WCAV
Encyclopedia
WCAV is the CBS
-affiliated television station
for Charlottesville, Virginia
. It broadcasts a high definition
digital signal on UHF channel 19 from a transmitter on Carters Mountain. The station can also be seen on Comcast
channel 6 and in high definition on digital channel 212. Owned by Gray Television
, WCAV is sister to low-powered ABC
affiliate WVAW-LD and low-powered Fox affiliate WAHU-CD. All three share studios, known as the "Charlottesville Newsplex", on 2nd Street Southeast in Downtown Charlottesville.
In addition, some behind-the-scenes duties are run alongside that of sister station WHSV-TV
in Harrisonburg
(which the "Newsplex" has a resource sharing alliance with). Syndicated
programming on the station includes: Entertainment Tonight
, Judge Judy
, Family Feud
, and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire
. WCAV can also be seen on WVAW's second digital subchannel (on UHF channel 16.2) from the same transmitter.
. On WCAV-DT3 is a standard definition simulcast of WAHU.
's first CBS affiliate and first station to mount a challenge against established NBC
affiliate WVIR-TV
. Previously, the analog UHF channel 19 allocation was considered to bring Richmond
a primary WB station. That area had lacked such an affiliation since the switch of WUPV
to UPN
in 1997. Charlottesville had previously received CBS programming on cable from Richmond's WTVR-TV
and Washington D.C.'s WUSA
. When it launched, WCAV immediately replaced WUSA on local cable systems.
During 2007, the station first swapped analog cable channel allocations with WTVR. After that, the Richmond station moved to the digital tier. Shortly after WCAV's sign-on, owner Gray Television signed on ABC affiliate WVAW-LP on UHF channel 16. That station was formerly a low-powered repeater (on UHF channel 64) of Harrisonburg's WHSV and it replaced that station on Charlottesville-area cable systems. In early-2005, the two stations were joined by new Class A
Fox affiliate WAHU-CA on UHF channel 27.
Since 2006, the three have been the official flagships of University of Virginia
sports. The station is not related to the former WCAV-FM (now WKAF-FM
) in Brockton, Massachusetts
. After performing a flash-cut
, WCAV's broadcasts have been digital-only since February 16, 2009. Of all of the Richmond and Washington D.C. stations replaced on the main tier for the new Charlottesville ABC, CBS, and Fox affiliates, only WTTG
survived. On Comcast digital cable, Richmond channels include WRIC-TV
and WTVR. WUSA is not on digital cable nor is any other district station. Other Comcast providers north and west of Charlottesville do pick up Washington and Richmond locals either on the main tier or digital lineup.
WCAV and its sister stations employ the largest television news team dedicated exclusively to the Charlottesville market. While WVIR dedicates some staff to adjacent areas, WCAV focuses its coverage solely on the counties that comprise the Charlottesville viewing area. In June 2006, WCAV received the runner-up award for "Outstanding News Operation" by the Virginia
Association of Broadcasters. WWBT
in Richmond was the winner in that category. In 2007, the station received the "Outstanding Sports Coverage" award for a commercial television station from the Virginia Association of Broadcasters.
That same year, its website was the runner up to WVEC in Norfolk
for an outstanding website award. Beth Duffy, formerly of WVIR, returned to the airwaves on WCAV on April 16, 2007. On September 21, 2007 WCAV launched The Local AccuWeather Channel on a new second digital subchannel and live streaming video on its website. Known on-air as "CBS 19 Weather Now", it was added to Comcast digital channel 209 in December. Programming consists of local weather updates and national weather forecasts provided by AccuWeather
.
As the primary station in the "Charlottesville Newsplex" operation, it airs the most newscasts. WVAW simulcasts the second hour of Good Morning Charlottesville on weekday mornings, Charlottesville Tonight weeknights at 7, and CBS 19 News Nightcast weeknights at 11. WAHU airs an hour long extension of Good Morning Charlottesville weekday mornings at 7 and nightly prime time newscasts at 10 that competes with CW affiliate WVIR-DT3
. All shows, except the extension of Good Morning Charlottesville on WAHU, are streamed live on the "Charlottesville Newsplex" website.
Weather Authority Meteorologists
Sports (all seen on Friday Night EndZone)
Reporters
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
-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 Charlottesville, Virginia
Charlottesville, Virginia
Charlottesville is an independent city geographically surrounded by but separate from Albemarle County in the Commonwealth of Virginia, United States, and named after Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, the queen consort of King George III of the United Kingdom.The official population estimate for...
. 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 19 from a transmitter on Carters Mountain. The station can also be seen on Comcast
Comcast
Comcast Corporation is the largest cable operator, home Internet service provider, and fourth largest home telephone service provider in the United States, providing cable television, broadband Internet, and telephone service to both residential and commercial customers in 39 states and the...
channel 6 and in high definition on digital channel 212. Owned by Gray Television
Gray Television
Gray Television, Inc. is a communications company headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, with administrative offices in Albany, Georgia.Established in 1946 by James H...
, WCAV is sister to low-powered ABC
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...
affiliate WVAW-LD and low-powered Fox affiliate WAHU-CD. All three share studios, known as the "Charlottesville Newsplex", on 2nd Street Southeast in Downtown Charlottesville.
In addition, some behind-the-scenes duties are run alongside that of sister station WHSV-TV
WHSV-TV
WHSV-TV, channel 3 , is an ABC affiliate television station for the Harrisonburg, Virginia, market. WHSV News 3, as it is known on-air, is owned by Gray Television and has its transmitter located west of the town of Stanley on Massanutten Mountain...
in Harrisonburg
Harrisonburg, Virginia
Harrisonburg is an independent city in the Shenandoah Valley region of Virginia in the United States. Its population as of 2010 is 48,914, and at the 2000 census, 40,468. Harrisonburg is the county seat of Rockingham County and the core city of the Harrisonburg, Virginia Metropolitan Statistical...
(which the "Newsplex" has a resource sharing alliance with). 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 the station 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...
, Judge Judy
Judge Judy
Judge Judy is an American court show featuring former family court judge Judith Sheindlin arbitrating over small claims cases in small claims court...
, Family Feud
Family Feud
Family Feud is an American television game show created by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman. Two families compete against each other in a contest to name the most popular responses to a survey question posed to 100 people...
, and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (US game show)
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire is an American television quiz show which offers a maximum prize of $1,000,000 for correctly answering 14 consecutive multiple-choice questions of random difficulty. Until 2010, the format required contestants to correctly answer 15 consecutive questions of increasing...
. WCAV can also be seen on WVAW's second digital subchannel (on UHF channel 16.2) from the same transmitter.
Digital programming
On WCAV-DT2 and Comcast digital channel 209 is The Local AccuWeather ChannelThe Local AccuWeather Channel
The Local AccuWeather Channel is a 24-hour, weather-oriented, commercially sponsored broadcast and cable television network in the United States owned and operated by AccuWeather, Inc., which is headquartered in State College, Pennsylvania....
. On WCAV-DT3 is a standard definition simulcast of WAHU.
| Channel | Video | Aspect Aspect ratio The aspect ratio of a shape is the ratio of its longer dimension to its shorter dimension. It may be applied to two characteristic dimensions of a three-dimensional shape, such as the ratio of the longest and shortest axis, or for symmetrical objects that are described by just two measurements,... |
Programming |
|---|---|---|---|
| 19.1 | 1080i 1080i 1080i is the shorthand name for a high-definition television mode. The i means interlaced video; 1080i differs from 1080p, in which the p stands for progressive scan. The term 1080i assumes a widescreen aspect ratio of 16:9, implying a frame size of 1920×1080 pixels... |
16:9 16:9 16:9 is an aspect ratio with a width of 16 units and height of 9. Since 2009, it has become the most common aspect ratio for sold televisions and computer monitors and is also the international standard format of HDTV, Full HD, non-HD digital television and analog widescreen television ... |
main WCAV programming/CBS HD |
| 19.2 | 480i 480i 480i is the shorthand name for a video mode, namely the US NTSC television system or digital television systems with the same characteristics. The i, which is sometimes uppercase, stands for interlaced, the 480 for a vertical frame resolution of 480 lines containing picture information; while NTSC... |
4:3 | WCAV-DT2 "CBS 19 Weather Now" |
| 19.3 | 480i | 4:3 | WAHU-CD "Fox 27" |
History
WCAV began broadcasting on August 15, 2004 becoming the marketMedia 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...
's first CBS affiliate and first station to mount a challenge against established 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...
affiliate WVIR-TV
WVIR-TV
WVIR-TV is the NBC-affiliated television station for Charlottesville and Harrisonburg, Virginia. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 32 from a transmitter on Carters Mountain south of Charlottesville. The station can also be seen on Comcast channel 4 and in high definition...
. Previously, the analog UHF channel 19 allocation was considered to bring Richmond
Richmond, Virginia
Richmond is the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia, in the United States. It is an independent city and not part of any county. Richmond is the center of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Greater Richmond area...
a primary WB station. That area had lacked such an affiliation since the switch of WUPV
WUPV
WUPV is the CW-affiliated television station for Richmond, Virginia that is licensed to Ashland. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 47 from a transmitter northeast of the city in King William County along the Hanover County line...
to UPN
UPN
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...
in 1997. Charlottesville had previously received CBS programming on cable from Richmond's WTVR-TV
WTVR-TV
WTVR-TV, virtual channel 6, is a CBS television affiliate based in Richmond, Virginia owned by Local TV, the broadcasting arm of Oak Hill Capital Partners...
and Washington D.C.'s WUSA
WUSA (TV)
WUSA is a television station broadcasting on channel 9 in Washington, D.C.. Owned by the Gannett Company, WUSA is an affiliate of the CBS television network, and the longest-tenured affiliate of that network...
. When it launched, WCAV immediately replaced WUSA on local cable systems.
During 2007, the station first swapped analog cable channel allocations with WTVR. After that, the Richmond station moved to the digital tier. Shortly after WCAV's sign-on, owner Gray Television signed on ABC affiliate WVAW-LP on UHF channel 16. That station was formerly a low-powered repeater (on UHF channel 64) of Harrisonburg's WHSV and it replaced that station on Charlottesville-area cable systems. In early-2005, the two stations were joined by new Class A
Class A television service
The class A television service is a system for regulating some low-power television stations in the United States. Class A stations are denoted by the broadcast callsign suffix "-CA" or "-CD" , although very many analog -CA stations have a digital companion channel that was assigned the -LD...
Fox affiliate WAHU-CA on UHF channel 27.
Since 2006, the three have been the official flagships of University of Virginia
University of Virginia
The University of Virginia is a public research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, founded by Thomas Jefferson...
sports. The station is not related to the former WCAV-FM (now WKAF-FM
WKAF (FM)
WKAF is a radio station in the Boston, Massachusetts market, simulcasting the rock format of WAAF 107.3. It broadcasts on 97.7 MHz, and serves the Metro Boston and South Shore areas of Massachusetts, which are unable to receive WAAF's main signal.- History :...
) in Brockton, Massachusetts
Brockton, Massachusetts
Brockton is a city in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States; the population was 93,810 in the 2010 Census. Brockton, along with Plymouth, are the county seats of Plymouth County...
. After performing a flash-cut
Flash-cut
A flash-cut, also called flash-cutover, is an immediate change in a complex system, with no phase-in period.Some telephone area codes were split immediately, rather than being phased in with a permissive dialing period. An example is telephone area code 213, which was split into 213 and 714 all at...
, WCAV's broadcasts have been digital-only since February 16, 2009. Of all of the Richmond and Washington D.C. stations replaced on the main tier for the new Charlottesville ABC, CBS, and Fox affiliates, only WTTG
WTTG
WTTG, channel 5, is an owned-and-operated television station of the Fox Broadcasting Company, located in the American capital city of Washington, D.C...
survived. On Comcast digital cable, Richmond channels include WRIC-TV
WRIC-TV
WRIC-TV, virtual channel 8 , is the ABC-affiliated television station for the Richmond, Virginia market. It is owned by Young Broadcasting. The station is licensed to nearby Petersburg, while its studios are just off the Powhite Parkway extension in the Arboretum office park in western...
and WTVR. WUSA is not on digital cable nor is any other district station. Other Comcast providers north and west of Charlottesville do pick up Washington and Richmond locals either on the main tier or digital lineup.
News operation
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
Association of Broadcasters. WWBT
WWBT
WWBT is the NBC-affiliated television station for Richmond, Virginia. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on VHF channel 12 from a transmitter at its studios on Midlothian Turnpike in the city. Owned by Raycom Media, the station operates CW affiliate WUPV through a shared services...
in Richmond was the winner in that category. In 2007, the station received the "Outstanding Sports Coverage" award for a commercial television station from the Virginia Association of Broadcasters.
That same year, its website was the runner up to WVEC in Norfolk
Norfolk, Virginia
Norfolk is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. With a population of 242,803 as of the 2010 Census, it is Virginia's second-largest city behind neighboring Virginia Beach....
for an outstanding website award. Beth Duffy, formerly of WVIR, returned to the airwaves on WCAV on April 16, 2007. On September 21, 2007 WCAV launched The Local AccuWeather Channel on a new second digital subchannel and live streaming video on its website. Known on-air as "CBS 19 Weather Now", it was added to Comcast digital channel 209 in December. Programming consists of local weather updates and national weather forecasts provided by AccuWeather
AccuWeather
AccuWeather is an American media company that provides for-profit weather forecasting services worldwide.AccuWeather was founded in 1962 by Joel N. Myers, then a Penn State graduate student working on degrees in meteorology. His first customer was a gas company in Pennsylvania. While running the...
.
As the primary station in the "Charlottesville Newsplex" operation, it airs the most newscasts. WVAW simulcasts the second hour of Good Morning Charlottesville on weekday mornings, Charlottesville Tonight weeknights at 7, and CBS 19 News Nightcast weeknights at 11. WAHU airs an hour long extension of Good Morning Charlottesville weekday mornings at 7 and nightly prime time newscasts at 10 that competes with CW affiliate WVIR-DT3
WVIR-DT3
WVIR-DT3 is the CW-affiliated television station for Charlottesville and Harrisonburg, Virginia. The station is part of The CW Plus, a special national CW feed broadcasting on cable and/or over-the-air on a digital signal. It is a second digital subchannel of NBC affiliate WVIR-TV owned by the...
. All shows, except the extension of Good Morning Charlottesville on WAHU, are streamed live on the "Charlottesville Newsplex" website.
News team
Anchors- Bo Sykes - weekday mornings and noon
- Stephanie Satchell - weekday mornings and reporter
- Jim Hanchett - News Director seen weeknights at 5 and 5:30
- Dan Schutte - weeknights at 6 and 11
- John Rodgers - weeknights at 7 and 10
- Tara Wheeler - weeknights at 7, 10, and reporter
- Carter Johnson - weekends and reporter
Weather Authority Meteorologists
- Travis Koshko (NWANational Weather AssociationThe National Weather Association is an American professional association with a mission to support and promote excellence in operational meteorology and related activities...
Seal of Approval) - Chief seen weekday mornings and noon - Brantley Ussery - weeknights
- Melanie Niemann - weekends
Sports (all seen on Friday Night EndZone)
- Damon Dillman - Director seen weeknights at 6, 7, 10, and 11
- Kristi Fulkerson - weekends and sports reporter
Reporters
- Beth Duffy - Special Correspondent and "Beth on the Bright Side" segment producer
- Bailey Disselkoen - producer
- Jessica Jaglois
- Chris Stover
- Frankie Jupiter
- Rachel Ryan