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50-636: WOWK-TV (channel 13) is a television station licensed to Huntington, West Virginia , United States, serving the Charleston –Huntington market as an affiliate of CBS . Owned by Nexstar Media Group , the station maintains studios on Quarrier Street near the Charleston Town Center in downtown Charleston, and its transmitter is located in Milton, West Virginia . The station went on-air October 2, 1955, as WHTN-TV (for Huntington), an ABC affiliate owned by

100-445: A Northern Virginia Bureau covering Chantilly , Leesburg , Berryville , and Winchester was opened. Although not a full news department, this is now the second local news operation established in those areas after TV3 Winchester launched on March 5, 2007. All of the preceding changes required the expansion of WHAG's personnel. On October 21, 2013, WHAG began broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition . Nexstar undertook

150-572: A TV network and an individual station within the network is referred to as O&O or affiliate , respectively. Because television station signals use the electromagnetic spectrum, which in the past has been a common, scarce resource, governments often claim authority to regulate them. Broadcast television systems standards vary around the world. Television stations broadcasting over an analog system were typically limited to one television channel , but digital television enables broadcasting via subchannels as well. Television stations usually require

200-586: A barter in some cases. WDVM-TV WDVM-TV (channel 25) is an independent television station licensed to Hagerstown, Maryland , United States, serving the Washington, D.C. , television market . It is owned by Nexstar Media Group alongside CW owned-and-operated station WDCW (channel 50). The two stations share studios on Wisconsin Avenue in the Glover Park section of Washington; WDVM-TV's transmitter

250-497: A broadcast license from a government agency which sets the requirements and limitations on the station. In the United States, for example, a television license defines the broadcast range , or geographic area, that the station is limited to, allocates the broadcast frequency of the radio spectrum for that station's transmissions, sets limits on what types of television programs can be programmed for broadcast and requires

300-599: A news bureau and advertising sales office for the southern portion for the market in what is now the Kindred Capital Building, and its transmitter is still located at the Milton location. On November 17, 2015, Nexstar Broadcasting Group announced that it would purchase the West Virginia Media Holdings stations, including WOWK-TV, for $ 130 million. Under the terms of the deal, Nexstar assumed control of

350-499: A " farm team " operation that features new journalists and behind the scenes staff who have graduated from their schools looking for experience at a small-market television station and serve as " one man band " personnel that shoot, write, and edit their own stories, and eventually move on to further opportunities in larger markets. The station operates a bureau on East Patrick Street ( MD 144 ) in Frederick . On August 30, 2010, WHAG added

400-472: A 5 p.m. newscast. It provided weather forecasts for WVNS-TV in Beckley – Bluefield until late 2016. On May 16, 2011, WOWK expanded its morning newscast to a 4:30 a.m. start time. It was the first station in the market, as well as in the state, to do so. The morning news expansion is a growing trend across the United States. WOWK launched a 4 p.m. newscast titled Good Day at 4 on September 5, 2022. This

450-507: A half hour to its weekday noon and 5 p.m. newscasts. Until this point unlike most NBC affiliates in the Eastern Time Zone , the station had not aired a broadcast weeknights at 5:30. It still does not offer a full two-hour weekday morning newscast. There is now a half hour broadcast on Monday-Saturday nights at 7. On weekends, an hour-long morning show at 6 a.m. as well as a half hour Sunday morning broadcast at 9 p.m. were added. In addition,

500-617: A major expansion of WDVM-TV's news operation that launched on July 1, 2016, the same day the station lost its NBC affiliation. While it broadcasts standard newscasts at 5:30 a.m., 6 a.m., noon, 5 p.m., 6 p.m., and 10 p.m., the 7 a.m., 7 p.m., and 11 p.m. hours are also set aside for Maryland- ( I-270 News ) and Northern Virginia-specific ( Nova News ) coverage. WDVM-TV also simulcasts Nexstar-owned WOWK-TV 's Tonight Live at 5:30 p.m. On July 11, 2022, Nexstar moved WDVM-TV's primary studios from Hagerstown to Washington and rebranded newscasts as DC News Now , along with changing many of

550-415: A much shorter wavelength, and thus requires a shorter antenna, but also higher power. North American stations can go up to 5000 kW ERP for video and 500 kW audio, or 1000 kW digital. Low channels travel further than high ones at the same power, but UHF does not suffer from as much electromagnetic interference and background "noise" as VHF, making it much more desirable for TV. Despite this, in

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600-518: A new 9 p.m. newscast. WDVM-TV's 10 p.m. newscast moved to WDCW and the 11 p.m. newscast was replaced by a half-hour sports program. The station's signal is multiplexed : WHAG's broadcasts became digital-only, effective June 12, 2009. As part of the spectrum repacking process following the FCC's incentive auction , WDVM changed from channel 26 to 23 on August 2, 2019. However, its virtual channel number remains 25. The effective reach of WDVM-TV's signal

650-594: A news-intensive independent station focused on the Washington market, first combining the operations of their two stations by bringing WDCW and WDVM-TV under the same management in February 2020. Later in the year, WDVM-TV added rebroadcasts of syndicated programming seen on WDCW, while that station added a standard-definition simulcast to allow over-the-air coverage of WDVM-TV to the entire market along with expanded cable and satellite carriage. In December 2023, Nexstar applied to

700-635: A station to broadcast a minimum amount of certain programs types, such as public affairs messages . Another form of television station is non-commercial educational (NCE) and considered public broadcasting . To avoid concentration of media ownership of television stations, government regulations in most countries generally limit the ownership of television stations by television networks or other media operators, but these regulations vary considerably. Some countries have set up nationwide television networks, in which individual television stations act as mere repeaters of nationwide programs . In those countries,

750-497: A station-wide email announcing the new evening anchor before he ever (and did not) announce Abney was leaving. The station's signal is multiplexed : WOWK-TV discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over VHF channel 13, in early 2009. The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition UHF channel 47 to VHF channel 13. On January 25, 2009, an ice storm damaged the primary analog VHF channel 13 transmitter. Rather than repair it for two more months of service,

800-425: A variety of ways to generate revenue from television commercials . They may be an independent station or part of a broadcasting network , or some other structure. They can produce some or all of their programs or buy some broadcast syndication programming for or all of it from other stations or independent production companies. Many stations have some sort of television studio , which on major-network stations

850-595: Is available to subscribers that currently receive the Washington, D.C. market locals. WDVM-TV had also been seen on Dish as the default NBC affiliate for the Salisbury television market, as that market did not have an NBC affiliate of its own until June 2014, when WRDE-LD in nearby Rehoboth Beach, Delaware , switched its affiliation to NBC. It is also viewed in widescreen standard definition on Verizon FiOS in Montgomery County, Maryland. On February 26, 2020, WDVM-TV

900-613: Is located on Fairview Mountain, west of Clear Spring, Maryland . The station signed on the air as WHAG-TV on January 3, 1970. It was originally owned by Warren Adler along with WHAG radio in Halfway ( AM 1410 and FM 96.7, now WDLD ). WHAG-TV's original analog transmitter was to be on top of the Hagerstown Motor Inn (now the Alexander House) but was rejected due to structural incompatibility. A site on Fairview Mountain would become

950-792: Is often used for newscasts or other local programming . There is usually a news department , where journalists gather information. There is also a section where electronic news-gathering (ENG) operations are based, receiving remote broadcasts via remote pickup unit or satellite TV . Outside broadcasting vans, production trucks , or SUVs with electronic field production (EFP) equipment are sent out with reporters , who may also bring back news stories on video tape rather than sending them back live . To keep pace with technology United States television stations have been replacing operators with broadcast automation systems to increase profits in recent years. Some stations (known as repeaters or translators ) only simulcast another, usually

1000-517: Is owned by Bounce Media LLC, whose COO Jonathan Katz is president/CEO of Katz Broadcasting), bringing one or more of the four networks to 81 stations owned and/or operated by Nexstar, including WOWK-TV. (Grit was available in Charleston on WCHS-DT3 until February 28, 2017, when it was replaced by TBD . It moved to WOWK in October 2017.) WOWK-TV airs the market's only 7 p.m. newscast. The station also airs

1050-488: Is the second 4 p.m. newscast in the market. WOWK produces a statewide evening newscast, Tonight Live at 5:30 pm (formerly West Virginia Tonight Live and West Virginia Tonight ), which is simulcast across all of the former West Virginia Media Holdings stations. Tonight Live is aired at 11:30 p.m. on WDVM-TV in Hagerstown, Maryland (in the Washington, D.C. market). Historically, WOWK's newscasts have ranked third in

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1100-519: Is the valley stretching from Hagerstown to Martinsburg, West Virginia , and Winchester, Virginia, far from the core of the Washington market. Its main channel only is simulcast in 480i widescreen standard definition (virtual channel 25.1) on the Washington-based signal of WDCW in order to cover the rest of the market. Recently, it has been added to the Dish Network lineup of local offerings and

1150-415: The 1992 Cable Act , which regulated cable carriage of broadcast stations, only cable systems in that county were required to carry WHAG-TV. That year, Arbitron ceased publishing television ratings and the commission switched to Nielsen 's designated market area (DMA) system for market assignments, which combined Hagerstown with the far larger Washington, D.C., area to create a top-ten market. The terms of

1200-534: The electricity bill and emergency backup generators . In North America , full-power stations on band I (channels 2 to 6) are generally limited to 100 kW analog video ( VSB ) and 10 kW analog audio ( FM ), or 45 kW digital ( 8VSB ) ERP. Stations on band III (channels 7 to 13) can go up by 5 dB to 316 kW video, 31.6 kW audio, or 160 kW digital. Low-VHF stations are often subject to long-distance reception just as with FM. There are no stations on Channel 1 . UHF , by comparison, has

1250-546: The Act thus required in-market cable systems whose principal headends are closer to Hagerstown than Washington to add WHAG-TV; since the Act allows them to decline to carry multiple affiliates of the same network, they also had the option of dropping Washington's WRC-TV . Despite this change, WHAG-TV never saw itself as a Washington-market station; it applied for and received exemptions from FCC rules applying to large-market stations, such as expanded public file requirements. However,

1300-507: The FCC to move WDVM-TV's transmitter site to a tower at Blue Mountain near Front Royal, Virginia , along with a power increase to 1,000 kW; the move was to substantially increase over-the-air coverage of Washington and suburban northern Virginia while still covering the Hagerstown area. After the FCC requested several rounds of reports and technical changes to minimize the population in rural Maryland and Pennsylvania that would lose what

1350-574: The Greater Huntington Theater Corporation. After only a year, the station was bought by Minneapolis -based Cowles Communications (unrelated to the Spokane, Washington –based Cowles Publishing Company ). WHTN swapped affiliations with WCHS-TV and became a CBS station for the first time in 1958. In 1960, Cowles sold Channel 13 to Reeves Telecom. It went back to ABC in 1962 and stayed with that network for 24 years. Reeves Telecom sold

1400-627: The U.S., the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is taking another large portion of this band (channels 52 to 69) away, in contrast to the rest of the world, which has been taking VHF instead. This means that some stations left on VHF are harder to receive after the analog shutdown . Since at least 1974, there are no stations on channel 37 in North America for radio astronomy purposes. Most television stations are commercial broadcasting enterprises which are structured in

1450-617: The WSAZ tower. Television station The Fernsehsender Paul Nipkow ( TV Station Paul Nipkow ) in Berlin , Germany , was the first regular television service in the world. It was on the air from 22 March 1935, until it was shut down in 1944. The station was named after Paul Gottlieb Nipkow , the inventor of the Nipkow disk . Most often the term "television station" refers to a station which broadcasts structured content to an audience or it refers to

1500-488: The assets of Chicago -based Tribune Media —which has owned Washington-based CW affiliate WDCW (channel 50) since 1999—for $ 6.4 billion in cash and debt. The sale was approved by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on September 16 and was completed on September 19, 2019, forming a nominal duopoly with WDCW. On July 1, 2019, all Heroes & Icons programming was dropped in favor of additional syndicated programming. Nexstar began repositioning WDVM-TV as

1550-418: The call sign WDVM-TV. The change came after the station undertook the expansion of its cable carriage throughout most of the Washington, D.C., market, with news director Mark Kraham stating that "we wanted to make it clear that we're not just a Hagerstown station". The callsign had previously been used in the market by what is now WUSA from 1978 to 1986. On December 3, 2018, Nexstar announced it would acquire

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1600-465: The commission considers adequate local broadcast television coverage (within the Longley-Rice noise-limited contour of five full-power or Class A stations), the relocation was approved on February 12, 2024. The relocation has yet to occur, as the presence of Daystar 's WDDN-LD and WDWA-LD on channel 23 in Washington and Burke, Virginia , respectively, present another technical obstacle. Right from

1650-468: The fact remained that WHAG-TV was now technically competing with network-owned WRC-TV. The Herald-Mail reported that NBC was declining to renew its affiliation with WHAG on February 19, 2016, and a network spokesperson confirmed this with a terse, one-sentence email to the paper. The station ceased broadcasting network programming on July 1. Beginning in 2014, NBC revoked affiliations from several affiliates, including WHAG-TV, WMGM-TV (whose broadcast area

1700-420: The highest point available in the transmission area, such as on a summit , the top of a high skyscraper , or on a tall radio tower . To get a signal from the master control room to the transmitter, a studio/transmitter link (STL) is used. The link can be either by radio or T1 / E1 . A transmitter/studio link (TSL) may also send telemetry back to the station, but this may be embedded in subcarriers of

1750-400: The local television station has no station identification and, from a consumer's point of view, there is no practical distinction between a network and a station, with only small regional changes in programming, such as local television news . To broadcast its programs, a television station requires operators to operate equipment, a transmitter or radio antenna , which is often located at

1800-412: The location of the analog signal on UHF channel 25. The station was an NBC affiliate; network anchors Chet Huntley and David Brinkley welcomed the station to the network during their newscast that night. Adler Communications sold WHAG-TV to Sheldon and Samuel Magazine of Washington, D.C., in 1973. The Magazine brothers then sold it to local aviation pioneer Richard Henson in 1977. Henson then sold

1850-419: The main broadcast. Stations which retransmit or simulcast another may simply pick-up that station over-the-air , or via STL or satellite. The license usually specifies which other station it is allowed to carry. VHF stations often have very tall antennas due to their long wavelength , but require much less effective radiated power (ERP), and therefore use much less transmitter power output , also saving on

1900-814: The market, behind WSAZ and WCHS-TV. Generally, WOWK and WCHS-TV are stronger in the eastern half of the market, including Charleston. However, neither station does well in the western portion, including Huntington and the Ohio and Kentucky sides of the market. A former WOWK-TV reporter filed a lawsuit in December 2018 accusing the station of racial and sexual discrimination, harassment and retaliation. Aaliyah Brown filed her complaint in Cabell Circuit Court against Nexstar Broadcasting Inc., which operates WOWK. In September 2021, main evening anchor Jennifer Abney chose not to renew her contract. WOWK general manager Sean Banks sent out

1950-472: The on-air personality and anchor lineups. The former studios in Hagerstown are now used as a bureau, alongside the existing Frederick and Chantilly bureaus. On July 25, another newscast expansion occurred, with the morning newscast expanding to four hours, the 5 p.m. newscast expanding to an hour (which also resulted in the move of the WOWK-produced Tonight Live to 11:30 p.m.), and the addition of

2000-406: The organization that operates the station. A terrestrial television transmission can occur via analog television signals or, more recently, via digital television signals. Television stations are differentiated from cable television or other video providers as their content is broadcast via terrestrial radio waves. A group of television stations with common ownership or affiliation are known as

2050-476: The programmes seen on its owner's flagship station, and have no television studio or production facilities of their own. This is common in developing countries . Low-power stations typically also fall into this category worldwide. Most stations which are not simulcast produce their own station identifications . TV stations may also advertise on or provide weather (or news) services to local radio stations , particularly co-owned sister stations . This may be

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2100-488: The start (January 3, 1970), WHAG began offering local newscasts with The Valley News which aired weeknights at 6, 7, and 11 p.m. The original anchors were Bob Witt with news, Glenn Presgraves with sports, and Bill Wolfinger forecasting the weather. Wolfinger also did a Saturday night horror movie show where he would be in costume similar to Lon Chaney. The news department expanded in 1972 to include weekend evening broadcasts at 11 that totaled six hours of local news per week. By

2150-622: The station shut down its analog transmission early and brought its digital channel 13 transmitter on-line. The channel's broadcast tower, WOWK Television Tower , is a 338.94-meter (1,112 ft)-tall guyed TV mast located in Huntington, West Virginia. The tower was built in 1975 and is currently the third-tallest structure in West Virginia. The tallest is the WVAH Tower in Scott Depot , followed by

2200-883: The station to Gateway Communications (a company formed by employees of the former broadcasting division of Triangle Publications ) in 1974, becoming the company's only ABC affiliate, and the only station owned by Gateway that was not owned by Triangle prior to its acquisition. The following March, it changed its call letters to the current WOWK-TV to reflect the three states it serves (Ohio, West Virginia, and Kentucky). On June 1, 1986, it changed affiliations again, returning to CBS. The swap brought channel 13 in-line with sister stations WLYH in Lancaster, Pennsylvania , WTAJ-TV in Altoona, Pennsylvania , and WBNG-TV in Binghamton, New York , which had recently renewed their CBS relationships. The station

2250-524: The station to Great Trails Broadcasting in 1981. Great Trails then exited broadcasting and sold WHAG along with 2 of its stations— WFFT-TV in Fort Wayne, Indiana , and KSVI in Billings, Montana , to Quorum Broadcasting in 1998 for $ 65 million. On September 8, 2003, Nexstar Broadcasting Group announced that it would acquire Quorum Broadcasting and its stations (including WHAG-TV) for $ 230 million. The sale

2300-519: The stations through a time brokerage agreement in December 2015, with the sale of the license assets completed on January 31, 2017. Nexstar CEO Perry A. Sook was a former employee of WOWK. This made WOWK-TV reunite with former Gateway-owned sister stations WTAJ and WBNG. On June 15, 2016, Nexstar announced that it has entered into an affiliation agreement with Katz Broadcasting for the Escape , Laff , Grit , and Bounce TV networks (the last one of which

2350-416: The year 2000, news content increased to over 22 hours of broadcasts per week. In 1997, WHAG added a microwave truck allowing the transmitting of live breaking news from the viewing area. On February 12, 2010, the station switched its on-air and news brandings from "NBC 25" and NBC 25 News to "WHAG" and WHAG News , respectively. Outside of a few senior staffers, the station's news department mainly acted as

2400-409: Was completed on December 31 , 2003. Prior to 1996, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) used Arbitron 's Area of Dominant Influence (ADI) system to assign television stations to a media market , principally to determine cable carriage rights and applicable regulations and fees. Arbitron placed WHAG-TV in its own 192nd-ranked ADI consisting solely of Washington County . After the passage of

2450-491: Was headquartered at the Radio Center Building in Huntington from its inception until 1984 when WOWK moved to a location on Fifth Avenue. Gateway merged with SJL Broadcasting in 2000. SJL sold it to West Virginia Media Holdings in 2002. After the sale to West Virginia Media, it sold its Huntington building to regional radio conglomerate Kindred Communications and moved its studio and offices to Charleston. WOWK retained

2500-425: Was served by network-owned WCAU ), and KENV-DT (whose broadcast area was served by KSL-TV ), that functioned as secondary NBC stations serving outlying areas of their larger markets. In addition to expanding local news, WHAG-TV also added programs from Heroes & Icons at the time. The last NBC program to air on WHAG was Last Call with Carson Daly . On July 1, 2017, the station rebranded itself and adopted

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