WMC-TV

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WMC-TV
Memphis, Tennessee
Branding	Action News 5
Channels	5 (VHF) analog, 52 (UHF) digital
Affiliations	NBC The Tube NBC Weather Plus
Owner	Raycom Media
Founded	December 11, 1948 on channel 4 (moved to channel 5 in 1952)
Call letters meaning	W Memphis Commercial Appeal
Former callsigns	WMCT (1948-60)
Former affiliations	DuMont (secondary, 1948-56), CBS (secondary, 1948-53), ABC (secondary, 1948-55)
Website	www.wmctv.com

WMC-TV "Action News 5" is the NBC affiliate for the Memphis, Tennessee metropolitan area. The station serves roughly the western third of Tennessee, northwestern Mississippi, eastern central Arkansas and the southeastern corner of Missouri over the air on satellite and on various cable systems. Its transmitter is located in Memphis. News 5 WeatherPlus is offered through WMC's digital signal.

Contents 1 History 2 Newscasts 2.1 Weekdays 2.2 Saturdays 2.3 Sundays 3 Reporters 4 Weather 5 Former News Staff 6 Other Details 7 External links

[edit] History

WMC-TV, Tennessee's first television station, started as WMCT on December 11, 1948 on channel 4. It was owned by the E.W. Scripps Company along with the city's main newspaper, The Commercial Appeal, WMC (AM) 790 and WMCF (FM) 99.7. It moved to channel 5 sometime in 1952 due to interference with WSM-TV in Nashville (now WSMV), incidentally also an NBC affiliate. It dropped the "T" from its callsign on New Year's Day 1960 (at the same time, the co-owned FM station changed its calls from WMCF to WMC-FM). The longtime "5" logo (resembling the style found on a five-dollar bill) debuted on this date, and would be used for over two decades.

Scripps sold WMC-AM-FM-TV to Ellis Communications in 1993; Ellis in turn merged with Aflac's broadcasting unit in 1996 to become Raycom Media. Raycom sold the radio stations off in 2002.

One of the station's first broadcasts was a live football game at Crump Stadium in Memphis. For many years beginning in 1976, channel 5 broadcast a highly popular live in-studio professional wrestling program on Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Some of the wrestlers became regional celebrities from their exposure on the program, perhaps most notably Jerry "The King" Lawler, whose fame earned him his own locally-produced TV sports show, seen on channel 5 on Sundays during the 1980s. The wrestling show eventually became the last remaining program of its kind in the U.S., before its cancellation in the 1990s. Prior to WMC picking up the program, it had aired on WHBQ-TV in that same time period from 1972 to 1976, at which time WMC made a better deal with the promoters.

For many years, WMC dominated the Nielsen ratings in Memphis television news. However, its ratings started to erode due to increased competition. Finally, in February 2006, competitor WREG took the lead for the first time in 20 years at 10 p.m. - a lead it held all year. WREG's morning and noon newscasts are also number one in the market. WMC has maintained its lead in the early evening newscasts, but viewership is down significantly.

Recently the station's newly renovated newsroom was named after long time employee Ed Greaney, who died in 2005. In October 2006, WMC debuted a new news set, along with updated graphics and music. The set makeover was the first at the station since 1995.

WMC TV5 news set circa early 1970s

[edit] Newscasts

WMC produces more than 30 hours of news each week.

[edit] Weekdays

• 4:30am - 7:00am: Action News 5 Today

Bill Lunn, Kym Clark, Ron Childers - Weather

• 12:00pm - 1:00pm: Action News 5 at Noon

Bill Lunn, Ursula Madden, John Bryant or Tim Van Horn - Weather

• 5:00pm - 5:30pm: Action News 5 at 5pm

Joe Birch, Donna Davis, Dave Brown - Weather

• 6:00pm - 6:30pm: Action News 5 at 6pm

Joe Birch, Donna Davis, Dave Brown - Weather, Jarvis Greer - Sports

• 10:00pm - 10:35pm: Action News 5 at 10pm

Joe Birch, Donna Davis, Dave Brown - Weather, Jarvis Greer - Sports

NOTE: Prior to the mid-1990s, WMC ran a full hour of news from 5-6 p.m., tape-delaying NBC Nightly News until 6. This was one of only a few instances of a station in a Central Time Zone market doing so.

[edit] Saturdays

• 8:00am - 10:00am: Action News 5 Today

Anna Marie Hartman, Tim Van Horn - Weather

• 5:00pm - 5:30pm: Action News 5 at 5pm

Syan Rhodes, Nick Paranjape, John Bryant - Weather, Dave Cera - Sports

• 6:00pm - 6:30pm: Action News 5 at 6pm

Syan Rhodes, Nick Paranjape, John Bryant - Weather, Dave Cera - Sports

• 10:00pm - 10:30pm: Action News 5 at 10pm

Syan Rhodes, Nick Paranjape, John Bryant - Weather, Dave Cera - Sports

[edit] Sundays

• 8:00am - 9:00am: Action News 5 Today

Anna Marie Hartman, Ben Watson, Tim Van Horn - Weather

• 5:00pm - 5:30pm: Action News 5 at 5pm

Syan Rhodes, John Bryant - Weather, Dave Cera - Sports

• 10:00pm - 10:30pm: Action News 5 at 10pm

Syan Rhodes, Nick Paranjape, John Bryant - Weather, Dave Cera - Sports

• 10:30pm - 11:00pm: Action News 5 at 10:30pm

Syan Rhodes, Nick Paranjape, John Bryant - Weather, Dave Cera - Sports

[edit] Reporters

• Janice Broach
• Anna Marie Hartman
• George Brown
• Ben Watson
• Andrew Douglas
• Kontji Anthony
• Brooke Sanders
• Carrie Anderson

[edit] Weather

• Dave Brown
• Ron Childers
• Tim Van Horn
• John Bryant

[edit] Former News Staff

Anchors

• Dick Hawley
• Peggy Rolfes
• Mason Granger
• Brenda Wood - WXIA
• Kim Hindrew
• Warren Williams
• Mearl Purvis - WHBQ
• Jack Eaton - Sports
• Richard Ransom - WREG
• Jane Segal
• Carrie McClure - KUSA
• Jovita Moore - WSB
• Mike Puchinelli - WBBM

Weather

• David Tillman - KTRK
• Bob McClain

Reporters

• Basil Hero
• Nancy Hart
• Janet Morris
• Myron Lowery
• Rusty Ruffin
• Harold Graeter
• Les Smith
• Greg Shackleford
• Michelle Loibner
• Steve Shular
• Greeley Kyle - Univ. of Missouri
• David Trust
• Jackie Nedell
• Paul Morrison
• Joyce Peterson - WPTY
• Julie Ryan
• Geraud Moncure
• Rudy Koski - KVUE
• Rod Starns
• Terry Mann
• Keith Daniels - WBFF
• Jeff Abell - WBFF
• Yvette Mena
• Tommy Stafford

[edit] Other Details

• WMC has included, since at least the 1960s, with its logo an illustration of a riverboat, a symbol of the Mississippi River region which the station serves. For many years, WMC's station ID included the riverboat's whistle sounding. The whistle is still heard at the opening of WMC-TV's current newscasts.
• WMC's current logo is similar to another Raycom station's logo, WECT in Wilmington, North Carolina.
• After the digital transition ends on February 17, 2009, WMC's digital channel 52 will no longer be available, since the top of the UHF band will be truncated to channel 51. However, rather than demand another channel, WMC chose to keep its analog channel 5 as its new digital channel, even though it is a "VHF-low" channel commonly thought to be undesirable for digital broadcasting. [1]

[edit] External links

• WMCTV.com Home
• Query the FCC's TV station database for WMC-TV