WTSP

WTSP (channel 10) is a television station in St. Petersburg, Florida, United States, serving the Tampa Bay area as an affiliate of CBS. The station is owned by Tegna Inc. and maintains studios on Gandy Boulevard on St. Petersburg's northeast side, just off the Gandy Bridge; its transmitter is located in Riverview, Florida.

Channel 10 was a latter-day insertion into the Tampa Bay television market, and six groups competed for the channel between 1957 and 1964. Rahall Communications, owner of St. Petersburg radio station WLCY, was awarded the construction permit, and WLCY-TV began broadcasting on July 18, 1965, becoming Tampa Bay's ABC affiliate that September. For technical reasons, the channel 10 transmitter had to be further north than all other local stations, and the initial tower height was limited to 549 feet (167 m). As a result, the station had a smaller coverage area and potential audience than its principal competitors, WFLA-TV and WTVT. This situation also led to the construction of WXLT (now WWSB) in Sarasota in 1971, providing ABC service to the southern portion of the market but limiting WLCY-TV's reach. A taller tower was constructed in 1979, but the station was unable to move to Riverview until 2011.

In 1977, Gulf United Corporation acquired Rahall Communications and used it as the base of the Gulf Broadcast Group, with corporate headquarters in St. Petersburg. Channel 10 was separated from WLCY radio and changed call signs to WTSP. Under Gulf, a news department previously regarded as under-resourced and amateurish became professionalized and moved into second place in local ratings, at one point challenging WTVT for first place. After Gulf sold to Taft Broadcasting, which in turn was taken over and became Great American Broadcasting, momentum was lost in the mid-to-late 1980s, and the station slipped to third. In 1989, the news director and assistant news director were fired when it emerged they had accessed WTVT's computer systems and used them to make decisions about news coverage at WTSP. Despite various overhauls, the news department rarely moved above third place. On December 12, 1994, a three-station affiliation switch saw WTSP become a CBS affiliate. News ratings did not improve as WTSP's new CBS programming attracted older viewers.

Jacor acquired WTSP in 1996 and swapped it to Gannett months later in exchange for six radio stations. Under Gannett—whose broadcasting division became Tegna in 2015—WTSP has remained either in second or third place in local news ratings, having tried several strategies to change its approach and presentation over that time.