The Shott family, through what was known as the Daily Telegraph Publishing Company, controlled not only WHIS-TV but also the city's only radio stations—WHIS-AM-FM—and the city's only daily newspaper, the "Bluefield Daily Telegraph". Although their media holdings in Bluefield were considered a monopoly by some (as highlighted in a July 1974 "Wall Street Journal" article), only the newspaper was a vehicle for their conservative political views. But in 1975, the FCC decreed that a single company could not own all of the media outlets in one area, and required several small-market broadcast-print combinations to be broken up. The ruling forced the Shott family to sell their Bluefield television station. In 1979, after four years of appeals, the Shotts sold WHIS-TV to Quincy, Illinois-based Quincy Newspapers. After the sale was completed, the new owners changed the station's call letters to WVVA (so as to comply with an FCC rule in effect at the time that required TV and radio stations in the same market, but with different ownership to use different callsigns) on May 1, 1979; the call sign refers to the states which channel 6 serves, West Virginia and Virginia.