It was licensed to serve the Cedar Rapids, Waterloo and Dubuque areas making it the first station to be given split-market status by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). It was also the first station to transmit with 100,000 watts of power, the maximum power allowed for a low-band television station. Initially, the station was owned by a group consisting of American Broadcasting Stations, Quarton and several others. WMT-TV was sister to WMT radio (600 AM) which had been broadcasting in the area since 1922. The call letters stood for the now-defunct "Waterloo Morning Tribune" which owned WMT radio from 1928 until 1934.