WVAH-TV is the
FOXThe Fox Broadcasting Company , commonly referred to as Fox , is an American television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, from 2004 to 2009 Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the 18–49 demographic...
-affiliated
television stationA television station is a type of broadcast station that broadcasts video and possibly audio to television receivers in a particular area. Traditionally, TV stations made their broadcasts by sending specially-encoded radio signals over the air, called terrestrial television...
for
CharlestonCharleston 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 2000 census, it has a population of 53,421, with its urban area having a population of 212,991, and its metropolitan area 309,635...
and
Huntington, West VirginiaHuntington 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 estimated...
, 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 second longest river in the United States, with a length of from its source in Lake Itasca in Minnesota to its mouth in the Gulf of Mexico....
. It broadcasts a
high definitionHigh-definition television is a digital television broadcasting system with higher resolution than traditional television systems...
digital signal on UHF channel 19 from a transmitter south of
Scott DepotScott Depot is an unincorporated community in Putnam County, West Virginia, United States. It is located along Crooked Creek at and downstream from the creek's intersection with Teays Valley Road....
along the
PutnamPutnam County is a county located in the U.S. state of West Virginia. The name is in honor of Israel Putnam, who was a hero in the French and Indian War and a general in the American Revolutionary War. As of 2000, the population was 51,589...
and
KanawhaKanawha County is a county located in the U.S. state of West Virginia taking its name from the Native term, Kanawha: "place of white stone". As of 2000, the population was 200,073. Its county seat is Charleston, the state capital...
County line. The station can also be seen on
SuddenlinkSuddenlink Communications, formerly Cebridge Connections, is a top-10 cable broadband services provider in the United States with approximately 1.3 million subscribers. Suddenlink operates in 19 states in primarily medium-sized communities. Its corporate headquarters are located in St. Louis, MO...
channel 12 and in high definition on digital channel 784. Owned by
Cunningham BroadcastingCunningham Broadcasting Corporation is an owner of television stations in the United States. The company currently owns six stations—four affiliated with Fox Broadcasting Company , one affiliated with MyNetworkTV and one affiliated with The CW Television Network.Cunningham has very close ties to...
, WVAH is operated through a
local marketing agreementIn U.S. and Canadian broadcasting, a local marketing agreement is an agreement in which one company agrees to operate a radio station or TV station owned by another licensee...
(a.k.a. LMA) by the
Sinclair Broadcast GroupThe Sinclair Broadcast Group is the operator of the largest number of local television stations in the United States with a total of 57 stations across the country in 35 primarily small and medium markets, many of which are located in the South and the Midwest. Broadcasts by SBG stations can be...
.
WVAH-TV is the
FOXThe Fox Broadcasting Company , commonly referred to as Fox , is an American television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, from 2004 to 2009 Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the 18–49 demographic...
-affiliated
television stationA television station is a type of broadcast station that broadcasts video and possibly audio to television receivers in a particular area. Traditionally, TV stations made their broadcasts by sending specially-encoded radio signals over the air, called terrestrial television...
for
CharlestonCharleston 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 2000 census, it has a population of 53,421, with its urban area having a population of 212,991, and its metropolitan area 309,635...
and
Huntington, West VirginiaHuntington 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 estimated...
, 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 second longest river in the United States, with a length of from its source in Lake Itasca in Minnesota to its mouth in the Gulf of Mexico....
. It broadcasts a
high definitionHigh-definition television is a digital television broadcasting system with higher resolution than traditional television systems...
digital signal on UHF channel 19 from a transmitter south of
Scott DepotScott Depot is an unincorporated community in Putnam County, West Virginia, United States. It is located along Crooked Creek at and downstream from the creek's intersection with Teays Valley Road....
along the
PutnamPutnam County is a county located in the U.S. state of West Virginia. The name is in honor of Israel Putnam, who was a hero in the French and Indian War and a general in the American Revolutionary War. As of 2000, the population was 51,589...
and
KanawhaKanawha County is a county located in the U.S. state of West Virginia taking its name from the Native term, Kanawha: "place of white stone". As of 2000, the population was 200,073. Its county seat is Charleston, the state capital...
County line. The station can also be seen on
SuddenlinkSuddenlink Communications, formerly Cebridge Connections, is a top-10 cable broadband services provider in the United States with approximately 1.3 million subscribers. Suddenlink operates in 19 states in primarily medium-sized communities. Its corporate headquarters are located in St. Louis, MO...
channel 12 and in high definition on digital channel 784. Owned by
Cunningham BroadcastingCunningham Broadcasting Corporation is an owner of television stations in the United States. The company currently owns six stations—four affiliated with Fox Broadcasting Company , one affiliated with MyNetworkTV and one affiliated with The CW Television Network.Cunningham has very close ties to...
, WVAH is operated through a
local marketing agreementIn U.S. and Canadian broadcasting, a local marketing agreement is an agreement in which one company agrees to operate a radio station or TV station owned by another licensee...
(a.k.a. LMA) by the
Sinclair Broadcast GroupThe Sinclair Broadcast Group is the operator of the largest number of local television stations in the United States with a total of 57 stations across the country in 35 primarily small and medium markets, many of which are located in the South and the Midwest. Broadcasts by SBG stations can be...
. This make it a sister station to
ABCThe American Broadcasting Company is an American 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. It first broadcast on television in 1948...
affiliate
WCHS-TVWCHS-TV is the ABC-affiliated television station for Charleston and Huntington, West Virginia, the second-largest market in terms of area east of the Mississippi River, serving 61 counties in central West Virginia, eastern Kentucky and southern Ohio...
. However, Sinclair effectively owns WVAH due to Cunningham's financial structure (see below). The two share studios on Piedmont Road in Charleston along
I-64In the U.S. state of West Virginia, Interstate 64 travels for passing by the major towns and cities of Huntington, Charleston, Beckley, and Lewisburg. It has only two major junctions within the state: Interstate 77 in Charleston and in Beckley.-Early beginnings:...
/
I-77In the U.S. state of West Virginia, Interstate 77 is a major north-south Interstate highway. It extends for between Bluefield at the Virginia state line to Williamstown at the Ohio state line....
.
SyndicatedIn broadcasting, syndication is the sale of the right to broadcast radio shows and television shows to multiple individual stations, without going through a broadcast network. It is common in countries where television is scheduled by networks with local affiliates, particularly in the United States...
programming on this station includes:
Family GuyFamily Guy is an American animated television sitcom, created by Seth MacFarlane, for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series centers on the Griffins, a dysfunctional family which consists of Peter, Lois, Meg, Chris, Stewie, and their pet dog Brian...
,
Two and a Half MenTwo and a Half Men is an Emmy Award-winning and Golden Globe Award-nominated American television comedy series, which premiered on CBS on September 22, 2003. The sitcom stars Charlie Sheen, Jon Cryer and Angus T. Jones. The show is about a hedonistic jingle writer, Charlie; his uptight brother,...
,
Deal or No DealDeal or No Deal is the name of several closely related television game shows, the first of which was produced by Dutch producer Endemol. It is played with up to 26 cases with certain sums of money...
, and
FriendsFriends is an American sitcom created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman, which premiered on NBC on September 22, 1994. The series revolved around a group of friends in the area of Manhattan, New York City, who occasionally live together and share living expenses. The series was produced by...
.
History
The station was founded on September 19, 1982 located on channel 23. It was owned by the newly-created Meridian Communications based out of Pittsburgh which won the license after the
West VirginiaWest Virginia is a state in the Appalachian and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States, bordered by Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Ohio to the northwest, and Pennsylvania and Maryland to the northeast...
General Assembly forced
West Virginia Public BroadcastingWest Virginia Public Broadcasting is the statewide PBS network of television stations in West Virginia, whose flagship station is WPBY, based in Charleston, West Virginia. Its studios are located at 600 Capitol Street...
to withdraw its own application for the channel. It was the first
independent stationAn independent station is television terminology used to describe a television station broadcasting in the United States or Canada that is not affiliated with any network...
in West Virginia, new commercial station in the market since what is now
WOWK-TVWOWK-TV, channel 13, is a television station in Huntington, West Virginia. The station is the CBS affiliate for the Charleston–Huntington market, the second largest television market east of the Mississippi River...
signed on in 1955, and the commercial UHF station in the state since
WKNA-TVWKNA-TV was a television station in Charleston, West Virginia that broadcast on UHF channel 49 from 1953 to 1955.The station first signed on with a test pattern on September 21, 1953; regular broadcasts began on October 12. It was owned by Charleston businessman Joseph L. Smith, Jr. along with...
in Charleston went off-the-air in 1955. It became a charter FOX affiliate on October 6, 1986.
Act III BroadcastingAct III Broadcasting was a company that owned several television stations that started as independents, and later became Fox affiliates. The stations were located in medium-sized markets, and the company existed from the mid 1980s to the mid 1990s, eventually to be sold to Abry in 1994...
bought the station in 1987. Soon after buying control, Act III applied to move the station to the VHF band. Despite broadcasting from a 2,000-foot tower with the maximum 5 million
wattsThe watt is a derived unit of power in the International System of Units . It measures rate of energy conversion. One watt is equivalent to 1 joule of energy per second....
of power, WVAH had considerable difficulty penetrating the entire market. The Charleston / Huntington market covers 61 counties in central West Virginia, eastern
KentuckyThe Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. Kentucky is a Southern state situated in the Upland South, although the state is infrequently placed, geographically and culturally, in the Midwest. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a...
and southern
OhioOhio is a Midwestern state of the United States. The thirty-fourth largest state by area in the U.S., it is the seventh-most populous with nearly 11.5 million residents...
. Most of this area is a very rugged
dissected plateauA dissected plateau is a plateau area that has been uplifted, then 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...
making it difficult for a UHF station to cover such a large area.
It also knocked
WSAZ-TVWSAZ-TV, channel 3, is a television station in Huntington, West Virginia. Owned by Gray Television, it is the NBC affiliate for the Huntington-Charleston market, the second-largest television market east of the Mississippi River. The station serves 61 counties that cover central West Virginia,...
's low-power relay for the Kanawha Valley, also on channel 23, off-the-air on several occasions. As a result, WVAH was permitted to switch to VHF channel 11 in 1989, 3 years after FOX's launch. However, the station was short-spaced to
WPXIWPXI digital channel 48 is the NBC television affiliate based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It is owned by Cox Enterprises. Its transmitter is located on the north side of Pittsburgh...
in Pittsburgh and
WJHL-TVWJHL-TV is the CBS television affiliate in Johnson City, Tennessee, serving the greater Tri-Cities region of Tennessee and Virginia and neighboring western North Carolina, southeastern Kentucky and the southwestern corner of West Virginia from a transmitter located atop Holston Mountain...
in
Johnson City, TennesseeJohnson City is a city in Carter, Sullivan, and Washington counties in the U.S. state of Tennessee, with most of the city being in Washington County. The 2008 population for Johnson City was estimated at 61,990 by the United States Census, making it the eighth largest city in the state...
. It then had to conform its signal to protect WJHL making it hard to receive in the southwestern portion of the market. Act III merged with Abry Communications in 1994. The company, in turn, was merged into the Sinclair Broadcast Group later in 1994. In 1997, Sinclair purchased the broadcasting properties of Heritage Media which included WCHS (the remainder of Heritage Media went to
News CorporationNews Corporation is the world's second largest media conglomerate as of 2008 and the world's third largest in entertainment as of 2009...
). It could not keep both WCHS and WVAH due to
FCCThe Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, created, directed, and empowered by Congressional statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President...
rules in effect at the time forbidding duopolies. Sinclair opted to keep the longer-established WCHS and sold WVAH to Glencairn, Ltd. which was headed by former Sinclair executive Edwin Edwards. However, 97% of Glencairn's stock was controlled by the Smith family, Sinclair's founding owners. In effect, Sinclair still owned WVAH and now had a duopoly in the Huntington / Charleston market in violation of FCC rules. Glencairn and Sinclair further circumvented the rules by entering into a local marketing agreement with Sinclair with WCHS as senior partner.
Initially, this station retained its own studios on Mount Vernon Road in
HurricaneHurricane is a city in Putnam County, West Virginia, USA. The population was 5,222 at the 2000 census. The 2006 census estimate has Hurricane with a population of 6,071.-History:...
along I-64 even although most of its operations were merged with WCHS. Eventually, WVAH's facilities were put on sale. Glencairn had similar arrangements in its other markets. On January 16, 1995, WVAH began airing
UPNUnited Paramount Network was a television network that broadcast in over 200 markets in the United States, being in production for over eleven years. UPN was originally owned by Viacom/Paramount and Chris-Craft Industries. It was later owned by CBS Corporation. Its first night of broadcasting was...
programming during overnight hours. However, the station could not clear the entire schedule and dropped the network in early-2000. In 2001, Sinclair tried to acquire Glencairn outright but the FCC did not allow Sinclair to re-acquire WVAH because it does not allow common ownership of two of the four highest-rated stations in a single market. As a result, Glencairn kept WVAH and changed its name to Cunningham Broadcasting. However, the Smiths retained control of nearly all of Cunningham's stock so Sinclair still effectively has a duopoly in the market. Following a tower collapse in 2002, WVAH moved its transmitter and almost all of its facilities to WCHS' studios in Charleston. Its main studios are still in Teays Valley. Sinclair and FOX finalized a six-year affiliation contract extension for Sinclair's 19 FOX affiliates, including WVAH. Its affiliation contract now expires in March 2012. Like most other Sinclair-owned stations. The station carries
NCAAThe National Collegiate Athletic Association is a voluntary association of about 1,281 institutions, conferences, organizations and individuals that organizes the athletic programs of many colleges and universities in the United States and Canada...
sports from the
Southeastern ConferenceThe Southeastern Conference is a college athletic conference headquartered in , which operates in the southeastern part of the United States. It participates in the NCAA's Division I in athletic competitions; for football, it is part of the Division I Football Bowl Subdivision...
. After the
analog television shutdown and digital conversionThe DTV transition in the United States is the switchover from analog to exclusively digital broadcasting of free over-the-air television programming...
on February 17, 2009 , WVAH-TV remained on its current pre-transition channel number, 19. However, 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 transport stream of a TV station and for publishing information about television programs so that viewers can select what to watch by...
, digital television receivers display WVAH-TV's
virtual channelIn telecommunications, a logical channel number , also known as virtual channel in North America, is a channel designation which differs from the actual radio channel or frequency on which the signal travels....
as 11.1. WVAH's analog channel 11 signal was temporarily reactivated on June 12, 2009 for a two-week period with "analog nightlight" programming — a continuous loop of an informative video about the digital switch which is nationally produced in both English and Spanish as well as subtitled in both English and Spanish.
Dish Network
Sinclair and
Dish NetworkDish Network Corporation is a direct broadcast satellite service provider that offers satellite television, audio programming, and interactive television services to households and businesses in the United States. Dish Network services were launched in March 1996. Today, the company competes...
were both in a brief dispute over retransmission fees on May 17, 2005. This dispute was resolved on May 20 and the notice was taken down.
Suddenlink Communications
In
SummerSummer is one of the four temperate seasons, marked by the time of year with the longest days, and lies between spring and autumn. The seasons are popularly considered to start on different dates in different cultures based on astronomy and regional meteorology. When it is summer in the southern...
2006,
Charter CommunicationsCharter Communications is an American company providing cable television, high-speed Internet, and telephone services to more than 5.7 million customers in 29 states. It is the third-largest cable operator in the U.S., behind Comcast and Time Warner Cable...
streamlined its operations which included selling off portions of its cable system which were "geographically non-strategic". Charter accounts in WCHS's market area were purchased by
Suddenlink CommunicationsSuddenlink Communications, formerly Cebridge Connections, is a top-10 cable broadband services provider in the United States with approximately 1.3 million subscribers. Suddenlink operates in 19 states in primarily medium-sized communities. Its corporate headquarters are located in St. Louis, MO...
(formerly known as Cebridge). Sinclair requested a $40 million dollar one time fee and a $1 per sub per month fee from Suddenlink for retransmission rights of WCHS and WVAH on the Suddenlink cable system. This led to a protracted media battle and smear campaign between the two companies, and Sinclair pulled the two stations off-the-air in the
BeckleyBeckley is a city in Raleigh County, West Virginia, United States, which was founded on April 4, 1838. The 2008 population was estimated to be 16,832 by the U.S. Census Bureau. Early in its history, the town was known as Beckleyville and Raleigh Court House...
market. After several weeks of negotiations, the two companies reached an agreement allowing WCHS and WVAH to continue transmission over the Suddenlink cable system. The terms of the agreement were not released to the public.
Time Warner Cable
It was announced on December 20, 2006, that
Time Warner CableTime Warner Cable is an American national cable television company that operates in 27 states and has 31 operating divisions. Its corporate headquarters are located in New York, NY, and has other corporate offices in Charlotte, North Carolina; Herndon, Virginia; and Denver, Colorado...
systems in the Charleston / Huntington market would lose WCHS and WVAH starting December 31. However, this only applied to cable subscribers that were previously owned by Adelphia. An extension agreement was made until January 12, 2007 for negotiations.
Newscasts
In 2007, WCHS and WVAH constructed a branch studio in Huntington on 5th Avenue. Thus for the first time, all major broadcasting channels in the Huntington / Charleston market have studios in both cities. WCHS produces three local newscasts for WVAH. This includes every night at 10 and weekday mornings at 7. The broadcasts compete with news that airs on
MyNetworkTVMyNetworkTV is a television broadcast syndication service in the United States, owned by the Fox Entertainment Group, a division of News Corporation...
affiliate
WSAZ-DT2WSAZ-DT2 is the MyNetworkTV-affiliated television station for Huntington and Charleston, West Virginia, the second-largest television market east of the Mississippi River. The coverage area includes 61 counties in central West Virginia, eastern Kentucky, and southeastern Ohio. It is a second...
. During WCHS's weekday morning
Good Morning AmericaGood Morning America is an American news Morning show and talk show that is broadcast on the ABC television network, debuting on November 3, 1975. The weekday program airs for two hours; a third hour, available exclusively on ABC News Now, was introduced in 2007...
cut-ins at 7:25 and 7:55, the two stations simulcast each other.
Eyewitness News This Morning on FOX 11(Weekday Mornings 7 to 8)
- Anchors:
- Patrick McMurtry
- Jenifer McAndrews
- Weather:
- Traffic:
- Reporters:
- Bob Aaron - Senior Reporter
- Wes Armstead - photographer
Eyewitness News at 10 on FOX 11 (10 to 11 P.M.)Weeknights
- Anchors:
- Weather:
- Sports:
Weekends
WVAH features additional news personnel from WCHS. See that articleWCHS-TV is the ABC-affiliated television station for Charleston and Huntington, West Virginia, the second-largest market in terms of area east of the Mississippi River, serving 61 counties in central West Virginia, eastern Kentucky and southern Ohio...
for a complete listing.
External links