WGEM-TV

WGEM-TV




Quincy, Illinois/Hannibal, Missouri/Keokuk, Iowa
United States
City of license Quincy, Illinois
Branding WGEM (general)
WGEM News (newscasts)
Tri-States CW (on DT2)
WGEM Fox (on DT3)
Slogan The Tri-States'
News Leader
Channels Digital: 10 (VHF)
Virtual: 10 (PSIP)
Subchannels 10.1 NBC
10.2 The CW
10.3 Fox
Affiliations NBC
Owner Quincy Newspapers
(Quincy Broadcasting Company)
First air date July 5, 1953
Call letters' meaning GEM City (civic slogan of Quincy)
Sister station(s) WGEM, WGEM-FM
Former channel number(s) Analog:
10 (VHF, 1953-2009)
Digital: 54 (UHF)
Former affiliations Both secondary:
ABC (1953–1969, 1971–mid-1990s)
Fox (1990–1994)
Transmitter power 21.2 kW
Height 238 m
Facility ID 54275
Transmitter coordinates 39°57′4.1″N 91°19′54″W / 39.951139°N 91.33167°W
Licensing authority FCC
Public license information: Profile
CDBS
Website www.wgem.com

WGEM-TV is the NBC-affiliated television station for the Tri-States area of Western Illinois, Northeastern Missouri, and extreme Southeastern Iowa that is licensed to Quincy, Illinois. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on VHF channel 10 from a transmitter east of the city on Cannonball Road near I-172. The station is the flagship of Quincy Newspapers, and is a sister operation to the company's namesake, The Quincy Herald-Whig. and has studios in the New Tremont Apartments (formerly the Hotel Quincy) on Hampshire Street in Downtown Quincy. WGEM clears all NBC programming, although the station airs Days of Our Lives weekdays at 4PM instead of NBC's recommended timeslot of 1PM local time.

History

The station signed on for the first time on July 5, 1953. WGEM has always been an NBC affiliate, but maintained a secondary ABC affiliation between 1953 and 1969 as well as from 1971 until the mid-1990s, shared with CBS affiliate KHQA-TV during the 1960s. WJJY-TV in Jacksonville, Illinois was the primary ABC affiliate for Quincy between 1969 and 1971; when WJJY went bankrupt and shut down, WGEM resumed carrying a few ABC shows. The station also had a secondary affiliation with Fox between 1990 and 1994. It is one of the few and longest operating television stations in the country, outside of network owned-and-operated stations that has had the same call letters, owner, channel number, and primary network affiliation throughout its history.

Since the mid to late-1990s, WGEM has not mentioned its channel number on-air, instead choosing to be identified by its call letters.

News operation

Nightly news open at 10.

Appropriately for a station with roots in a newspaper, WGEM-TV has long been the dominant news station in the Tri-State Area. The station has always devoted significant resources to its news department, resulting in a higher-quality product than conventional wisdom would suggest for a station in such a small market. Currently, WGEM-TV airs an hour-and-a-half newscast weekday mornings at 5:30, as well as half-hour newscasts on weekdays at noon, 5, 6 and 10 pm. The main channel does not air early evening news on weekends, but does air a weekly news roundup at 6:30 am. Even with only one live weekend newscast, WGEM-TV airs 25 hours of news per week, far more than conventional wisdom would suggest for a station in the 171st market.

WGEM once produced a weeknight 9 o'clock newscast for its then cable-only Fox sister station. Known as CGEM News at 9, it debuted in April 2006 but was canceled in March 2007. The broadcast was anchored by Jake Miller with Chief Meteorologist Rich Cain and Sports Director Ben Marth. At one point in time, WGEM-DT2 simulcasted WGEM-FM's weekday morning show, WGEM Sunrise: Radio Edition, from 7 to 9. Today it re-airs one WGEM-produced weekly public affair shows, City Desk, along with one other locally-produced programs: WGEM Academic Challenge. In addition to its main studios, the station used to operate a bureau on South Randolph Street in Macomb, Illinois, but it was closed in 2008. Like all CW Plus affiliates in the Central Time Zone, WGEM-DT2 airs the nationally syndicated morning show The Daily Buzz on weekdays from 5 to 8.

Digital television

Digital channels

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

Channel Video Aspect PSIP Short Name Programming[1]
10.1 1080i 16:9 WGEM-DT Main WGEM programming / NBC
10.2 480i 4:3 Tri-states CW
10.3 720p 16:9 Additional syndicated programming / Fox

Analog-to-digital conversion

WGEM-TV shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 10, on February 17, 2009, the original date in which full-power television stations in the United States were to transition from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate (which was later pushed back to June 12, 2009). The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition UHF channel 54, which was among the high band UHF channels (52-69) that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition, to its analog-era VHF channel 10.[2][3]

See also

References

  1. ↑ RabbitEars TV Query for WGEM
  2. ↑ Quincy station off air during switch to digital, Hannibal Courier-Post, Feb 17, 2009
  3. ↑ "DTV Tentative Channel Designations for the First and the Second Rounds" (PDF). Retrieved 2012-03-24.

External links