WIS

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WIS
Columbia, South Carolina
Branding	WIS News 10
Slogan	Count on WIS News 10; The Spirit of Carolina The Station You Count On For Local News
Channels	10 (VHF) analog, 41-1, 41-2 (NBC Weather Plus) (UHF) digital
Affiliations	NBC
Owner	Raycom Media (Licensed as WIS License Subsidiary, LLC)
Founded	November 7, 1953
Call letters meaning	Wonderful Iodine State
Former affiliations	ABC (secondary, 1953-61)
Website	wistv.com

WIS, channel 10 is the NBC television affiliate for Columbia, South Carolina and was the flagship station of Liberty Corporation before the company was acquired by Raycom Media. WIS' transmitter is located in Lugoff, South Carolina. The station's studios are located at 1111 Bull Street, three blocks east of the South Carolina Statehouse, and directly next to the Rutledge Building, home of the South Carolina Department of Education. The station's auxiliary broadcasting tower, located on top of its studios, is a longtime fixture of Columbia's skyline and is turned into a "Christmas tree of lights" during the holiday season.

Because the Florence-Myrtle Beach television market doesn't have an NBC affiliate, WIS serves as the NBC affiliate for the western portion of the market. It operates a "virtual station" on most Pee Dee cable systems and sells advertising in Florence. This will change when WMBF-TV goes on the air, which will be the new NBC affiliate for the Florence-Myrtle Beach area, owned by Raycom Media.

WIS is also the Columbia home of the Sunday morning football highlights shows for the South Carolina State University Bulldogs and the University of South Carolina Gamecocks. WIS is also the home of Southeastern Conference football and basketball (which, in some cases, makes the station the home of the South Carolina Gamecocks).

Contents 1 History 1.1 Long-Time Personalities 1.2 Logos 2 Newscasts 2.1 Weekdays 3 Digital Television 4 External links

[edit] History

The station signed on the air on November 7, 1953 with a football game between the Gamecocks and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Tar Heels. It was owned by the Broadcasting Company of the South, a subsidiary the Liberty Life Insurance Company, along with WIS (AM) 560. It was South Carolina's fourth television station and the third in Columbia, signing on just four months after WCOS-TV, channel 25 and two months after WNOK-TV, channel 67 (now WLTX, channel 19). It is currently the third-oldest station in the state and the second-oldest in Columbia, since WCOS went dark in 1956. WIS (AM) received the last new three-letter call sign in the U.S.on January 23, 1930, and the callsign was shared with its younger television sibling. WIS was chosen to stand for "Wonderful Iodine State" because of the abundance of iodine in the South Carolina soil.

As WIS-TV was the first (and as it turned out, only) VHF station in the market, it was the first television experience for many people in that part of South Carolina. It has been the market leader for most of its life. In the early years, before channel 25 returned to the air as WCCA-TV (now WOLO-TV), it was a secondary ABC affiliate, sharing ABC shows with WNOK.

In 1959, WIS-TV activated its tall tower in Lugoff, South Carolina. The tallest structure east of the Mississippi River at the time, and it expanded the station's coverage to all but five of the state's 41 counties.

In 1963, the station's long running children's program, "Mr. Knozit," made its debut, with long-time weathercaster and personality Joe Pinner as host. Four years later, the show would receive the Peabody Award for excellence in public service by way of children's programming. The show would run for 37 years, airing its final episode in 2000. Pinner remains at the station today; now semi-retired, he provides weather reports and feature segments on Friday's Midday newscast.

The Broadcasting Company of the South was renamed Cosmos Broadcasting Corporation in 1965 -- later in the decade, Liberty Life reorganized itself as The Liberty Corporation, with Liberty Life and Cosmos as subsidiaries. When WIS (AM) was sold in 1986, Cosmos kept the WIS callsign for the TV station and the radio station was renamed WVOC. Liberty sold off its insurance businesses in 2000, bringing WIS (TV) directly under the Liberty Corporation banner.

In 1970, WIS premiered "Awareness," a weekly public affairs program aimed towards the issues that concern the minority population of the Midlands, both socially and politically.

In the 1990s, the station purchased its own Doppler radar, and in 1998, the station introduced the first news helicopter in South Carolina.

On August 25, 2005, Liberty agreed to merge with Raycom Media of Montgomery, Alabama. One of Raycom's stations at the time was Columbia's Fox affiliate, WACH. WIS produced "WACH FOX News at 10" when it was launched in 1996, an agreement that lasted until March 2007. Raycom sold WACH to Barrington Broadcasting and effectively ended the news agreement between the two stations. WACH now produces its own 10PM newscast independent of WIS.

[edit] Long-Time Personalities

Many of WIS' personalities have been with the station for a number of years:

• Former news anchor Ed Carter had been at WIS-TV from 1972 until he retired in late 1998.
• Former news anchor Susan Audé (formerly Susan Audé-Fisher) had been with the station from 1978 until retiring from WIS on February 2, 2006.
• Senior Reporter Jack Kuenzie has been there since 1984.
• News Anchor David Stanton has worked at WIS since 1987.
• Sports Director Rick Henry has worked there since 1988.
• News Anchor and Health Alert reporter Dawndy Mercer first worked at WIS from 1991-1996, but rejoined the station in 2001.
• Joe Pinner, a mainstay at WIS since 1963, hosted a wildly popular children's show, "Mr. Knozit," for which the station received a Peabody Award for 1967. He also did weather forecasts on various newscasts from 1963 until 2000, when he reduced his duties at the station. He still presents the weather segment on the Midday newscasts on Fridays, as well as appearing at various locations around the Columbia area during newscasts.

[edit] Logos

This was the famous "Red/Blue" logo from the 1970s and early 1980s.	This was the same logo but with the 3D "10". There was a famous trumpet and chimes audio identity that went with this logo, which was launched in 1978.	This was the "Big 10" logo used in the later half of the 1980s.	This was the "WIS News" branding used in the early 1990s without the Channel number 10.
This was the "WIS News" branding updated with the NBC Logo used in the late 1990s.	This is the current WIS 10 logo, featuring the Channel number 10.

[edit] Newscasts

[edit] Weekdays

• WIS News 10 Sunrise: 5:00 - 7:00 a.m.
  • Anchor: Hannah Horne
  • Storm Alert Weather: Chief Meteorologist Ken Aucoin (To depart at the end of May)
  • Live with Lucas: Lucas McFadden

• WIS News 10 Midday: 12:00 - 12:30 p.m.
  • Anchors: David Stanton, Hannah Horne
  • Storm Alert Weather: Chief Meteorologist Ken Aucoin, Fridays with Weathercaster Joe Pinner

• WIS News 10 Live at Five: 5:00 - 5:30 p.m.
  • Anchors: Judi Gatson, Craig Melvin
  • Health Alert: Dawndy Mercer
  • Storm Alert Weather: Meteorologist Ben Tanner

• WIS News 10 at 6:00: 6:00 - 6:30 p.m.
  • Anchors: Craig Melvin, Judi Gatson
  • Storm Alert Weather: Meteorologist Ben Tanner
  • Sports: Rick Henry

• WIS News 10 7:00 Report: 7:00 - 7:30 p.m.
  • Anchors: Dawndy Mercer, David Stanton
  • Storm Alert Weather: Meteorologist Ben Tanner
  • Sports: Rick Henry

• WIS News 10 Nightcast: 11:00 - 11:35 p.m.
  • Anchors: Craig Melvin, Dawndy Mercer
  • Storm Alert Weather: Meteorologist Ben Tanner
  • Sports: Rick Henry

[edit] Digital Television

WIS-DT is an ATSC digital television signal broadcast over channel 41 available over-the-air with a digital tuner, or through digital cable service from Time Warner Cable. With either, there is an offering of two sub-channels:

High-Definition

• WIS HD on DT 10.1 / 4`.1 (Time Warner 805)

Standard-Definition

• WIS 10 NBC Weather Plus on DT 10.2 / 41.2 (Time Warner 806)

As of March 20, 2007, the Newscasts on WIS are not broadcasted in High Definition. Most NBC programs broadcasted from 8 PM ET, are broadcasted in HD.

[edit] External links

• WIStv.com: Official Website for WIS
• WIS Page on Raycom Media Web Site
• Query the FCC's TV station database for WIS

Broadcast television in the Columbia market  (Nielsen DMA #83)
WIS 10 (NBC) (WX Plus) on DT2 - WLTX 19 (CBS) - WOLO 25 (ABC) - WRLK 35 (PBS/SCETV) - W39CL 39 (TBN) - WZRB 47 (The CW) - W55CQ 55 (TBN) - WACH 57 (Fox) (The Tube) on DT2- WKTC 63 (MNTV)

NBC Network Affiliates in the state of South Carolina
WCBD 2 (Charleston) - WYFF 4 (Greenville) - WIS 10 (Columbia) - WMBF 32 (Florence)1
1-- Not yet on the air.
See also: ABC, CBS, Fox, PBS, CW, MyNetworkTV and Other stations in South Carolina