Owned by El-Cor Television, Inc., it was Elmira's second station (after WTVE (channel 24)), broadcasting from September 1953 to May 1954, but shut down for financial reasons after seven months of telecasting.
El-Cor Television, Inc., a company whose shareholders were the Corning Leader and Elmira Star-Gazette, was formed in September 1952 and applied to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for a construction permit for channel 18; both newspapers abandoned their own applications for channels 18 and 24, respectively.
[3] The FCC permitted construction activities to begin on March 25 once WELM was sold to Radio Elmira, Inc.[4] At a site on Hawley Hill, work began on the integrated studio and transmitter site,[5] and an affiliation agreement with NBC was signed in July.
[8] This was successfully achieved on September 30, when WECT made its first telecast, rebroadcasting the NBC feed of the first game of the series from WSYR-TV (channel 3) in Syracuse, New York.
[18] The station, which eventually became an independent unit as WETM-TV, continued to maintain studios on Hawley Hill until 1988 and retains its transmitter on the high-elevation site.