| Green Bay, Wisconsin | |
|---|---|
| Branding | WBAY-TV 2 (general) Action 2 News HD (newscasts) |
| Slogan | Coverage You Can Count On |
| Channels | Digital: 23 (UHF) Virtual: 2 (PSIP) |
| Subchannels | 2.1 ABC 2.2 Stormcenter 2 24/7 2.3 RTV |
| Affiliations | ABC Local weather (DT2) Retro Television Network (DT3) |
| Owner | Young Broadcasting, Inc. (operated by Gray Television) (Young Broadcasting Of Green Bay, Inc., Debtor-in-Possession) |
| Founded | March 17, 1953 |
| Call letters' meaning | W Green BAY |
| Sister station(s) | WEAU, WMTV, WSAW |
| Former channel number(s) | Analog: 2 (1953–2009) |
| Former affiliations | CBS (1953–1992) DuMont (1953–1956)[1] |
| Transmitter power | 1000 kW (digital) |
| Height | 372 m (digital) |
| Facility ID | 74417 |
| Website | www.wbay.com |
WBAY-TV is the ABC television affiliate in Green Bay, Wisconsin, broadcasting on UHF digital channel 23 (or PSIP channel 2) from a transmitter located in the town of Ledgeview, Wisconsin, and master control based in its building in downtown Green Bay. It signed on the air on March 17, 1953 as the second television station in Wisconsin, after WTMJ-TV in Milwaukee.
The station is currently owned by Young Broadcasting, and is one of seven Young-owned stations whose management and operations are handled by Gray Television as part of a proposed takeover of Young Broadcasting by its secured creditors (a plan tentatively approved by a New York bankruptcy judge on July 22, 2009; it was approved in Late April 2010[2]). Under Gray management, this makes it a sister station in Wisconsin to NBC affiliates WMTV in Madison and WEAU in Eau Claire, and CBS affiliate WSAW in Wausau. The station currently exchanges news stories with Hearst-Argyle Television's WISN-TV in Milwaukee, Quincy Newspapers' network of stations throughout the state, all of them ABC affiliates, and Hubbard Broadcasting's ABC stations in Minneapolis-St. Paul and Duluth, Minnesota.
Contents |
| Channel | Format | Aspect | Programming |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2.1 | 720p | 16:9 | Main WBAY-TV programming / ABC |
| 2.2 | 480i | 4:3 | Stormcenter 2 24/7 |
| 2.3 | RTV |
WBAY utilizes its digital channel 23 for multicasting purposes, with WBAY's primary signal being carried on 2-1 in ABC's 720p resolution. Until the November 2010 launch of WGBA's TheCoolTV (currently Me-TV) subchannel, it was the only commercial station in the market to utilize any digital subchannel services.
In late June 2010 WBAY-TV became the third commercial operation in Green Bay to air syndicated programming (previously only the ABC schedule and ESPN HD broadcasts of Monday Night Football) in high definition. WBAY-TV also began to produce some outside advertising for local businesses and internal station promos in both HD and 16:9 standard definition in mid-2010.
WBAY carries a local weather channel called Stormcenter 2 24/7, which is a locally-programmed equivalent of The Local AccuWeather Channel and NBC Plus over its 2-2 digital subchannel, and also over the digital cable systems of Time Warner Cable, Charter Communications, and Comcast of Manitowoc. Like the digital weather channels of other Young stations, the channel is produced in-house with no outside assistance and is fully automated using the station's weather computers. The loop usually consists of a weather forecast from one of the station's meteorologists, followed by current conditions, radar, travel weather, an outdoors forecast and almanac data such as temperature averages, sunrise and sunset times and the local pollen count, followed by a loop of WBAY's skycam network (Green Bay, Appleton, Oshkosh and Manitowoc). Seasonal conditions such as snow depth, foliage, and boat & beach weather also appear in the loop within their respective seasons. Local conditions provided by WeatherBug for several cities appear on the right side of the screen, while the five-day forecast and a weather ticker appear on the bottom; during severe weather, a severe weather message ticker and warning map take up the ticker and five-day space, as shown to the left. Currently only weather, limited automated advertising (for weather partner Cellcom and other advertisers) and station promotions (customized for each season) air during commercial breaks.
The subchannel is also used for local long-form news coverage, such as carrying full coverage of the Steven Avery murder trial in Chilton in 2006. Six episodes of Jack Hanna's Animal Adventures, an E/I-compliant program (required on digital subchannels by the FCC at the start of 2007) air on Stormcenter 2 24/7 weekdays full-screen during the station's 5pm newscast and during the station's 8am Saturday morning newscast to provide continuous weather coverage on the station despite the regulations. The "24/7" title was formerly a misnomer due to WBAY continuing to go off-the-air for 3½ hours on early Saturday and Sunday mornings, but since February 2008 the subchannel also streams online through the station's website 24/7, even during E/I programming and off-the-air periods. The subchannel now simulcasts on 2.1 on early Saturday and Sunday mornings with WBAY's launch of a 24/7 schedule.
In January 2008, the station launched a DT3 subchannel, WBAY RTV (formerly "RTN 2-3"), which formerly aired a customized schedule of RTV to avoid any conflicts with other Green Bay stations already carrying some RTV shows, though as of the network's June 2011 restructuring and loss of rights it carries RTV's default feed with little deviation. 2-3's E/I programming airs in one three hour block on Saturday mornings, and operations for the station (including voiceovers and transmission to WBAY) are maintained by RTV, including local commercials and promotions (though the station leaves a 24/7 station identification on-screen at all times in case RTV runs into technical difficulties). The subchannel is also carried by the same systems as Stormcenter 2 24/7 [3].
WBAY-TV was originally owned by the Norbertine Order of Priests, whose abbey is in nearby De Pere. The priests run St. Norbert College in De Pere and already operated radio stations in Green Bay and Appleton. After carrying multiple networks in its early years, the station became a primary CBS affiliate, and benefited from that network's coverage of National Football League games, primarily of the Green Bay Packers. Packers games drew up to a 90 percent share of the audience during the 1960s success of teams coached by Vince Lombardi, and the station carried "The Vince Lombardi Show." The station also originated the team's exhibition game coverage from the 1960s to 2002 with some exceptions. Main anchor Bill Jartz has been Lambeau Field's PA system announcer since the start of the 2005–2006 season. The station has continued to air Monday Night Football Packer games originating from ESPN since the 2006 season.
In the mid-1970s, WBAY was sold to Nationwide Communications, Inc., which operated the station until 1993, when it was sold to Young Broadcasting along with its two ABC-affiliated sisters WATE-TV in Knoxville, Tennessee and WRIC-TV in the Richmond–Petersburg market.
CBS purchased the assets of Midwest Television in that same year to acquire its long-time strong Twin Cities affiliate WCCO-TV/AM; Midwest also owned Channel 2's longtime competitor, then-ABC affiliate WFRV/WJMN (Channel 5/3). CBS considered WBAY a strong affiliate, trying to sell WFRV/WJMN after closing the deal with Midwest. FCC rules were relaxed at the time to allow one entity to own more stations, so the network decided to keep the two stations and affiliate WFRV/WJMN with its own network in 1992, giving Channel 2 affiliation with ABC. In 2007, CBS sold WFRV/WJMN to Liberty Media.
WBAY insisted that the change take place on or near the anniversary of its sign-on date, March 17. Since that date fell on a Tuesday in 1992, WFRV and WBAY swapped networks on Sunday, March 15, with "TV-2" joining ABC.
The station formerly pre-empted the first hour (7-8pm Central) of the ABC lineup on Tuesday evenings during the football season to carry the local program Tuesday Night Touchback, which was formerly known as Monday Night Countdown before it was moved in 2007 because of Dancing with the Stars and the departure from ABC of Monday Night Football (for most of the 2000s, the slot has been among the lowest-rated on ABC's primetime schedule, as was the case with the pre-MNF timeslot). That hour then aired later on early Wednesday morning after Jimmy Kimmel Live during the football season. However in November 2009 this was changed temporarily due to viewer feedback involving the pre-emption of the series premiere of V which forced that program to be aired after the Saturday late news; for the remainder of November V aired at 7pm, while Tuesday Night Touchback pre-empted The Insider and aired before prime time in a half-hour truncated form. In the 2011-12 season however, TNT has not aired, and all of Tuesday night's programming airs in-pattern.
The station's headquarters in downtown Green Bay was built in 1924 as a former Knights of Columbus clubhouse and later was turned into a private Roman Catholic high school during the Great Depression when the Norbertines took over the building. The former gymnasium/auditorium is now called the WBAY Auditorium and is used as the studio for the station's Cerebral Palsy telethon. During the early years of WBAY, it served as the main studio until 1954 when an addition was built behind the main building. The auditorium has also been used for local theatrical productions. The station's newsroom is in the basement of the building in an area that originally held a swimming pool and bowling alley. The WBAY building also served as the home of the WBAY radio stations (now WTAQ and WIXX), which were later purchased by Midwest Communications in the late 1970s, but remained in the building until Midwest built a combined Green Bay operations facility/company headquarters in 2007 and a news-weather sharing agreement maintained for many years was discontinued in favor of WLUK-TV.
Since late January 2010, the station decided to no longer go off-the-air during early morning Saturdays and Sundays after a major transmitter problem forced the station to reconsider this mode of operation. WBAY was the last commercial station in the state to move to 24/7 broadcasting, and former off-the-air hours on WBAY's main signal are now taken up by a Stormcenter 2 24/7 simulcast.
The station also sponsors the yearly "WBAY Boat Show" and the "WBAY RV and Camping Show", both held in the winter months at the Brown County Arena/Shopko Hall, along with a Boy Scout door-to-door food drive ("Scouting for Food") in the fall.
WBAY holds the record for the longest running telethon on the same channel, airing the Cerebral Palsy Telethon, which has broadcast on the station since 1954. The telethon originally aired for 22 hours from Saturday 8pm-Sunday 6pm, but currently breaks between 12 midnight and 6am, as the station signs off in the overnights during weekends. Past hosts of the telethon have included Raymond Burr, Dennis James (who would later host the United Cerebral Palsy national telethon), and Tom Wopat. Currently the telethon is a local-only effort, using local broadcasters and people to host the marathon program, and the funds raised benefit the local organization, Cerebral Palsy, Inc. Before the sale of the WBAY stations by the Norbertine Fathers, the telethon was simulcast over WBAY AM (later WGEE, now WTAQ) and WBAY-FM (now WIXX).
WBAY's Cerebal Palsy telethon both pre-dated and succeeded the national telethon for United Cerebal Palsy, which ran on numerous stations nationwide from the mid-1970s to the late-1990s.
The station continues to air a Sunday Mass on Sunday mornings, as it has since signing on under the ownership of the Norbertine Fathers. After the sale of the station from them however, the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay began producing the Mass at WBAY's studio. The Diocese provided a presider, choir, liturgical coordinator, and producer while WBAY provided camera operators, a technical director and audio technician.
However as of March 2010, the station has instead begun to carry the Passionist Spiritual Center's nationally-syndicated Mass program instead from Riverhead, New York; it is unknown if financial complications on the Diocese's end forced the ending of a locally produced service.
WBAY's news operation is branded under the Action News branding as Action 2 News, and has been since the mid-1980s (with the HD suffix added upon their transition), predating ABC affiliation, and has used the Coverage You Can Count On slogan since 1996. The station rarely refreshes their graphical image package, having only done so three times since 1995, but has maintained long-term dominance in local ratings for most of its history. The station has the only 4 p.m. newscast in Green Bay.
The station began the process of upgrading to full HD production with a control room upgrade in the second quarter of 2011, a process hamstrung by the Young bankruptcy until Gray was able to begin operating their stations. The news department conversion began on October 15 after that morning's newscast with the beginning of construction on the new set and the moving of the older set (which had been in use with constant refreshing since the late 1980s) to another part of the building, and was completed by mid-December after a training/rehearsal period, using a common set design and graphics package to be used by all of the New Young stations managed by Gray.[4] On December 14, 2011, WBAY became the second commercial station in the Green Bay market to produce its local newscasts in HD (WFRV-TV, on June 23, 2011, became the first in the market to do so).[5][6] Some weather computer graphics (including the presentation on WBAY-DT2) and field video remain in 4:3 SD currently.
Anchors
StormCenter 2 HD
Action 2 Sports HD
Reporters
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