WTIC-TV (channel 61) is a television station in Hartford, Connecticut, United States, serving the Hartford–New Haven market as an affiliate of the Fox network.

The two stations share studios on Broad Street in downtown Hartford; WTIC-TV's transmitter is located on Rattlesnake Mountain in Farmington.

Even though ultra high frequency (UHF) channel 61 had been allotted to Hartford since the mid-1960s, it was still not used by a full-power TV station by the end of the 1970s.

[3] It was intended to launch in 1967, but Kappa was unable to raise the money to build the station in the face of increased costs for color television equipment.

[8] The successful advent of subscription television (STV) in the late 1970s led a number of applicants to express their interest in channel 61 in Hartford.

[11] This consortium was joined by a fourth contender, The Great Hartford County Telecasting Corporation, which was associated with an owner of nursing homes and a man with television and real estate interests in Los Angeles.

Arnold Chase had wanted to use the WTIC call letters for some time, knowing they would give his new station instant visibility and credibility.

However, WTXX's signal had more overlap with WNYW, the Fox station in New York, than WTIC-TV, and channel 61 secured the affiliation.

[28] Chase Broadcasting began to buy media properties outside of Connecticut in 1989, most notably other Fox-affiliated stations: WATL in Atlanta, KDVR in Denver, and WXIN in Indianapolis.

[29] In 1991, Chase Broadcasting announced it would sell some or all of its properties in order to invest in new business ventures in Eastern Europe after the end of the Cold War, particularly successful cable television systems in Poland.

[30] While the Chase family would retain the WTIC radio stations for the time being, it sold four of its five Fox affiliates, including WTIC-TV, to Renaissance Broadcasting, a Greenwich company that already owned WTXX.

[31] To comply with prevailing FCC regulations, Renaissance sold WTXX to a Roman Catholic non-profit group, Counterpoint Communications; both deals were completed in March 1993.

[33] While Renaissance tried to negotiate a local marketing agreement (LMA) with Counterpoint in which it would buy WTXX's entire broadcast day, Counterpoint wanted only a part-time arrangement, and negotiations fell through; eventually, WTXX entered into a part-time LMA with NBC affiliate WVIT (channel 30).

The original FCC order required Tribune to sell either the newspaper or WTXX within six months, though the cross-ownership of the Courant and WTIC-TV would not need to be considered until the television station's license came up for renewal in 2007.

[41] In March 2009, Tribune announced that WTIC-TV and WTXX would relocate their studios and offices into the Courant building on Broad Street in Hartford as part of a multiplatform collaboration between the television and newspaper newsrooms; Richard Graziano, the general manager of the television stations, would also become publisher of the Courant.

[45] During Tribune's ownership, WTIC-TV was among the last stations in a top-30 media market to begin broadcasting in digital, requiring an extension from the FCC because it could not meet a 2002 deadline for major network affiliates.

[65] The creation of a news operation for channel 61, in the mold of the respected WTIC radio newsroom, was an early and long-held goal for Arnold Chase and his team.

At the station's dedication ceremony in 1984, general manager Bruce C. Mayer promised, "As soon as we're ready, and that won't be too long, we're going to present the facts with a first-class news operation in the WTIC tradition.

[23] However, five years passed before WTIC-TV aired a local newscast, in part because the merger into Chase Broadcasting helped afford the financial backing to make it a reality.

[66] Many anchors expressed interest in presenting the new half-hour 10 p.m. newscast, but even network correspondents were turned down to hire Chase's first choice.

[77] In July 2009, news reporter Shelly Sindland filed both state and federal complaints alleging age and gender discrimination in the station's newsroom.