WUVC-DT

WUVC-DT

Fayetteville/Raleigh/ Durham, North Carolina
City of license	Fayetteville, North Carolina
Branding	Univision 40 (general) Noticias 40 (newscasts)
Slogan	Tu Vida. Tu Canal.
Channels	Digital: 38 (UHF) Virtual: 40 (PSIP)
Affiliations	Univision
Owner	Univision Communications (WUVC License Partnership, GP)
First air date	June 1, 1981
Call letters' meaning	UniVision Carolina
Former callsigns	WKFT (1981–2003) WUVC (2003) WUVC-TV (2004–2009)
Former channel number(s)	Analog: 40 (UHF, 1981–2009)
Former affiliations	Independent (1981–1989, 1990–2003) CBS (1989–1990, simulcast with WRAL-TV)
Transmitter power	500 kW (digital)
Height	509 m (digital)
Facility ID	16517
Transmitter coordinates	35°30′44″N 78°58′41″W / 35.51222°N 78.97806°W / 35.51222; -78.97806

WUVC-DT, virtual channel 40 (UHF digital channel 38), is a Univision owned-and-operated television station that is licensed to Fayetteville, North Carolina, United States and serves North Carolina's Triangle region. The station is owned by Univision Communications. WUVC is shown on cable channel 8 in Raleigh, Fayetteville, Carrboro, and most suburbs, channel 2 in Cary, Garner, Clayton, and Smithfield, and on channel 11 in Durham and Chapel Hill.

History

Channel 40 first had its beginnings in Fayetteville as WKFT-TV, the first independent station in eastern North Carolina. Although the call letters were originally assigned to the original owners on July 22, 1980, the station itself did not go on the air until June 1, 1981. WKFT first operated from the old First Union Bank on the corner of Donaldson and Russell Streets in downtown Fayetteville and transmitted its signal from a 750-foot (230 m) tower in unincorporated Cumberland County on Cliffdale Road, with 1.54 million watts of power (the tower site has since been annexed into Fayetteville).

Fayetteville Television, a group of local businessmen organized by Robert Warren, a former Fayetteville reporter for then-ABC affiliate WRAL-TV (channel 5, now a CBS affiliate) in Raleigh, founded the station. Warren served as WKFT's first general manager, but was never an investor and was let go after only a month. WKFT offered a general entertainment format consisting of cartoons, westerns, religious shows, dramas and classic sitcoms. The station put a fairly decent signal into the southern portion of the Triangle, but was harder to receive in the more populated areas of the market.

In 1985, WKFT was sold to SJL Broadcasting, which formed Central Carolina Television to manage the station. The new owners subsequently invested about $5 million to build a new 1,800-foot (550 m) tower near Broadway near the Harnett/Lee County line. The new transmitter, activated in June 1986, operated with five million watts of power and brought WKFT's signal to the entire Triangle, and as far west as Greensboro. The station also rebranded itself as "Counterforce 40" and significantly upgraded its programming. However, it operated on a low budget, selling advertising mainly in the southern part of the market. By 1989, the station was in dire financial straits, most reportedly from debts owed to film houses for movies shown on the station.

In December 1989, WRAL's transmission tower was destroyed in a severe ice storm, forcing it off the air. Within three hours, WKFT picked up WRAL-TV's entire broadcast schedule. It simulcast WRAL entirely until October 1990, when that station's new transmission tower was erected. Additionally, WRAL-TV purchased the WKFT tower at Broadway. It installed Electronic news-gathering microwave receivers vital to relaying Fayetteville coverage to the WRAL studios in West Raleigh. After the simulcast ended, WKFT resumed a general entertainment format that fall with stronger programming offering a blend of sitcoms, cartoons, movies, talk shows and reality shows.

In the spring of 1991, Delta Broadcasting bought WKFT. By this time, the station was known as simply "TV 40." In 1994, the station was sold to Allied Communications, who subsequently sold it to Bahakel Communications in 1996. WKFT lost bids for the UPN and WB affiliations, and remained the only full-market general entertainment independent in the Triangle.

As the years went on, stronger programming became more difficult to find, and WKFT moved toward more paid programming (though it did briefly serve as the over-the-air home of the Carolina Hurricanes). On March 14, 2002, the station's transmission tower was struck by a small aircraft. Although the station's broadcasts continued on local cable systems, the station remained off the air for a few months.

The station was purchased by Univision Communications in April 2003. It switched its callsign and network affiliation on June 1 of that year, becoming the Research Triangle area's first Spanish-language television station as it joined the Univision network. Its programming inventory was picked up by WLFL (channel 22) and WRDC-TV (channel 28).

Digital television

Former logo, used until December 31, 2012

Digital channels

Analog-to-digital conversion

WUVC discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over UHF channel 40, 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] Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former UHF analog channel 40.

News operation

In 1986, WKFT debuted a locally-produced primetime newscast at 10 p.m., which focused more on Fayetteville and the southern part of the Triangle market. The newscast was later cancelled in 1989. After Delta Broadcasting bought WKFT in 1991, news programming was reinstated, although relegated to hourly news updates. In the mid-1990s, WKFT produced a live noon newscast, with national segments provided by Conus Communications' All News Channel.

After becoming a Univision-owned station, on April 19, 2004, WUVC launched the first Spanish-language news operation in North Carolina, with primetime news briefs branded as Notibreves.^[3] As part of an expansion of Univision's local news operations, the station added a weeknight 6 p.m. newscast, titled Noticias 40, on August 29, 2011; it is the first full-fledged Spanish-language newscast in North Carolina.^[4] In 2014 late They debuted a brand New Studio new monitors and weather center empazinzg North carolina growing community and the state and new reporter to the univsion 40. Thought to debut a morning broadcast that may not happen

News team

• Kevin Booker - Operations Director
• Natalie Veranda - Anchor
• Fernando Romero - Senior Photographer
• Adolfo Ibarra - Technical Director
• Colin Cartiz - Notices 40 repoter
• Katrina Torres - Interviewer/Reporter
• Gloria Carmina - meteorologist

Out-of-market cable carriage

In recent years, WUVC has been carried on cable in multiple areas outside of the Raleigh-Durham media market. That includes cable systems within the Greensboro and Greenville markets in North Carolina, and the Myrtle Beach market in South Carolina.^[5] On October 16, 2013, WUVC replaced Univision on Time Warner Cable's basic channel lineup in the Charlotte media market.^[6]

See also

• WTNC-LD

References

External links

• Univision
• Univision
• Query the FCC's TV station database for WUVC
• BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on WUVC-TV
• Info about WKFT from former Web site