WJET-TV (channel 24) is a

television station A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity, such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the eart ...

Erie, Pennsylvania Erie (; ) is a city on the south shore of Lake Erie and the county seat of Erie County, Pennsylvania, United States. Erie is the fifth largest city in Pennsylvania and the largest city in Northwestern Pennsylvania with a population of 94,831 ...

, United States, affiliated with ABC. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group, which provides certain services to Fox affiliate

WFXP WFXP (channel 66) is a television station in Erie, Pennsylvania, United States, affiliated with the Fox network. It is owned by Mission Broadcasting, which maintains a local marketing agreement (LMA) with Nexstar Media Group, owner of ABC a ...

(channel 66) under a local marketing agreement (LMA) with

Mission Broadcasting Mission Broadcasting, Inc. is a television station group that owns 20 television stations in 17 markets in the United States. The group's Chair is Nancie Smith, the widow of David S. Smith, who founded the company in 1996 and died in 2011. All but ...

. Both stations share studios on US 19/Peach Street in Summit Township (with an Erie mailing address), where WJET-TV's transmitter is also located. However,

master control Master control is the technical hub of a broadcast operation common among most over-the-air television stations and television networks. It is distinct from a production control room (PCR) in television studios where the activities such as sw ...

and some internal operations are based at Springfield, Massachusetts–licensed Nexstar sister station and

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

/ CW+ affiliate

WWLP WWLP (channel 22) is a television station in Springfield, Massachusetts, United States, affiliated with NBC and The CW Plus. Owned by Nexstar Media Group, the station has studios at Broadcast Center in the Sandy Hill section of Chicopee at the ...

's studios in Chicopee. WJET's over-the-air signal covers the city of Erie and its suburbs and nearby communities in Chautauqua County, New York and northern

Ashtabula County, Ohio Ashtabula County ( ) is the northeasternmost county in the U.S. state of Ohio. As of the 2020 census, the population was 97,574. The county seat is Jefferson. The county was created in 1808 and later organized in 1811. The name Ashtabula de ...

. The station has been dropped from

Time Warner Cable Time Warner Cable, Inc. (TWC) was an American cable television company. Before it was acquired by Charter Communications on May 18, 2016, it was ranked the second largest cable company in the United States by revenue behind only Comcast, operat ...

(now

Charter Spectrum Spectrum is a trade name of Charter Communications, used to market consumer and commercial cable television, internet, telephone, and wireless services provided by the company. The brand was first introduced in 2014; prior to that, these ser ...

) in the eastern portion of the

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

TV market, in favor of

WEWS-TV WEWS-TV (channel 5) is a television station in Cleveland, Ohio, United States, affiliated with ABC. It has been owned by the E. W. Scripps Company since its inception in 1946, making it one of two stations that have been built and signed on by ...

from Cleveland.

History

WJET-TV signed on as the third station in Erie during the 6 p.m. hour on April 2, 1966. Owned by Jet Broadcasting along with WJET radio, it aired an

analog Analog or analogue may refer to: Computing and electronics * Analog signal, in which information is encoded in a continuous variable ** Analog device, an apparatus that operates on analog signals *** Analog electronics, circuits which use analog ...

signal on UHF channel 24 and the first program shown was a 24-hour movie marathon. The station immediately joined ABC. Previously, ABC had been limited to off-hours clearances on

station WICU-TV (channel 12) and

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

outlet WSEE-TV (channel 35) until this point. In January 1998, Nexstar acquired WJET-TV. Later that year, it began performing non-programming functions for Mission Broadcasting-owned WFXP as was standard for most Nexstar stations. That station was then consolidated into WJET's facilities. On April 3, 2006, the station celebrated its 40th anniversary. It began airing its digital signal on UHF channel 58 in high definition in 2008. WJET's broadcasts became digital-only, effective June 12, 2009. It is carried on cable in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, St. Thomas and other communities in

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

, Canada near

Lake Erie Lake Erie ( "eerie") is the fourth largest lake by surface area of the five Great Lakes in North America and the eleventh-largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and therefore also h ...

. In recent years, the station has been bumped to high dial positions on cable systems in those locations. WJET-TV was once available on cable in the Hamilton, Niagara, and Grand River areas but was dropped by the early 2000s. WJET-TV continues to supply its former radio sister with news and weather updates during the day, even though the two have been under separate ownership for several years. The station celebrated its 50th anniversary in April 2016. On June 15, 2016, Nexstar announced that it had entered into an affiliation agreement with

Katz Broadcasting Katz Broadcasting, LLC, doing business as Scripps Networks, is an American specialized digital multicasting network media company and a subsidiary of E. W. Scripps Company. The company owns (as of 2022) nine television networks that each carry ...

for the Escape, Laff, Grit, and Bounce TV networks (the last one of which is owned by Bounce Media LLC, whose COO Jonathan Katz is president/CEO of Katz Broadcasting), bringing the four networks to 81 stations owned and/or operated by Nexstar, including WJET-TV and WFXP.

News operation

Unlike most ABC affiliates in the

Eastern Time Zone The Eastern Time Zone (ET) is a time zone encompassing part or all of 23 states in the eastern part of the United States, parts of eastern Canada, the state of Quintana Roo in Mexico, Panama, Colombia, mainland Ecuador, Peru, and a small p ...

, WJET-TV did not air a full two-hour weekday morning show until the start of September 2014, when ''Good Morning Erie'' began to start at 5 a.m. On Friday nights at 11:20 (11:15 during the

high school football High school football (french: football au lycée) is gridiron football played by high school teams in the United States and Canada. It ranks among the most popular interscholastic sports in both countries, but its popularity is declining, part ...

season), it airs a local sports highlight show called ''Friday Night Lights''. When the station began operating WFXP, it took over production of that station's nightly half-hour prime time broadcast (known as ''Fox 66 News at 10''). This had previously been produced by WICU through a news share agreement; WICU's 10 p.m. newscast now airs on WSEE-DT2. On September 10, 2007, WJET-TV began airing an hour-long weekday morning show at 8 on WFXP (called ''Fox 66 News in the Morning''). This is the only local newscast in the area broadcasting in the time-slot. In June 2011, the station rolled out a new logo and on-air graphics, replacing a logo used since the early 1980s and graphics that were used for over 10 years. On October 23, 2013, WJET-TV began broadcasting newscasts in HD.

Subchannels

The station's digital signal is

multiplexed In telecommunications and computer networking, multiplexing (sometimes contracted to muxing) is a method by which multiple analog or digital signals are combined into one signal over a shared medium. The aim is to share a scarce resource - a ...

Notable former on-air staff

* Kevin Benson – meteorologist, now at

WPXI WPXI (channel 11) is a television station in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States, affiliated with NBC and owned by Cox Media Group. The station's offices and studios are located on Evergreen Road in the Summer Hill neighborhood of Pittsbur ...

in Pittsburgh * John Evans – sports director/anchor/reporter (1979–2000); current member, Pennsylvania House of Representatives * John Stehr – anchor/reporter (1979–1980), later the primary anchor at

WTHR WTHR (channel 13) is a television station in Indianapolis, Indiana, United States, affiliated with NBC. It is owned by Tegna Inc. alongside low-power, Class A MeTV affiliate WALV-CD (channel 46). Both stations share studios on North Meridian ...

in Indianapolis * Anita Vogel – reporter, now a reporter for

Fox News The Fox News Channel, abbreviated FNC, commonly known as Fox News, and stylized in all caps, is an American multinational conservative cable news television channel based in New York City. It is owned by Fox News Media, which itself is owne ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Wjet-Tv JET-TV ABC network affiliates Laff (TV network) affiliates Ion Mystery affiliates Cozi TV affiliates Television channels and stations established in 1966 1966 establishments in Pennsylvania Nexstar Media Group