WVLT-TV

WVLT-TV (channel 8) is a television station in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States, affiliated with CBS and MyNetworkTV. It is owned by Gray Media alongside Crossville-licensed dual CW/Telemundo affiliate WBXX-TV (channel 20). The two stations share studios on Papermill Drive (near I-40/I-75) on the west side of Knoxville; WVLT-TV's transmitter is located on Sharp's Ridge in North Knoxville.

WVLT-TV traces its history to Knoxville's second-oldest television station, which signed on in 1953 as WTSK-TV on channel 26. The original owners sold it in 1954 to Indiana-based radio company South Central Broadcasting, who changed channel 26's call letters to WTVK two years later. As an ultra high frequency (UHF) station, it spent most of its first three decades on the air in a distant third place behind two very high frequency (VHF) competitors. At various times, it was an affiliate of all three major networks, each of which at one point abandoned WTVK to affiliate with a VHF station (CBS in 1956, ABC in 1979, and NBC in 1988).

In 1988, after the addition of channel 8 as a "VHF drop-in"—an extra channel on the VHF band—to Knoxville, South Central merged with a competing applicant for channel 8, Tennessee Telecorp. That November, WTVK essentially moved from channel 26 to channel 8 under a new call sign, WKXT-TV, with Tennessee Telecorp largely taking over management. After years of continued struggles in the ratings, Gray Television purchased the station in 1996; the new owners changed the call sign to WVLT-TV. The station has remained a ratings also-ran for most of the time despite Gray's efforts to expand the news operation.