[5] The second group to apply was Hartford radio station WONS, owned by the General Tele-Radio Corporation and the city's Mutual Broadcasting System and Yankee Network outlet.

[33] In April 1957, the station's morning news segments began to be presented from a streetside studio with large windows fronting onto Asylum Street, allowing passersby to see programs in production and for the incorporation of outdoor images into the weathercasts.

[48][49] The subscription system would utilize Zenith's Phonevision technology; each program would cost between 75 cents and $1.50, and the decoder would keep a running receipt for subscribers to calculate their bill and send money to RKO.

[66] Nonetheless, the test was successful enough to motivate RKO to ask for a three-year extension, which it received,[67] and Zenith to ask for authority to allow all stations nationwide to add STV capabilities.

[68] During the second term of the STV experiment, RKO General began flirting with plans to expand the WHCT physical plant at a new site and with increased non-subscription programming.

In 1967, the company proposed an expanded studio and office complex at Avon Mountain, which met with strong opposition from local homeowners, as the station's transmitter site was located in a residential area.

[70] In January 1968, RKO General announced a $2 million investment into WHCT that would include the construction of new studios, capability to present local shows in color, and a higher-power and taller transmitter facility.

[72] While those plans were under consideration, RKO General applied to the FCC for a second extension of the subscription TV test,[73] and it began presenting color films during its ad-supported broadcast day, though the Phonevision system only worked in black-and-white.

[77] On December 30, citing the recent approval of national pay TV service by the FCC, RKO announced that it would terminate the six-year experiment on January 31, 1969, and remove the decoders from the more than 4,000 subscribing households.

[84] When the commission refused to grant the requested upgrade, RKO General put WHCT up for sale anyway; it believed that a buyer without New York and Boston stations would have no trouble proposing the same improvement.

[86] After receiving no offers for WHCT at an asking price of $2 million, RKO General announced on April 30, 1971, that it would donate the station to Faith Center of Glendale, California, which operated KHOF FM and KHOF-TV in the Los Angeles area.

It fired Woods in 1976 over the involvement of Wesleyan University students in producing his programming,[101] but the station picked up several New England Whalers hockey games in a trial run for possible future telecasts.

[105] On March 4, facing a $77,000 tax bill from the city of Hartford for the Asylum Street studio building, station officials holed up inside and refused to allow the deputy sheriff entry when he attempted to serve eviction papers.

[107] On March 9, 1977, Avon officials seized the transmitter again, this time for the unpaid tax bill in Hartford; earlier in the day, Scott had denounced an effort to silence him with "police-state tactics".

[116] The ruling called into question Faith Center's character qualifications to be a licensee and put the other broadcast outlets at risk, especially the California stations that also had pending license renewals.

[117] The agreement utilized the then-new distress sale policy, which allowed for stations facing possible hearings at the FCC to exit them by selling to minority-controlled licensees for substantially less than market value.

[125] In April, the FCC rescinded its approval for the sale, acting on the LDA Communications petition, in order to review stockholder and purchase agreements related to Television Corporation of Hartford in light of the revelations in the Times's reporting.

[126] In the meantime, Television Corporation of Hartford began the zoning process for a new 499-foot (152 m) tower in Middletown to broadcast channel 18;[127] approval was controversial and contested by nearby landowners who feared depreciation of their property values.

[129] TELACU continued to pursue the purchase of channel 18, in spite of the loss of its financial backing and the pending federal investigation,[130] but unable to raise funds, it abandoned its bid to acquire WHCT in October 1982.

[134] The $3.1 million sale was officially filed in August 1984; Ramirez promised a major investment to upgrade the ailing station's facilities and a switch to full-time independent status.

The station immediately left the air while the new owners assembled a programming inventory to replace Gene Scott with off-network reruns of shows such as Dallas, Knots Landing, and Columbo.

[142] Shurberg—notoriously private and a mystery to others in the WHCT case—was profiled in a February 1985 article in the Courant, noting that others wondered about the source of his money—a computer consulting business—and his friendship with Arnold Chase, owner of WTIC radio and television.

[134] Astroline initially intended to begin "interim operation" with a satellite-delivered program service before returning the station to air with its full schedule for the fall television season.

[156] In February 1988, after a requirement to do so was attached to the commission's appropriations by Congress, the FCC again affirmed its statements in the Shurberg case and two others involving preferences to minority and female applicants for new stations.

[171][172] During oral argument, the justices hinted that the scarcity of mass media outlets, radio frequencies and TV channels and the regulated status of broadcasting might move them to allow preferential policies.

[183] Martin W. Hoffman was named bankruptcy trustee for Astroline Communications and began negotiating with various prospective buyers for WHCT, while other potential owners instead applied for competing applications against its license.

[191] The FCC granted the request in an order in October 2000, noting that its action allowed for the Astroline bankruptcy case to be terminated, avoided a comparative hearing (which had since been abolished), and wound up a proceeding dating back more than a decade.

[199][a] WHTX-LD, which rebroadcasts WUVN in Springfield, Massachusetts, has its origins in W10CG, a low-power station on channel 10 in Hartford that signed on in February 1997, using WHCT's former Garden Street facilities.

[204] Becoming WHTX-LP on March 31,[205] the station shut down in December 1998 to make room for WTNH's digital signal; its programming from America One and the American Independent Network was moved to former simulcast partner WMLD-LP.

[207] However, original owner Harvard Broadcasting claimed to the FCC that WHTX had briefly resumed operations on an annual basis, and the license was reinstated a month later;[207] it was sold to Entravision soon thereafter.