WMYA-TV
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| WMYA-TV | |
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| Anderson / Greenville / Spartanburg, South Carolina - Asheville, North Carolina |
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| City of license | Anderson |
| Branding | My 40 (general) News 13 (newscasts) |
| Channels | |
| Subchannels | 40.1 MyNetworkTV 40.2 ABC |
| Owner | Cunningham Broadcasting (operated through LMA by Sinclair Broadcast Group) (Anderson [WFBC-TV] Licensee, Inc.) |
| First air date | September 5, 1953 |
| Call letters’ meaning | MYNetworkTV Anderson |
| Sister station(s) | WLOS |
| Former callsigns | WAIM-TV (1953-1983) WAXA (1983-1995) WFBC-TV (1995-1999) WBSC-TV (1999-2006) |
| Former channel number(s) | 40 (UHF analog, 1953-2009) |
| Former affiliations | CBS (primary, 1953-1956; secondary, 1956-1976) ABC (1953-1979, secondary until 1956; simulcast of WLOS, 1992-1995) Independent (1979-1987, 1995-1999) NBC (secondary, 1979-1988) FOX (1986-1988) The WB (1999-2006) |
| Transmitter Power | 310 kW |
| Height | 311 m |
| Facility ID | 56548 |
| Transmitter Coordinates | 34°38′51.3″N 82°16′12.5″W / 34.647583°N 82.270139°W |
| Website | my40.tv |
WMYA-TV is the MyNetworkTV-affiliated television station for western North and South Carolina that is licensed to Anderson, South Carolina. Its transmitter is southwest of Fountain Inn, South Carolina. Owned by Cunningham Broadcasting, the station is operated by the Sinclair Broadcast Group through a local marketing agreement (LMA). This makes it a sister station to ABC affiliate WLOS. However, WMYA is effectively owned by Sinclair due to Cunningham's financial structure (see below). The two stations share studios on Technology Drive south of Asheville, North Carolina. Syndicated programming on WMYA includes: Family Feud, Access Hollywood, My Wife and Kids, and TMZ on TV. The station only provides a Grade B signal to the North Carolina side of the market and is almost unviewable in Asheville itself. To extend WMYA's over-the-air signal broadcast radius, WLOS offers a simulcast of the station on its second digital subchannel. This transmits from Mount Pisgah in North Carolina. WMYA carries WLOS on its own second digital subchannel for the same purpose.
[edit] History
WMYA signed-on September 5, 1953 as WAIM-TV. It was the fourth television station in South Carolina and the first west of Columbia. The station was owned by Wilton E. Hall publisher of the Anderson Independent and Daily Mail newspapers along with WAIM-AM 1230 and WCAC-FM 101.1 (now WROQ). The calls stood for Anderson Independent-Mail. It was a CBS station with secondary ABC affiliation. When CBS affiliate WSPA-TV signed-on from Spartanburg in 1956, channel 40 became a primary ABC affiliate. However until 1976, it cleared many CBS programs as well. It was sold to Harte-Hanks Communications in 1972.
WAIM-TV had a very weak signal that covered only the far western portion of the vast Greenville / Spartanburg / Asheville market. It only provided a strong signal to Anderson and Pickens Counties. Nearby Greenville could only receive a fringe signal. As a result, the station never thrived (only the revenues from its radio sisters kept it afloat). During the week for about a year in the mid-1970s, the station would not sign-on until 11 in the morning when ABC's afternoon shows began and would sign-off 12 hours later when the network's prime time ended. The tiny bit of non-network programming during this time was mainly religious shows and travelogues. The station would eventually resume 7 A.M. sign-on but would sign-off at Midnight even in the late-1970s. Although WAIM made almost no headway in the ratings, WLOS pressured ABC to drop its affiliation with WAIM from the 1960s onward finally succeeding in 1979.
Harte-Hanks sold the station to Frank Outlaw who changed the station's calls to WAXA and turned it into the first full-time general entertainment independent station in the state. The area already had an independent station, Greenville's WGGS, but it emphasized religious programming with only a few hours a day of entertainment Monday through Saturday. Outlaw built a much more powerful transmitting facility south of Greenville, which more than doubled its coverage area. However, the station was still more or less unviewable over-the-air on the North Carolina side of the market. The schedule was filled mostly with cartoons, barter sitcoms, low budget syndicated talk shows, wildlife shows, low budget and public domain movies as well as other shows the competition passed on that cost no money to air. It also aired programs from NBC and CBS that WYFF and WSPA turned down. One of the NBC programs shown on the station was the game show Super Password which was pre-empted from WYFF for its entire run. As barter cartoons became more available, WAXA aired about three hours of them in mornings and afternoons.
The station prospered until WHNS signed-on in 1984 as the first general entertainment station that decently covered the entire market. Despite having an inferior signal, WAXA beat out WHNS to become the area's FOX affiliate at the network's launch on October 9, 1986. As a condition of winning the Fox affiliation, Outlaw promised to boost the station's transmission power to a full 5 million watts, which would have provided decent coverage of the entire market.
Outlaw had big plans for the station in the late-1980s, well beyond boosting its signal strength. However, he died suddenly in 1988. His widow did not have the enthusiasm her husband did for running WAXA. The station quickly suffered financial and management problems. It filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy in Fall 1988. WHNS took over the Fox affiliation at that time. A few months later in Winter 1989, the station went dark and was put up for sale. River City Broadcasting, owner of WLOS, bought the dormant WAXA license and returned the station to the air in 1991 as a full-time simulcast of WLOS. This created a strong combined signal with about 60% overlap.
River City merged with the Sinclair Broadcast Group in 1995. Sinclair sold WAXA to Glencairn, Ltd a new group headed by former Sinclair executive Edwin Edwards. However, Glencairn's stock was almost entirely controlled by the Smith family (founders and owners of Sinclair). In effect, Sinclair owned both stations even though FCC rules did not permit duopolies at the time. Glencairn and Sinclair further circumvented the rules by moving WFBC's operations to WLOS' studios under an local marketing agreement (LMA) with WLOS as the senior partner.
Glencairn/Sinclair dropped the simulcast with WLOS and changed channel 40's calls to WFBC-TV (they had last been held by what is now WYFF from 1953 to 1983). The station reverted to a typical general-entertainment independent format running cartoons, off network sitcoms, movies, off network dramas, and some first run talk and reality shows. WFBC became a WB affiliate on September 6, 1999 and changed its call letters to WBSC in 2000 to reflect its status as the only full-time WB affiliate serving a South Carolina-based market. It began broadcasting 24 hours a day / 7 days a week sometime in 2004 having previously signed-off late Sunday night / early Monday morning. When Sinclair attempted to merge with Glencairn in 2001 after Sinclair was fined $40,000 dollars for illegally controlling Glencairn, the FCC refused to allow Sinclair to buy WBSC and five other Glencairn stations. The FCC had already allowed Media General, owner of WSPA, to buy LMA partner WASV-TV (now WYCW) outright and a Sinclair purchase of WBSC would have left the Greenville / Spartanburg / Asheville market with only seven unique station owners. FCC rules require a market to be left with eight unique station owners after a duopoly is formed. Glencairn changed its name to Cunningham Broadcasting but its stock is still almost entirely owned by the Smith family. As a result, Sinclair still effectively has a duopoly in the market. There is considerable evidence that Cunningham is simply a shell corporation used by Sinclair to evade FCC rules. The WLOS / WBSC arrangement led to the formation of Sinclair Media Watch, an Asheville-based grassroots organization, to file an informal objection to license renewals of WBSC and WLOS in 2004.
On January 24, 2006, The WB and UPN announced that they would end broadcasting and merge. The new combined network would be called The CW. The letters would represent the first initial of its corporate parents, CBS (the parent company of UPN) and the Warner Bros. unit of Time Warner. On February 22, News Corporation announced that they would start up another new network called MyNetworkTV. This new service, which would be a sister network to FOX, would be operated by FOX Television Stations and its syndication division, Twentieth Television. MyNetworkTV was created in order to give UPN and WB stations, not mentioned as becoming CW affiliates, another option besides becoming independent. It was also created to compete against The CW. On March 2, it was announced that WBSC would become a MyNetworkTV affiliate for the market. Nearly four weeks later on March 28, it was confirmed that WASV would join The CW. On June 19, WBSC changed its call letters to the current WMYA-TV to reflect its upcoming affiliation. Despite the DTV Delay Act national transition extension to June 12, 2009, WMYA ceased its regular analog programming on channel 40 at Midnight on February 18. For two weeks after that, it broadcast a "nightlight" service in the form of a continuously repeating short program about installing digital television converter boxes, alternating between English and Spanish versions, before finally shutting down its analog signal completely.
[edit] Newscasts
During the week, WLOS produces three newscasts on WMYA. On September 17, 2008, they were upgraded to high definition levels when WLOS became the second station in the market to make the transition after CBS affiliate WSPA-TV. The local news on WMYA competes with broadcasts that air on WHNS and WYCW.
My 40 This Morning
(Weekday Mornings 7 to 8)
- Anchors:
- Jay Siltzer
- Victoria Dunkle
- Weather:
- Julie Wunder
- Traffic:
- George Sheldon
- Reporter:
- Courtney Ward
News 13 at 6:30 on My 40
(Weeknights 6:30 to 7)
- Anchors:
- Tammy Watford
- Frank Fraboni
- Weather:
- Mike Cuevas
- Sports:
- Stan Pamfilis
News 13 at 10 on My 40
(Weeknights 10 to 10:30)
- Anchors:
- Russ Bowen
- Holly Headrick
- Weather:
- Mike Cuevas
- Sports:
- Stan Pamfilis
WMYA features additional news personnel from WLOS. See that article for a complete listing.
[edit] External links
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