Dave, you are correct about WDJT, pre-CBS. As an independent station, Channel 58 was an after-thought in the Milwaukee TV market. It had a weak signal and an equally weak program line-up. Even as a TV novice at the time, I could tell the station was struggling in the ratings because the schedule would be changed constantly! I still have old tapes of early WDJT programming, and their equipment also was primitive, to say the least.
Interestingly, WDJT has been owned by Weigel since its launch in the late 1980s. For a TV nerd like myself, I actually enjoyed the station's early scrappy years -- lots of hard-to-find TV shows were programmed, and the technical glitches made viewing interesting.
I think it's safe to say they wanted to affiliate with CBS -- heck, they were already picking up a bunch of shows that WITI had passed on. WDJT was notorious for picking up all the scraps from Milwaukee's ABC, CBS and NBC affiliates. (I remember, for instance, watching those campy "Crime Time After Prime Time" dramas on WDJT in the early 1990s, and they were a part of CBS' late night line-up at that time.)
WDJT's fortunes began to change drastically when they affiliated with CBS. The network, incidentally, did knock on the doors of every other full-power, commercial station at the time. With just days to go before the WITI switch, WDJT was named the new affiliate. In fact, I remember my print TV Guide in December 1994 not reflecting the WDJT affiliation because it was so eleventh-hour.
Weigel may have been more of an after-thought in Milwaukee two decades ago. But these days, I think it's safe to say the company has been very kind to the city with its array of programming on multiple channels.
