| Charleston/Huntington, West Virginia | |
|---|---|
| Branding | WVAH Fox 11 (general) Fox 11 Eyewitness News |
| Slogan | First on Fox |
| Channels | Digital: 19 (UHF) Virtual: 11 (PSIP) |
| Affiliations | 11.1 Fox 11.2 The Country Network |
| Owner | Cunningham Broadcasting (operated through LMA by Sinclair Broadcast Group) (WVAH Licensee, LLC) |
| First air date | September 19, 1982 |
| Call letters' meaning | West Virginia Almost Heaven |
| Sister station(s) | WCHS-TV |
| Former channel number(s) | 23 (UHF analog, 1982-1989) 11 (VHF analog, 1989-2009) |
| Former affiliations | Independent (1982-1986) UPN (secondary, 1995-2000) |
| Transmitter power | 475 kW |
| Height | 514.1 m |
| Facility ID | 417 |
| Website | wvah.com |
WVAH-TV is the Fox-affiliated television station for Charleston and Huntington, West Virginia which is the second-largest market in terms of area east of the Mississippi River. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 19 from a transmitter south of Scott Depot along the Putnam and Kanawha County line. Owned by Cunningham Broadcasting, WVAH is operated through a local marketing agreement (LMA) by the Sinclair Broadcast Group. This make it sister to ABC affiliate WCHS-TV and the two share studios on Piedmont Road in Charleston along I-64/I-77. Syndicated programming on the station includes: Family Feud, Two and a Half Men, The Steve Wilkos Show, The Jerry Springer Show, Maury and Swift Justice with Jackie Glass.
Contents |
The station's digital channel is multiplexed.
| Channel | Programming |
|---|---|
| 11.1 | Main WVAH-TV programming / FOX |
| 11.2 | The Country Network |
The station was founded on September 19, 1982 and aired an analog signal on UHF channel 23. It was owned by the newly-created Meridian Communications based out of Pittsburgh which won the license after the West Virginia General Assembly forced West Virginia Public Broadcasting to withdraw its own application for the channel. It was the first Independent station in West Virginia, as well as the first new commercial station in the market since what is now WOWK-TV signed-on in 1955, and the first commercial UHF station in the state since WKNA-TV in Charleston went off-the-air in 1955. It became a charter Fox affiliate on October 6, 1986. Act III Broadcasting bought the station in 1987.
Soon after buying control, Act III applied to move the station to the VHF band. Despite broadcasting from a 2,000 foot tower with the maximum five million watts of power, WVAH had considerable difficulty penetrating the market. The Charleston/Huntington market covers 61 counties in Central West Virginia, Eastern Kentucky, and Southern Ohio. Most of this area is a very rugged dissected plateau, and as a result, UHF stations usually do not get good reception in this kind of terrain.
It also knocked WSAZ-TV's low-power relay for the Kanawha Valley, also on channel 23, off-the-air on several occasions. As a result, WVAH was permitted to switch to VHF channel 11 in 1989, three years after Fox's launch. However, the station was short-spaced to WPXI in Pittsburgh and WJHL-TV in Johnson City, Tennessee. It then had to conform its signal to protect WJHL. As a result, it did not provide a clear over-the-air signal to the southwestern part of the market.
Act III merged with Abry Communications in 1994. That company, in turn, was merged into the Sinclair Broadcast Group later in 1994. In 1997, Sinclair purchased the broadcasting properties of Heritage Media which included WCHS (the remainder of Heritage Media went to News Corporation). It could not keep WCHS and WVAH due to Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules in effect at the time forbidding duopolies. Sinclair opted to keep the longer-established WCHS and sold WVAH to Glencairn, Ltd. which was headed by former Sinclair executive Edwin Edwards.
Initially, this channel retained its own studios on Mount Vernon Road in Teays Valley that is an unincorporated suburban area that shares a zip code with Hurricane even although most of its operations were merged with WCHS. On January 16, 1995, WVAH began airing UPN programming during overnight hours. However, the station could not clear the entire schedule and dropped the network in early-2000. In 2001, Sinclair tried to acquire Glencairn outright, but the FCC did not allow Sinclair to re-acquire WVAH because it does not allow common ownership of two of the four highest-rated stations in a single market. As a result, Glencairn kept WVAH and changed its name to Cunningham Broadcasting.
Following a tower collapse in 2002, WVAH moved its transmitter and almost all of its facilities to WCHS' studios in Charleston. However, its main studios remained in Teays Valley until late-2009. Sinclair and Fox finalized a six year affiliation contract extension for Sinclair's nineteen Fox affiliates including WVAH. Its affiliation contract now expires in March 2012. [1] The channel is the market's home for Southeastern Conference football and basketball as a nod to the Kentucky Wildcats' large following on the Kentucky side of the market. WVAH-TV ended analog operations on February 17, 2009, as part of the DTV transition in the United States. [2] The station remained on its pre-transition channel 19. [3] Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display its virtual channel as 11. WVAH's analog channel 11 signal was temporarily reactivated on June 12, 2009 for a two-week period with "analog nightlight" programming consisting a continuous loop of an informative video about the digital switch which is nationally produced in both English and Spanish as well as subtitled in both English and Spanish.
In Summer 2006, Charter Communications streamlined its operations which included selling off portions of its cable system which were "geographically non-strategic". Charter accounts in WCHS's market area were purchased by Suddenlink Communications (formerly known as Cebridge). Sinclair requested a $40 million one time fee and a $1 per sub per month fee from Suddenlink for retransmission rights of WVAH and WCHS on the Suddenlink cable system.[4] This led to a protracted media battle and smear campaign between the two companies, and Sinclair pulled the two stations off-the-air in the Beckley market. After several weeks of negotiations, the two companies reached an agreement allowing WVAH and WCHS to continue transmission over the Suddenlink cable system. The terms of the agreement were not released to the public. [5]
WCHS has its main facility based in Charleston. As a result, there is a noticeable focus on West Virginia's Capitol and surrounding areas but there is coverage provided to the western vicinities as well. WCHS currently uses the Eyewitness News branding for its news operation and produces three newscasts for sister station WVAH. This includes Eyewitness News This Morning on Fox 11 seen for an hour on weekday mornings from 7 until 8. There is also an hour long nightly prime time broadcast known as Eyewitness News at 10 on Fox 11.
Although it competes with a nightly show at 10 on MyNetworkTV affiliate WSAZ-DT2, WVAH's broadcast is the market's only sixty minute late night news. On June 26, 2011, WSAZ launched the second High Definition (HD)news cast in the state of West Virginia and the first in the Charleston-Huntington DMA,On June 3, 2011 WTAP in Parkersburg launched the first news outlet in West Virginia with local news in High Definition (HD). Shows on WVAH and WCHS remain in pillarboxed 4:3 standard definition and no plans have been made to make any changes to 16:9 enhanced definition widescreen and/or full high definition.
Anchors
Eyewitness News Storm Team 11 Meteorologists
Sports
Reporters
Contributors
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