WSVI

WSVI (channel 8) is a television station serving the United States Virgin Islands that is licensed to Christiansted, Saint Croix, and affiliated with Ion. It is owned by Atlas News and Information Services alongside Charlotte Amalie–licensed independent station WZVI (channel 21). The two stations share studios at the Sunny Isle Shopping Center in Christiansted; WSVI's transmitter is located on Blue Mountain.

WSVI operates a digital translator in Charlotte Amalie, WFIG-LD ( VHF channel 5, also mapped to virtual channel 8), with transmitter atop Flag Hill. WSVI serves as the flagship station of the Virgin Islands Television Network.

History

WSVI signed on as an ABC affiliate on November 10, 1965. During its ABC affiliation, WSVI signed off nightly at 2 a.m. AST (1 a.m. AST March to November), but the station now carries a 24-hour schedule. During non-network programming time, WSVI carried paid programming, Caribbean Lottery drawings, some local arts and events programming, and their weeknight-only local newscasts, as the U.S. Virgin Islands receives other broadcast networks and superstations from the mainland United States via cable and satellite. The need for WSVI to maintain a full broadcast schedule of syndicated programming outside of network hours for island residents and tourists was thus negated, since the aforementioned stations usually contain that syndicated programming in their schedules.

The station has had multiple ownership changes. Antilles Broadcasting Corp. sold WSVI to Group III Inc. for $4 million in late 1986. In April 2011, WSVI's former owner, the Figgie Family Equity Fund, agreed to sell the station to Atlas News and Information Services of Las Vegas, Nevada, pending FCC approval.

On January 1, 2016, WSVI became an affiliate of Ion Television after 50 years of being an ABC affiliate; it consequently became one of the few stations to have switched their affiliation from a Big Four-affiliated network to a minor television network. WSVI told the '' Virgin Islands Daily News'' that it had declined to renew its contract with ABC at the beginning of 2016, although other local reports indicated that ABC was threatening to remove its programming due to the station's low ratings and technical issues. ABC then entered into an agreement with Lilly Broadcasting, which feeds CBS affiliate WSEE-TV in Erie, Pennsylvania to pay television vendors in the Caribbean, to also provide its programming to the region, via its WENY-TV in Elmira, New York. ABC also stated to the ''Daily News'' that its programming would be seen on WCVI-TV, which claimed not to have knowledge of any arrangement at the time. Lilly subsequently leased WCVI-TV's second subchannel for its ABC programming later in 2016.

WSVI and WZVI's transmitting facilities were heavily damaged when Hurricane Maria struck the Virgin Islands on September 20, 2017. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 requires the stations' licenses be deleted after one year of continuous silence, although WSVI received an extension granted by the FCC to Caribbean stations affected by Maria and Hurricane Irma. The stations' facilities were rebuilt and on the air in September 2019.

Technical information

Subchannels

The station's signal is multiplexed:

Analog-to-digital conversion

WSVI shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 8, 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 remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 20, using virtual channel 8.

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Wsvi
Ion Television affiliates
SVI
Television channels and stations established in 1965
1965 establishments in the United States Virgin Islands