| Evansville, Indiana | |
|---|---|
| Branding | WEHT Local (general) Eyewitness News (newscasts) |
| Channels | Digital: 7 (VHF) Virtual: 25 (PSIP) |
| Affiliations | 25.1 ABC |
| Owner | Nexstar Broadcasting Group (Nexstar Broadcasting, Inc.) |
| First air date | September 27, 1953 |
| Call letters' meaning | Watch Evansville/ Henderson Television |
| Sister station(s) | WTVW |
| Former channel number(s) | Analog: 50 (UHF, 1953-1964) 25 (UHF, 1964-2009) Digital: 59 (UHF, 2002-2009) |
| Former affiliations | CBS (1953-1995) RTV (on DT2, 2008-2010) Wazoo Sports Network (on DT2, 2010-2011) |
| Transmitter power | 12.5 kW |
| Height | 316 m |
| Class | DT |
| Facility ID | 24215 |
| Website | www.tristatehomepage.com |
WEHT is the ABC-affiliated television station for the Tri-State area of Southwestern Indiana, Northwestern Kentucky and Southeastern Illinois; it is owned by Nexstar Broadcasting Group under a shared services agreement with independent station WTVW (owned by Mission Broadcasting). Licensed to Evansville, Indiana, it broadcasts a high definition digital signal on VHF channel 7 (or virtual channel 25.1 via PSIP) from a transmitter at its studios on Marywood Drive in Henderson, Kentucky. The station can also be seen on WOW!, Time Warner Cable and Insight channel 11. There is a high definition feed provided on Time Warner Cable digital channel 711, WOW! digital channel 811 and Insight digital channel 908. Syndicated programming on WEHT includes Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, The Rachael Ray Show and Live with Regis and Kelly among others.
Contents |
WEHT-DT broadcasts its digital signal on VHF channel 7.
This station's digital signal is no longer multiplexed:
| Virtual channel |
Physical channel |
Name | Video | Aspect | Programming |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7.1 | 25.1 | WEHT-HD | 720p | 16:9 | Main WEHT programming / ABC (HD) |
WEHT began broadcasting a digital signal on channel 59 in 2002. Following the DTV transition, the station moved its digital signal to VHF channel 7 (used by WTVW for its analog operations).
On August 25, 2008, the station began airing programming from Retro Television Network (RTV) on its second digital subchannel. This lasted until July 31, 2010 when WEHT-DT2 became the third affiliate of the Wazoo Sports Network which launched in late-2009 on WHAS-TV in Louisville and WLEX in Lexington. WEHT-DT2 branded it locally as the "News 25 Sports Channel" and the service had digital cable carriage. The regional sports television network was dedicated to carrying live coverage of sporting events as well as classic coverage of past high school and college events. There were also locally-produced shows, the first being After Further Review', a sports talk show which airs each weeknight at 9 p.m. Central (10 p.m. Eastern).[1] Following Nexstar's purchase of WEHT, the Sports Channel was taken off the air at approximately 12:30 a.m. CDT on December 1, 2011.[2]
The station signed-on September 27, 1953 as the first television station in the Tri-State area. It aired an analog signal on UHF channel 50 and was a primary CBS affiliate with secondary relations with ABC. WEHT was originally owned by the Malco Theater Corporation of Memphis, Tennessee; minority interest was held by several Henderson businessmen for the first year. It would drop ABC when WTVW launched in August 1956. Hilberg Packing of Cincinnati, Ohio bought the station from Malco in 1957.
The Gilmore Broadcasting Corporation, owned by former Kalamazoo, Michigan mayor and businessman James Gilmore, Jr., bought WEHT and sister station KGUN in Tucson, Arizona from Hilberg in 1964. In September 1966, the station activated its current 988-foot tower. On the same day the new tower came into service, it moved to the stronger channel 25. The move allowed WEHT to boast of reaching an additional 70,000 families in the area, with improved picture quality for its total audience of 250,000 households. In mid-1995, WTVW was sold to Petracom Broadcasting, and as part of the deal, that station announced it was switching its affiliation from ABC to Fox. The result brought about a network scramble in Evansville with WEHT quickly joining ABC and WEVV (the original Fox affiliate) switching to CBS. The final switch for all three stations was made on December 3, 1995 although some programming was swapped between the stations prior to the date of the actual change.
WEHT is the last station owned by Gilmore Broadcasting, which has been in the hands of James Gilmore, Jr.'s family since his death in a 2000 auto accident. At its height, Gilmore owned five television stations, nine radio stations and nineteen cable television systems in nine states. Among WEHT's former sisters were WSVA-AM-FM-TV in Harrisonburg, Virginia, KODE-AM-TV in Joplin, Missouri and WREX-TV in Rockford, Illinois. On August 8, 2011, Gilmore announced it would sell WEHT to the Nexstar Broadcasting Group, the current owner of WTVW, effectively placing WEHT under the co-management of the station that formerly carried the ABC affiliation that WEHT currently carries. As part of the deal, WTVW would be sold to Mission Broadcasting with WEHT taking over its operations as the senior partner through shared services and joint sales agreements.[3] The Nexstar acquisition of WEHT has reunite it with KODE-TV, which is also owned by Mission Broadcasting and managed by Nexstar. The transaction, which received Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approval on October 12, was completed on December 1, 2011;[4] at that point, the station rebranded from "News 25" to "WEHT Local".[5]
The station currently carries 24 hours of local newscasts per week (with five hours on weekdays, 1½ hours on Saturdays, and a half-hour on Sundays); unlike most ABC affiliates, WEHT does not broadcast an early evening newscast on Sundays, and it has also not aired a midday newscast during the week since dropping a half-hour 11:30 a.m. newscast in 2007. In addition to its main studios, WEHT also operates a news bureau in Owensboro. The station operates its own Doppler weather radar across the street from its Henderson facility.
In the early-2000s through a news share agreement, WEHT produced the market's second prime time newscast at 9 on then-WB affiliate WAZE-TV (owned by Roberts Broadcasting). The broadcast was eventually cancelled due to low ratings and inconsistent viewership being unable to compete with then-Fox affiliate WTVW. It was the first station to enter into the afternoon local news race on September 10 of that year after debuting a thirty minute broadcast at 4:30. Three years later in the same month, this would be expanded to a full hour. WEHT began having its first competitor in the time slot on September 12, 2011 when WFIE debuted a 4 p.m. newscast.[6]
Originally, WEHT-DT2 simulcasted live news from the main channel in addition to offering repeats of those shows as well as local weather. This programming was dropped with the addition of RTV. The service would bring back a prime time broadcast at 9 on June 10, 2009. Soon after in September, WFIE introduced its own newscast in the time slot (on its own second digital subchannel) offering a third alternative of late news an hour earlier. With the decision to switch WEHT-DT2 to a sports channel in July 2010, the 9 o'clock broadcast was cancelled.
In April 2009, the station's weekday morning news anchors started voicing updates for several Townsquare Media-owned radio stations. The stations also air weather updates from Eyewitness News meteorologists as part of the "First Warning Doppler Radio Network" and will simulcast the television station's audio feed whenever severe weather necessitates wall-to-wall coverage. The Townsquare Media stations include WKDQ-FM, WGBF-FM, WJLT-FM, WDKS-FM, WGBF-AM, WBKR-FM, and WOMI-AM. In addition to the Townsquare stations, WRAY-FM and WBNL-AM, which are owned by local companies, are also part of the radio network.[7]
Pending approval of the sale to Nexstar, WEHT and WTVW would have their operations merged together and be based out of the WEHT facility in Henderson; all personnel of WEHT would then have to re-apply for their current positions starting in late-September 2011. On November 7, 2011, Nexstar announced the layoff of 45 staffers effective November 30; news staffers laid off include weekday morning anchor Whitney Ray, sports director Mark McVicar, sports reporters Aaron Hancock and Sean Clark-Weis, and reporter Nick LaGrange; remaining on-air staff members from WEHT will be carried over to the newscasts on WTVW, and vice versa.[8] In addition, WTVW will no longer air newscasts in timeslots in which WEHT offers newscasts (5-7 a.m. on weekday mornings and 6-6:30 p.m. Monday-Saturdays); on December 1, 2011, the two stations' combined news operation debuted as Eyewitness News, the title WTVW had used from 1974 until its 1995 switch from ABC to Fox. As a result of the consolidation of WTVW and WEHT's news operations, this leaves the Evansville market with only two local news operations amongst three stations, the other belonging to NBC affiliate WFIE (CBS affiliate WEVV-TV, which began running newscasts starting in 1992, had shut down its news operation in 2001). Ownership by Nexstar could also result in the two stations upgrading broadcasts to 16:9 enhanced definition widescreen or even full high definition.[5][9][10][11][12]
Anchors
Eyewitness News First Warning Doppler Weather
Sports team
Reporters
Local program hosts
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