WILM-LP
Encyclopedia
WILM-LD is the low-powered CBS
-affiliated television station
for the Cape Fear
area of Southeastern North Carolina
. Licensed to Wilmington
, it broadcasts a digital signal on UHF channel 40 from a transmitter in Delco
. The station can also be seen on AMTC channel 10, Time Warner
channel 12, and Charter
channel 16. There is a high definition
feed offered on Charter digital channel 716, AMTC digital channel 914, and Time Warner digital channel 1110.
Owned by the Capitol Broadcasting Company
, WILM has studios on Wrightsville Avenue in Wilmington. However, master control and some internal operations are based at the facilities of sister station and fellow CBS affiliate WRAL-TV
on Western Boulevard in Raleigh
. Syndicated
programming on the station includes: How I Met Your Mother
, Swift Justice with Nancy Grace
, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire
and The Andy Griffith Show
.
affiliate. In 1999, Capitol Broadcasting acquired the station.
On March 23, 2000, it became a CBS affiliate, filling a void created when the previous CBS affiliate WJKA-TV changed its calls to WSFX-TV
and dropped the network to join Fox
. WSSN changed its call sign to WILM-LP on that date as well. Before WILM gained the CBS affiliation, programming from that network was seen in Wilmington on cable from WNCT-TV
in Greenville
, WBTW-TV in Florence, South Carolina
, and WRAL.
WILM retained secondary affiliation with UPN until the network shut down and merged with The WB. Interestingly enough, CBS and UPN had the same parent company, CBS Corporation
. After UPN and The WB merged to form The CW
on September 18, 2006, WILM finally became a full-time CBS station due to cable-only WB 100+
affiliate "WBW
" becoming part of The CW through The CW Plus
cable group.
The station's low-powered digital signal, WILM-LD, began broadcasting on UHF channel 40 in August 2008. This increased the station's effective radiated power
from its former 75 kW (analog VHF) to 15 kW (digital UHF) which is the highest power available for U.S. low-power digital television
. WILM's new transmitter was no longer centrally located in Wilmington itself but located alongside other local broadcast sites in Delco.
WILM is one of five Wilmington commercial television stations that agreed to end analog transmissions early and became digital-only on September 8, 2008. This move was intended to make the area the first all-digital market
in the United States
. On that date, WILM shut down its analog signal along with four other Wilmington television stations as part of the voluntary early digital transition. If this agreement had not happened, the decision to shut-off analog transmission at any time would have been voluntary for WILM because Federal Communications Commission
(FCC) regulations exempted low-power television stations from the 2009 analog shutdown
. Its analog channel 10 identification is still used as its virtual channel
through PSIP.
stations. Instead, it simulcasts most of WRAL's newscasts (except for weekday mornings at 6, weekdays at noon, Saturday mornings, as well as weeknights at 5 and 5:30), with local weather inserts targeted toward Wilmington. See the WRAL article for a complete listing of on-air personnel. From March 10, 2008 until February 27, 2009 through a news share agreement, ABC
affiliate WWAY
produced a prime time newscast weeknights at 7 on WILM that offered local coverage.
The station currently produces a weekly public affairs show called Byline: Wilmington hosted by Donn Ansell. The program, which airs Sunday mornings at 9:30 for a half-hour, focuses on news and issues of the Cape Fear region. On February 16, 2009, the station began simulcasting the first hour of The Craig and Sheila Show from WILT
on weekday mornings at 6.
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
-affiliated television station
Television station
A television station is a business, organisation or other such as an amateur television operator that transmits content over terrestrial television. A television transmission can be by analog television signals or, more recently, by digital television. Broadcast television systems standards are...
for the Cape Fear
Cape Fear (region)
Cape Fear is a coastal plain and tidewater region of North Carolina centered about the city of Wilmington. The region takes its name from the adjacent Cape Fear headland, as does the Cape Fear River which flows through the region and empties into the Atlantic Ocean near the cape...
area of Southeastern North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
. Licensed to Wilmington
Wilmington, North Carolina
Wilmington is a port city in and is the county seat of New Hanover County, North Carolina, United States. The population is 106,476 according to the 2010 Census, making it the eighth most populous city in the state of North Carolina...
, it broadcasts a digital signal on UHF channel 40 from a transmitter in Delco
Delco, North Carolina
Delco is an unincorporated community in Columbus County, North Carolina, United States. It lies at an elevation of 49 feet . Delco is also the home of Acme Delco Middle School, Home of the Trojans....
. The station can also be seen on AMTC channel 10, Time Warner
Time Warner Cable
Time Warner Cable is an American cable television company that operates in 28 states and has 31 operating divisions...
channel 12, and Charter
Charter Communications
Charter Communications is an American company providing cable television, high-speed Internet, and telephone services to more than 4.7 million customers in 25 states. By revenues, it is the fourth-largest cable operator in the United States, behind Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Cox Communications...
channel 16. There is a high definition
High-definition television
High-definition television is video that has resolution substantially higher than that of traditional television systems . HDTV has one or two million pixels per frame, roughly five times that of SD...
feed offered on Charter digital channel 716, AMTC digital channel 914, and Time Warner digital channel 1110.
Owned by the Capitol Broadcasting Company
Capitol Broadcasting Company
Capitol Broadcasting Company is a TV and radio broadcast company based in Raleigh, North Carolina. They also own and operate the minor league baseball team, the Durham Bulls.-TV:*WRAL-TV 5...
, WILM has studios on Wrightsville Avenue in Wilmington. However, master control and some internal operations are based at the facilities of sister station and fellow CBS affiliate WRAL-TV
WRAL-TV
WRAL-TV, virtual channel 5 , is a television station in Raleigh, North Carolina. WRAL-TV has been the flagship station of Capitol Broadcasting Company since its inception, and is currently the CBS affiliate for the Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill/Fayetteville area, known collectively as the Triangle...
on Western Boulevard in Raleigh
Raleigh, North Carolina
Raleigh is the capital and the second largest city in the state of North Carolina as well as the seat of Wake County. Raleigh is known as the "City of Oaks" for its many oak trees. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the city's 2010 population was 403,892, over an area of , making Raleigh...
. Syndicated
Television syndication
In broadcasting, syndication is the sale of the right to broadcast radio shows and television shows by multiple radio stations and television stations, without going through a broadcast network, though the process of syndication may conjure up structures like those of a network itself, by its very...
programming on the station includes: How I Met Your Mother
How I Met Your Mother
How I Met Your Mother is an American sitcom that premiered on CBS on September 19, 2005, created by Craig Thomas and Carter Bays.As a framing device, the main character, Ted Mosby with narration by Bob Saget, in the year 2030 recounts to his son and daughter the events that led to his meeting...
, Swift Justice with Nancy Grace
Swift Justice With Nancy Grace
Swift Justice with Jackie Glass is a syndicated court program hosted by Judge Jackie Glass....
, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (US game show)
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire is an American television quiz show which offers a maximum prize of $1,000,000 for correctly answering 14 consecutive multiple-choice questions of random difficulty. Until 2010, the format required contestants to correctly answer 15 consecutive questions of increasing...
and The Andy Griffith Show
The Andy Griffith Show
The Andy Griffith Show is an American sitcom first televised by CBS between October 3, 1960, and April 1, 1968. Andy Griffith portrays a widowed sheriff in the fictional small community of Mayberry, North Carolina...
.
History
The station began on April 3, 1989 as Independent outlet W10BZ. It aired an analog signal on VHF channel 10 from a transmitter near the studios. The station changed its call sign to WSSN-LP after upgrading to class A status in 1995 and eventually became a UPNUPN
United Paramount Network was a television network that was broadcast in over 200 markets in the United States from 1995 to 2006. UPN was originally owned by Viacom/Paramount and Chris-Craft Industries, the former of which, through the Paramount Television Group, produced most of the network's...
affiliate. In 1999, Capitol Broadcasting acquired the station.
On March 23, 2000, it became a CBS affiliate, filling a void created when the previous CBS affiliate WJKA-TV changed its calls to WSFX-TV
WSFX-TV
WSFX-TV is the Fox-affiliated television station for North Carolina's Cape Fear region licensed to Wilmington. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 30 from a transmitter in Town Creek Township. The station can also be seen on Time Warner Cable, Charter, and ATMC channel 9...
and dropped the network to join Fox
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
. WSSN changed its call sign to WILM-LP on that date as well. Before WILM gained the CBS affiliation, programming from that network was seen in Wilmington on cable from WNCT-TV
WNCT-TV
WNCT-TV is the CBS-affiliated television station for Eastern North Carolina's Inner Banks licensed to Greenville. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on VHF channel 10 from a transmitter in Grifton along NC 118. The station can also be seen on Charter channel 6 as well as Time Warner...
in Greenville
Greenville, North Carolina
Greenville is the county seat of Pitt County and principal city of the Greenville, North Carolina metropolitan area. Greenville is the health, entertainment, and educational hub of North Carolina's Tidewater and Coastal Plain and in 2008 was listed as the Tenth Largest City in North Carolina...
, WBTW-TV in Florence, South Carolina
Florence, South Carolina
-Municipal government and politics:The City of Florence has a council-manager form of government. The mayor and city council are elected every four years, with no term limits...
, and WRAL.
WILM retained secondary affiliation with UPN until the network shut down and merged with The WB. Interestingly enough, CBS and UPN had the same parent company, CBS Corporation
CBS Corporation
CBS Corporation is an American media conglomerate focused on commercial broadcasting, publishing, billboards and television production, with most of its operations in the United States. The President and CEO of the company is Leslie Moonves. Sumner Redstone, owner of National Amusements, is CBS's...
. After UPN and The WB merged to form The CW
The CW Television Network
The CW Television Network is a television network in the United States launched at the beginning of the 2006–2007 television season. It is a joint venture between CBS Corporation, the former owners of United Paramount Network , and Time Warner's Warner Bros., former majority owner of The WB...
on September 18, 2006, WILM finally became a full-time CBS station due to cable-only WB 100+
The WB 100+ Station Group
The WB 100+ Station Group was a group of primarily non-broadcast local cable television outlets for The WB Television Network, for markets below the top 100 television media markets in the United States. Dayparts with no WB programming were programmed by the network...
affiliate "WBW
WBW
WBW is a cable television station in Wilmington, North Carolina, United States, seen locally on Time Warner cable channel 29, and Charter Cable channel 17, as an affiliate of The CW. As part of The CW Plus, the station does not broadcast over-the-air, and its call sign is entirely fictional...
" becoming part of The CW through The CW Plus
The CW Plus
The CW Plus is a group of primarily digital sub-channels, analog, and non-broadcast cable television outlets for the CW Television Network, for markets below the top 99 television media markets in the United States....
cable group.
The station's low-powered digital signal, WILM-LD, began broadcasting on UHF channel 40 in August 2008. This increased the station's effective radiated power
Effective radiated power
In radio telecommunications, effective radiated power or equivalent radiated power is a standardized theoretical measurement of radio frequency energy using the SI unit watts, and is determined by subtracting system losses and adding system gains...
from its former 75 kW (analog VHF) to 15 kW (digital UHF) which is the highest power available for U.S. low-power digital television
Digital television
Digital television is the transmission of audio and video by digital signals, in contrast to the analog signals used by analog TV...
. WILM's new transmitter was no longer centrally located in Wilmington itself but located alongside other local broadcast sites in Delco.
WILM is one of five Wilmington commercial television stations that agreed to end analog transmissions early and became digital-only on September 8, 2008. This move was intended to make the area the first all-digital market
Media market
A media market, broadcast market, media region, designated market area , Television Market Area , or simply market is a region where the population can receive the same television and radio station offerings, and may also include other types of media including newspapers and Internet content...
in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. On that date, WILM shut down its analog signal along with four other Wilmington television stations as part of the voluntary early digital transition. If this agreement had not happened, the decision to shut-off analog transmission at any time would have been voluntary for WILM because Federal Communications Commission
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, created, Congressional statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the...
(FCC) regulations exempted low-power television stations from the 2009 analog shutdown
DTV transition in the United States
The DTV transition in the United States was the switchover from analog to exclusively digital broadcasting of free over-the-air television programming...
. Its analog channel 10 identification is still used as its virtual channel
Virtual channel
In telecommunications, a logical channel number , also known as virtual channel, is a channel designation which differs from that of the actual radio channel on which the signal travels....
through PSIP.
Newscasts
WILM does not operate a news department of its own, unlike most big threeBig Three Television Networks
The Big Three Television Networks are the three traditional commercial broadcast television networks in the United States: ABC, CBS and NBC...
stations. Instead, it simulcasts most of WRAL's newscasts (except for weekday mornings at 6, weekdays at noon, Saturday mornings, as well as weeknights at 5 and 5:30), with local weather inserts targeted toward Wilmington. See the WRAL article for a complete listing of on-air personnel. From March 10, 2008 until February 27, 2009 through a news share agreement, ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
affiliate WWAY
WWAY
WWAY is the ABC-affiliated television station for the Cape Fear area of North Carolina that is licensed to Wilmington. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 46 from a transmitter northwest of Bolivia. Owned by Morris Multimedia, the station has studios on North Front Street...
produced a prime time newscast weeknights at 7 on WILM that offered local coverage.
The station currently produces a weekly public affairs show called Byline: Wilmington hosted by Donn Ansell. The program, which airs Sunday mornings at 9:30 for a half-hour, focuses on news and issues of the Cape Fear region. On February 16, 2009, the station began simulcasting the first hour of The Craig and Sheila Show from WILT
WILT
WILT is a radio station broadcasting an adult contemporary format. Licensed to Wilmington, North Carolina, USA, the station serves the Wilmington area. WILT is currently owned by Sunrise Broadcasting, A subsidiary of Capitol Broadcasting Company of...
on weekday mornings at 6.