WSAZ-TV is the
NBCThe National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
-affiliated
television stationA 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
HuntingtonHuntington is a city in Cabell and Wayne counties in the U.S. state of West Virginia, along the Ohio River. Most of the city is in Cabell County, for which it is the county seat. A small portion of the city, mainly the neighborhood of Westmoreland, is in Wayne County. Its population was 49,138 at...
and
Charleston, West VirginiaCharleston is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of West Virginia. It is located at the confluence of the Elk and Kanawha Rivers in Kanawha County. As of the 2010 census, it has a population of 51,400, and its metropolitan area 304,214. It is the county seat of Kanawha County.Early...
. This area is the second-largest
marketA 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 terms of area east of the
Mississippi RiverThe Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. Flowing entirely in the United States, this river rises in western Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains...
consisting of 61 counties in Central
West VirginiaWest Virginia is a state in the Appalachian and Southeastern regions of the United States, bordered by Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Ohio to the northwest, Pennsylvania to the northeast and Maryland to the east...
, Eastern
KentuckyThe Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...
, and Southeastern
OhioOhio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
. It broadcasts a
high definitionHigh-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...
digital signal on UHF channel 23 from a transmitter in
MiltonMilton is a town in Cabell County, West Virginia, United States. The population was 2,206 at the 2000 census.Milton is a part of the Huntington-Ashland, WV-KY-OH Metropolitan Statistical Area . As of the 2000 census, the MSA had a population of 288,649...
. Owned by
Gray TelevisionGray Television, Inc. is a communications company headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, with administrative offices in Albany, Georgia.Established in 1946 by James H...
, the station has studios on Fifth Avenue (
U.S. 60U.S. Route 60 is an east–west United States highway, running from the Atlantic Ocean on the east coast in Virginia to western Arizona. Despite the final "0" in its number, indicating a transcontinental designation, the 1926 route formerly ended in Springfield, Missouri, at its intersection...
) in Downtown Huntington and secondary facilities on Columbia Avenue in Charleston along
I-64The alignment of Interstate 64 was to originally parallel US 60 from Charleston to the Virginia state line. This would go through environmentally sensitive areas such as Hawk's Nest and the New River Gorge area and might have disrupted the natural beauty and the isolation of the area.In 1969,...
/
U.S. 119U.S. Route 119, commonly abbreviated as US 119, is a spur of US 19. It is a north–south route that was an original United States highway of 1926. It is often referred to as Corridor G east of US 23 and KY 80 in Kentucky to Interstate 64 at Charleston, West Virginia.- Kentucky :US 119 is a two...
and U.S. 60.
SyndicatedIn 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 WSAZ includes:
Jeopardy!Griffin's first conception of the game used a board comprising ten categories with ten clues each, but after finding that this board could not be shown on camera easily, he reduced it to two rounds of thirty clues each, with five clues in each of six categories...
,
Wheel of FortuneWheel of Fortune is an American television game show created by Merv Griffin, which premiered in 1975. Contestants compete to solve word puzzles, similar to those used in Hangman, to win cash and prizes determined by spinning a large wheel. The title refers to the show's giant carnival wheel that...
,
Who Wants to Be a MillionaireWho 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...
,
The Dr. Oz ShowThe Dr. Oz Show is an American syndicated television talk show, hosted by Dr. Mehmet Oz, a cardiothoracic surgeon and teaching professor at Columbia University who became famous for his appearances on The Oprah Winfrey Show from 2004 until 2009....
,
Live with Regis and KellyLive! with Kelly is a syndicated American television morning talk show, hosted by Kelly Ripa. The show has aired since 1983 in New York City and 1988 nationwide. Tony Pigg has been the show's announcer since its inception...
and
The Ellen DeGeneres ShowThe Ellen DeGeneres Show, often shortened to Ellen, is an American television talk show hosted by comedian/actress Ellen DeGeneres. Debuting on September 8, 2003, it is produced by Telepictures and airs in syndication, including stations owned by NBC Universal. For its first five seasons, the show...
. The station can also be seen on repeater W16CE channel 16 in the Kanawha Valley that is licensed to Charleston with a transmitter on Garfield Avenue. This signal is carried on
SuddenlinkSuddenlink Communications, formerly Cebridge Connections, is a top-10 cable broadband services provider in the United States with approximately 1.4 million subscribers. Suddenlink operates in 18 states in primarily medium-sized communities. With its corporate headquarters in St. Louis, MO,...
in the eastern part of the market.
Digital programming
On
WSAZ-DT2WSAZ-DT2 is the primary MyNetworkTV and secondary This TV television station for Huntington and Charleston, West Virginia, the second-largest market in terms of area east of the Mississippi River. It is a second digital subchannel of NBC affiliate WSAZ-TV which is owned by Gray Television...
, Suddenlink channel 3,
ComcastComcast Corporation is the largest cable operator, home Internet service provider, and fourth largest home telephone service provider in the United States, providing cable television, broadband Internet, and telephone service to both residential and commercial customers in 39 states and the...
channel 17, and
Armstrong-History:Armstrong Group of Companies began in 1946 and was originally called Armstrong County Line Construction. Founded by Jud L. Sedwick, the company was headquartered in Kittanning, Armstrong County, in Pennsylvania...
channel 50 is the area's
MyNetworkTVMyNetworkTV is a television broadcast syndication service in the United States, owned by the Fox Entertainment Group, a division of News Corporation...
. Known on-air as
MyZTV, it also airs syndicated programming such as
Cash CabCash Cab is an American game show that began airing on the Discovery Channel on December 5, 2005. The program is hosted by stand-up comedian Ben Bailey. While Bailey's show takes place in New York City, some episodes of Season 6 take place in Las Vegas...
,
South ParkSouth Park is an American animated television series created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone for the Comedy Central television network. Intended for mature audiences, the show has become famous for its crude language, surreal, satirical, and dark humor that lampoons a wide range of topics...
,
TMZ on TVTMZ on TV, or simply TMZ and TMZTV, is an American syndicated entertainment and gossip news television show that premiered on September 10, 2007. The program is generally aired on Fox, The CW and MyNetworkTV affiliates, though a majority of the stations that carry the series are Fox affiliates...
,
The Wendy Williams ShowThe Wendy Williams Show is a syndicated talk show hosted by Wendy Williams that premiered on July 14, 2008, as six-week sneak peek, in Detroit, Dallas, Los Angeles, and New York City. The test run was picked up for a full season that began its run on July 13, 2009 in over 70% of the country in...
,
The Andy Griffith ShowThe 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...
, and
My Wife and KidsMy Wife and Kids is an American television family sitcom that ran on ABC from March 28, 2001 until May 17, 2005. Produced by Touchstone Television , it starred Damon Wayans and Tisha Campbell-Martin, and centers on the character of Michael Kyle, a loving husband and modern-day patriarch who rules...
. The channel offers a second airing of syndicated shows such as
Oprah and
The Dr. Oz Show that is seen on WSAZ's main feed. Otherwise, WSAZ-DT2 airs programming from
This TVThis TV is a United States general entertainment television network, with a large emphasis in its programming on movies....
and is known on-air as
This TV West Virginia since it is the only affiliate in the state.
| Channel |
Programming |
| 3.1 |
main WSAZ-TV programming / NBC HD |
| 3.2 |
WSAZ-DT2 "MyZTV" & "This TV West Virginia" |
History
WSAZ-TV, the oldest television station in West Virginia, began broadcasting an analog signal on VHF channel 5 starting October 24, 1949. It was owned by the Huntington
Herald-Dispatch along with WSAZ radio (930 AM, now
WRVCWRVC is the oldest operating radio station in West Virginia. It was originally called WSAZ Radio , the same call letters used for Channel 3-TV when it came into being in the late 1940s, and the television station still uses that long-time call. WRVC AM & FM is located in Huntington, West Virginia...
). The station carried programming from all four networks at the time (NBC,
CBSCBS 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...
,
ABCThe 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...
, and
DuMontThe DuMont Television Network, also known as the DuMont Network, DuMont, Du Mont, or Dumont was one of the world's pioneer commercial television networks, rivalling NBC for the distinction of being first overall. It began operation in the United States in 1946. It was owned by DuMont...
). However, it was a primary NBC affiliate due to WSAZ-AM's long affiliation with NBC Radio. When
WCHS-TVWCHS-TV is the ABC-affiliated television station for Charleston and Huntington, West Virginia. This area is the second-largest market in terms of area east of the Mississippi River and consists of 61 counties in Central West Virginia, Eastern Kentucky, and Southern Ohio...
signed-on from Charleston in 1954, it took over the CBS affiliation and the two television stations shared ABC programming until WHTN-TV (now
WOWK-TVWOWK-TV is the CBS-affiliated television station for the Tri-States and Kanawha Valley area of West Virginia that is licensed to Huntington which is the second largest market east of the Mississippi River. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on VHF channel 13 from a transmitter...
) signed-on from Huntington a year later. In 1955, WSAZ-TV dropped DuMont after the network shut down. It is the only commercial station in the market that has never changed its primary affiliation. However, WCHS and WOWK have swapped affiliations three times.
One story of how this channel's call letters originated dates from WSAZ-AM's origins in 1923. Radio engineer Glenn Chase applied to the
Secretary of CommerceThe United States Secretary of Commerce is the head of the United States Department of Commerce concerned with business and industry; the Department states its mission to be "to foster, promote, and develop the foreign and domestic commerce"...
for a license to operate a small radio station in
Pomeroy, OhioPomeroy is a village in and the county seat of Meigs County, Ohio, United States, along the Ohio River. The population was 1,966 at the 2000 census. During the late 19th century, Pomeroy was an important producer of coal and salt...
(it moved across the
Ohio RiverThe Ohio River is the largest tributary, by volume, of the Mississippi River. At the confluence, the Ohio is even bigger than the Mississippi and, thus, is hydrologically the main stream of the whole river system, including the Allegheny River further upstream...
to Huntington in 1927). In the application, he reportedly claimed that since he was building most of the station's equipment himself, "it would probably be the worst station from A to Z." Chase asked that appropriate call letters be assigned. His request was promptly granted and the calls WSAZ were given to him meaning "
Worst
Station from
A to
Z." A more likely story was that the allocation of the call letters WSAZ were pure coincidence as they were assigned by the Department of Commerce in an alphabetical sequence just after WSAX in
ChicagoChicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
and
WSAYWXXI is a National Public Radio member station in Rochester, New York, broadcasting news, talk and informational programming on a 24-hour daily schedule...
in
Port Chester, New YorkPort Chester is a village in Westchester County, New York, United States. The village is part of the town of Rye. As of the 2010 census, Port Chester had a population of 28,967...
. However, the myth persists that the calls stand for "Worst Station from A to Z" which WSAZ radio itself helped spread by using it as a slogan for many years.
In 1950, WSAZ-TV received
Federal Communications CommissionThe 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) permission to build a private microwave link to Cincinnati allowing viewers to get NBC programming live. As the nation's first privately owned microwave system, it was a remarkable feat for one of the smallest cities in the country at the time to have a television station. The first live broadcast was scheduled for a
Labor DayLabor Day is a United States federal holiday observed on the first Monday in September that celebrates the economic and social contributions of workers.-History:...
baseballBaseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...
game, but the system broke down for four hours and forced WSAZ to broadcast a fire at a nearby hotel. It ditched the Cincinnati link in favor of one from
Columbus, OhioColumbus is the capital of and the largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio. The broader metropolitan area encompasses several counties and is the third largest in Ohio behind those of Cleveland and Cincinnati. Columbus is the third largest city in the American Midwest, and the fifteenth largest city...
in 1952. Also that year, the FCC released its Sixth Report and Order which included a realignment of VHF channel assignments. As a result, WSAZ-TV moved to channel 3 in order to alleviating interference with fellow NBC affiliate
WLWTWLWT, virtual channel 5 , is an NBC-affiliated television station in Cincinnati, Ohio, the station is owned by Hearst Television...
in Cincinnati. The channel move also created an opening for a new channel 5 station in
WestonWeston is a city in Lewis County, West Virginia, United States. The population was 4,317 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Lewis County, and home to the West Virginia Museum of American Glass.-History:...
. This signal signed-on as WJPB-TV (now
WDTVWDTV is the CBS-affiliated television station for North-Central West Virginia licensed to Weston. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on VHF channel 5 from a transmitter in an unincorporated area between Clarksburg and Arlington. The station can also be seen on Comcast, Suddenlink, and...
) in March 1954.
As part of the frequency switch, the FCC granted WSAZ a boost in broadcast power, which at the time, was the highest ever authorized for a television station. This allowed the station to penetrate more of its huge viewing area, most of which is a very rugged
dissected plateauA dissected plateau is a plateau area that has been severely eroded so that the relief is sharp. Such an area may be referred to as mountainous, but dissected plateaus are distinguishable from orogenic mountain belts by the lack of folding, metamorphism, extensive faulting, or magmatic activity...
. However, as the regulation of domestic television stations were normalized, WSAZ's signal strength was reduced to the same levels as others in 1956. The station's transmission tower was the tallest in
North AmericaNorth America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
until WIS-TV in
Columbia, South CarolinaColumbia is the state capital and largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina. The population was 129,272 according to the 2010 census. Columbia is the county seat of Richland County, but a portion of the city extends into neighboring Lexington County. The city is the center of a metropolitan...
activated a taller tower in 1959. The
Herald-Dispatch sold WSAZ-AM-TV to Goodwill Stations, owner of WJR radio in Detroit and
WJRT-TVWJRT-TV, channel 12, is the ABC-affiliated station for the Flint/Tri-Cities television market, owned by SJL Broadcasting. Its studios are located in Flint, Michigan, with offices and a second newsroom for the Tri-Cities located in Saginaw...
in
Flint, MichiganFlint is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and is located along the Flint River, northwest of Detroit. The U.S. Census Bureau reports the 2010 population to be placed at 102,434, making Flint the seventh largest city in Michigan. It is the county seat of Genesee County which lies in the...
, in 1961. Goodwill merged with
Capital Cities CommunicationsCapital Cities redirects here. For the article about the seat of a government, see Capital .Capital Cities Communications was an American media company best known for its surprise purchase of the much larger American Broadcasting Company in 1985...
in 1964. Capital Cities sold the radio station to Stoner Broadcasting in 1970, but kept channel 3 until 1971 when it was sold to
Lee EnterprisesLee Enterprises is a publicly traded American media company. It publishes 54 daily newspapers in 23 states, and more than 300 weekly, classified, and specialty publications. Lee Enterprises was founded in 1890 by A.W. Lee and is based in Davenport, Iowa....
.
Emmis CommunicationsEmmis Communications is a media conglomerate based in Indianapolis, Indiana. The company owns radio stations and magazines in the United States, Hungary, Slovakia and Bulgaria.-History:...
bought the station in 2000 after Lee decided to bow out of broadcasting. Emmis then sold WSAZ to
Gray TelevisionGray Television, Inc. is a communications company headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, with administrative offices in Albany, Georgia.Established in 1946 by James H...
in 2005. The Gray purchase made WSAZ a sister station to fellow NBC affiliate
WTAP-TVWTAP-TV is the NBC-affiliated television station for the Mid-Ohio Valley licensed to Parkersburg, West Virginia. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 49 from a transmitter in Independence Township, Ohio. The station can also be seen on Suddenlink channel 4 and CAS Cable...
in
ParkersburgAs of the census of 2000, there were 33,099 people, 14,467 households, and 8,767 families residing in the city. In 2006 the U.S. Census Bureau estimated that Parkersburg's population had decreased 4.4% to 31,755. The population density was 2,800.5 people per square mile . There were 16,100 housing...
.
Being based in Huntington, WSAZ is located fifty miles (80 km) away from West Virginia's state capital, Charleston. As such, the station opened a branch studio there in 1956. It also launched a low-powered repeater on UHF channel 23 to serve the Kanawha Valley soon after its signal was cut to standardized levels. While Charleston and its close-in suburbs receive the main WSAZ signal very well, it was marginal at best in much of the Kanawha Valley due to the area's rugged terrain. The translator was moved to channel 16 in 2003 after WSAZ began using channel 23 for its digital broadcasts.
Under federal
must-carryIn cable television, governments apply a must-carry regulation stating that locally-licensed television stations must be carried on a cable provider's system.- Canada :...
rules, broadcasters can either allow cable TV systems in the market to carry their signals for free or charge a fee under
retransmission consentRetransmission consent is an option granted to US television stations as part of the law that granted such stations the option to elect must-carry rights. Under retransmission consent, a full-power US television station may elect to negotiate with a cable system operator for carriage of its...
provisions. On December 3, 2008, it was announced that Inter Mountain Cable (IMC), a cable provider serving parts of Eastern Kentucky, announced that it would drop WSAZ from its lineup unless an agreement was reached over retransmission consent. According to
The Mountain EagleThe Mountain Eagle is a local weekly newspaper published in Whitesburg, Kentucky. It is the main newspaper of Letcher County, Kentucky and one of the primary newspapers of Eastern Kentucky....
of
Whitesburg, KentuckyWhitesburg is a city in Letcher County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 2,139 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Letcher County.-Culture:...
, this dispute caused concern among officials in the city of
Fleming-NeonFleming-Neon is a city in Letcher County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 840 at the 2000 census.-History:The city was established by the Elkhorn Coal Corporation which moved in to the area in 1913. Fleming was the location of the mine and named for its first president George W. Fleming...
where IMC holds the cable franchise. The city council in Fleming-Neon stated that the removal of WSAZ would violate IMC's franchise agreement.
On September 5, 2006, WSAZ launched a new second
digital subchannelDigital television is the transmission of audio and video by digital signals, in contrast to the analog signals used by analog TV...
to be the area's MyNetworkTV affiliate. Although it is a digital subchannel, many local cable companies air WSAZ-DT2 as a separate channel on their systems. It ended analog operations on February 17, 2009 as part of the
DTV transition in the United StatesThe DTV transition in the United States was the switchover from analog to exclusively digital broadcasting of free over-the-air television programming...
. The station remained on its pre-transition channel 23. Digital receivers display the station's
virtual channelIn 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....
as 3 through the use of
PSIPThe Program and System Information Protocol is the protocol used in the ATSC digital television system for carrying metadata about each channel in the broadcast MPEG transport stream of a TV station and for publishing information about television programs so that viewers can select what to watch...
. On August 29, 2009, WSAZ-DT2 dropped its previous overnight lineup of infomercials and began a secondary affiliation with This TV carrying programming from that network usually overnights and on weekends.
W16CE does have a construction permit to move from analog channel 16 to a digital signal on channel 47.
News operation
Since 1956, WSAZ's newscasts have featured two news anchors with one at the main studios in Huntington and the other in Charleston. NBC studied the format and used it as the basis for the
Huntley-Brinkley ReportThe Huntley-Brinkley Report was the NBC television network's flagship evening news program from October 29, 1956 until July 31, 1970. It was anchored by Chet Huntley in New York City, and David Brinkley in Washington, D.C...
anchored by
Chet HuntleyChester Robert "Chet" Huntley was an American television newscaster, best known for co-anchoring NBC's evening news program, The Huntley-Brinkley Report, for 14 years beginning in 1956.-Early life:...
in
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and
David BrinkleyDavid McClure Brinkley was an American newscaster for NBC and ABC in a career lasting from 1943 to 1997....
in Washington D.C.. All of the
big three networksThe Big Three Television Networks are the three traditional commercial broadcast television networks in the United States: ABC, CBS and NBC...
have used this approach at one time or another since then.
WSAZ uses its low-power translator in Charleston to provide viewers with a "split" newscast. Weeknights at 6 and 11, the two anchors appear together on screen until a certain point (usually 10–15 minutes into the newscast) when the show will "split." For the last 20 minutes of the newscast, viewers in the 28 counties of the Kanawha Valley who watch channel 16 and Suddenlink will see a newscast targeted specifically to them while viewers in the other 33 counties (as well as satellite viewers) will see a newscast featuring coverage from Kentucky and Ohio as well as West Virginia. WSAZ calls this concept "two-city news." Outside of the previous mentioned newscasts, all shows originate from the Huntington facilities. The weather and sports departments are also based there. In July 1993, WSAZ's weeknight
First at Five broadcast was launched.
Largely because of its pioneering status in the state and its unique newscasts, WSAZ is one of the country's most dominant television stations. It has been the far-and-away market leader for as long as records have been kept. WCHS and WOWK have rarely come close, though for a brief period in the late-1990s, WOWK overtook WSAZ for first place in the northern (Charleston) side of the market. This channel also came in a close second to WCHS for a short period in late 2009-early 2010. This was due to lower lead-in numbers originated by
The Jay Leno ShowThe Jay Leno Show is an American comedy show created by and starring Jay Leno, that aired from September 14, 2009 to February 9, 2010 on NBC following the May 29, 2009 conclusion of Leno's first tenure as host of The Tonight Show...
. WSAZ has since regained its first place ratings.
Since the station has traditionally been one of NBC's strongest affiliates, the network has been rumored on several occasions to buying WSAZ. However,
NBC UniversalNBCUniversal Media, LLC is a media and entertainment company engaged in the production and marketing of entertainment, news, and information products and services to a global customer base...
has recently sold off many of its stations outside the top 15 markets. Huntington/Charleston is currently the 63rd market (the only market in the state in the top 100). Also, Huntington/Charleston has always been a small-to-medium market. NBC has owned only one television station located outside the top fifty markets.
Rumors abounded soon after the Gray Television purchase of WSAZ that WTAP would scrap its news department and simulcast WSAZ's newscasts instead. WSAZ has always covered Parkersburg events anyway and has long been available on cable on the West Virginia side of that market. However, WTAP's broadcasts bring in as much revenue as WSAZ in part because WTAP is the only full-power station in Parkersburg.
WSAZ-DT2WSAZ-DT2 is the primary MyNetworkTV and secondary This TV television station for Huntington and Charleston, West Virginia, the second-largest market in terms of area east of the Mississippi River. It is a second digital subchannel of NBC affiliate WSAZ-TV which is owned by Gray Television...
airs a prime time newscast every night for a half-hour that is known as
MyZTV Ten O'clock News. This competes with an hour-long show on Fox affiliate
WVAH-TVWVAH-TV is the Fox-affiliated television station for Charleston and Huntington, West Virginia which is the second-largest market in terms of area east of the Mississippi River. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 19 from a transmitter south of Scott Depot along the Putnam...
which is produced by WCHS. At one point, the second digital subchannel had also aired a weekday morning show at 7 called
Your Day on MyZTV but this has since been canceled. It currently repeats
WSAZ NewsChannel 3 Today in the 7 o'clock hour and
WSAZ NewsChannel 3 Midday weekdays at 12:30.
New HD News
WSAZ remodeled the Huntington and Charleston newsrooms in late 2010 to prepare for high definition broadcasts. On June 26, 2011 at 6 p.m., WSAZ launched the second high definition newscast in the state of West Virginia, following sister station WTAP in Parkersburg. Before the transition, the Charleston-Huntington DMA was the largest market without a newscast in either high definition or 16:9 enhanced definition widescreen. Following the upgrade, the
Fort SmithFort Smith is the second-largest city in Arkansas and one of the two county seats of Sebastian County. With a population of 86,209 in 2010, it is the principal city of the Fort Smith, Arkansas-Oklahoma Metropolitan Statistical Area, a region of 298,592 residents which encompasses the Arkansas...
–
FayettevilleFayetteville is the county seat of Washington County, and the third largest city in Arkansas. The city is centrally located within the county and is home to the University of Arkansas. Fayetteville is also deep in the Boston Mountains, a subset of The Ozarks...
DMA became the largest without a high-definition or enhanced-definition widescreen local newscast.
Out of market carriage
In West Virginia, WSAZ is carried in Glenville, Gilmer County in the Clarksburg DMA. In the Bluefield-Beckley DMA, it is carried in Ansted, Fayetteville and Page in Fayette County. It is carried as far north as Parkersburg, Wood County where NBC affiliate, WTAP is located in (Parkersburg DMA). In the southern part of the state, Suddenlink Cable in Beckley, Raleigh County carries WSAZ despite WVVA, the NBC affiliate in Bluefield covers the area very well. In McDowell County, it is carried in Panther and Welch.
News Team
Anchors
- Rob Johnson - weekday mornings and noon.
- Melanie Shafer - Tuesday through Thursday mornings.
- Susan Nicholas - Monday and Friday mornings and reporter.
- Bill Murray - weeknights at 5 and reporter.
- Carrie Cline - weeknights at 5 and reporter.
- Tim Irr - weeknights at 5:30, 6, & 11.
- Jessica Ralston - weeknights at 5:30, 6, 10 (MyZtv), and 11.(Charleston)
- Sarah Sager - weekend nights at 6, 10 (MyZtv), and 11 and also reporter.
- Cathleen Moxley - Saturday mornings and reporter
WSAZ First Warning Weather Meteorologists
- Brandon Butcher- Weekday Mornings and noon.
- Chris Bailey - Weeknights at 5, 5:30 & on MyZtv at 10.
- Tony Cavalier - Chief Meteorologist, weeknights at 6 & 11.
- Josh Fitzpatrick - Weekends.
WSAZ Sports Anchors
- Keith Morehouse - Sports Director seen weeknights.
- John Mulvaney – weekend evenings and sports reporter.
Reporters
- Carrie Jones – weekend Charleston and producer weeknights at 11
- John Marra – home and garden expert
- Saturday Report host and "Green Thumb" segment producer
- Brad Myers – website and producer
- Dave Lavender - "Weekend Ahead" segment producer
- Jay Melvin - "The Great Outdoors" segment producer
- Art Ginsburg - "Mr. Food
Art Ginsburg, commonly known as Mr. Food, is a television chef and best selling author of cookbooks who emphasizes simple recipes. He is the originator of "quick & easy cooking" who, for the past 30+ years, has paved the way for TV food personalities who have followed. With his enthusiastic style,...
" segment host and producer
- Hanna Francis
- Brooks Jarosz – Charleston
- Michael Hyland
- Randy Yohe
- Melanie Chapman - producer
Photojournalists
- Steve Eschleman - "Weekend Ahead" segment producer
- John Green - Senior Charleston
- Ryan Lake - Charleston
- Amanda Dixon - producer
- Jim Backus
External links