WCIA (TV)

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WCIA
Champaign / Urbana / Springfield / Decatur, Illinois
Slogan	Your news leader
Channels	3 (VHF) analog, 48 (UHF) digital
Affiliations	CBS
Owner	Nexstar Broadcasting Group
Founded	November 13, 1953
Former affiliations	NBC, DuMont (1953-1956) [1]
Website	http://www.illinoishomepage.net/

WCIA channel 3 is the CBS affiliate located in Champaign, Illinois. Owned by Nexstar Broadcasting Group Inc., its the sister station to WCFN-TV, the MyNetworkTV affiliate licensed to Springfield, Illinois. Both WCIA and WCFN are operated out of the Champaign television facility.

Contents 1 History 1.1 Hitting the Airwaves 1.2 Logos 1.3 Station names over the years 1.4 Slogans 1.5 News Themes 2 Locally-Produced Programming 2.1 News 2.2 Sports 2.3 Entertainment 3 WCIA's Removal from Bloomington/Normal Cable Systems 4 High-Definition Programming Troubles 5 Personalities 5.1 Current 5.2 Former 6 References 7 External links

[edit] History

[edit] Hitting the Airwaves

WCIA went on the air November 13, 1953 and was owned and operated by Midwest Television, Inc. headquartered in Champaign. The late August C. Meyer Sr., a lawyer and chairman of the board of the Champaign-based Bank of Illinois, founded Midwest Television in 1952. Meyer expanded the company's market presence by purchasing the San Diego, California-based CBS affiliate KFMB-TV and its AM and FM sister stations. Midwest still owns KFMB. The station was affiliated with the CBS, NBC, and DuMont networks [2].

WCIA was a major beneficiary of the Chicago exception to the FCC's "2 1/2 + 1" plan for allocating VHF television bandwidth. In the early days of broadcast television, there were 12 VHF channels available, and 69 UHF channels (later reduced). The VHF bands were more desirable because they carried a longer distance. Because there were only twelve VHF channels available, there were limitations as to how closely the stations could be spaced. During the late 1940's, the FCC devised the "2 1/2 + 1" plan for allocating VHF licenses. Under this plan, almost all of the country would be able to receive two commercial VHF channels plus one public access channel. Most of the rest of the country ("1/2") would be able to receive a third VHF channel. Other areas of the country would depend on UHF channels, which were more suitable for inner-city broadcasting where long distances were not involved. The "2" networks became CBS and NBC, "+1" became PBS, and "1/2" became ABC, which, as the weakest network, usually wound up with the UHF allocation where no VHF was available.

Under the original plan, the City of Chicago was to receive four VHF channels: three commercial and one public. The City was, however, Democratic, and President Harry Truman was a Democrat. Four VHF channels would never do for such a politically important City. Truman therefore ordered the FCC to grant additional VHF licenses to Chicago. This meant that the areas around Chicago had to surrender a VHF license. This created a "1 2/2 + 1" doughnut around Chicago: There could only be a single commercial VHF license, plus a public license, in a ring around Chicago. WCIA received therefore the only commercial VHF license for central Illinois. WCIA became a CBS affiliate; NBC and ABC had to make do with UHF and relay towers to cover the large rural area of Central Illinois. This created a monopoly for WCIA, making it the most profitable television station in the country for many years.

[edit] Logos

WCIA-TV Logo, circa 1970 to 2000

WCIA-TV Logo, 2000 to 2005

WCIA-TV Logo, 2005 to present

[edit] Station names over the years

[edit] Slogans

WCIA has used the popular Hello News image campaign and slogan from Gari Communications since the 1980s and is still used on the station today for their Hello Central Illinois campaign

• "Your News Leader"
• "Central Illinois News Leader"
• "At Home with You"
• "The World at Home"

[edit] News Themes

Over the years WCIA has been going through numerous theme changes. Heres what they used.

• "Captain from Castile: Conquest" Alfred Newman, 1960-1969
• "Cool Hand Luke: The Tar Sequence" Lalo Schifrin Music 1969-1972
• "Move Closer To Your World" Mayoham Music 1972-1975
• "On Top Of It All" Mayoham Music 1975-1982 - this theme was later used at several other stations, including WBRC-TV in Birmingham, Alabama and KDBC-TV in El Paso, Texas.
• "Hello News" Gari Communications 1982-1989
• "The Great News Package" Gari Communications 1989-1994
• "Hello News" Gari Communications 1994-1998
• "This Is Your News" Gari Communications 1998-2006
• "The CBS Enforcer Music Collection" Gari Communications 2006-present

[edit] Locally-Produced Programming

[edit] News

WCIA 3 News airs weekdays at: Noon, 5:00 p.m., 6:00 p.m. WCIA 3 News airs weekends at 5:30 p.m. (Sunday), 6:00 p.m. (Saturday) WCIA 3 News airs every day at 10:00 p.m.. The Morning Show on WCIA 3 airs from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. Monday to Friday. WCIA used to share news reports with WMBD-TV when their Bloomington/Normal newsroom began operations.

[edit] Sports

Until March 3, 2007, WCIA-TV was the flagship station for the University of Illinois Fighting Illini sports broadcasts (rights to these games were lost with the startup of the Big Ten Network).

[edit] Entertainment

Happy Home 1950s

Welcome Travelers 1950s

At the Hop 1950s-1960s, John Coleman and later with Ed Mason

Sun-Up 1960s, Tom Jones

Sheriff Sid 1960s

Dialing for Dollars 1960s-1970s

Way Out with Cousin Trebor 1963-1965

The Second Cup 1970s

The Bruce Weber Show

PM Magazine

Illinois Journal

[edit] WCIA's Removal from Bloomington/Normal Cable Systems

At one time, WCIA-TV was available on Bloomington/Normal Cable along with WMBD-TV until March 2000. That year, Nexstar Broadcasting, who had bought out Channel 3 and Channel 31, announced it would pull WCIA from AT&T Cable Services (now Comcast) in Bloomington-Normal due to competition with WMBD-TV. The move would make WMBD-TV the only CBS affiliate and mean that WMBD would not have to share advertisers with or lose ratings points to WCIA. A group of outraged Bloomington/Normal residents called "Citizens to Keep WCIA on the Air" started a group that protested against Nexstar telling them not to drop Channel 3. Nexstar didn't listen, and eventually dropped WCIA from Bloomington/Normal area cable systems.

[edit] High-Definition Programming Troubles

In November of 2006 work began to re-secure WCIA’s existing tower at Seymour so it will be able to hold a new digital transmission line and antenna. The station claims it will begin broadcasting a high definition signal sometime in February 2007, but it will not be in time for the Super Bowl.^[1] This marks the twelfth time the station has "updated" its proposed HD timeline, first starting in July 2006, then to September 2006, then to the end of 2006, to January 2007, to in time for the Super Bowl, now to no high power signal over the air until after the Super Bowl. No construction has have been announced for it’s WCFN Mechanicsburg tower site. WCIA did have an HD channel available on Insight cable in time for the Super Bowl however.

[edit] Personalities

[edit] Current

Abbie Alford - Springfield Bureau Reporter Aaron Bennett - Sports Reporter Dave Benton - Anchor at 6 & 10 p.m. (MyCFN News at 9 Anchor) Rob Collins - Morning Anchor Anne Dill - Morning/Noon Anchor Jason Elliott - Sports Director Amanda Evans - Decatur Bureau Reporter Judy Fraser - Weathercaster at 5 & 6 p.m. Amber Jenne - Reporter Sarah Jindra - Reporter Jennifer Ketchmark - Morning/Noon Weathercaster Michelle Liu - Reporter Nevin Nelson - Weekend Sports Anchor/Reporter Robert Reese - 10 p.m. Meteorologist (MyCFN News at 9 Meteorologist) Jennifer Roscoe - Anchor at 5, 6, and 10 p.m. Tinisha Shade - Weekend Anchor/Reporter Catie Sheehan - Springfield Bureau Reporter Ryan Springer - Weekend Weathercaster Charles Vance - Weekend Anchor/Reporter Christina Wall - Reporter

[edit] Former

• Tony Abel
• Chanel Allen
• Ann Anderson
• Ryan Baker
• Susan Barnett
• Ramey Becker
• Eric Bertshe
• Judy Brown
• Elaine Cagas (Quijano)
• Carl Caldwell
• Colleen Callahan
• Marta Carreira
• Shaun Chaiyabaht
• Jonathan Choe
• Mike Cleff
• Christopher Coffey
• John Coleman
• Chris Curtis
• Paul Davis
• Gene Ellrick
• Carol Fowler
• Dave Freeman
• Jeff Hackett
• Pam Hansen
• Alexandra Harold
• Alissa Havens
• Jennifer Hendricks
• Alan Heymann
• Eric Horng
• Dave Shaul
• John Paul
• Ed Kelly
• Alexis Johnson
• Kevin Johnson
• Daralene Jones
• Tom Jones
• Nancy Jordan
• Mike Kaplan
• Suzanne Kaye
• Steve Kelly
• Ed Kieser
• Van King
• Cindy Klose
• Mary Sue Kruger
• Amy Lester
• Jack Margraves
• Michael Marsh
• Gabrielle Martin
• John Mayo
• Joe Mazan
• Pat McCraney
• Scott McGee
• Matt Metcalf
• Tim Moore
• Rich Mueller
• Amy O'Keefe
• Jason Overstreet
• Cheryl Pettis
• Ted Pretty
• Eric Rasmussen
• Dan Roan
• Suzanne Reid
• Wyndham Jack "Mr." Roberts
• Andy Sachs
• Martin Savidge
• Tom Schoendinist
• Cliff Shell
• Donna Shulte
• Sally Shulze
• Jerry Slabe
• Wynne Smiley
• Fred Sorenson
• Denise Strzelczyk
• Rick Sullivan
• Mike Tannura
• Steve Trainor
• John Valenziano
• Brenda Vaughn
• Dennis Vaughn
• Bob Waters
• Meredith Welsch
• Elizabeth Wenger
• Chris Widlic
• Don Wilcox
• Carrie White
• Trisha Whitkanack (later Shepherd)
• Blake Wood
• Larry Wood

[edit] References

1. ^ http://www.wcia.com/highdef.asp

[edit] External links

• WCIA Home Page
• Query the FCC's TV station database for WCIA
• A three-part history of WCIA, with many pictures.

Broadcast television in the Champaign-Urbana/Decatur/Springfield market  (Nielsen DMA #82)
WCIA 3 (CBS) - WSIU 8 / WUSI 16 (PBS) - WILL 12 (PBS) - WSEC 14 (PBS) - WICD 15 / WICS 20 (ABC) - WAND 17 (NBC) - WBUI 23 (The CW) - W29BG/W34DL 34 (TBN) - WBXC 46 (MTV2) - WCFN 49 (MNTV) - WEIU 51 (PBS) - WRSP 55 / WCCU 27 (Fox)
Defunct stations:
WJJY 14 (ABC)