WDSU
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| WDSU | |
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| New Orleans, Louisiana | |
| Branding | NewsChannel 6 |
| Slogan | On Your Side |
| Channels | Analog: 6 (VHF) |
| Affiliations | NBC NBC Weather Plus (DT2) |
| Owner | Hearst-Argyle Television, Inc. (New Orleans Hearst-Argyle Television, Inc.) |
| First air date | December 18, 1948 |
| Call letters’ meaning | DeSoto Hotel (station's former location) Joseph Uhalt (founder of WDSU radio) |
| Former callsigns | WDSU-TV (1948-1993) |
| Former affiliations | All secondary: DuMont (1948-1955) CBS (1948-1957) ABC (1948-1957) |
| Transmitter Power | 100 kW (analog) 1000 kW (digital) |
| Height | 283 m (analog) 230 m (digital) |
| Facility ID | 71357 |
| Transmitter Coordinates | |
| Website | www.wdsu.com |
WDSU is the NBC affiliate for the New Orleans, Louisiana television market. It is owned by Hearst-Argyle Television. It broadcasts its analog signal on VHF channel 6 and broadcasts its digital signal on UHF channel 43. Its transmitter is located in Chalmette, Louisiana; while its studios are located in downtown New Orleans. The station also serves as the default NBC affiliate for most of the Gulf Coast region of Mississippi (including Biloxi, Gulfport and Pascagoula) since that area doesn't have an NBC affiliate of its own, and is carried on CableOne systems in southern Mississippi.
The station's current tagline is "6 On Your Side."
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[edit] History
WDSU-TV signed on the air on December 18, 1948 as the first television station in Louisiana. It was owned by New Orleans businessman Edgar B. Stern, Jr. along with WDSU radio (1280 AM, now WODT; and 93.3 FM, now WQUE).
The station initially carried programming from NBC, CBS, ABC and DuMont. Even after WJMR-TV on channel 61 (now Fox affiliate WVUE on channel 8) signed on in 1953 as a primary CBS and secondary ABC affiliate, WDSU continued to "cherry-pick" a few of the higher-rated CBS and ABC programs until 1957, when WWL-TV signed on as a full-time CBS affiliate. At that time, WJMR took the ABC affiliation full-time, leaving WDSU as an exclusive NBC affiliate. It lost DuMont when that network ceased operations in 1956.
The station was originally located at the Monteleone Hotel with its sister radio stations. It moved into the historic Brulatour Mansion on Royal Street in the French Quarter in April 1950. At that point, Stern reorganized his broadcast holdings as the Royal Street Corporation.
WDSU was the ratings leader in New Orleans for over a quarter century, largely because of its strong commitment to local coverage. It originated the first live broadcasts of the Sugar Bowl and Mardi Gras, and was the first area station to have extensive local coverage of a hurricane.
Royal Street merged with Cosmos Broadcasting of Columbia, South Carolina in 1972. Cosmos had to sell off the radio stations because it was over the FCC's ownership limit of the time. Cosmos eliminated much of the local flavor that had been the station's hallmark, opting to concentrate on its already strong news operation (it had been saluted by Time as a news pioneer in 1966). By the early 1980s, rival WWL-TV had overtaken WDSU as the ratings leader. WDSU has been a solid runner-up to WWL for most of the last quarter-century, though in recent years it has had to fend off a strong challenge from a resurgent WVUE.
Cosmos sold WDSU to Pulitzer in 1992. Pulitzer sold its entire television division, including WDSU, to Hearst-Argyle in 1999. The station moved into a new facility on Howard Avenue and Baronne Street in March 1996.
WDSU became the first station in the market to provide color telecasts in 1955, and the first New Orleans station with its own doppler weather radar in the 1990s (Super Doppler 6000).
On November 11, 2006, after a remarkable 51 years in New Orleans broadcast television--nearly all of them with WDSU-- anchor and former news director Alec Gifford officially announced his retirement. His retirement became effective in December 2006.[1]
WDSU's audio signal can also be heard on 87.7 FM in most areas where the video signal can be received; this is because of the electromagnetic field effect which puts the audio signal of channel 6 at the location of 87.75 MHz with tuners getting the signal at 87.7.
WDSU carries "WDSU 6 WeatherPlus" on its digital substation 6.2.
A new news set designed by FX Group debuted in April 2007. The set is HD-ready, though WDSU does not produce HD newscasts.
WDSU 6 WeatherPlus and WDSU-DT have been recently re-added to Charter Communications lineups in southeast Louisiana, including Lafourche Parish, Bourg, Slidell, and Hammond.
[edit] Hurricane Katrina
WDSU's New Orleans studios ceased operations around 9:30pm Sunday, August 28, 2005, allowing staff at the station to take shelter. At that point, WDSU broadcasts began originating from sister Hearst-Argyle station WAPT, the ABC affiliate in Jackson, Mississippi, to which some WDSU on-air staff had already evacuated. Sister station WESH, the NBC affiliate in Orlando, Florida, also originated some on-air weather content. In the immediate weeks following the hurricane, WDSU's news content originated from WAPT with a hybrid team of WAPT and WDSU meteorologists and anchors, with programs simulcast in Jackson and New Orleans.
WDSU's analog and digital transmitters were both destroyed in the hurricane.[2] WDSU arranged to transmit via i affiliate WPXL channel 49 through the end of December 2005; reduced-power service was restored on channel 6 in October of 2005.[1] WDSU replaced their transmitter building with an elevated and rugged hurricane resistant building to house their analog and digital transmitters. Construction of this building was completed in early February 2008.[2][3] On August 1, 2007 WDSU's digital signal was restored, temporarily sharing a frequency with WHNO's digital channel 21. In late February 2008 their analog signal was restored to full power and their digital signal on channel 6.1 was restored on March 6, 2008.
[edit] Digital Retransmission Disputes
In October of 2006, a dispute between WDSU's owner, Hearst-Argyle and Cox Communications caused WDSU's HDTV signal to be pulled from New Orleans area cable TV systems.[3] As a result, no high-definition television content was available from WDSU via any medium (over the air, cable, or satellite), forcing New Orleans viewers looking for high-definition NBC programming to attempt to pull in a signal from Baton Rouge affiliate WVLA. In April 2007, WDSU-DT was added to DirecTV's lineup, after which local cable carriers one-by-one began to add it also.
On September 27, 2007, Cox Communications and Hearst-Argyle announced an agreement to restore WDSU-DT to Cox's New Orleans area cable systems[4]; WDSU-DT and WDSU's WeatherPlus channel were added to Cox's channel lineup the next day.[5]
[edit] News staff
Anchors
- Taslin Alfonzo - weekend mornings and reporter
- Kris Fairbairn - weekday evenings
- Keli Fulton - weekend sports anchor
- Melanie Herbert - weekday mornings and cousumer reporter
- Fletcher Mackel - weekday sports anchor
- LaTonya Norton - weekend mornings and reporter
- Norman Robinson - 6 and 10 pm weekday evenings
- Roop Raj - weekday mornings and noon
- Camille Whitworth - 5 pm anchor and reporter
- Rachel Wulff - weekend evenings/weekday mornings and reporter
Meteorologists
- Dan Milham - chief meteorologist; weekday evenings
- Margaret Orr - weekday mornings, wears red on Fridays
- Damon Singleton - weekend mornings
- Ron Smiley - weekend evenings
Reporters
- Heath Allen - married to former WVUE-TV reporter Janet Gross.
- Richard Angelico - senior investigative reporter
- Dr. Corey Hebert - Chief Medical Editor
- Ken Jones - reporter
- Travers Mackel - investigative reporter and twin brother of Fletcher Mackel
- Howard Robinson - crime and safety expert
- Randi Rousseau - traffic reporter
- Gina Swanson - reporter
[edit] Former staff
- Cammie Aldridge- Reporter
- Lisa Bacques - now traffic reporter for Metroscan Traffic Network, New Orleans.
- Steve Bellas
- Stephanie Boswell (1997-2005)
- Ro Brown
- Leslie Carde
- Bob and Jan Carr - "Midday" and "Second Cup" hosts
- Ed Daniels - sports; now sports director at New Orleans ABC affiliate WGNO
- Trevous Dickerson - Reporter
- Bernard "Buddy" Diliberto - sportscaster; later worked for WWL Radio (1980-1990).
- Byron Dowty - sports
- Clancy DuBos - now the publisher of the New Orleans Gambit Weekly newspaper
- Devin Fehley - now at WAGA Atlanta, Georgia
- Terry Flettrich - "Midday" host and "Mrs. Muffin"
- Lynn Ganser
- Joe Giardina - Reporter; now Regional General Manager Lindmark Outdoor Advertising
- Alec Gifford - longest serving reporter at WDSU (1955-1966; 1980-2006); also took on a correspondent job with NBC News for a year.
- Mason Granger - general manager
- Nancy Holland
- Marcia Kavanaugh
- Mel Leavitt
- Rich Lenz - now at KOTV, Tulsa
- Vince Marinello
- Gary Mattingly
- Bill Monroe - original news reporter who left for NBC in Washington and eventually became the host of NBC's Meet the Press
- Helena Moreno - weekday mornings and consumer reporter (Resigned 3/4/08. Considering a run for Congress.)
- Ed Reams - now at WHSV Harrisonburg, Virginia
- Nash Roberts - meteorologist (1948-1973); later at WVUE and WWL; retired.
- Susan Roberts - now at CBS News
- Susan Roesgen - did a stint at WGNO; now at CNN
- Mike Sanders - now with St. Bernard Parish Sheriff's Office
- Al Shea - entertainment critic, now at WYES
- Scott Simmons - now at WAPT Jackson, Mississippi
- William "Bill" Stanley - hosted WDSU's Breakfast Edition (1957-1987); died March 7, 2001.
- Jimmy Steele - weekend sports anchor during the late 70s
- Dan Thomas - meteorologist; now at WSMV Nashville, Tennessee.
- Dick Van Dyke - had his own variety show before Hollywood came calling
- Stan Verrett - sports; now at ESPN
- Terry Wood
- Charles Zewe - previously with WWL-TV; formerly at CNN; now Vice President of Communications for the Louisiana State University System
[edit] References
- ^ Walker, Dave. On The Air The Times-Picayune, New Orleans, Louisiana. Printed 11 November, 2006.
- ^ Hearst-Argyle Television Announces Results for the Third Quarter and Nine Months Investor Calendar. 27 October, 2005.
- ^ Bachman, Katy. H-A Pulls Six HD Signals Off Cox Systems MediaWeek. Posted 02 October, 2006
[edit] External links
- WDSU's Web site
- Query the FCC's TV station database for WDSU
- BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on WDSU-TV
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