The station's original call letters were WHIS-TV, named for West Virginia politician Hugh Ike Shott. Shott died in 1953, two years before the station made it to air, and his heirs were channel 6's original owners. The Shotts were forced to construct a privately owned microwave relay system to receive NBC programming from WSLS-TV in Roanoke, Virginia, the closest and most accessible city receiving network signals via the A.T. & T. Long Lines system. When it was completed in September WHIS-TV began carrying NBC programs, the first being "The Pinky Lee Show". The station's operations were originally housed in the Bluefield Municipal Building; on January 1, 1967, the WHIS stations moved into new facilities on Big Laurel Highway (U.S. Routes 19 and 460), known as "Broadcast Center," and channel 6 began full color operations.