WVBT

WVBT

Virginia Beach/Norfolk/Portsmouth/ Newport News, Virginia
City of license	Virginia Beach
Branding	Fox 43 (general) WAVY News 10 (newscasts)
Slogan	On Your Side (during WAVY-produced newscasts)
Channels	Digital: 29 (UHF)
Subchannels	43.1 Fox
Translators	36 WPMC-CA Mappsville 45 WNLO-CD Norfolk
Network	Fox
Owner	LIN Media, LLC (WAVY Broadcasting, LLC)
First air date	March 22, 1993
Call letters' meaning	Virginia Beach Television
Sister station(s)	WAVY-TV
Former channel number(s)	43 (UHF analog, 1993-2009)
Former affiliations	Independent (1993-1995) The WB (1995-1998)
Transmitter power	1,000 kW
Height	241 m
Facility ID	65387
Transmitter coordinates	36°49′14″N 76°30′41″W / 36.82056°N 76.51139°W / 36.82056; -76.51139
Website	fox43tv.com

WVBT is the Fox-affiliated television station for the Hampton Roads area of Southeastern Virginia that is licensed to Virginia Beach. It is also the Fox station for the Outer Banks. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 29 from a transmitter in the Driver section of Suffolk. Owned by the LIN Media, the station is sister to NBC affiliate WAVY-TV and the two share studios with Ion Television owned-and-operated WPXV-TV on Wavy Street in Downtown Portsmouth.

Syndicated programming on WVBT includes: Maury, 30 Rock, TMZ on TV, and The Wendy Williams Show. It can also be seen on two Class A repeaters: analog WPMC-CA channel 36 in Mappsville from a transmitter along US 13/Lankford Highway in Bloxom and digital WNLO-CD channel 45 in Norfolk with a transmitter co-located with the main signal.

History

Logo from 1998 until 2008.

WVBT began operation on March 22, 1993 with Home Shopping Network programming along with infomercials and religious shows. It became a charter affiliate of The WB starting on January 11, 1995. Shortly thereafter, the station's original local owners signed a local marketing agreement (LMA) with LIN TV. Under that agreement, WAVY took over the station's operations, and WVBT moved to WAVY's studios in Portsmouth. In May 1996, WVBT began broadcasting from a new transmitter, giving it a coverage area comparable to the other major Hampton Roads stations. Before then, its over-the-air signal was effectively limited to Virginia Beach and parts of Norfolk.

WVBT found out in the fall of 1995 that it was going to lose its WB affiliation to the market's original Fox affiliate, WTVZ, due to an affiliation deal between The WB and WTVZ's owner, Sinclair Broadcast Group. LIN TV reached an affiliation agreement with Fox in November 1995, and WVBT swapped affiliations with WTVZ in August 1998. ^{[1] [2]} LIN bought the station outright in 2002.

Until January 2007, WAVY operated a 24-hour local weather channel on WVBT's second digital subchannel taking advantage of its 720p signal to present the service without interfering with video quality on either WAVY or WVBT. Known on-air as the "WAVY Weather Station", it was made cable-only in 2007 for unknown reasons. It can be seen on Mediacom channel 9, Charter channel 22, and Cox digital channel 227. There are live current conditions, updated forecasts, and a live feed of "Super Doppler 10 HD". However, some listing services continue to show a second digital subchannel for WVBT erroneously.

Digital television

Digital channel

Analog-to-digital conversion

On June 12, 2009 at 9 in the morning, ^[3] WVBT's digital signal remained on channel 29 when the analog to digital conversion was completed. What is now WNLO-CD began as W45BG (call sign assigned November 1993) becoming WNLO-LP in November 2000 and WNLO-CA in January 2002. It went all-digital in January 2005 making it one of the first low-power stations in the country to begin digital broadcasting. Its calls became the current WNLO-CD ("CD" for "Class A Digital") in July 2009. This should not be confused with a CW-affiliated sister station in Buffalo, New York that uses the same call letters in full-power form. The channel could have used the calls WVBT-CA (as most of these situations in other markets do) but likely chose not to due to the mere two-channel separation between channels 43 and 45 to avert confusion.

Translators

WVBT is rebroadcast on two low-powered class A translators. ^{[4] [5] [6] [7]} While one translator (WNLO-CD) is licensed in Norfolk, Virginia with its digital transmitter located in Driver, Virginia the other one (WPMC-CA) is licensed in Mappsville, Virginia with its transmitter located in Bloxom, Virginia in Accomack County of which is in the Eastern Shore of Virginia. Both class A translators are owned and operated by WAVY Broadcasting, LLC and LIN TV. Unlike WNLO-CD, WPMC-CA is not yet in digital; the tower is municipally owned by Accomack County to broadcast four county-owned translators of the four major Hampton Roads stations (including WAVY), which have not yet been converted to digital, as has WPMC-CA by LIN.

• WPMC-CA Channel 36 Mappsville
• WNLO-CD Channel 45 Norfolk

Newscasts

News open.

When WVBT made the switch to Fox in 1998, WAVY started producing a nightly prime time newscast on this station known as Fox 43 News at 10. It was not the market's first broadcast in the time slot as CBS affiliate WTKR produced a short-lived show on WGNT from 1995 until 1997. ^[8] ABC affiliate WVEC-TV aired its own prime time broadcast on low-powered WPEN-LP from 1995 until it started cable-only LNC 4 (eventually renamed LNC 5) in 1997. ^[9] WVEC continued to produce a 10 o'clock show on the cable channel until January 30, 2009.

WVBT's news has been very successful over the years with consistent viewership and ratings and is the only offering of late, local news an hour earlier. The nightly 45 minute broadcast is followed by the Fox 43 Sports Wrap that airs for fifteen minutes featuring sports news and highlights. It is similar in format to a highlight program currently seen weeknights on sister station WNAC-TV. On July 21, 2008, the station's newscast and sports show started to be produced in high definition after WAVY made the upgrade.

On February 2, 2009, WVBT added Fox 43 News at 7 on weekday mornings with local news, weather, and traffic updates along with various entertainment/lifestyle features. This morning show (which was essentially an hour-long extension of WAVY's morning broadcast) ended January 8, 2010. The program was then replaced by The Hampton Roads Show which launched January 18, 2010 from a new secondary set complete with a fully functional kitchen. ^[10] The Hampton Roads Show moved to WAVY at 11 in the morning on September 12, 2011. ^[11] It is a similar broadcast to one currently seen on sister station WPRI-TV known as The Rhode Show.

In 2012, WVBT aired The Daily Buzz on weekdays from 6:00-7:00 and again from 8:00-9:00 a.m. Sandwiched in between those 2 hours, is the revised program of WAVY News 10 at 7:00 on FOX 43, which was originally cancelled back in 2010. As of 2013, The Daily Buzz no longer airs on WVBT and the morning newscast became a two-hour show. On October 28, 2013, WVBT's 10:00 newscast was renamed WAVY News 10 at 10 on FOX 43.^[12]

News team

Anchors

• Don Roberts - weekday mornings (7:00-9:00 a.m.)
• Katie Collett - weekday mornings (7:00-9:00 a.m.)
• Nicole Livas - weeknights at 10:00 p.m.
• Tom Schaad - weeknights at 10:00 p.m.
• Anne McNamara - weekends at 10:00 p.m.; also reporter

Super Doppler 10 Meteorologists

• Jeremy Wheeler - weekday mornings (7:00-9:00 a.m.)
• Don Slater - Chief Meteorologist; weeknights at 10:00 p.m.
• Tiffany Savona - weekends at 10:00 p.m.

Sports

• Bruce Rader - Sports Director; weeknights at 10:45 p.m.
• Nathan Epstein - weekends at 10:45 p.m.; also sports reporter

Reporters

• Cheryl Tan - weekday morning traffic (7:00-9:00 a.m.)
• Brian Parsons - sports reporter; also fill-in sports anchor
• Art Kohn - video journalist
• Stephanie Harris - health reporter
• Chris Reckling - sports reporter
• Ava Hurdle - senior reporter
• Ariane Aramburo - fill in anchor/host The Hampton Roads Show (weekdays at 11 a.m. on WAVY)
• Jason Marks
• Andy Fox

References

External links

• WVBT "Fox 43"
• WAVY-TV
• Query the FCC's TV station database for WVBT
• Query TV Fool's coverage map for WVBT
• BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on WVBT-TV