WAAY-TV

For the radio station in Huntsville, Alabama formerly known as WAAY, see WLOR.

WAAY-TV

Huntsville/Decatur/Shoals/ Sand Mountain, Alabama
City of license	Huntsville
Branding	WAAY 31 (general) WAAY 31 FirstNews
Slogan	Your FirstNews Station
Channels	Digital: 32 (UHF) Virtual: 31 (PSIP)
Subchannels	31.1 ABC
Owner	Calkins Media (Huntsville Broadcast Corporation)
First air date	August 1, 1959
Call letters' meaning	the word WAY with an extra A
Former callsigns	WAFG-TV (1959-1963)
Former channel number(s)	31 (UHF analog, 1959-2009)
Former affiliations	ABC (1959-1968) NBC (1968-1977) CBS (secondary, 1959-1963)
Transmitter power	468 kW
Height	537.8 m
Facility ID	57292
Transmitter coordinates	34°44′12.7″N 86°31′58.9″W
Website	waaytv.com

WAAY-TV is the ABC-affiliated television station for the Tennessee Valley area of North Alabama that is licensed to Huntsville. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 32 from a transmitter at its Monte Sano Boulevard studios on top of Monte Sano Mountain. Calkins Media owns the station. It airs its daily 4 p.m. newscast from local lifestyle center Bridge Street Town Centre. Syndicated programming on WAAY includes: Entertainment Tonight, The Doctors, Jeopardy! and Live with Regis and Kelly.

History

The station's first broadcast was on August 1, 1959 as WAFG-TV. It was Alabama's first primary ABC affiliate. There was only one other station in the area at the time, Decatur's WMSL-TV (now Huntsville's WAFF). This was an unusual arrangement for a two-station market especially one as small as Huntsville was at the time. When the station was sold to Smith Broadcasting (owners of WAAY now WLOR radio) in 1963, the call sign was changed to WAAY-TV. It switched network affiliation to NBC in January 1968 but returned to ABC nearly ten years later in December 1977 citing higher network ratings and the lack of a duplicate ABC affiliate in Florence (where WOWL, now WHDF, was then an NBC affiliate) as reasons.

Smith Broadcasting sold WAAY-TV to GOCOM Broadcasting (later renamed Piedmont Communications) in 1999. The Smith family, who previously owned broadcasting properties in Birmingham before coming to Huntsville, was the last local owner of a Huntsville television station as rivals WHNT-TV and WAFF had been sold to larger corporations years before. WZDX, which was the first station in Northern Alabama not affiliated with the traditional networks or the educational television system, has always belonged to outside interests. The Smith family also owned radio stations in Fort Walton Beach, Florida and South Pittsburg, Tennessee. At one time, all three of Huntsville's major-network affiliates (WAAY included) had studios located beside its transmitters and towers on Monte Sano.

After a 1982 fire gutted the building of WAFF, that station and later WHNT moved offices and production facilities into the city itself employing microwave relays to send signals to the transmitters. Only WAAY continues to maintain its full operations on Monte Sano Boulevard. WHIQ-TV which is a PBS affiliate serves as a translator relay of Alabama Public Television with programming originating from Birmingham, not Huntsville. On September 4, 2003, the 1,000 foot broadcasting tower leased by WAAY collapsed killing three people.

In 2006, Piedmont Broadcasting agreed to sell WAAY to Calkins Media which is a Pennsylvania-based mass media company that owns several small newspapers in Pennsylvania and two other television stations (WWSB in Sarasota, Florida and WTXL in Tallahassee, Florida). The sale to Calkins became official on February 1, 2007. WAAY is Calkins' first broadcasting property outside of Florida. On February 17, 2009, WAAY-TV ended its analog service on UHF channel 31 , the station remains to provide digital service on its current pre-transition channel 32.

News operation

In the Spring 2007 ratings period, all of the station's newscasts ranked in third place. This is in contrast from the 1970s through the early-1990s, when WAAY was still family-owned. At one point, the station aired weekend morning newscasts but currently does not. On July 16, 2007 at 5, WAAY unveiled a new set and graphics package similar to that of sister stations WWSB and WTXL. Beginning September 13, 2010, its news title became WAAY 31 FirstNews. The station is now using the FirstNews brand and logo in all branding, including commercials for syndicated programming. The station was the first to air a 4:30 a.m. newscast in the market and is the only station in the area airing local news weekday at 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. The channel produced a prime time newscast at 9 for UPN affiliate WHDF during the early-2000s. On September 20, 2010 through a new news share agreement, a second WAAY-produced broadcast at 9 began airing every night on Fox affiliate WZDX. In addition to its main studios, WAAY maintains news bureaus in Decatur (on Lee Street Northeast) and Florence (on North Pine Street within the University of North Alabama campus), and broadcasts each weekday from Bridge Street Town Centre at 4 p.m. The station operates its own weather radar at the main studios called "Live Storm Force 31 Doppler Max".

Also in 2010, after some years of a third-place finish in the ratings, WAAY did something relatively rare for a Central Time Zone station: it cancelled its 6 p.m. newscast, deciding to counterprogram WHNT and WAFF with (first-run) episodes of Jeopardy! It acquired the rights to the long-running syndicated show from WAFF, which had aired it in daytime slots since its inception in 1984. WAAY is thus one of only a few stations in the Central Time Zone affiliated with the traditional networks that allows a full hour of Prime Time Access between 6 and 7 p.m., rather than just a half hour.

On December 12, 2011, WAAY began broadcasting its news programming in high definition, making it the third station in the Huntsville television market to do so behind WAFF and WHNT. The WZDX shows were included in the upgrade.

Newscast titles

• WAFG-TV News (1959-1963)
• The WAAY of the World (1963-1970)
• 31 News (1970-1976 and 1996-2007)
• 31 NewsCenter (1976-1977)
• 31 Eyewitness News (1977-1996)
• WAAY 31 News (2007-2010)
• WAAY 31 FirstNews (2010-present)

Station slogans

• "You're Still Having Fun with Channel 31" (1977-1978, localized version of ABC ad campaign)
• "Channel 31`s The One You Can Turn To" (1978-1979, localized version of ABC ad campaign)
• "The Tennessee Valley's News Leader" (1982-1986, news)
• "Channel 31, The Winners!" (1982-1989, general)
• "Your 24-Hour News Source" (1989-1997)
• "Coverage You Can Count On" (1992-2010)
• "Your FirstNews Station" (2010-present)

News team

Anchors

• Erin Dacy - weekday mornings
• Ellis Eskew - Sunday-Thursdays at 9 p.m. (on WZDX); also reporter
• Chase Gallimore - Sunday-Thursdays at 9 p.m. (on WZDX); also reporter
• Guy Hornbuckle - Monday-Thursdays at 4, and Sunday-Thursdays at 5 and 10 p.m.
• Greg Privett - Fridays at 5, Saturdays at 6 and Friday-Saturdays at 10 p.m.
• Melissa Riopka - Monday-Thursdays at 4, and Sunday-Thursdays at 5 and 10 p.m.; also "Focus on Faith" segment producer
• T.W. Starr - weekday mornings; also "Did You Know" segment producer
• Meredith Wood - weekdays at 11 a.m. and 4 p.m.

Storm Force 31

• Spencer Denton (AMS Seal of Approval) - chief meteorologist; Monday-Thursdays at 4, 5 and 10 p.m., and Sunday nights
• Gary Dobbs - meteorologist; weekday mornings and 11 a.m.
• Ben Luna - meteorologist; weekend evenings
• Merry Perry

Sports tean

• Ronnie Duncan - sports director; Sunday-Thursdays at 5 and 10 p.m.
• Kyle Burger - sports anchor; Fridays at 5, Saturdays at 6 and Friday-Saturdays at 10 p.m.; also news and sports reporter and "Burger Bytes" segment producer

Reporters

• Shea Allen - general assignment reporter
• Lillian Askins - general assignment reporter
• Erika Odell - Shoals bureau reporter
• Rachel Keith - general assignment reporter
• Rebecca Shlien - general assignment reporter
• Tim Reid - general assignment reporter

31 Law Line

• Sharon Doviet - host

Former WAAY 31 Personalities

• Kristen Cornett, Meteorologist (1997-2001) now works at KMOV in St. Louis, MO
• Adrian Gibson, Meteorologist (1968-2004) retired

External links

• WAAY-TV website
• WZDX website
• Query the FCC's TV station database for WAAY