WHTM-TV (channel 27) 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 ear ...
licensed to
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
Harrisburg is the capital city of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Dauphin County. With a population of 50,135 as of the 2021 census, Harrisburg is the 9th largest city and 15th largest municipality in P ...
, United States, serving the
Susquehanna Valley region as an affiliate of
ABC. Owned by
Nexstar Media Group
Nexstar Media Group, Inc. is an American publicly traded media company with headquarter offices in Irving, Texas; Midtown Manhattan; and Chicago, Illinois. The company is the largest television station owner in the United States, owning 197 tele ...
, the station maintains studios on North 6th Street in Harrisburg (although with a Hoffman Street address). Through a
channel sharing agreement with
Red Lion–licensed
religious
Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...
independent station
An independent station is an independent radio or terrestrial television station which is independent in some way from broadcast networks. The definition of "independence" varies from country to country, reflecting governmental regulations, market ...
WLYH (channel 49), the two stations transmit using WHTM-TV's spectrum from an antenna on a ridge north of
I-81 along the
Cumberland–
Perry county line.
History
The station first signed on the air on June 19, 1953 as WTPA (standing for "Television Pennsylvania"), operating as an
NBC affiliate. WTPA was founded by the Newhouse family, whose media holdings eventually became
Advance Publications
Advance Publications, Inc., doing business as Advance, is an American media company owned by the descendants of S.I. Newhouse Sr., Donald Newhouse and S.I. Newhouse Jr. It owns a large number of subsidiary companies, including Condé Nast, a ...
, and was operated alongside Harrisburg's two major newspapers, ''The Patriot'' and ''The Evening News'' (since merged as ''
The Patriot-News
''The Patriot-News'' is the largest newspaper serving the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, metropolitan area. In 2005, the newspaper was ranked in the top 100 in daily and Sunday circulation in the United States. It has been owned by Advance Publicat ...
''). The following year, it switched affiliations to ABC. It originally operated on
UHF
Ultra high frequency (UHF) is the ITU designation for radio frequencies in the range between 300 megahertz (MHz) and 3 gigahertz (GHz), also known as the decimetre band as the wavelengths range from one meter to one tenth of a meter (on ...
channel 71, but later moved to channel 27 in 1957, after that channel's original occupant, WCMB-TV, ceased operations. During WTPA's first year on the air, the station broadcast from 9:00 a.m. to 12:15 a.m. on weekdays and from noon to midnight on weekends. Early local programs included a midday
religious program ''Daily Devotions'', music and comedy-focused variety program ''Mac's Matinee'', daytime
talk show
A talk show (or chat show in British English) is a television programming or radio programming genre structured around the act of spontaneous conversation.Bernard M. Timberg, Robert J. Erler'' (2010Television Talk: A History of the TV Talk S ...
''Harrisburg Hostess'', cooking show ''Look What's Cooking'' and ''Susquehanna Trail''.
The
Times Mirror Company
The Times Mirror Company was an American newspaper and print media publisher from 1884 until 2000.
History
It had its roots in the Mirror Printing and Binding House, a commercial printing company founded in 1873, and the ''Los Angeles Times'' ...
acquired the Newhouse television stations (including WTPA) on March 28, 1980 and changed its call sign to the current WHTM-TV. The station was sold, along with then-sister station
WETM-TV in
Elmira, New York, to
Smith Broadcasting Company in 1986. WHTM, in turn, was sold to Price Communications in 1994.
Allbritton Communications acquired the station in 1996.
An
ice storm that hit South Central Pennsylvania on December 15 and 16, 2007, knocked out the power to WHTM's transmitter site, which also affected the reception of the station on some cable and satellite providers. WHTM's signal began operating at full power once again on the morning of December 18.
Feature reporter Chuck Rhodes served as a minor cast member in the 2000 film ''
Lucky Numbers'', which was based loosely on the
1980 Pennsylvania Lottery scandal and starred
John Travolta as a cash lacking
meteorologist
A meteorologist is a scientist who studies and works in the field of meteorology aiming to understand or predict Earth's atmospheric phenomena including the weather. Those who study meteorological phenomena are meteorologists in research, while th ...
, whose biggest competition in Harrisburg was Rhodes (the real-life incident occurred in Pittsburgh).
Sale to Media General and then Nexstar
On July 29, 2013, Allbritton announced that it would sell its seven television stations, including WHTM, to the
Sinclair Broadcast Group
Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. (SBG) is a publicly traded American telecommunications conglomerate that is controlled by the descendants of company founder Julian Sinclair Smith. Headquartered in the Baltimore suburb of Cockeysville, Maryland, ...
.
As part of the deal, Sinclair was planning to sell the license assets of its existing Harrisburg station,
WHP-TV (channel 21) to
Deerfield Media, but would still operate that station through
joint sales and
shared services
Shared services is the provision of a service by one part of an organization or group, where that service had previously been found, in more than one part of the organization or group. Thus the funding and resourcing of the service is shared and th ...
agreements.
However, the FCC ruled that Sinclair's plans to retain WHTM would have, in effect, created a new LMA between WHTM and WLYH-TV, even though the FCC had ruled in 1999 that such agreements made after November 5, 1996 covering more than 15% of the broadcast day would count toward the ownership limits for the brokering station's owner.
After several revisions to the deal—one which included a proposal to divest WHP and the LMA with WLYH, Sinclair chose to instead retain WHP and the LMA with WLYH, and divest WHTM.
On June 23, it was announced that WHTM would be sold to
Media General
Media General was an American media company based in Richmond, Virginia. The company's origins can be traced back to 1887 when Richmond attorney Joseph Bryan acquired ''The Richmond Daily Times'', which later became ''The Richmond Times-Dispatch ...
for $83.4 million.
After nearly a year of delays, the deal was approved by the FCC on July 24, 2014. Sinclair completed the purchase of the Allbritton stations on August 1, with WHTM being operated under a "Hold Separate Agreement" until its sale to Media General was completed on September 2. Several months later, in a separate transaction, on August 20, 2014, Sinclair also traded three other stations
KXRM-TV and
KXTU-LD in
Colorado Springs
Colorado Springs is a home rule municipality in, and the county seat of, El Paso County, Colorado, United States. It is the largest city in El Paso County, with a population of 478,961 at the 2020 United States Census, a 15.02% increase since ...
, and
WTTA in
Tampa Bay
Tampa Bay is a large natural harbor and shallow estuary connected to the Gulf of Mexico on the west-central coast of Florida, comprising Hillsborough Bay, McKay Bay, Old Tampa Bay, Middle Tampa Bay, and Lower Tampa Bay. The largest freshwater ...
to Media General for
WJAR in
Providence,
WLUK and
WCWF in
Green Bay and
WTGS
WTGS (channel 28) is a television station licensed to Hardeeville, South Carolina, United States, serving as the Fox affiliate for the Savannah, Georgia, area. Owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, WTGS maintains transmitter facilities on Fort Argy ...
in
Savannah
A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach the ground to ...
, which was part of Media General's acquisition of
LIN Media,
which was completed on December 19.
On January 27, 2016,
Nexstar Broadcasting Group—which owned WLYH (now
WXBU and owned by
Howard Stirk Holdings) from 2006 to 2015—announced that it had reached an agreement to acquire Media General. Upon consummation, WHTM became a sister station to five stations in three other Pennsylvania markets, including
WYOU and
WBRE-TV in
Scranton–
Wilkes-Barre,
WTAJ-TV in
Altoona, and
WJET-TV and
WFXP in
Erie. The sale was completed on January 17, 2017.
On December 3, 2018, Nexstar announced it would acquire the assets of
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...
-based
Tribune Media—which has owned
Fox
Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush'').
Twelv ...
affiliate
WPMT (channel 43) since 1996—for $6.4 billion in cash and debt. Nexstar was precluded from acquiring WPMT directly or indirectly, as FCC regulations prohibit common ownership of two or more of the four highest-rated stations in the same media market. (Furthermore, any attempt by Nexstar to assume the operations of WPMT through local marketing or shared services agreements would have been subject to regulatory hurdles that could have delayed completion of the FCC and
Justice Department's review and approval process for the acquisition.) As such, Nexstar was required to sell either WPMT or WHTM to a separate, unrelated company to address the ownership conflict.
On March 20, 2019, it was announced that Nexstar would keep WHTM-TV and sell WPMT to
Tegna Inc., as part of the company's sale of nineteen Nexstar- and Tribune-operated stations to Tegna and the
E. W. Scripps Company in separate deals worth $1.32 billion; along with Scranton sister station
WNEP-TV (which was also acquired by Tegna as part of the spin-offs), this made WPMT among the first television properties in Pennsylvania for Tegna.
Programming
Syndicated programming
Syndicated
Syndication may refer to:
* Broadcast syndication, where individual stations buy programs outside the network system
* Print syndication, where individual newspapers or magazines license news articles, columns, or comic strips
* Web syndication, ...
programming on WHTM includes ''
Live with Kelly and Ryan'', ''
Funny You Should Ask'', ''
Hot Bench'', ''
Judge Judy
''Judge Judy'' is an American arbitration-based reality court show presided over by former Manhattan Family Court Judge Judith Sheindlin. The show featured Sheindlin as she adjudicated real-life small-claims disputes within a simulated court ...
'' and ''
Inside Edition
''Inside Edition'' is an American news broadcasting newsmagazine program that is distributed in first-run syndication by CBS Media Ventures. Having premiered on January 9, 1989, it is the longest-running syndicated-newsmagazine program that is ...
''.
News operation
WHTM-TV presently broadcasts 33½ hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with 5½ hours each weekday and three hours each on Saturdays and Sundays). In addition to its main studios, WHTM operates news bureaus at ''
The York Dispatch'' offices on North George Street (
I-83 Business) in Downtown
York
York is a cathedral city with Roman Britain, Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers River Ouse, Yorkshire, Ouse and River Foss, Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many hist ...
, on North Main Street (
US 11 SB) in Downtown
Chambersburg, in Downtown
Lebanon
Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to Lebanon–Syria border, the north and east and Israel to Blue ...
and near the square in
Carlisle
Carlisle ( , ; from xcb, Caer Luel) is a city that lies within the Northern English county of Cumbria, south of the Scottish border at the confluence of the rivers Eden, Caldew and Petteril. It is the administrative centre of the City ...
. News programming on the station began with its sign-on as WTPA in 1953, with 15-minute newscasts at 12:15, 6:30 and 11:00 p.m.
WHTM has long placed second in the ratings among the market's newscasts, though in recent years it has closed the gap with longtime ratings leader
WGAL. Generally, WHTM leads the way in the market's northern counties, such as
Dauphin (including the state capital of Harrisburg),
Cumberland (including Carlisle), and
Perry. WGAL has stayed in first mainly due to its dominance of
York
York is a cathedral city with Roman Britain, Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers River Ouse, Yorkshire, Ouse and River Foss, Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many hist ...
and
Lancaster counties, which contain the majority of the market's population. Starting in 2012, WGAL began experiencing declines in news viewership, the largest occurring in May 2013; WHTM saw consistent growth, including significant gains during that same sweeps period. That July, WHTM-TV beat WGAL for the first time at 5 p.m. among adults 25–54, while also experiencing ratings increases in other time periods, including at 6 p.m. and created a virtual tie with WGAL at noon. For the November 2013 ratings period, WHTM was the only television station in the market to show significant growth in all newscasts. WGAL's news viewership dropped in every single time period that month, as did WHP-TV. WHTM's morning, 5 and 6 p.m. newscasts all saw gains of at least one rating point and in some cases, in excess of five share points.
On October 14, 2011, WHTM became the third television station in Central Pennsylvania to begin broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition; news video from the field is presented in HD, as WHTM upgraded its
ENG vehicles, satellite truck, studio and field cameras and other equipment in order to broadcast news footage from the field in high definition, in addition to segments broadcast from the main studio. On January 13, 2012, WHTM upgraded its weather graphics to HD.
Awards
Over the years, WHTM has earned numerous
Emmy nominations and wins. In 2014 the station was nominated for 26 Emmys, leading the Mid-Atlantic chapter of
NATAS
The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) is an American professional service organization founded in 1955 for "the advancement of the arts and sciences of television and the promotion of creative leadership for artistic, ed ...
in total nominations. This was more than all other stations in the local market combined and more than all stations in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. In 2013, the station received 16 Emmy nominations, including in the "News Excellence" category. The station's coverage of the trial of
Jerry Sandusky, and its Saturday morning and 11 p.m. newscasts, and various members of the station's news staff were also nominated for Regional Emmys for various stories and newscasts. WHTM has repeatedly been recognized with the Pennsylvania Associated Press Broadcasters Association's Joe Snyder Award for Outstanding News Service, including in 2013. That year, WHTM also received seven first place awards from the
Associated Press
The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. n ...
, including for its Sandusky trial coverage, as well as a Pennsylvania Association of Broadcasters award for its investigative reporting and in
spot news for its coverage of the kidnapping of a local college student. In 2014, the PAB awarded WHTM with Outstanding Website for abc27.com, Outstanding Breaking News Report for coverage of a major tanker truck explosion on I-81 in Dauphin County and Outstanding Feature Report for a series on the legalization of
medical marijuana
Medical cannabis, or medical marijuana (MMJ), is cannabis and cannabinoids that are prescribed by physicians for their patients. The use of cannabis as medicine has not been rigorously tested due to production and governmental restrictio ...
in Pennsylvania.
Technical information
Subchannels
The station's digital signal is
multiplexed:
On November 30, 2015, WHTM 27.2 replaced
Retro TV with
Ion Television
Ion Television is an American broadcast television network owned by the Katz Broadcasting subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company. The network first began broadcasting on August 31, 1998, as Pax TV, focusing primarily on family-oriented ent ...
.
Sometime in 2020, WHTM-DT3 replaced
getTV with
Dabl. In June 2022, Dabl was replaced with
Grit
Grit, Grits, or Gritty may refer to:
Food
* Grit (grain), bran, chaff, mill-dust or coarse oatmeal
* Grits, a corn-based food common in the Southern United States
Minerals
* Grit, winter pavement-treatment minerals deployed in grit bins
* ...
.
Analog-to-digital conversion
WHTM-TV signed on its digital signal on VHF channel 10 in 1999. The station discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over UHF channel 27, on June 12, 2009, as part of the
federally mandated transition from analog to digital television.
[List of Digital Full-Power Stations](_blank)
/ref> The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition VHF
Very high frequency (VHF) is the ITU designation for the range of radio frequency electromagnetic waves (radio waves) from 30 to 300 megahertz (MHz), with corresponding wavelengths of ten meters to one meter.
Frequencies immediately below VHF ...
channel 10,[CDBS Print](_blank)
/ref> (this forced NBC owned-and-operated station WCAU in Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
to continue broadcasting its digital signal on channel 34), using PSIP to display WHTM-TV's virtual channel
In most telecommunications organizations, a virtual channel is a method of remapping the ''program number'' as used in H.222 Program Association Tables and Program Mapping Tables to a channel number that can be entered via digits on a receiver' ...
as 27 on digital television receivers.
2021 power increase and antenna change
WHTM-TV completed work on its construction permit on October 24, 2021. The station increased its power to 28.1 kW and rotated its antenna 180 degrees to improve its signal in the main population area of the television market, including Dauphin, Lancaster, York and Lebanon
Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to Lebanon–Syria border, the north and east and Israel to Blue ...
counties. The station previously had its antenna turned to the west to originally protect the analog signal of Philadelphia's WCAU during the digital transition in the 2000s and prior to 2009.
LPTV simulcasts
In addition, to improve its market coverage, WHTM's main channel (27.1) is simulcast in high definition as a subchannel on four low-power television stations. These LPTV stations are operated by the owner of WLYH-TV, which shares transmitter facilities with WHTM.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Whtm-Tv
ABC network affiliates
Ion Television affiliates
Grit (TV network) affiliates
Laff (TV network) affiliates
Television channels and stations established in 1953
1953 establishments in Pennsylvania
HTM-TV
Nexstar Media Group