WVIR-CD (channel 35) is a low-power, Class A television station in

Charlottesville, Virginia Charlottesville, colloquially known as C'ville, is an independent city (United States), independent city in Virginia, United States. It is the county seat, seat of government of Albemarle County, Virginia, Albemarle County, which surrounds the ...

, United States. It is a

translator Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''trans ...

of dual

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 ...

/ CW+ affiliate WVIR-TV (channel 29) which 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 ...

. WVIR-CD's transmitter is located on Carters Mountain south of Charlottesville; its parent station maintains studios on East Market Street ( US 250 Business) in downtown.

History

The station began its life as charter Pax TV affiliate WADA-LP on August 31, 1998. It first aired an analog signal on UHF channel 55 and later moved to UHF channel 27. In late-March 2005, owner Tiger Eye Broadcasting sold the station to Gray Television who proceeded to change the call letters to WAHU-CA. The station became a Fox affiliate and was integrated with CBS affiliate WCAV (channel 19) and ABC affiliate WVAW-LP (channel 16). Prior to WAHU's affiliation switch, Fox was available on

cable Cable may refer to: Mechanical * Nautical cable, an assembly of three or more ropes woven against the weave of the ropes, rendering it virtually waterproof * Wire rope, a type of rope that consists of several strands of metal wire laid into a hel ...

from

WTTG WTTG (channel 5) is a television station in Washington, D.C., serving as the market's Fox Broadcasting Company, Fox network outlet. It is owned and operated by the network's Fox Television Stations division alongside MyNetworkTV station WDCA (cha ...

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

That station was considered the default affiliate for 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 ...

and is still seen on cable due to "significantly viewed" status from the

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). (Pax TV's successor,

Ion Television Ion Television (referred to on-air as simply Ion) is an American broadcast television network and FAST television channel owned by the Scripps Networks subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company. The network first began broadcasting on August ...

, returned to the market on October 1, 2018, on WCAV's fourth subchannel.) Since 2006, the three stations have been the flagship of University of Virginia sports. On December 28, 2006, WAHU launched its digital signal on UHF channel 40. While providing an over-the-air

standard definition Standard-definition television (SDTV; also standard definition or SD) is a television system that uses a resolution that is not considered to be either high or enhanced definition. ''Standard'' refers to offering a similar resolution to the ...

Fox feed on its first digital subchannel, the station began airing a dedicated

MyNetworkTV MyNetworkTV (stylized as mynetworkTV; unofficially abbreviated MNT or MNTV) is an American commercial broadcast television syndication service and former television network owned by Fox Corporation, operated by its Fox Television Stations ...

channel on a new second one. Following this addition, the station shifted several programs to the digital subchannel. Prior to the addition of WAHU-DT2, the network was added on September 5, 2006, as a secondary affiliation on the main channel. As part of the launch, Comcast moved WTTG from channel 9 to channel 18 in order to give WAHU the lower channel location. On March 14, 2008, 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 WAHU-LD with "LD" meaning low-power digital. Also on the date, along with other television stations in Virginia, WAHU-LD2 aired the

Virginia High School League The Virginia High School League (VHSL) is the principal sanctioning organization for interscholastic athletic competition among Public school (government funded), public high schools in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The VHSL first sponsored deba ...

championship basketball tournament for the first time. On February 18, 2009, it began broadcasting in high definition over-the-air. On March 13 and 14, WAHU-LD2 (and other stations in the state) aired the Virginia High School League basketball championships for a second time. On September 7, 2009, This TV started airing on WAHU-LD2. On January 3, 2011, the station changed its calls again to WAHU-CD with "CD" meaning Class A low-power digital. In late 2018, WAHU-CD2 ended its affiliation with MyNetworkTV to take

MeTV MeTV, an acronym for Memorable Entertainment Television, is an American broadcast television network owned by Weigel Broadcasting. Marketed as "The Definitive Destination for Classic TV", the network airs a variety of classic television progra ...

full-time. Gray announced the sale of WCAV and WVAW-LD to Lockwood Broadcast Group on March 4, 2019. The sale was concurrent with Gray's purchase of rival WVIR-TV from Waterman Broadcasting. WAHU-CD was not included in the sale and would be retained by Gray as a

sister station In broadcasting, sister stations or sister channels are radio or television stations operated by the same company, either by direct ownership or through a management agreement. Radio sister stations will often have different formats, and somet ...

to WVIR-TV. Gray took WAHU-CD silent on April 1 to begin moving its equipment out of the shared Newsplex facility. The Fox, MeTV, and AccuWeather affiliations were included in the sale to Lockwood and moved to WCAV and WVAW-LD. As Gray's purchase of WVIR was held up by legal challenges, delaying construction of a new co-located transmitter, WAHU-CD returned to the air with Fox on August 23 with an interim facility from its previous location. Because the Fox feed on WCAV began using virtual channel 27 when WAHU-CD went silent, it began using virtual channel 35. On October 8, 2019, the station changed its callsign to WVIR-CD when the legal challenges were cleared and the sale to Gray closed. Later that month, it converted to a translator of WVIR-TV. WVIR-CD preserved UHF reception in the core of the market when WVIR-TV moved to VHF channel 2, which is difficult to receive indoors, in 2020. On September 15, 2022, Grit was added to the channel lineup.

Technical information

Subchannels

This station rebroadcasts the subchannels of full-power WVIR-TV.

Analog-to-digital conversion

WAHU shut down its analog signal, over

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 ...

channel 27, on February 16, 2009. The station " flash-cut" its digital signal into operation UHF channel 40.

References

{{Gray TV 1998 establishments in Virginia Gray Media VIR-CD NBC affiliates Television channels and stations established in 1998 VIR-CD