On April 19, 1955, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) granted Gene T. Dyer a construction permit for a new television station to operate on channel 19 at Fort Pierce.

[6] Educational interests in the St. Petersburg area resisted the proposal, noting that a group was being formed to apply for it,[7] and the bid to move channel 3 was denied in 1957.

Florida Cablevision promised to fill the blanks for Treasure Coast viewers with missing CBS and ABC[9] service (the only station that came in regularly was WPTV), which WTVI sought to provide directly.

[27] When WTVI closed for the second time, local leaders sensed an opportunity to provide a facility that did not exist in the Indian River area: an instructional television station.

The county school superintendent and an engineer from the Florida Educational Television Commission met with Dyer in March to survey the former WTVI facilities, finding them in excellent condition.

[28] Arrangements had been worked out with Dyer and with GE, whose mortgage on station equipment continued in force, for potential purchase of the facility, as backers waited on Congress to pass an appropriations bill for educational television.

On May 1, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education purchased all of the equipment used in operating WTVI in Fort Pierce, minus the building, to be moved to start an instructional television station in Charlotte, North Carolina; the facility cost $86,200.

[32] In a statement, Dyer blamed the local press and the taxpayers' association for scuttling any possibility of channel 19 being reactivated as an educational station for the Fort Pierce area, though school officials contended he was still asking $120,000 instead of offering to donate it outright.

Beacom had been a 10 percent owner of WTVI, but he was not active in its management because he was tending to problems that had arisen at another station he owned, WJPB-TV in Fairmont, West Virginia.