WVAH-TV
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| WVAH-TV | |
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| Charleston/Huntington, West Virginia | |
| Branding | WVAH Fox 11 |
| Channels | Analog: 11 (VHF) |
| Affiliations | Fox |
| Owner | Cunningham Broadcasting Corporation (LMA with Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc.) (WVAH Licensee, LLC) |
| First air date | September 19, 1982 |
| Call letters’ meaning | West Virginia Almost Heaven |
| Sister station(s) | WCHS-TV |
| Former channel number(s) | 23 (1982-1989) |
| Former affiliations | Primary: independent (1982-1986) Secondary: UPN (1995-2000) |
| Transmitter Power | 52.4 kW (analog) 475 kW (digital) |
| Height | 523.6 m (analog) 514.1 m (digital) |
| Facility ID | 417 |
| Transmitter Coordinates | |
| Website | www.wvah.com |
WVAH-TV is the Fox network affiliate in the Huntington / Charleston, West Virginia television market. It is licensed to Charleston, with studios in Teays Valley, an unincorporated suburban community equidistant between Charleston and Huntington that shares a post office with Hurricane. It is owned by Cunningham Broadcasting Corporation, but operated by Sinclair Broadcast Group in a local marketing agreement with Sinclair-owned ABC affiliate WCHS-TV. However, Sinclair effectively owns WVAH due to Cunningham's financial structure (see below). The station shares news operations with WCHS. WVAH's transmitter is located in St. Albans, West Virginia.
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[edit] History
The station was founded on September 19, 1982 on channel 23. It was owned by the newly-created Meridian Communications based out of Pittsburgh, which won the license after the West Virginia General Assembly forced West Virginia Public Broadcasting to withdraw its own application for the channel. The dispute had tied up its assignment for a decade. It was the first independent station in West Virginia, the first new commercial station in the market since what is now WOWK-TV signed on in 1955, and the first commercial UHF station in the state since WKNA-TV in Charleston went off the air in 1955. It became a charter Fox affiliate in 1986. Act III Broadcasting bought the station in 1987.
Soon after buying control, Act III applied to move the station to the VHF band. Despite broadcasting from a 2,000-foot tower with the maximum 5 million watts of power, WVAH had considerable difficulty penetrating the entire market. The Charleston-Huntington market covers 61 counties in central West Virginia, eastern Kentucky and southern Ohio. Most of this area is a very rugged dissected plateau, making it difficult for a UHF station to cover such a large area. It also knocked WSAZ-TV's low-power relay for the Kanawha Valley, also on channel 23, off the air on several occasions. Because of this, WVAH was permitted to switch to VHF channel 11 in 1989, 3 years after Fox's launch. However, the station is short-spaced to WPXI in Pittsburgh and WJHL-TV in Johnson City, Tennessee. WVAH must conform its signal to protect WJHL, making the signal hard to receive in the southwestern portion of the market.
Act III merged with Abry Communications in 1994. Abry, in turn, was merged into the Sinclair Broadcast Group later in 1994. In 1997, Sinclair purchased the broadcasting properties of Heritage Media, which included WCHS (the remainder of Heritage Media went to News Corporation). It could not keep both WCHS and WVAH due to FCC rules in effect at the time forbidding duopolies. Sinclair opted to keep the longer-established WCHS, and sold WVAH to Glencairn, Ltd., which was headed by former Sinclair executive Edwin Edwards. However, 97% of Glencairn's stock was controlled by the Smith family, Sinclair's founding owners. In effect, Sinclair still owned WVAH, and now had a duopoly in the Huntington-Charleston market in violation of FCC rules. Glencairn and Sinclair further circumvented the rules by entering into a local marketing agreement with Sinclair, with WCHS as senior partner. Glencairn had similar arrangements in its other markets. [1]
In 2001, Sinclair tried to acquire Glencairn outright, but the FCC did not allow Sinclair to re-acquire WVAH because it does not allow common ownership of two of the four highest-rated stations in a single market. As a result, Glencairn kept WVAH and changed its name to Cunningham Broadcasting. However, the Smiths retained control of nearly all of Cunningham's stock, so Sinclair still effectively has a duopoly in the market.
In 1995, WVAH began airing UPN programming during overnight hours. However, WVAH could not clear the entire UPN schedule, and dropped the network in early 2000.
WVAH carries NCAA sports from the Southeastern Conference.
Following a tower collapse in 2002, the station moved its transmitter and almost all of its facilities to WCHS' studios in Charleston. WVAH's main studio, however, remains in Teays Valley.
Sinclair and Fox recently finalized a six-year affiliation contract extension for Sinclair's 19 Fox affiliates, including WVAH. WVAH's affiliation contract now expires in March 2012. [2]
[edit] Carriage controversies
[edit] Dish Network and Sinclair dispute
Sinclair and Dish Network were both in a brief dispute over retransmission fees on May 17, 2005 [3]. This dispute was resolved on May 20, 2005 as the notice was taken down. [4]
[edit] Suddenlink and Sinclair dispute
In the summer of 2006, Charter Communications streamlined its operations, which included selling off portions of its cable system which were "geographically non-strategic." Charter accounts in WCHS's market area were purchased by Suddenlink Communications (formerly known as Cebridge). Sinclair Broadcast Group, the parent company of both WCHS-TV and WVAH, requested a $40 million one time fee and a $1 per sub per month fee from Suddenlink for retransmission rights of these stations on the Suddenlink cable system.[5] This led to a protracted media battle and smear campaign between the two companies, and Sinclair pulled the two stations off the air in the Beckley market.
After several weeks of negotiations, the two companies reached an agreement which allowed WCHS and WVAH to continue transmission over the Suddenlink cable system. The terms of the agreement were not released to the public.[6]
[edit] Time Warner and Sinclair dispute
As of December 20, 2006 Time Warner will lose Sinclair Broadcast Group owned and operated stations like WCHS-TV in Charleston, WV and stations that are in local marketing agreements like WVAH-TV in Charleston, WV with Sinclair on December 31, 2006. This only applies to cable subscribers that were previously owned by Adelphia [7]. An agreement has been made until January 12, 2007 for negotiations [8].
[edit] External links
- WVAH Fox 11 Homepage
- Query the FCC's TV station database for WVAH
- BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on WVAH-TV
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