WLBT Archives

WLBT began broadcasting on December 28, 1953 as the second television station in Jackson, Mississippi. Its license was held by the Lamar life Insurance Company and it was a sister station to WJDX radio, both being NBC affiliates.

In 1964 The United Church of Christ's Office of Communication filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission charging that WLBT was guilty of racial injustice and discrimination in its programming. This was not the first such complaint; the NAACP had filed similar ones beginning in 1955. The ensuing legal proceedings lasted fifteen years, produced landmark judicial decisions, and led to a change in the ownership of the station.

As a result of two rulings by the U. S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, control of the station was removed from the Lamar Life Broadcasting Company. At the time of the decisions, the Court of Appeals was presided over by Warren Burger, later Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

Because the decision to grant the permanent license was expected to take a long time, the Federal Communications Commission awarded an interim license to Communications Improvement, Incorporated (CII), a nonprofit biracial organization which was not an applicant for the permanent license. CII assumed the license on June 14, 1971 and operated the station until the end of January 1980. During those years WLBT won numerous awards and repeatedly dominated its market.

CII's Board of Directors was headed by Kenneth Dean, a Baptist minister and former director of the Mississippi Council for Human Relations. As President of the Board, Dean directed the implementation of CII's policies at WLBT. Among the changes that occurred were the appointment of a new general manager, who became the first black to hold such a position in the country; a rise in the percentage of minority employees at the station; more intensive news coverage; additional public affairs programming, including the weekly program "Probe"; the hiring of a children's program director; and policy changes concerning religious programming.

As a nonprofit organization in a profit-making situation, CII proposed to channel the profits generated by the station into educational interests in Mississippi. Among the recipients of CII donations were public radio broadcasting, educational television, and a communications training program at Tougaloo College.

At the end of January 1980, CII turned over the operation of WLBT to the new license-holder, TV-3. TV-3 was composed of representatives from four groups that had sought the permanent license: Channel 3, Incorporated; Dixie National Broadcasting Corporation; Civic Communication Corporation; and Jackson Television, Incorporated.