WAAY-TV
Encyclopedia
WAAY-TV is the ABC
-affiliated television station
for the Tennessee Valley
area of North Alabama
that is licensed to Huntsville
. It broadcasts a high definition
digital signal on UHF channel 32 from a transmitter at its Monte Sano Boulevard studios on top of Monte Sano Mountain. Calkins Media
owns the station. It airs its daily 4 p.m. newscast from local lifestyle center
Bridge Street Town Centre
. Syndicated
programming on WAAY includes: Entertainment Tonight
, The Doctors
, Jeopardy!
and Live with Regis and Kelly
.
's first primary ABC affiliate. There was only one other station in the area at the time, Decatur
's WMSL-TV (now Huntsville's WAFF
). This was an unusual arrangement for a two-station market
especially one as small as Huntsville was at the time. When the station was sold to Smith Broadcasting (owners of WAAY now WLOR
radio) in 1963, the call sign was changed to WAAY-TV. It switched network affiliation to NBC
in January 1968 but returned to ABC nearly ten years later in December 1977 citing higher network ratings and the lack of a duplicate ABC affiliate in Florence
(where WOWL, now WHDF
, was then an NBC affiliate) as reasons.
Smith Broadcasting sold WAAY-TV to GOCOM Broadcasting (later renamed Piedmont Communications
) in 1999. The Smith family, who previously owned broadcasting properties in Birmingham
before coming to Huntsville, was the last local owner of a Huntsville television station as rivals WHNT-TV
and WAFF had been sold to larger corporations years before. WZDX
, which was the first station in Northern Alabama not affiliated with the traditional networks or the educational television system, has always belonged to outside interests. The Smith family also owned radio stations in Fort Walton Beach, Florida
and South Pittsburg, Tennessee
. At one time, all three of Huntsville's major-network affiliates (WAAY included) had studios located beside its transmitters and towers on Monte Sano.
After a 1982 fire gutted the building of WAFF, that station and later WHNT moved offices and production facilities into the city itself employing microwave relays to send signals to the transmitters. Only WAAY continues to maintain its full operations on Monte Sano Boulevard. WHIQ-TV which is a PBS
affiliate serves as a translator relay of Alabama Public Television
with programming originating from Birmingham, not Huntsville. On September 4, 2003, the 1,000 foot broadcasting tower leased by WAAY collapsed killing three people.
In 2006, Piedmont Broadcasting agreed to sell WAAY to Calkins Media which is a Pennsylvania
-based mass media
company that owns several small newspapers in Pennsylvania and two other television stations (WWSB
in Sarasota, Florida
and WTXL in Tallahassee, Florida
). The sale to Calkins became official on February 1, 2007. WAAY is Calkins' first broadcasting property outside of Florida
. On February 17, 2009, WAAY-TV ended its analog service on UHF channel 31 , the station remains to provide digital service on its current pre-transition channel 32.
affiliate WHDF during the early-2000s. On September 20, 2010 through a new news share agreement, a second WAAY-produced broadcast at 9 began airing every night on Fox affiliate WZDX
. In addition to its main studios, WAAY maintains news bureaus in Decatur
(on Lee Street Northeast) and Florence
(on North Pine Street within the University of North Alabama
campus), and broadcasts each weekday from Bridge Street Town Centre at 4 p.m. The station operates its own weather radar
at the main studios called "Live Storm Force 31 Doppler Max".
Storm Force 31 Meteorologists
Sports
Reporters
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
-affiliated television station
Television station
A television station is a business, organisation or other such as an amateur television operator that transmits content over terrestrial television. A television transmission can be by analog television signals or, more recently, by digital television. Broadcast television systems standards are...
for the Tennessee Valley
Tennessee Valley
The Tennessee Valley is the drainage basin of the Tennessee River and is largely within the U.S. state of Tennessee. It stretches from southwest Kentucky to northwest Georgia and from northeast Mississippi to the mountains of Virginia and North Carolina...
area of North Alabama
North Alabama
North Alabama is a region of the U.S. state of Alabama, generally considered to include 12 counties: Cherokee, Colbert, DeKalb, Franklin, Jackson, Lauderdale, Lawrence, Limestone, Madison, Marshall, Morgan, and Winston, with a combined population of 958,247, or 20.84% of the state's population as...
that is licensed to Huntsville
Huntsville, Alabama
Huntsville is a city located primarily in Madison County in the central part of the far northern region of the U.S. state of Alabama. Huntsville is the county seat of Madison County. The city extends west into neighboring Limestone County. Huntsville's population was 180,105 as of the 2010 Census....
. It broadcasts a high definition
High-definition television
High-definition television is video that has resolution substantially higher than that of traditional television systems . HDTV has one or two million pixels per frame, roughly five times that of SD...
digital signal on UHF channel 32 from a transmitter at its Monte Sano Boulevard studios on top of Monte Sano Mountain. Calkins Media
Calkins Media
Calkins Media is a media company based in Levittown, Pennsylvania, which owns 8 newspapers and 3 television stations, all of them are ABC affiliates. It was established in 1937 as Calkins Newspapers, Inc...
owns the station. It airs its daily 4 p.m. newscast from local lifestyle center
Lifestyle center (retail)
A lifestyle center is a shopping center or mixed-used commercial development that combines the traditional retail functions of a shopping mall with leisure amenities oriented towards upscale consumers...
Bridge Street Town Centre
Bridge Street Town Centre
Bridge Street Town Centre is a lifestyle center in Huntsville, Alabama, USA. It was developed by Q&S Holdings and designed by TSArchitects, both of Los Angeles. The center is located in Cummings Research Park at the intersection of Old Madison Pike, Interstate 565, and Research Park Boulevard...
. Syndicated
Television syndication
In broadcasting, syndication is the sale of the right to broadcast radio shows and television shows by multiple radio stations and television stations, without going through a broadcast network, though the process of syndication may conjure up structures like those of a network itself, by its very...
programming on WAAY includes: Entertainment Tonight
Entertainment Tonight
Entertainment Tonight is a daily tabloid television entertainment television news show that is syndicated by CBS Television Distribution throughout the United States, Canada and in many countries around the world. Linda Bell Blue is currently the program's executive producer...
, The Doctors
The Doctors (2008 TV series)
The Doctors is an American syndicated talk show airing daily in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Ireland, Sweden and Finland. It debuted on September 8, 2008. The hour-long daytime program is produced by Phil McGraw and his son Jay McGraw and is distributed domestically and globally by CBS Television...
, Jeopardy!
Jeopardy!
Griffin's first conception of the game used a board comprising ten categories with ten clues each, but after finding that this board could not be shown on camera easily, he reduced it to two rounds of thirty clues each, with five clues in each of six categories...
and Live with Regis and Kelly
Live with Regis and Kelly
Live! with Kelly is a syndicated American television morning talk show, hosted by Kelly Ripa. The show has aired since 1983 in New York City and 1988 nationwide. Tony Pigg has been the show's announcer since its inception...
.
History
The station's first broadcast was on August 1, 1959 as WAFG-TV. It was AlabamaAlabama
Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...
's first primary ABC affiliate. There was only one other station in the area at the time, Decatur
Decatur, Alabama
Decatur is a city in Limestone and Morgan Counties in the U.S. state of Alabama. The city, affectionately known as "The River City", is located in Northern Alabama on the banks of Wheeler Lake, along the Tennessee River. It is the largest city and county seat of Morgan County...
's WMSL-TV (now Huntsville's WAFF
WAFF (TV)
WAFF is the NBC television network affiliate in Huntsville, Alabama. The station broadcasts on UHF channel 49 and serves the northern portion of Alabama and several counties in southern Tennessee.-Decatur years, 1954 - 69:...
). This was an unusual arrangement for a two-station market
Media market
A media market, broadcast market, media region, designated market area , Television Market Area , or simply market is a region where the population can receive the same television and radio station offerings, and may also include other types of media including newspapers and Internet content...
especially one as small as Huntsville was at the time. When the station was sold to Smith Broadcasting (owners of WAAY now WLOR
WLOR
WLOR is a radio station licensed to Huntsville, Alabama, USA, that serves the greater Tennessee Valley area. The station carries a mix of oldies music, talk radio, and sports coverage. WLOR is part of the Black Crow Media Group and the broadcast license is held by BCA Radio, LLC,...
radio) in 1963, the call sign was changed to WAAY-TV. It switched network affiliation to NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
in January 1968 but returned to ABC nearly ten years later in December 1977 citing higher network ratings and the lack of a duplicate ABC affiliate in Florence
Florence, Alabama
Florence is the county seat of Lauderdale County, Alabama, United States, in the northwestern corner of the state.According to the 2005 Census Bureau estimates, the city's population was 36,721....
(where WOWL, now WHDF
WHDF
WHDF is The CW affiliate in northern Alabama, airing on channel 15. WHDF is under the ownership of Lockwood Broadcasting.WHDF's studios are located in Florence, and the station maintains a Huntsville sales office on Andrew Jackson Way, in the Five Points neighborhood...
, was then an NBC affiliate) as reasons.
Smith Broadcasting sold WAAY-TV to GOCOM Broadcasting (later renamed Piedmont Communications
Piedmont Television
Piedmont Television was a broadcasting company in the United States that owned television stations in smaller markets. The company was based in Charlotte, North Carolina....
) in 1999. The Smith family, who previously owned broadcasting properties in Birmingham
Birmingham, Alabama
Birmingham is the largest city in Alabama. The city is the county seat of Jefferson County. According to the 2010 United States Census, Birmingham had a population of 212,237. The Birmingham-Hoover Metropolitan Area, in estimate by the U.S...
before coming to Huntsville, was the last local owner of a Huntsville television station as rivals WHNT-TV
WHNT-TV
WHNT-TV is the CBS-affiliated television station for the Tennessee Valley area of North Alabama that is licensed to Huntsville. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 19 from a transmitter on Monte Sano. Owned by Local TV, the station has studios on Holmes Avenue Northwest in...
and WAFF had been sold to larger corporations years before. WZDX
WZDX
WZDX is the Fox-affiliated television station for North Alabama's Tennessee Valley. Licensed to Huntsville, it broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 41 from a transmitter on Monte Sano Boulevard Southeast in Madison County . The station can also be seen on Knology channel 4 as...
, which was the first station in Northern Alabama not affiliated with the traditional networks or the educational television system, has always belonged to outside interests. The Smith family also owned radio stations in Fort Walton Beach, Florida
Fort Walton Beach, Florida
Fort Walton Beach is a city in southern Okaloosa County, Florida, United States. As of 2005, the population estimate for Fort Walton Beach was 19,992, and as of 2010, the population estimate for Fort Walton Beach is 19,507 recorded by the U.S. Census Bureau...
and South Pittsburg, Tennessee
South Pittsburg, Tennessee
South Pittsburg is a city in Marion County, Tennessee, United States. It is part of the Chattanooga, TN–GA Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 3,295 at the 2000 census. South Pittsburg is home to the National Cornbread Festival.-History:...
. At one time, all three of Huntsville's major-network affiliates (WAAY included) had studios located beside its transmitters and towers on Monte Sano.
After a 1982 fire gutted the building of WAFF, that station and later WHNT moved offices and production facilities into the city itself employing microwave relays to send signals to the transmitters. Only WAAY continues to maintain its full operations on Monte Sano Boulevard. WHIQ-TV which is a PBS
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
affiliate serves as a translator relay of Alabama Public Television
Alabama Public Television
Alabama Public Television is a state network of Public Broadcasting Service member non-commercial educational Public television stations serving the US state of Alabama. The television stations are licensed by the Alabama Educational Television Commission, which was created by the Alabama state...
with programming originating from Birmingham, not Huntsville. On September 4, 2003, the 1,000 foot broadcasting tower leased by WAAY collapsed killing three people.
In 2006, Piedmont Broadcasting agreed to sell WAAY to Calkins Media which is a Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
-based mass media
Mass media
Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...
company that owns several small newspapers in Pennsylvania and two other television stations (WWSB
WWSB
WWSB Channel 40 is the ABC-affiliated television station for the Florida Suncoast that is licensed to Sarasota. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 24 from a transmitter on Rutland Road in the unincorporated Manatee County community of Rye, about 5 miles ESE of Parrish...
in Sarasota, Florida
Sarasota, Florida
Sarasota is a city located in Sarasota County on the southwestern coast of the U.S. state of Florida. It is south of the Tampa Bay Area and north of Fort Myers...
and WTXL in Tallahassee, Florida
Tallahassee, Florida
Tallahassee is the capital of the U.S. state of Florida. It is the county seat and only incorporated municipality in Leon County, and is the 128th largest city in the United States. Tallahassee became the capital of Florida, then the Florida Territory, in 1824. In 2010, the population recorded by...
). The sale to Calkins became official on February 1, 2007. WAAY is Calkins' first broadcasting property outside of Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
. On February 17, 2009, WAAY-TV ended its analog service on UHF channel 31 , the station remains to provide digital service on its current pre-transition channel 32.
News operation
In the Spring 2007 ratings period, all of the station's newscasts ranked in third place. This is in contrast from the 1970s through the early-1990s, when WAAY was still family-owned. At one point, the station aired weekend morning newscasts but currently does not. On July 16, 2007 at 5, WAAY unveiled a new set and graphics package similar to that of sister stations WWSB and WTXL. Beginning September 13, 2010, its news title became WAAY 31 FirstNews. The station is now using the FirstNews brand and logo in all branding, including commercials for syndicated programming. The station was the first to air a 4:30 a.m. newscast in the market and is the only station in the area airing local news weekday at 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. The channel produced a prime time newscast at 9 for UPNUPN
United Paramount Network was a television network that was broadcast in over 200 markets in the United States from 1995 to 2006. UPN was originally owned by Viacom/Paramount and Chris-Craft Industries, the former of which, through the Paramount Television Group, produced most of the network's...
affiliate WHDF during the early-2000s. On September 20, 2010 through a new news share agreement, a second WAAY-produced broadcast at 9 began airing every night on Fox affiliate WZDX
WZDX
WZDX is the Fox-affiliated television station for North Alabama's Tennessee Valley. Licensed to Huntsville, it broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 41 from a transmitter on Monte Sano Boulevard Southeast in Madison County . The station can also be seen on Knology channel 4 as...
. In addition to its main studios, WAAY maintains news bureaus in Decatur
Decatur, Alabama
Decatur is a city in Limestone and Morgan Counties in the U.S. state of Alabama. The city, affectionately known as "The River City", is located in Northern Alabama on the banks of Wheeler Lake, along the Tennessee River. It is the largest city and county seat of Morgan County...
(on Lee Street Northeast) and Florence
Florence, Alabama
Florence is the county seat of Lauderdale County, Alabama, United States, in the northwestern corner of the state.According to the 2005 Census Bureau estimates, the city's population was 36,721....
(on North Pine Street within the University of North Alabama
University of North Alabama
The University of North Alabama is a coeducational university located in Florence, Alabama, and the state's oldest four-year public university....
campus), and broadcasts each weekday from Bridge Street Town Centre at 4 p.m. The station operates its own weather radar
Weather radar
Weather radar, also called weather surveillance radar and Doppler weather radar, is a type of radar used to locate precipitation, calculate its motion, estimate its type . Modern weather radars are mostly pulse-Doppler radars, capable of detecting the motion of rain droplets in addition to the...
at the main studios called "Live Storm Force 31 Doppler Max".
News team
Anchors- Erin Dacy - weekday mornings
- T.W. Starr - weekday mornings and "Did You Know" segment producer
- Meredith Wood - weekdays at 11 a.m. and 4 p.m.
- Guy Hornbuckle - Monday through Thursday at 4 p.m., 5 p.m., and 10 p.m., and Sunday nights
- Melissa Riopka - Monday through Thursday at 5 p.m., and 10 p.m., and Sunday nights
- "Focus on Faith" segment producer
- Ellis Eskew - Sunday through Thursday at 9 (on WZDX) and reporter
- Chase Gallimore - Sunday through Thursday at 9 (on WZDX) and reporter
- Sharon Doviet - 31 Law Line host
Storm Force 31 Meteorologists
- Spencer Denton - chief meteorologist; Monday through Thursday at 4 p.m., 5 p.m., and 10 p.m., and Sunday nights
- Gary Dobbs - weekday mornings and 11 a.m.
- Ben Luna - weekends
Sports
- Ronnie Duncan - Sunday through Thursday
- Kyle Burger - Friday and Saturday
- news and sports reporter
- "Burger Bytes" segment producer
Reporters
- Lillian Askins
- Erika Odell - Shoals bureau reporter
- Rachel Keith
- Rebecca Shlien
- Tim Reid