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43-754: The group owned WOWK-TV in Huntington , WVNS-TV in Lewisburg , and WTRF-TV in Wheeling, West Virginia , which were all affiliated with the CBS network; and WBOY-TV in Clarksburg which was affiliated with NBC . WVNS and WTRF also carried Fox on their digital subchannels , while both subchannels carried MyNetworkTV in addition to Fox as a secondary affiliate. It also owned a weekly newspaper, The State Journal , which mainly covers state commerce and political news. The group

86-599: 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

129-528: 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

172-659: A UHF signal during the analog era, the station's coverage area was limited due to the nature of such signals. UHF signals usually do not enjoy as much of a broadcasting radius in mountainous areas as stations operating on VHF do. During the 1960s, WLYH operated a bureau in the W. W. Griest Building in Downtown Lancaster, in addition to its main studios in South Londonderry Township. In the early-1970s, an entirely new base of operations for color television and updated news film processing were constructed as part of

215-445: A holding company controlled by Graham Williams Group CEO and conservative political commentator Armstrong Williams , should the option be exercised. However, the FCC ruled that this would have effectively created a new LMA between WHTM and WLYH even though the FCC had ruled in 1999 that such agreements made after November 5, 1996, covering more than 15% of the broadcast day would count toward

258-521: A prime time news broadcast in the 10:00 p.m. timeslot since that station (which, by then, had become a Fox affiliate) launched its current news department in September 1994. Due to low ratings and inconsistent viewership, the 10:00 p.m. newscast on WLYH was canceled in 2003. In January 2009, WHP launched a prime time newscast on this station for a second time. This incarnation of WLYH's newscast initially only aired on weeknights before expanding to

301-512: A restructuring of Sinclair's purchase of the broadcast holdings of Allbritton Communications , including ABC affiliate WHTM-TV , to address ownership conflicts between the three stations. Under the original deal, Sinclair would have retained the higher-rated WHTM and traded the license assets of WHP-TV to Deerfield Media , though Sinclair would have retained control of WHP-TV under shared services and joint sales agreements. The license assets of WLYH would have been reassigned to Howard Stirk Holdings,

344-521: A second subchannel on 21.3, which duplicated the WLYH CW main 15.1 channel and was created in order to become the new home of the WLYH CW15 programming. In addition, the station changed its on-air branding from The CW15, to The CW Central PA on January 1, 2016. On February 1, 2016, The CW Central PA on 15.1 was discontinued, with the subchannels each moving up one spot. WXBU sold its spectrum for $ 108 million in

387-580: A seven-night-a-week broadcast at some point in time. Like the previous effort, the WHP-produced half-hour 10:00 p.m. newscast competes with WPMT's longer-established hour-long prime time newscast. In addition to its main studios in Harrisburg, WHP also operates bureaus in Lancaster and York. WXBU (as WLYH-TV; then owned by Nexstar) previously carried TheCoolTV on 15.2. WLYH dropped that network in favor of

430-499: 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,

473-617: 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

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516-518: 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

559-540: 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

602-516: The de facto ABC affiliate and remains on cable in both markets (Fox Ohio Valley replaced WPGH on Comcast systems as the only Fox affiliate on the Comcast channel lineup). On November 17, 2015, WVMH announced that it would sell its stations to Nexstar Broadcasting Group for $ 130 million. The company would take over the stations' non-license assets under a time brokerage agreement in December 2015 until

645-515: The Federal Communications Commission (FCC). In 1955, Triangle Publications bought the channel 15 license from Lebanon Television, but the sale was held up by challenges from nearby Harrisburg television stations WHP-TV , WCMB-TV (now defunct), WTPA-TV (now WHTM-TV ), and Reading television station WHUM-TV (also now defunct). The station finally returned to the air with increased power on May 2, 1957. Under Triangle ownership,

688-705: The Warner Bros. unit of Time Warner and CBS Corporation announced that the two companies would shut down The WB and UPN and combine the networks' respective programming to create a new "fifth" network called The CW . On May 18, it was announced that WLYH would become the area's CW affiliate when it launched on September 18. Meanwhile, WHP created a new second digital subchannel to air programming from another new network, MyNetworkTV . Nexstar Broadcasting Group purchased WLYH and WTAJ from SJL in late 2006. On April 20, 2007, Clear Channel entered into an agreement to sell its entire television station group (including WHP and

731-577: The market to view the entire CBS schedule. Triangle was forced out of broadcasting in 1970 after then- Governor Milton J. Shapp claimed the company had used its three Pennsylvania television stations (WLYH, WFIL-TV, and WFBG-TV in Altoona ) in a smear campaign against him. WLYH was among the last to be sold, going to Gateway Communications as part of a group deal with WFBG-TV (now WTAJ-TV ) and WNBF-TV (now WBNG-TV ) in Binghamton, New York , in 1972. In

774-465: The 1960s, WHP-TV began airing separate programming outside of network hours, while WLYH and WSBA-TV continued simulcasting for most of the day. All three outlets ran prime time programming, most of the daytime shows, and most of the weekend offerings from CBS. All three stations preempted moderate amounts of CBS programming. However, through a longstanding agreement, any shows that WSBA-TV and WLYH preempted aired on WHP-TV and vice versa. This allowed most of

817-554: The 1980s, Gateway moved the station's city of license to Lancaster. Channel 43 left the Keystone Network in 1983 to become an independent station under new calls, WPMT . WLYH and WHP-TV continued as CBS affiliates, airing separate non-network programming and maintaining their longstanding agreement calling for programs preempted on one station to air on the other. By this time, the two stations had about 75 percent signal overlap. Even though cable had gained significant penetration in

860-574: 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

903-612: The LMA with WLYH) to the private equity firm Providence Equity Partners . Providence then formed Newport Television as a holding company for the former Clear Channel stations. On July 19, 2012, Newport announced the sale of WLYH's LMA partner, WHP-TV, to the Sinclair Broadcast Group . The LMA with WLYH was included in the deal, and Sinclair also obtained an option to purchase the station's license from Nexstar. This purchase option would later be terminated on March 20, 2014, as part of

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946-473: The Live Well Network on August 1, 2012. It also dropped the Live Well Network on 15.2 in late December 2014 and replaced it with Grit TV . On February 1, 2016, after Howard Stirk Holdings took full control of the station, the simulcast of "The CW Central PA" (which moved to sister station WHP 21.3) ended, and Grit moved up from 15.2 to 15.1, with Comet also moving up from 15.3 to 15.2. 15.3 went dark. With

989-539: The Newport group deal on December 3, 2012. Howard Stirk Holdings revealed in its January 2015 application to purchase Las Vegas station KVMY that it again planned to acquire the WLYH license from Nexstar. The sale was completed on November 12, 2015. The time brokerage agreement between WLYH and WHP-TV expired on December 31, 2015; Nexstar had, on December 11, 2014, elected to not renew the agreement. To reflect its new ownership,

1032-656: The WSAZ tower. WXBU WXBU (channel 15) is a television station licensed to Lancaster, Pennsylvania , United States, serving the Susquehanna Valley region as an affiliate of the Spanish-language network Univision . The station is owned by Howard Stirk Holdings , a partner company of the Sinclair Broadcast Group . WXBU's advertising sales office is located on Butler Road in West Cornwall Township ;

1075-453: The added cost of buying an additional 16 hours of programming per day. The unusual situation of two separately-owned and programmed Big Three affiliates in one market that aired most of the same network programming would continue until 1995. On November 1, Clear Channel Communications (which had just bought WHP-TV) entered into a 20-year local marketing agreement with Gateway. Under this agreement, WHP-TV took control of WLYH's operations, with

1118-523: The combined operation housed at WHP-TV's studios in Harrisburg. Layoffs also hit WLYH following the LMA deal. Upon signing the deal with Clear Channel, it became clear that WLYH's CBS affiliation was in danger. After considering affiliations with either The WB or UPN , Clear Channel converted WLYH into an exclusive UPN affiliate on December 16, 1995, thus making WHP-TV the sole CBS affiliate for South Central Pennsylvania. In 2000, Gateway sold all of its stations to SJL Broadcasting . On January 24, 2006,

1161-555: The formal completion of the deal, expected in late-2016. The two companies viewed the acquisition as being a complement to Nexstar's WHAG-TV , whose coverage area includes the Eastern Panhandle region. Nexstar CEO Perry A. Sook is an alumnus of WOWK. The sale was completed on January 31, 2017. The State Journal was separately acquired by NCWV Media in December 2016. Stations are arranged alphabetically by state and by city of license . WOWK-TV WOWK-TV (channel 13)

1204-766: 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

1247-420: The new Park City Center in that city. WSBA simulcast WLYH's newscasts until the arrangement ended in 1983 with the former severing ties after becoming WPMT. In June 1991, the station discontinued its 11:00 p.m. newscast in favor of airing first-run syndicated programming in the timeslot; this left the existing half-hour 6:00 p.m. edition of Action News as the only newscast that channel 15 offered for

1290-504: The ownership limits for the brokering station's owner. Under the restructured agreement, Sinclair announced that it would terminate the sale of WHP-TV to Deerfield and instead sell it to another third-party buyer, with whom Sinclair would not enter into any operational or financial agreements and would be given the rights to the LMA with WLYH. Sinclair ultimately retained WHP and the WLYH LMA and sold WHTM to Media General . Sinclair closed on

1333-571: The region by the mid-1980s, WLYH remained a CBS affiliate rather than become an independent. This was mainly because at the time, South Central Pennsylvania was just barely large enough to support what would have essentially been two independent stations. Even after WPMT joined Fox in 1986, it was still mostly programmed as an independent (as was the case with most Fox stations until 1993). Even without this to consider, Philadelphia's WPHL-TV and WTAF-TV (now Fox O&O WTXF-TV ), had been available on cable for years. These two factors made Gateway balk at

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1376-535: The remainder of the news department's existence. After WHP took over operations of WLYH in November 1995, the former shut down WLYH's separate news department, resulting in the loss of two core anchors. The following year, in September 1996, a news share agreement was established between WLYH and WHP, resulting in WHP producing a prime time newscast at 10:00 p.m. for channel 15. The effort competed with WPMT, which also aired

1419-437: The spectrum auction, Comet was moved to 15.1, replacing Grit. 15.2 and 15.3 remained dark. WXBU-TV discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over UHF channel 15, on February 17, 2009, to conclude the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television . The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 23, using virtual channel 15. In December 2015, sister station WHP-TV added

1462-668: The station became a part-time ABC affiliate and received other programs from then sister station WFIL-TV (now ABC owned-and-operated station WPVI-TV ) in Philadelphia . Triangle changed the station's call letters on New Year's Day 1959 to WLYH-TV (representing its service area of Lebanon, York and Harrisburg). In 1963, it became a CBS affiliate as part of the Keystone Network, a three-station network serving South Central Pennsylvania that also included WHP-TV (channel 21) in Harrisburg, and WSBA-TV (channel 43, now WPMT-TV ) in York. This arrangement

1505-510: The station changed its callsign to WXBU on March 11, 2016. The call letters correspond to the initials of Xavier B. Underwood, a member of the Williams family who also acts as creative director for Howard Stirk Holdings. In May 2024, WXBU became a Univision affiliate. WLYH established a full news operation in the early 1960s that focused on the eastern portion (including Lebanon and Lancaster) of its large viewing area. Since it has broadcast over

1548-523: The station shares transmitter facilities with Sinclair-owned, Harrisburg -licensed CBS affiliate WHP-TV (channel 21) on a ridge north of Linglestown Road in Middle Paxton Township . The station first signed on the air on October 25, 1953, as WLBR-TV, operating as an independent station . Originally licensed to Lebanon , it transmitted its signal at one kilowatt on a 572-foot (174 m) tower located just north of Mount Gretna . The station

1591-622: 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

1634-784: 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

1677-521: 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

1720-537: Was founded in 2001. The largest private investor in the company was Bray Cary , who served as president and CEO. Cary was formerly an executive with NASCAR , and was responsible for its television contracts before they switched to a bulk network model, along with college basketball syndication. In August 2008, both WTRF and WBOY began carrying ABC programming on their digital subchannel . Previously, longtime ABC affiliate WTAE-TV in Pittsburgh served both markets as

1763-491: 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

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1806-443: Was necessary in the days before cable television gained much penetration. South Central Pennsylvania had just been collapsed into one large and mountainous market earlier in the year. UHF stations have never covered large areas or rugged terrain very well. The Keystone Network created a strong combined signal with 55 percent overlap. Originally, the three stations aired the same programming, though they were separately owned. Later in

1849-714: Was originally owned by the Lebanon Television Corporation, a joint venture of the Lebanon Broadcasting Company (owner of WLBR radio [1270 AM] and WQFM [100.1 FM, now WFVY ]) and the Lebanon News Publishing Company (owner of the Lebanon Daily News ). On October 16, 1954, the station went off the air after Hurricane Hazel knocked out the power to its transmitter, although they had already filed to go dark on that date with

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