTXX was an instant success and the success allowed Odyssey to sign on a second station, WDZL (now WSFL-TV) channel 39 in Miami, later that year. Unlike Connecticut, Miami had a more competitive TV market including an established VHF independent station and a wider variety of stations on the air. As a result, WDZL was profitable but not to the degree as WTXX had been.
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