| Terre Haute, Indiana | |
|---|---|
| Branding | WAWV (general) WAWV News (5 p.m. newscast and 10 p.m. online newscast) |
| Channels | Digital: 39 (UHF) Virtual: 38 (PSIP) |
| Subchannels | (see article) |
| Affiliations | ABC (1973-1995 and 2011-present) |
| Owner | Mission Broadcasting (operated under a JSA by Nexstar Broadcasting Group) |
| First air date | April 3, 1973 |
| Call letters' meaning | ABC Wabash Valley |
| Sister station(s) | WTWO |
| Former callsigns | WIIL-TV (1973-1978) WBAK-TV (1978-2005) WFXW (2005-2011) |
| Former channel number(s) | Analog: 38 (UHF, 1973-2009) |
| Former affiliations | Fox (1995-2011) |
| Transmitter power | 850 kW |
| Height | 248 m |
| Facility ID | 65247 |
| Website | mywabashvalley.com |
WAWV-TV is the ABC-affiliated television station for the Wabash Valley area of west central Indiana that is licensed to Terre Haute. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 39 from a transmitter at their studios on U.S. 41 and U.S. 150 south of Farmersburg. Owned by Mission Broadcasting, the station is operated through a joint sales agreement (a.k.a. JSA) by the Nexstar Broadcasting Group. This makes WAWV a sister station to NBC affiliate WTWO.
Contents |
| Channel | Video | Aspect | Name | Programming |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 38.1 | 720p | 16:9 | WAWV-DT | Main WAWV programming / ABC |
The station began on April 3, 1973 as WIIL-TV, a full-time affiliate of ABC. Prior to 1973, the network had been relegated to partial clearances on CBS affiliate WTHI-TV and NBC affiliate WTWO. Originally assigned to broadcast on UHF channel 66, the station eventually gained permission to broadcast on UHF channel 38.
The original owner, Alpha Broadcasting, poured money into the new operation. However, the local market situation immediately sent the station into the red. Viewers had strongly entrenched viewing habits with the longer-established VHF stations WTWO and WTHI, although WTWO was less than a decade old, and were not as familiar with the then-weaker ABC network lineup. At one point in 1974, the station nearly went off the air, but managed to survive. In 1978, North Carolina broadcaster Cy Bahakel purchased the station renaming it WBAK-TV (after his last name) on April 20, 1979. Faith to Live By, a short daily devotional program that previously aired on WTWO, was seen weekday mornings immediately after WBAK's sign-on. Despite stronger ownership, WBAK barely registered as a blip in the Wabash Valley ratings. It didn't help matters that most of the southern half of the market was covered by Evansville's WTVW.
Channel 38's situation grew even more dire when Indianapolis' longtime NBC affiliate, WRTV, switched to ABC. WRTV's signal covers most of the eastern half of the market, including most of Terre Haute itself. Indiana's mostly flat land gave WTVW and WRTV a stronger-than-normal reach than would have occurred had the landscape been hilly or mountainous. When cable arrived in the Terre Haute market in the late 1970s, most cable systems piped in either WRTV, WTVW or WAND in Decatur, Illinois in addition to WBAK.
On January 31, 1995 [1], the station changed affiliation to Fox citing low ratings from the then-overabundance of (stronger-rated) outlying ABC affiliates. While leaving the Terre Haute area without an over-the-air ABC affiliate, the network switch gave the market its first-ever Fox network affiliate. That network had previously only been available through cable via either the now-defunct Foxnet or Indianapolis' WXIN. Ironically, the network switch actually helped WBAK, which had languished for years as an ABC affiliate.
The outlying ABC affiliates also went through changes. In 1995, WTVW switched to Fox, leaving many viewers in the southern half of the DMA without ABC programming. While WTVW's signal decently covered the southern half of the market, new Evansville ABC affiliate WEHT suffered from a weaker UHF signal. In 2005, WAND switched to NBC. ABC was then picked up in that market by WICD in Champaign, which replaced WAND on cable systems in the Illinois part of the Terre Haute market. Over-the-air viewers actually benefited from this switch as WICD's transmitter is located near the Illinois/Indiana border and provides a stronger signal. Channel 38 is one of three original ABC affiliates in Indiana to have switched to Fox. The other two are WSJV in South Bend and sister station WTVW in Evansville.
Bahakel sold WBAK to Mission Broadcasting in 2003. The station then entered into a joint sales agreement (JSA) with Nexstar Broadcasting, owner of WTWO. WBAK's call letters were changed to WFXW on July 1, 2005. WFXW's analog signal was off-the-air between April 16, 2008 and May 9. The transmitter failed and went dark approximately ten minutes into the American Idol results show. Many viewers were upset over missing the rest of the show. However, its digital signal was used to restore service to local cable systems and Dish Network. The American Idol broadcasts during the week of April 21 aired on sister station WTWO. On May 9, the analog signal was restored to service.
On June 28, 2011, Nexstar announced that, in a reversal of its 1995 affiliation change, WFXW would disaffiliate from Fox and rejoin ABC (as part of a deal which called for long-term affiliation renewals between Nexstar and ABC in nine other markets) effective September 1. The call letters will be changed to WAWV-TV (which stands for ABC for the Wabash Valley) at that time. The move came after Nexstar was stripped of its Fox affiliations for WTVW in Evansville, WFFT-TV in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and KSFX-TV in Springfield, Missouri following a dispute with the network over retransmission consent fees.[2][3] It was announced on August 25, 2011 that the Fox affiliation would move to WTHI's second digital subchannel, which would also add the MyNetworkTV programming service as a secondary affiliation. This would make Terre Haute one of the only markets in the United States with all three historical commercial broadcast networks (ABC, CBS and NBC) as primary affiliations with the Fox and MyNetworkTV affiliations on a digital subchannel, but lacking an over-the-air affiliate of The CW (which is currently shown only on cable in the Terre Haute market).[4] The last Fox program to air on WFXW was an episode of Buried Treasure on August 31, 2011, which ended at 10 p.m. ET. All Fox programming moved to WTHI-DT2 starting at 5 a.m. the following day. WAWV's current logo is the station's first that does not include the 38 station number in it.
WAWV clears most of the ABC network schedule, though the station preempts the network's Saturday morning block Litton's Weekend Adventure in favor of syndicated children's programming (this is despite the fact that the Weekend Adventure block is in full compliance with the FCC's E/I programming guidelines, negating the need for stations to carry syndicated children's programming that fills the full three hours per week E/I content quota). The station also preempts the late night news program World News Now, in favor of syndicated programs and infomericals in late night, making it among the few ABC stations not to carry the program (unlike the case with WAWV, most of the ABC stations that do preempt WNN do so in favor of signing off overnight).
Syndicated programming on this station includes: Two and a Half Men, The New Adventures of Old Christine, The Big Bang Theory, Criminal Minds, Family Guy, The Office and Judge Judy. WAWV's schedule more closely resembles that of a minor network affiliate or an independent station outside of ABC network programming than that of a Big Three network affiliate.
From its sign on in 1973, the station produced a 6:30 p.m. weeknight newscast known as the WIIL-TV Evening News. Due to low advertising and budget cuts, the production ended in 1974, though the station continued to provide weather updates in the evening hours.
In 1978, local news production returned in the form of News 38 which at one point was largely composed of former WTHI-TV news department employees. This incarnation of local news, which ran as a single daily broadcast, folded in 1981. No local newscasts were on WBAK-TV for the rest of its run as an ABC affiliate, though the station did produce Good Morning Terre Haute, which consisted of interviews and a weather forecast on weekdays. The station also produced weekly public affairs programming, including "Valley Point of View".
When the station switched affilitaion from ABC to Fox in 1995, an agreement was reached with WTHI-TV to provide a 10 o'clock prime time news for the newly christened "Fox 38". The station's morning interview program, Good Morning Terre Haute, continued for a short period as Valley Focus on Fox 38. This ended in 1996 as did the devotional program Faith To Live By. Valley Point of View, a weekly public affairs program produced by the Leadership Terre Haute organization, continued on this station until 2004. The WTHI-produced newscast lasted until December 31, 2003, shortly after WBAK entered into the JSA with WTWO. In mid-2004, that station premiered its own 10 P.M. newscast on WBAK entitled NewsChannel 2 Prime Edition. This broadcast utilized the same talent and resources as WTWO's weeknight 6 and 11 newscasts.
After the call letter switch, the 10 o'clock news was re-branded to Fox 38 News at 10 for a brief period then later to WFXW Prime Edition. At that point, the broadcast featured its own news anchor, set, graphics, and music package. On June 7, 2007, the branding was amended to WTWO Prime Edition on WFXW. The format of the newscast was once again essentially the same as WTWO by this point and featured the main WTWO talent and no longer utilized a separate news set.
On June 8, 2009, the news was revamped and re-branded again to Fox 38 News: First at 10. Though still produced by WTWO, the broadcast once again featured a separate news set, graphics package (the same used by many Fox owned-and-operated stations and affiliates), and the news music package Extreme by Stephen Arnold Music. It used to be solo anchored by Leanne Tokars who returned to the station in 2009, but left again in later 2010. She originally anchored the first WTWO-produced Fox 38 News at 10 incarnation in 2005. WFXW also carried rebroadcasts of WTWO's 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. weekday newscasts, airing both one hour later. After a few months the 6 p.m. rebroadcast was dropped, while the 6 a.m. rebroadcast at 7 a.m. continued.
Following the station's disaffiliation with Fox and re-afilliation with ABC, WTWO's 5 p.m. newscast, Live at Five, moved to WAWV-TV, featuring longtime WTWO anchor Tom McClanahan.[5] However, the 7 a.m. rebroadcast of WTWO's weekday morning newscast was dropped, as ABC airs Good Morning America in that timeslot (though local news and weather updates will be provided during that program, along with half-hourly news and weather updates seen throughout the day, and a special agricultural-related forecast during AgDay on weekday mornings[6]); the existing 10 p.m. newscast is no longer be seen on the station as well, as unlike Fox, ABC provides primetime network programming during that hour,[7] though the newscast will continue online as WAWV First at Ten; the station will otherwise not carry a newscast in the traditional 11 p.m. timeslot.[5]
WAWV News: Live at Five
(weeknights 5-6 p.m.)
WAWV News: First at Ten
(streamed online, weeknights 10-10:15 p.m.)
Additional personnel from WTWO are seen on this station. See the WTWO article for a compete listing.
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