| WSIL: Harrisburg/Marion/ Carbondale, Illinois KPOB: Poplar Bluff, Missouri |
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| City of license | WSIL: Harrisburg |
| Branding | WSIL-TV 3 (WSIL general) KPOB-TV 15 (KPOB general) News 3 (newscasts) |
| Slogan | Your Southern Illinois News Leader |
| Channels | Digital: WSIL: 34 (UHF) KPOB: 15 (UHF) |
| Subchannels | 3.1/15.1 ABC HD 3.2/15.2 ABC SD |
| Translators | K10KM-D 10 Cape Girardeau, MO |
| Owner | Melvin C. Wheeler, LLC (WSIL-TV, Inc.) |
| First air date | WSIL: December 19, 1953 KPOB: September 15, 1967 |
| Call letters' meaning | WSIL: Southern ILlinois KPOB: POplar Bluff |
| Former channel number(s) | Analog: WSIL: 22 (UHF, 1953-1959) 3 (VHF, 1959-2009) KPOB: 15 (UHF, 1967-2009) |
| Transmitter power | WSIL: 1,000 kW KPOB: 34.5 kW |
| Height | WSIL: 291 m KPOB: 184 m |
| Facility ID | WSIL: 73999 KPOB: 73998 |
| Transmitter coordinates | WSIL: KPOB: |
| Website | wsiltv.com |
WSIL-TV is the ABC-affiliated television station for the northern portion of West Tennessee, Southern Illinois, Southeastern Missouri, and the Purchase area of Western Kentucky that is licensed to Harrisburg, Illinois. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 34 from a transmitter in Creal Springs, Illinois. Locally owned, the station has studios on Country Aire Drive in Carterville, Illinois along IL 13. Syndicated programming on WSIL includes: Entertainment Tonight, Ellen, The Nate Berkus Show, and Don't Forget the Lyrics!. The station operates a full-time satellite, KPOB-TV in Poplar Bluff, Missouri. This station airs a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 15 from a transmitter in the city along US 60/US 67. WSIL does not maintain any offices in Poplar Bluff. WSIL can also be seen on digital translator K10KM-D channel 10 in Cape Girardeau, Missouri.
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WSIL signed-on for the first time December 1, 1953. It originally broadcast an analog signal on UHF channel 22 but moved to VHF channel 3 in March 1959 as did numerous stations originally assigned to UHF allocations before the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) mandated that television-set manufacturers include UHF tuning capability in their products in 1964. The original UHF transmitter had been built in Harrisburg before Paducah, Harrisburg, and Cape Girardeau had been collapsed into one large market.
However, some parts of Southeastern Missouri could not receive channel 3's signal clearly, presumably because WSIL had to conform it to protect WREC-TV (now WREG-TV) in Memphis, Tennessee in the next market to the south. As a result, KPOB signed-on September 15, 1967 to provide service to those counties, although Jonesboro, Arkansas' KAIT (another ABC station) may have been visible in much of the area.
For many years, WSIL did not air the weeknight broadcasts of ABC News, broadcasting instead a children's show featuring cartoons and Three Stooges shorts in the 5:30 to 6:30 time slot. It was not until sometime in the late-1970s it became the last ABC affiliate in the United States to abandon the practice of preempting the network news. However, in ABC's earlier years, quite a number of local stations did not carry the newscasts because their ratings trailed competitors CBS and NBC by a large margin. This changed when ABC initiated the World News Tonight (now ABC World News) format in 1978, finally establishing the network as a significant news operation.
WSIL had the unique distinction of being the first station in the market to broadcast a digital signal at a full 1 megawatt of power (equivalent to 5 megawatts in analog) on October 22, 2002. It will soon also be the first to air a mobile digital signal. The station was one of the ABC affiliates that refused to air NYPD Blue during its first season in 1993-1994. Station Manager Steve Wheeler appeared on Good Morning America to explain his decision. During the interview with Charlie Gibson, Wheeler announced that if the program was successful, WSIL would reconsider. During this first season, Fox affiliate KBSI aired the program during the assigned network slot Tuesdays nights at 9 Central Time. [1]
WSIL's newscasts focus almost exclusively on Southern Illinois unlike the other big three stations in the area. This is despite the presence of KPOB, which is a straight simulcast of WSIL. In fact, channel 3 does not even mention the market's other two main cities (Paducah and Cape Girardeau) in its on-air identifications, choosing to identify as "Harrisburg/Marion/Carbondale". CBS affiliate KFVS-TV provides some coverage of Southern Illinois from a nearby bureau on East Plaza Drive in Carterville.
Traditionally, KFVS has covered Southeastern Missouri more while NBC affiliate WPSD-TV offers the most coverage of Western Kentucky since it is based in Paducah. Its newscasts are known as News 3 even though program listings online and on satellite services can refer to them as News 3 News. Unlike most ABC affiliates, WSIL does not air a full two-hour morning or midday newscast during the week. On October 6, 2010, WSIL became the first station in the region to offer news in high definition.
Anchors
Meteorologists
Sports (both seen on Sports Extra)
Reporters/Multimedia Journalists
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