| Wilmington, North Carolina | |
|---|---|
| Branding | CBS 10 WILM (general) WRAL News (newscasts) |
| Slogan | Wilmington's Weather Station & Coverage You Can Count On |
| Channels | Digital: 40 (UHF) Virtual: 10 (PSIP) |
| Subchannels | 10.1 CBS |
| Owner | Capitol Broadcasting Company (WILM, Inc.) |
| First air date | April 3, 1989 |
| Call letters' meaning | WILMington |
| Sister station(s) | WRAL-TV |
| Former callsigns | W10BZ (1989-1995) WSSN-LP (1995-2000) WILM-LP (2000-2008) |
| Former channel number(s) | 10 (VHF analog, 1989-2008) |
| Former affiliations | Independent (1989-1995) UPN (1995-2006, secondary from 2000) |
| Transmitter power | 15 kW |
| Height | 258 m |
| Facility ID | 167819 |
WILM-LD is the low-powered CBS-affiliated television station for the Cape Fear area of Southeastern North Carolina. Licensed to Wilmington, it broadcasts a digital signal on UHF channel 40 from a transmitter in Delco. The station can also be seen on AMTC channel 10, Time Warner channel 12, and Charter channel 16. There is a high definition feed offered on Charter digital channel 716, AMTC digital channel 914, and Time Warner digital channel 1110.
Owned by the Capitol Broadcasting Company, WILM has studios on Wrightsville Avenue in Wilmington. However, master control and some internal operations are based at the facilities of sister station and fellow CBS affiliate WRAL-TV on Western Boulevard in Raleigh. Syndicated programming on the station includes: How I Met Your Mother, Swift Justice with Nancy Grace, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and The Andy Griffith Show.
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The station began on April 3, 1989 as Independent outlet W10BZ. It aired an analog signal on VHF channel 10 from a transmitter near the studios. The station changed its call sign to WSSN-LP after upgrading to class A status in 1995 and eventually became a UPN affiliate. In 1999, Capitol Broadcasting acquired the station.
On March 23, 2000, it became a CBS affiliate, filling a void created when the previous CBS affiliate WJKA-TV changed its calls to WSFX-TV and dropped the network to join Fox. WSSN changed its call sign to WILM-LP on that date as well. Before WILM gained the CBS affiliation, programming from that network was seen in Wilmington on cable from WNCT-TV in Greenville, WBTW-TV in Florence, South Carolina, and WRAL.
WILM retained secondary affiliation with UPN until the network shut down and merged with The WB. Interestingly enough, CBS and UPN had the same parent company, CBS Corporation. After UPN and The WB merged to form The CW on September 18, 2006, WILM finally became a full-time CBS station due to cable-only WB 100+ affiliate "WBW" becoming part of The CW through The CW Plus cable group.
The station's low-powered digital signal, WILM-LD, began broadcasting on UHF channel 40 in August 2008. This increased the station's effective radiated power from its former 75 kW (analog VHF) to 15 kW (digital UHF) which is the highest power available for U.S. low-power digital television. WILM's new transmitter was no longer centrally located in Wilmington itself but located alongside other local broadcast sites in Delco. [1]
WILM is one of five Wilmington commercial television stations that agreed to end analog transmissions early and became digital-only on September 8, 2008. This move was intended to make the area the first all-digital market in the United States. [2] On that date, WILM shut down its analog signal along with four other Wilmington television stations as part of the voluntary early digital transition. If this agreement had not happened, the decision to shut-off analog transmission at any time would have been voluntary for WILM because Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations exempted low-power television stations from the 2009 analog shutdown. Its analog channel 10 identification is still used as its virtual channel through PSIP.
WILM does not operate a news department of its own, unlike most big three stations. Instead, it simulcasts most of WRAL's newscasts (except for weekday mornings at 6, weekdays at noon, Saturday mornings, as well as weeknights at 5 and 5:30), with local weather inserts targeted toward Wilmington. See the WRAL article for a complete listing of on-air personnel. From March 10, 2008 until February 27, 2009 through a news share agreement, ABC affiliate WWAY produced a prime time newscast weeknights at 7 on WILM that offered local coverage.
The station currently produces a weekly public affairs show called Byline: Wilmington hosted by Donn Ansell. The program, which airs Sunday mornings at 9:30 for a half-hour, focuses on news and issues of the Cape Fear region. On February 16, 2009, the station began simulcasting the first hour of The Craig and Sheila Show from WILT on weekday mornings at 6.
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