WEMT

For the acronym of WEMT see Wilderness emergency medical technician.

WEMT

Greeneville/Kingsport/Johnson City/ Bristol, Tennessee-Bristol, Virginia
City of license	Greeneville, Tennessee
Branding	Fox Tri-Cities (general) Fox Tri-Cities News
Slogan	Earning Your Trust
Channels	Digital: 38 (UHF) Virtual: 39 (PSIP)
Subchannels	39.1 Fox 39.2 Movies!
Translators	43 W43BO Marion, VA
Owner	Esteem Broadcasting, LLC (operated through LMA by Bonten Media Group) (Esteem License Holdings, Inc.)
First air date	November 8, 1985
Call letters' meaning	East and Mid Tennessee
Sister station(s)	WCYB-TV
Former callsigns	WETO-TV (1985-1989)
Former channel number(s)	Analog: 39 (UHF, 1985-2009)
Former affiliations	Independent (1985-1987)
Transmitter power	1,000 kW
Height	721 m
Facility ID	40761
Transmitter coordinates	36°26′58.2″N 82°6′28.7″W / 36.449500°N 82.107972°W / 36.449500; -82.107972
Website	WEMT Online

WEMT is the Fox-affiliated television station for the Tri-Cities area of Northeastern Tennessee and Southwestern Virginia licensed to Greeneville, Tennessee. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 38 (PSIP virtual channel 39) from a transmitter at Rye Patch Knob on Holston Mountain. The transmitter was previously located at Camp Creek Bald on Viking Mountain on the Tennessee/North Carolina border outside Greeneville. WEMT can be seen in Marion, Virginia on repeater W43BO channel 43 from a transmitter north of town on Walker Mountain.

Owned by Esteem Broadcasting, the station is operated by the Bonten Media Group through a local marketing agreement (LMA) with NBC affiliate WCYB-TV, whose transmitter is co-located with WEMT. The two share studios on Lee Street in Bristol, Virginia along the Tennessee and Virginia state line. The station can also be seen on Comcast channel 9 and Charter channel 10. There is a high definition signal offered on Comcast digital channel 434 and Charter digital channel 710. Syndicated programming on this station includes: How I Met Your Mother, Family Guy, Judge Joe Brown, and The Arsenio Hall Show.

Digital television

Digital channels

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

Analog-to-digital conversion

WEMT shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 39, on June 12, 2009, the official date in which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 38.^[2][3] Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former UHF analog channel 39.

History

This station has the historic distinction of having more owners (at eight) since it signed on-the-air than any other commercial television station in Tennessee. It began operations on November 8, 1985 as WETO-TV owned by East Tennessee's Own, Inc. It was the first Independent in the area and aired an analog signal on UHF channel 39 from a transmitter on Viking Mountain's Camp Creek Bald on the Tennessee and North Carolina state line. Prior to WETO's sign-on, the channel allocation was occupied by a translator for ABC affiliate WKPT-TV. It had a general entertainment format consisting of cartoons, sitcoms, old movies, and religious programming.

In 1987, WETO was sold to the TVX Broadcast Group and on May 3 of that year became an affiliate of Fox. The station was again sold in May 1988 to MT Communications a company named for and headed by Michael Thompson. On November 29, 1989, its call sign changed to WEMT which was originally used by ABC affiliate WVII-TV in Bangor, Maine.^[4] MT Communications also purchased WCAY-TV (renamed WXMT now WUXP-TV) in Nashville and WMKW-TV (renamed WLMT) in Memphis at the same time. All three MT stations were Fox affiliates but the network had a group deal with TVX stipulating any under-performing stations the company sold could lose the network affiliation. While WXMT and WLMT lost the Fox affiliation to competing stations in the respective markets, the lack of competing Independent stations in the Tri-Cities area resulted in WEMT retaining its affiliation. ^{[citation needed]}

In 1992, Mass Media Communications acquired WEMT and WLMT which turned around and sold the two to Max Media Properties, LLC in 1996. WEMT was acquired by the Sinclair Broadcast Group in 2000 which partially reunited the station with WXMT that was sold separately in the early-1990s and by then was managed by Sinclair's WZTV. WEMT's digital signal on UHF channel 38 began operations in 2001. On February 8, 2006, Sinclair sold the station to Aurora Broadcasting, Inc.^[5] In mid-December 2006 as a result of Bluestone Television's acquisition by the Bonten Media Group, Esteem Broadcasting acquired Aurora's stock in this station which counting as a sale. Esteem would then pay $1.4 million in outstanding debt. WEMT then moved from its longtime studios on Hanover Road in Johnson City to WCYB's facilities in Bristol, Virginia.

On January 13, 2009, it was announced WEMT would be dropped from DirecTV effective January 15 over a retransmission consent dispute. That same day, an agreement was made public and the station continued to be provided on the system. ^{[citation needed]} On December 15, 2009, WEMT obtained an Federal Communications Commission (FCC) construction permit to move its transmitter from Camp Creek Bald to Holston High Point in order to be co-located WCYB's tower, which was completed in late November 2011.^[6][7] According to the construction permit, Greeneville continues to be the station's city of license and secondary cities are Bristol (both TN and VA), Kingsport, and Johnson City.

Out-of-market cable carriage

In recent years, WEMT has been carried on cable in multiple areas outside of the Tri-Cities media market. That includes cable systems within the Knoxville market in Tennessee and Kentucky, the Lexington market in Kentucky, and the Asheville market in North Carolina.^[8]

Newscasts

News open.

On September 12, 2005, WCYB began producing the area's first and only prime time newscast on WEMT from a secondary set at the shared studios. Known as Fox Tri-Cities 10 O'Clock News, it was originally seen every night for thirty minutes. This was expanded to an hour-long format on September 11, 2006. In October 2008, WEMT's newscast dropped WCYB's on-air look. Instead of using all blue graphics, this station now uses blue and red colors. The station also renamed the weather forecast segment and modified many other elements of the broadcast to distinguish itself from WCYB.

At some point in time, Paul Johnson (who was formerly Sports Director and weeknight sports anchor for both stations) began appearing on WEMT as a weeknight news and sports anchor and is now seen on both stations. His weeknight news co-anchor Rebecca Pepin is seen on WCYB also. On June 17, 2010, that station became the area's first to air local newscasts in high definition and the WEMT shows were included in the upgrade.

News Team

WCYB and WEMT have the same reporters, meteorologists and sports team.

Angela Yingling also co-anchors WCYB's weekend evening newscasts with Kyle Benjamin. Paul Johnson and Rebecca Pepin also co-anchor WCYB's weeknight 5:30 p.m. newscast.

Current On-air staff

Anchors

• Angela Yingling – weekends; also weeknight reporter
• Paul Johnson – weeknights
• Rebecca Pepin – weeknights

Fox Tri-Cities StormTrack Weather team

• Dave Dierks (AMS Seal of Approval) – chief meteorologist; weeknights
• David Boyd (AMS Seal of Approval) – meteorologist; weekends and weeknight fill-in
• Donnie Cox (AMS Seal of Approval) – fill-in meteorologist
• Kaitlin Penfold – fill-in meteorologist and reporter

Sports

• Jordan Conigliaro – sports director; weeknights
• Casey Goetz – sports anchor; weekends

Reporters

• Preston Ayers – also fill-in anchor
• Kyle Benjamin – also fill-in anchor
• Jim Conrad – Region Focus segment producer
• Callan Gray
• Julie Newman – also fill-in anchor
• Lyndsey Price
• Jonathon Radford
• Garick Zikan – also fill-anchor

References

External links

• WEMT "Fox Tri-Cities"
• Query the FCC's TV station database for WEMT
• Query the FCC's TV station database for W43BO