WAVY-TV

WAVY-TV

Portsmouth/Norfolk/Virginia Beach/ Newport News, Virginia United States
Branding	WAVY TV 10 (general) WAVY News 10 (newscasts)
Slogan	10 On Your Side
Channels	Digital: 31 (UHF) Virtual: 10 (PSIP)
Subchannels	10.1 NBC 10.2 Bounce TV
Translators	(see article)
Affiliations	NBC (1959-present)
Owner	Media General (WAVY Broadcasting, LLC)
First air date	September 1, 1957
Call letters' meaning	WAVY and logo are references to Atlantic Ocean or Chesapeake Bay and also sounds like "navy" [1]
Sister station(s)	WVBT
Former channel number(s)	Analog: 10 (VHF, 1957-2009)
Former affiliations	ABC (1957-1959)
Transmitter power	1,000 kW
Height	280 m
Facility ID	71127
Transmitter coordinates	36°49′14″N 76°30′41″W / 36.82056°N 76.51139°W / 36.82056; -76.51139
Licensing authority	FCC
Public license information:	Profile CDBS
Website	wavy.com

WAVY-TV, channel 10, is a television station licensed to Portsmouth, Virginia, serving as the NBC affiliate for the Hampton Roads area (comprising the cities of Portsmouth, Norfolk, Virginia Beach, and Newport News), and North Carolina's Outer Banks. WAVY is owned by Media General, and is a sister station to Fox affiliate WVBT (channel 43). The two stations share studios and offices located on Wavy Street in Portsmouth, and WAVY-TV broadcasts from a transmitter in located in Suffolk, Virginia.

Translators

In addition to its main signal, WAVY-TV is rebroadcast on seven translators.^[2][3][4][5] Both W14DY-D and W18EG-D are located in the Eastern Shore of Virginia and are municipally-owned by Accomack County rather than WAVY Broadcasting, LLC or Media General. Those in the Greater Hampton Roads area are owned and operated by Media General.

History

WAVY-TV, the Hampton Roads area's third-oldest VHF television station, began operations on September 1, 1957. It was originally owned by Tidewater Teleradio along with WAVY radio (1350 AM, now WGPL). It originally signed-on as an ABC affiliate but swapped with then-NBC affiliate WVEC-TV in 1959 due to its radio sister's long affiliation with NBC radio. In 1968, it became the second station owned by what was then known as LIN Broadcasting. WAND in Decatur, Illinois was the first owned by the company but was sold-off to a new owner in November 2007. As a result, WAVY-TV became the earliest station acquisition that is still owned by LIN TV through various ownership changes within the company along with one name change.

In April 1989 WAVY-TV moved its current studio located on Wavy Street in downtown Portsmouth. It previously broadcast from a former farmers market in another part of Portsmouth. The studio is located across the street from the nTelos Wireless Pavilion and near or across the street from the Elizabeth River.

Shortly after WVBT became the area's The WB affiliate in 1995, WAVY began operating that station though a local marketing agreement (LMA). LIN TV came to an affiliation agreement with Fox in November 1995, and WVBT took the affiliation from original Fox affiliate WTVZ in 1998. LIN TV purchased that station out-right in February 2002. WAVY was the first in the market to broadcast a digital signal in 2001.

On March 21, 2014, it was announced that Media General would acquire LIN.^[6] The merger was completed on December 19, bringing WAVY, along with WVBT, under common ownership with ABC affiliate WRIC in Richmond and fellow NBC affiliate WSLS in Roanoke.^[7]

Digital television

Digital channels

The station's digital channel is multiplexed:

WAVY-TV added Bounce TV upon its launch on September 26, 2011.^[9]

Analog-to-digital conversion

WAVY-TV discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over VHF channel 10, at 9 a.m. on June 12, 2009, as part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television.^[10] The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 31, using PSIP to display WAVY-TV's virtual channel as 10 on digital television receivers.^[11] As of November, 2014, WAVY still broadcasts an analog signal on two of its translator stations, making NBC the only major network to maintain an analog signal in the Hampton Roads area.

On August 7, 2009, WAVY began offering Mobile TV using BlackBerry.^[12]

News operation

WAVY News 10 open.

WAVY airs thirty hours of local news a week. It operates its own weather radar, called "Super Doppler 10", at its studios. It was the first in the area to air a local broadcast at 5:30 in the morning (beginning in 1992) and added weeknight 5:00 (in 1989) and 5:30 (in 1994) newscasts.^[13] It is known for being the first Hampton Roads station to use a helicopter to cover local news after introducing "Chopper 10" in 1982. The current Bell 206 Longranger helicopter has been used since 2000.^[14]

When WVBT made the switch to Fox in 1998, WAVY started producing a nightly 10 o'clock newscast on that station. It was not the market's first prime time show as CBS affiliate WTKR produced a short-lived newscast on WGNT from 1995 until 1997.^[15] ABC affiliate WVEC-TV also produced a prime time show on WPEN-LP from 1995 until it started LNC 4 (later LNC 5; now defunct) in 1997.^[16] WVEC continued to produce a 10 o'clock news on that station until January 30, 2009. The 45-minute broadcast on WVBT is followed by the Fox 43 Sports Wrap with sports news and highlights.

On July 21, 2008 at noon, WAVY and WVBT became the first stations in the market and their station group company to produce local newscasts in high definition. This is in contrast to rival WVEC's news being produced in 16:9 digital widescreen which is not true high definition but matches the ratio of HD television screens.^[17] WVBT added an hour-long extension of WAVY's weekday morning news on February 2, 2009. The show airs in an entertainment and lifestyle program format.

Until January 2007, WVBT operated a 24-hour local weather channel on its second digital subchannel 43-2. Known on-air as the "WAVY Weather Station", it was made cable-only in 2007 for unknown reasons. It was seen on Mediacom channel 9, Charter channel 22, and Cox digital channel 227 before going dark in 2011.^[18] There were live current conditions, updated forecasts, and a sweep of "Super Doppler 10".

On September 12, 2011, The Hampton Roads Show, an hour-long local lifestyle and entertainment program, moved from WVBT at 8 a.m. to WAVY at 11 a.m. With the move, weekend sports anchor Chris Reckling became co-host.^[19]

Notable current on-air staff

• Bruce Rader – sports director

Notable former on-air staff

• Rich Brenner, sports anchor during 1970s, now deceased
• Barbara Ciara, weekend co-anchor from 1983 until 1988, when she left for WVEC. Now working at WTKR; Also former President of the National Association of Black Journalists
• Lloyd Dobyns, news co-anchor in the 1960s with Vern Jones; Later a correspondent and anchor with NBC News (1969–1986) where he hosted the news magazine Weekend from 1974-1979; Winner of a Peabody Award
• Ahmed Fareed, sports anchor from 2005-2010, now a studio host and reporter at Comcast SportsNet Bay Area
• Rhonda Glenn, weather reporter, talk show host and anchor in the 1960s and 1970s. Golf commentator for ABC (1978-1994); First full-time national TV network female sportscaster (ESPN, February 6, 1981); Amateur golfer and author of dozens of magazine articles and books on the sport; Manager of Communications for the USGA (deceased)
• Hillary Howard, former weekend meteorologist during the late 1980s, now a host for WTOP-FM in Washington, D.C.
• Lisa Joyner, formerly at The Best Damn Sports Show Period, currently host of TV Guide Channel's inFANity
• Diana Morgan, anchor-turned-actress, seen in series such as JAG, The Bold and the Beautiful, Babylon 5 and The West Wing and films such as Titanic
• Byron Pitts, military reporter from 1984–86, now at ABC News
• Charles Pugh, anchor/reporter in the 1990s; Served as a weekend anchor and reporter at WJBK-TV in Detroit from 1999 - 2009; Was president of the Detroit City Council until resigning in 2013
• Thomas Roberts, consumer reporter/weekday afternoon co-anchor during the late 1990s, former anchor at CNN Headline News, now a morning anchor at MSNBC
• Marny Stanier, weekend meteorologist; Left for The Weather Channel in April 1987
• Stan Verrett, now an anchor at ESPN and ESPNEWS, also worked for WVEC
• Kelly Wright, now at Fox News Channel
• Terry Zahn, joined as reporter and weekend anchor in 1981, became lead anchor in 1984, left in 1993 and joined WVEC in 1994, where he served as lead anchor until his death in 2000

Out-of-market cable carriage

In the 1970s and 1980s, WAVY was once received as far west as Lawrenceville, Brunswick County and Halifax and Enfield in North Carolina. To the north in Crisfield, Maryland, it was also once carried there as well.^[20]

References

External links

• WAVY-TV website
• WAVY-TV mobile
• Query the FCC's TV station database for WAVY-TV
• Query TV Fool's coverage map for WAVY-DT
• BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on WAVY-TV