WAVY-TV

WAVY-TV
Hampton Roads, Virginia
United States
City Portsmouth, Virginia
Branding WAVY TV 10 (general)
WAVY News 10 (newscasts)
Slogan 10 On Your Side
Channels Digital: 31 (UHF)
Virtual: 10 (PSIP)
Subchannels 10.1 NBC
10.2 Bounce TV
10.3 GetTV
Translators (see article)
Affiliations NBC (1959–present)
Owner Media General
(sale to Nexstar Broadcasting Group pending)
(WAVY Broadcasting, LLC)
First air date September 1, 1957 (1957-09-01)
Call letters' meaning WAVY and logo are references to Atlantic Ocean or Chesapeake Bay; also rhymes with "navy", as navy sailors have a large presence in the Hampton Roads area.[1]
Sister station(s) WVBT
Former channel number(s) Analog:
10 (VHF, 1957–2009)
Former affiliations ABC (1957–1959)
Transmitter power 1,000 kW
Height 280 m (920 ft)
Facility ID 71127
Transmitter coordinates 36°49′14″N 76°30′41″W / 36.82056°N 76.51139°W / 36.82056; -76.51139
Licensing authority FCC
Public license information: Profile
CDBS
Website wavy.com

WAVY-TV, channel 10, is a television station licensed to Portsmouth, Virginia, USA, serving as the NBC affiliate for the Hampton Roads area of Virginia (comprising the cities of Portsmouth, Norfolk, Newport News, Virginia Beach, Hampton and environs), and the Outer Banks region of North Carolina. WAVY-TV is owned by Media General, and is a sister station to Fox affiliate WVBT (channel 43). The two stations share studios and offices in downtown Portsmouth, and WAVY-TV broadcasts from a transmitter located in the Driver neighborhood of Suffolk, Virginia.

Translators

In addition to its main signal, WAVY-TV is rebroadcast on six translators.[2][3][4][5] Both W14DY-D and W18EG-D are located in the Eastern Shore of Virginia and are municipally-owned by Accomack County rather than WAVY Broadcasting, LLC or Media General. Those in the Greater Hampton Roads area are owned and operated by Media General.

Call letters Channel City of license Transmitter location
WKTD-CD 17 Portsmouth WAVY - Driver Tower
WITD-CD 23 Chesapeake
WCTX-CD 35 Virginia Beach Columbus Center Building
WBTD-LD 43 Suffolk WAVY - Driver Tower
WTTD-LD
License cancelled 		10 Hampton Downtown - AT&T Tower
W14DY-D 14 Onancock
W18EG-D 18.1 Onancock

History

WAVY-TV, the Hampton Roads area's third-oldest television station, began operations on September 1, 1957. It was originally owned by Tidewater Teleradio along with WAVY radio (1350 AM, now WGPL). It originally signed-on as an ABC affiliate but traded network affiliations with NBC affiliate WVEC-TV (channel 13) in 1959 due to its radio sister's long affiliation with NBC radio. In 1968, it became the second station owned by what was then known as LIN Broadcasting.

In April 1989 WAVY-TV moved into its current studio, located on Wavy Street in downtown Portsmouth. The station previously broadcast from a former farmers market on Middle Street, also in downtown Portsmouth. The Wavy Street studio is located across the street from the nTelos Wireless Pavilion and near or across the street from the Elizabeth River.

Shortly after WVBT became the area's WB affiliate in 1995, WAVY began operating that station though a local marketing agreement (LMA). LIN TV came to an affiliation agreement with Fox in November 1995, and WVBT took the affiliation from original Fox affiliate WTVZ (channel 33) in 1998. LIN TV purchased that station out-right in February 2002. WAVY was the first in the market to broadcast a digital signal in 2001.

On March 21, 2014, it was announced that Media General would acquire LIN.[6] The merger was completed on December 19, bringing WAVY-TV and WVBT under common ownership with WRIC-TV in Petersburg and WSLS-TV in Roanoke.[7]

Digital television

Digital channels

The station's digital channel is multiplexed:

Channel PSIP Short Name Video Aspect Programming[8]
10.1 WAVY 1080i 16:9 Main WAVY-TV programming / NBC
10.2 Bounce 480i 4:3 Bounce TV
10.3 GET-TV GetTV

WAVY-TV added Bounce TV upon its launch on September 26, 2011.[9]

Analog-to-digital conversion

WAVY-TV discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over VHF channel 10, at 9 a.m. on June 12, 2009, as part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television.[10] The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 31, using PSIP to display WAVY-TV's virtual channel as 10 on digital television receivers.[11] As of November, 2014, WAVY still broadcasts an analog signal on two of its translator stations, making NBC the only major network to maintain an analog signal in the Hampton Roads area.

On August 7, 2009, WAVY began offering Mobile TV using BlackBerry.[12]

News operation

WAVY airs thirty hours of local news a week. It operates its own weather radar, called "Super Doppler 10", at its studios. It was the first in the area to air a local broadcast at 5:30 in the morning (beginning in 1992) and added weeknight 5:00 (in 1989) and 5:30 (in 1994) newscasts.[13] It is known for being the first Hampton Roads station to use a helicopter to cover local news after introducing "Chopper 10" in 1982. The current Bell 206 Longranger helicopter has been used since 2000.[14] On November 20, 2015; WAVY became the first station in the area to use drone aircraft in their newscasts, known as "Drone 10".[15]

When WVBT made the switch to Fox in 1998, WAVY started producing a nightly 10 o'clock newscast on that station. It was not the market's first prime time show as CBS affiliate WTKR produced a short-lived newscast on WGNT from 1995 until 1997.[16] ABC affiliate WVEC-TV also produced a prime time show on WPEN-LP from 1995 until it started LNC 4 (later LNC 5; now defunct) in 1997.[17] WVEC continued to produce a 10 o'clock news on that station until January 30, 2009. The 45-minute broadcast on WVBT is followed by the Fox 43 Sports Wrap with sports news and highlights.

On July 21, 2008 at noon, WAVY and WVBT became the first stations in the market and their station group company to produce local newscasts in high definition. This is in contrast to rival WVEC's news being produced in 16:9 digital widescreen which is not true high definition but matches the ratio of HD television screens.[18] WVBT added an hour-long extension of WAVY's weekday morning news on February 2, 2009. The show airs in an entertainment and lifestyle program format.

Until January 2007, WVBT operated a 24-hour local weather channel on its second digital subchannel 43-2. Known on-air as the "WAVY Weather Station", it was made cable-only in 2007 for unknown reasons. It was seen on Mediacom channel 9, Charter channel 22, and Cox digital channel 227 before going dark in 2011.[19] There were live current conditions, updated forecasts, and a sweep of "Super Doppler 10".

On September 12, 2011, The Hampton Roads Show, an hour-long local lifestyle and entertainment program, moved from WVBT at 8 a.m. to WAVY at 11 a.m. With the move, weekend sports anchor Chris Reckling became co-host.[20]

Notable current on-air staff

Notable former on-air staff

Out-of-market cable carriage

In the 1970s and 1980s, WAVY was once received as far west as Lawrenceville, Brunswick County and Halifax and Enfield in North Carolina. To the north in Crisfield, Maryland, it was also once carried there as well.[21]

References

  1. ↑ http://articles.dailypress.com/1999-05-15/features/9905150026_1_wtkr-stations-letters
  2. ↑ http://www.rabbitears.info/market.php?request=station_search&callsign=WKTD-CD#station
  3. ↑ http://hamptonroads.vartv.com/
  4. ↑ http://www.rabbitears.info/market.php?request=station_search&callsign=W14DY-D#station
  5. ↑ http://www.rabbitears.info/market.php?request=station_search&callsign=W18EG-D#station
  6. ↑ Sruthi Ramakrishnan (21 March 2014). "Media General to buy LIN Media for $1.6 billion". Reuters. Retrieved 21 March 2014.
  7. ↑ Media General Completes Merger With LIN Media, Press Release, Media General, Retrieved 19 December, 2014
  8. ↑ RabbitEars TV Query for WAVY
  9. ↑ http://www.vartv.com/pdf/WAVY_2011_09_23.pdf
  10. ↑ List of Digital Full-Power Stations
  11. ↑ http://www.wavy.com/dpp/news/dtv_wavy_analog_signal_to_continue_20090208
  12. ↑ Eggerton, John (2009-08-07). "LIN TV Develops Blackberry App For Mobile TV Service". Broadcasting & Cable. Retrieved 2009-08-11.
  13. ↑ WAVY TV 10 - News, Weather, Traffic, Sports for Hampton Roads, Virginia - North Eastern North Carolina - Our Apologies
  14. ↑ WAVY TV 10 - News, Weather, Traffic, Sports for Hampton Roads, Virginia - North Eastern North Carolina - Chopper 10
  15. ↑ http://wavy.com/2015/11/20/wavy-news-10-introduces-drone-10/
  16. ↑ Same Stuff On Wtkr News And Wgnt
  17. ↑ Wvec, Wpen Team Up On Prime-Time Programming
  18. ↑ 13News takes a wider look at life | TOP STORIES | WVEC.com | News for Hampton Roads, Virginia
  19. ↑
  20. ↑ http://hamptonroads.com/2011/09/hampton-roads-show-moves-wavytv-10
  21. ↑ http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/coals7/forms/search/cableSearchNf.cfm
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