| Greenville/Spartanburg/Anderson, South Carolina/Asheville, North Carolina | |
|---|---|
| City of license | Greenville, SC |
| Branding | WYFF 4 (general) WYFF News 4 (newscasts) |
| Slogan | Live, Local, Breaking News |
| Channels | Digital: 36 (UHF) Virtual: 4 (PSIP) |
| Subchannels | 4.1 NBC 4.2 This TV |
| Translators | W06AE 6 Clayton, GA W09AS 9 Burnsville, NC W11AH-D 11 Tryon & Columbus |
| Owner | Hearst Television (WYFF Hearst Television, Inc.) |
| First air date | December 31, 1953 |
| Call letters' meaning | We're Your Friend Four |
| Former callsigns | WFBC-TV (1953-1983) |
| Former channel number(s) | Analog: 4 (1953-2009) Digital: 59 |
| Transmitter power | 1000 kW (digital) |
| Height | 596 m (digital) |
| Facility ID | 53905 |
| Website | www.wyff4.com |
WYFF is the NBC-affiliate television station based in Greenville, South Carolina. It serves a media market which includes Greenville/Spartanburg and Anderson in South Carolina and Asheville/Hendersonville, North Carolina. The market covers large portions of western North Carolina and upstate South Carolina. Its transmitter is located near Caesars Head, South Carolina.
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The station went on the air on December 26, 1953 [1] as WFBC-TV, South Carolina's fifth television station, broadcasting from a transmitter located on Paris Mountain. It was owned by the Peace family and their News-Piedmont Publishing Company along with The Greenville News, The Greenville Piedmont and WFBC radio (1330 AM, now WYRD, and 93.7 FM). For its first two years of operation, its studios were located on Paris Mountain before moving to its current location on Rutherford Street in 1955. Norvin Duncan was the station's first news anchor, moving from the radio side.
Monty's Rascals (started in 1960) was one of the station's popular children's shows, starring two channel 4 weathermen: Monty DuPuy (who left in 1978) and Stowe Hoyle as Mr. Doohickey (wearing a hat with an old Santa's beard). The show continued as The Rascal's Clubhouse after DuPuy's departure in 1978 and continued until 1982. Two years later, Hoyle retired. An earlier version of the program, Kids Korral, was hosted by Johnny Wright.
Locally televised color programming also began in February 1967. In 1968, News-Piedmont merged with Southern Broadcasting to form Multimedia, Inc., with WFBC AM/-FM/-TV as the flagship stations. In the mid 1970s, the famous "Arrow 4" logo was introduced and was used in one form or another for many years.
In 1983, due to new rules restricting common ownership of newspapers and broadcasting outlets in the same market, Multimedia sold off its Upstate cluster. In an unusual trade of one group's flagship station for another, WFBC-TV was traded to Pulitzer Publishing Company in return for KSD-TV (now KSDK) in St. Louis. At that point, Channel 4 changed its call letters to WYFF-TV (We're Your Friend Four). Pulitzer also acquired WXII-TV in the Piedmont Triad as part of the same deal. Although Pulitzer closed on WXII later in 1983, the acquisition of WYFF would not be finalized until January 1985 because Pulitzer had to sell off WLNE-TV in Providence in order to comply with Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ownership limits of the time; in the interim, Pulitzer took over the operations of WYFF through a time brokerage agreement with Multimedia.
Channel 4 was the first upstate television station to begin 24/7 broadcasting, and did so in the fall of 1988. It ran NBC News Overnight (later Nightside), Home Shopping Spree and CNN Headline News overnight. In 2005, it discontinued CNN Headline News (and previously the Home Shopping Spree) overnight and now runs NBC late night, drama reruns, home and garden shows, and paid programming overnight. In 1999 Hearst-Argyle bought Pulitzer's entire television division, including WYFF-TV.
Some NBC programs that were pre-empted by WFBC/WYFF over the years (most of which ended up on channel 40 WAXA, (now WMYA-TV) include:
Syndicated programming on WYFF includes Live with Kelly, The Rachael Ray Show, The Andy Griffith Show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, The Dr. Oz Show, Entertainment Tonight, and Inside Edition.
WYFF's signal is multiplexed.
| Channel | Programming |
|---|---|
| 4.1 | Main WYFF programming / NBC |
| 4.2 | This TV |
WYFF 4 WeatherPlus was offered on WYFF's digital feed as digital subchannel 4.2. Despite the discontinuation of the national NBC Weather Plus network on December 1, 2008, WYFF 4 continued offering local weather conditions using the WeatherPlus brand. WeatherPlus was dropped from WYFF on January 1, 2011 and replaced with This TV.[2]
WYFF temporarily broadcast digitally on channel 59, which is in the range of channels that is to become vacant after the digital television conversion is complete. When analog broadcasts ended, WYFF moved to channel 36 (formerly occupied by the analog signals of co-channel WCNC-TV in Charlotte and WATL in Atlanta).[3] WYFF's digital signal will continue to display as 4.1, its existing virtual channel number, but all ATSC tuners must be re-scanned to find it on 36 instead of 59. WYFF began broadcasting in digital only effective June 12, 2009.[4]
In South Carolina, WYFF is available on Comcast in Newberry, which is part of the Columbia media market. WYFF is also available on McCormick Cable System and Savannah Valley Cablevision in McCormick, which is part of the Augusta, GA market.
In North Carolina, WYFF is available on CoMPAS Cable in Morganton, which is part of the Charlotte market.
In Georgia, WYFF is available on KLIP Interactive in Danielsville and Northland Communications in Mountain City, which are part of the Atlanta market. The NBC affiliate for that market, WXIA, is not available in Mountain City.
During the CATV period in the 1970s and 1980s, WYFF was once carried as far east as Cabarrus County, North Carolina which is northeast of Charlotte. [5]
During the 1960s, personalities from channel 4 included Dave Partridge and Jim Phillips (Phillips died in 2003), better known to listeners of Clemson Tiger football radio broadcasts as "the voice of the Clemson Tigers". Partridge succeeded Duncan as anchor of the 6 and 11 o'clock news. In 1976 Kenn Sparks joined, and the 6 o'clock news went to a full hour called The Scene at Six. Later, in 1979, the long-running 'Your Friend Four' slogan was introduced and seen in a 1980 edition of TV Guide.
The 1980s brought new personalities to channel 4, like James Baker, sportscasters J.D. Hayworth, (later Congressman from Arizona), Roger Berry, Mark Marino and weatherman Charlie Gertz (who died in 2003 from a stroke). Action News 4 became NewsCenter 4 in the early 1980s.
Following the Pulitzer purchase, new personalities that arrived at WYFF included Carl Clark, Kim Brattain, and Carol Anderson (later Carol Goldsmith) who co-anchors the 5, 6, and 11 p.m. newscasts. In the late 1980s, Carol Anderson was replaced by Annette Estes who was removed from its rival station WSPA-TV due to an on-air curse word. Stan Olenik also came from WSPA. Goldsmith later took her spot back when Estes left the station in 1992. NewsCenter 4 became simply known as News 4 in the 1990s. Charlie Gertz retired, and the "arrow 4" logo was dropped by 1991.
Since January 26, 2010, WYFF's cameras have shot in high definition, although the station currently broadcasts local news in downconverted 16:9 standard definition with an updated graphics package. As of October 9, 2010, it is currently unknown when WYFF will eventually broadcast in HD.
Sports director Geoff Hart and chief meteorologist John Cessarich temporarily switched positions during the stations 11 p.m. newscast on November 18, 2010, with Hart doing the weather and Cessarich doing sports.[6]
Anchors
Weather Team
Sports Team
Reporters
Hearst Television Washington Bureau
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