Channel 6 opted to fill its non-network schedule with local programming, a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) mandate, and as a result, DuMont was forced to join WTVK on a secondary basis. Although NBC held a firm grip on WROL, DuMont tried unsuccessfully several times to get a secondary affiliation with the station when it was not broadcasting NBC and ABC. WROL-TV signed on as a primary NBC affiliate because of WROL-AM's longtime affiliation with NBC Radio and also shared ABC programming with CBS affiliate WTSK-TV (now WVLT-TV), whose Channel 26 analog signal did not travel nearly as far. Despite that connection, the stations were not considered to be co-owned.
At the time, Mountcastle was chairman of the board of the Life and Casualty Insurance Company of Tennessee in Nashville, which signed on WLAC-TV (now WTVF) in that city in 1954. It was signed on by Greater East Tennessee TV, Inc., owned by local insurance executive Paul Mountcastle and a small group of investors along with WROL-AM 950. Its first studios were underneath the 800-foot (244 m) self-supporting tower on Sharp's Ridge which was one of the tallest man-made structures in Tennessee at the time. That station would have been first to sign on, but WROL claimed the title by only 25 days. The race to be the first television station in the eastern part of the state was won by WROL-TV when the 300-foot (91 m) tower of WJHL-TV in Johnson City (ironically, now a sister station to channel 6) collapsed a few months earlier.
Channel 6 was East Tennessee's first television station, signing on the air at 8 p.m.
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