WDTV (channel 5) 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 earth's s ...
licensed to
Weston, West Virginia, United States, serving as the
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS (an abbreviation of its original name, Columbia Broadcasting System), is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...
affiliate for
North-Central West Virginia
North Central West Virginia (sometimes known as "Mountaineer Country") is a region in the U.S. state of West Virginia. The region's largest cities are Morgantown, Fairmont, and Clarksburg.
Counties
* Monongalia County
* Marion County
* Harris ...
. It is owned by
Gray Media
Gray Media, Inc., doing business as Gray Television, is an American publicly traded television broadcasting company based in Atlanta. Founded in 1946 by James Harrison Gray as Gray Communications Systems, the company owns or operates 180 statio ...
alongside
Clarksburg-licensed dual
Fox/
CW+ affiliate
WVFX (channel 10). The two stations share studios on Television Drive in
Bridgeport
Bridgeport is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Connecticut and the fifth-most populous city in New England, with a population of 148,654 in 2020. Located in eastern Fairfield County at the mouth of the Pequonnock River on Long Is ...
(along
I-79/
Jennings Randolph Expressway); WDTV's transmitter is located in an
unincorporated area
An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...
between Clarksburg and
Arlington.
History
It signed on as WJPB-TV on March 17, 1954, as the second television station in the
market
Market is a term used to describe concepts such as:
*Market (economics), system in which parties engage in transactions according to supply and demand
*Market economy
*Marketplace, a physical marketplace or public market
*Marketing, the act of sat ...
licensed to
Fairmont. WJPB was a primary
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...
affiliate but maintained secondary relations with
ABC and CBS.
WTAP-TV in
Parkersburg was technically the area's first outlet having launched October 8, 1953. That station cleared programming from NBC, CBS, and ABC but was intended to be a primary NBC outlet. Originally, there were plans calling for WJPB to join WTAP (located to the west) and turn North-Central West Virginia into one large market. However, the latter's analog signal on UHF channel 15 was not strong enough to reach across the very rugged
dissected plateau
A dissected plateau is a plateau area that has been severely eroded, and the relief is sharp. Such an area may be referred to as mountainous, but dissected plateaus are distinguishable from orogenic mountain belts by the lack of fold (geology), ...
to provide Fairmont, Clarksburg, and Weston with adequate reception. Likewise, WJPB's analog signal on UHF channel 35 did not reach Parkersburg.
Those two issues, combined with the fact UHF converters were very expensive, led the station to shut down on February 28, 1955. Meanwhile, the area's third station
WBOY-TV signed on from Clarksburg on November 17, 1957. That was originally intended to be the ABC affiliate for all of North-Central West Virginia. After it became clear Clarksburg–Weston–Fairmont and Parkersburg were going to be separate markets, WBOY joined NBC and remains with the network to this day. On December 30, 1959, WJPB's owner was awarded a construction permit for an analog signal on the more desirable VHF channel 5 in Weston. It returned to the air on June 23, 1960, as a sole ABC affiliate. On November 15, 1964, the station changed its
call letters
In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign (also known as a call name or call letters—and historically as a call signal—or abbreviated as a call) is a Identifier, unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be fo ...
to WDTV. The calls had previously been used from 1949 until 1954 on what is now CBS
O&O KDKA-TV
KDKA-TV (channel 2), branded CBS Pittsburgh, is a television station in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. It is owned and operated by the CBS television network through its CBS News and Stations division alongside WPKD-TV (channel 19), a ...
in
Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of Un ...
. The call sign was reportedly chosen for use on this West Virginia outlet "in honor" of KDKA which had been a charter affiliate of
DuMont and served as the default station for Clarksburg–Weston–Fairmont.
In 1967, WDTV switched primary affiliation to CBS. As a result, it is one of the few TV stations in the country that has held a primary affiliation with all
"Big Three" networks. However, for many years it continued sharing ABC with WBOY and aired select
sports programming from the network since the market was one of the few in the country without a primary ABC affiliate. The area's cable companies imported
WTAE-TV
WTAE-TV (channel 4) is a television station in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States, affiliated with ABC. It has been owned by Hearst Television since the station's inception, making this one of two stations that have been built and signe ...
from Pittsburgh (which already served the
Morgantown area) to bring the full ABC schedule to the area. Illinois businessman W. Russell Withers bought the station in 1973 under his
Withers Broadcasting
At some point in 1981, WDTV dropped all ABC programming. The network would not return to a Clarksburg–Weston–Fairmont based station until August 1, 2008, when WBOY launched a new second
digital subchannel
In broadcasting, digital subchannels are a method of transmitting more than one independent program stream simultaneously from the same digital radio or television station on the same radio frequency channel. This is done by using data compress ...
to offer the network. WDTV aired programming from
UPN on its second digital subchannel until September 18, 2006, when the network merged with
The WB
The WB Television Network (shortened to The WB, stylized as "THE WB", and nicknamed the "Frog Network" and/or "The Frog" for its former mascot Michigan J. Frog) was an American television network that ran from 1995 to 2006. It launched on ter ...
to form
The CW
The CW Network, LLC (commonly referred to as The CW or simply CW) is an American commercial broadcast television network which is controlled by Nexstar Media Group through a 75% ownership interest. The network's name is derived from the firs ...
. WVFX, at the time owned separately from this station, became an affiliate with the new combined service (through
The CW Plus
The CW Plus is a secondary national broadcast television broadcast syndication, syndication service feed of The CW, whose controlling stake of 75% is owned by Nexstar Media Group, with Paramount Global and Warner Bros. Discovery holding their ow ...
) on a second digital subchannel.
In 2007, WVFX's owner, Davis Television, sold that station to Withers Broadcasting. The Clarksburg–Weston–Fairmont market has only five full-power stations, too few to allow a duopoly under normal
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, internet, wi-fi, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains j ...
(FCC) guidelines. However, Withers obtained a "failed station" waiver allowing the purchase to go through.
Gray Television
Gray Media, Inc., doing business as Gray Television, is an American publicly traded television broadcasting company based in Atlanta. Founded in 1946 by James Harrison Gray as Gray Communications Systems, the company owns or operates 180 statio ...
announced on May 13, 2016, that it would acquire WDTV and WVFX for $26.5 million.
Gray assumed control of the stations through a
local marketing agreement
In North American broadcasting, a local marketing agreement (LMA), or local management agreement, is a contract in which one corporation, company agrees to operate a radio station, radio or television station owned by another party. In essence, it ...
on June 1.
The sale was completed on May 1, 2017.
The northern West Virginia television geography is unusual, as
Monongalia County (including Morgantown) and
Preston County are assigned to the Pittsburgh market. WDTV has long claimed Morgantown as its primary coverage area, and been carried on
Xfinity
Comcast Cable Communications, LLC, doing business as Xfinity, is an American telecommunications business segment and division of the Comcast Corporation. It is used to market consumer cable television, internet, telephone, and wireless servic ...
's Morgantown cable system and its predecessors since 1965. However, none of the Clarksburg–Weston–Fairmont market stations were available on satellite in those counties, as the FCC would not allow satellite providers to carry them. A change in the law removed this restriction; one of the stated goals was to allow "orphan counties" served on satellite only by stations from other states to receive stations from their own state. The Monongalia and Preston County governments petitioned to allow carriage of Clarksburg–Weston–Fairmont market stations, and the market change was granted on February 2, 2018.
News operation
WBOY historically leads WDTV in local
Nielsen ratings
Nielsen Media Research (NMR) is an American firm that measures media audiences, including television, radio, theatre, films (via the AMC Theatres MAP program), and newspapers. Headquartered in New York City, it is best known for the Nielsen rat ...
because it operates a news bureau in Morgantown and provides its two West Virginia sister stations with a large amount of sports content relative to
West Virginia University
West Virginia University (WVU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university with its main campus in Morgantown, West Virginia, United States. Its other campuses are those of the West Virginia University Ins ...
, an arrangement dating back to their ownership by
West Virginia Media Holdings. However, in recent years, WDTV has been able to pull ahead in the key demographics for most of their shows, and even beats WBOY in overall viewers at times. In summer 2005, its newscast operation and commercial production went completely digital using
electronic news gathering
Electronic news gathering (ENG) or electronic journalism (EJ) is usage of electronic video and audio technologies by reporters to gather and present news instead of using film cameras. The term was coined during the rise of videotape techno ...
cameras
A camera is an instrument used to capture and store images and videos, either digitally via an electronic image sensor, or chemically via a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. As a pivotal technology in the fields of photograp ...
. The station was also first in West Virginia (and quite possibly the
East Coast) to exchange audio and video files through various compression formats and high speed
FTP servers.
After acquiring WVFX, WDTV made plans to produce a prime time newscast at 10 p.m. on the former. It would be the second time a broadcast has been attempted on the station in its history. In late 2010, the plans became a reality. The show is known as ''Fox 10 News at 10'' and it features the
Fox Interactive Media graphics package and music theme. WVFX also simulcasts WDTV's early evening broadcasts on weeknights from 5 to 6:30 p.m. This station does not air its weekday morning show for a full two hours unlike most CBS affiliates.
On November 12, 2011, WDTV began airing their news broadcasts in high definition. It makes WDTV the third station in West Virginia to broadcast local news in high definition, following
WTAP and
WSAZ-TV
WSAZ-TV (channel 3) is a television station licensed to Huntington, West Virginia, United States, affiliated with NBC. It serves the Charleston, West Virginia, Charleston–Huntington media market, market, the second-largest television market ( ...
(which, ironically, are now sister stations of WDTV).
''4th and Forever: Liberty's Last Season''
On December 5, 2024, WDTV aired the station's first-ever documentary, ''4th and Forever: Liberty's Last Season''. Narrated by
Jimbo Fisher, a 1983 graduate of
Liberty High School, the documentary follows the school's last football season before being consolidated into its crosstown rival. This is the first full-length documentary produced by a television station in Clarksburg, West Virginia.
Notable former on-air staff
*
Susan Barnett
*
Molly Line
*
Christi Paul
*
Dan Potash
Technical information
Subchannels
The station's 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— ...
:
Analog-to-digital conversion
WDTV shut down its analog signal, over
VHF channel 5, on June 12, 2009, the official date on which full-power television stations in the United States
transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition VHF channel 6 to channel 5.
Out-of-market carriage
WDTV is carried as far south as
Summersville in the
Charleston–
Huntington market. In the Pittsburgh market, it is carried in Morgantown, West Virginia;
Markleysburg, Pennsylvania; and
Oakland, Maryland
Oakland is a town in Garrett County, Maryland, United States, and its county seat. The population was 1,851 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. It is near Deep Creek Lake and the Wisp Ski Resort.
History
Oakland was formally incorpo ...
. In the
Harrisonburg market, it is carried in
Franklin,
Pendleton County.
CATV
During the 1970s and possibly into the 1980s, WDTV was once carried in Charleston
and surrounding areas. In Charleston, WDTV was available only when
WCHS-TV, then the CBS affiliate in the Charleston–Huntington market, did not clear a network program.
Notes
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wdtv
1954 establishments in West Virginia
CBS affiliates
Gray Media
Heroes & Icons affiliates
MeTV affiliates
Television channels and stations established in 1954
DTV
Weston, West Virginia