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[/s2If]
On August 10, 1953, Signal Hill Telecasting Corporation signed on the air as WTVI, transmitting on UHF channel 54. On February 8, 1947, it was licensed to Belleville, Illinois (across the Mississippi River from St. Louis) and became the second television station in the St. Louis market after KSDK. Buddy Blattner, Bill Durney, and Milo Hamilton announced the inaugural broadcast, a baseball game between the St. Louis Browns and the Cincinnati Reds. It was primarily a CBS affiliate with minor connections with ABC and DuMont. In February 1953, an agreement was reached to replace KSD-TV with a DuMont affiliate. The station was supposed to go on the air on May 15, 1953. The station began broadcasting from studios in Alton, Illinois. When KWK-TV (channel 4, now KMOV) opened on July 8, 1954, the CBS affiliation was transferred to it; WTVI became the major ABC station by default.