WEAR-TV

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WEAR is the ABC affiliate for the Pensacola, Florida, Mobile, Alabama, and Fort Walton Beach, Florida viewing area. It is one of two major commercial stations in the market that is licensed on the Florida side of the market, the other being sister station WFGX, a MyNetworkTV affiliate. WEAR is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group.

Its transmitter is located near Robertsdale, Alabama, and its studios are located on Mobile Highway (US 90) in southwest Pensacola.

As a Pensacola-based station, their newscasts tend to focus on coverage of the Northwestern Florida area as opposed to WKRG and WPMI, which predominantly feature news concerning the southern Alabama area.

Sinclair prohibited its ABC affiliates, including WEAR, friom airing a Nightline broadcast in 2004 because the company felt it was near anti-war rhetoric. Prior to July 19, 2005 Sinclair prohibited WEAR from broadcasting Jimmy Kimmel Live in the late night time slot. WEAR also chose not to air the soap opera Port Charles for its entire six year run, instead focusing on the lucrative before-noon news telecast Dayside.

The station also pre-empts ABC's World News Saturday and Sunday to air local programming.

WEAR also operates WFGX, a MyNetworkTV affiliate station broadcasting on channel 35.

Personnel

The WEAR news desk is headed by Bob Solarski, who has been anchor since March 1994 and was the host and producer of Channel 3 News This Week with Bob Solarski. "This Week with Bob Solarski" had a ten year run from 1994 to 2004. Solarski also hosted a live call-in program after the late news called "Extra" which ran from 2003 to 2006. The News at Ten now runs a full hour, weekdays, from 10-11pm.

Francesca Maximé joined Bob Solarski as Co-Anchor of the News at 10 in October, 2006. A Harvard graduate who previously worked as a reporter and anchor in Boston, Philadelphia, and New York, Maximé also reports for the early evening newscasts at 5 and 6.

Allen Strum is the chief meteorologist and Dan Shugart is sports director and anchor.

Another key news anchor is Sue Straughn, who is one of the few black female news anchors in the area. She started at the station in 1973 as a clerk typist and now helms the Dayside, five o'clock and six o'clock newscasts.

History

WEAR began operation on January 13, 1954, which was almost a year after WALA began. The station was founded by Charles Smith and Mel Wheeler. Initially the station ran shows from both CBS and ABC. When WKRG signed on in 1955, WEAR became strictly an ABC affiliate.

In 1959, WEAR was sold to Rollins' Telecasting. The station continued as an ABC affiliate for many years. In 1987, Rollins Telecasting merged with Heritage Broadcasting to form Heritage Media. In October 1997, WEAR and the other Heritage stations were sold to Sinclair Broadcasting, just as the remainder of Heritage Media was merging with News Corporation (the parent company of Fox). This sale also protected former longtime NBC affiliate WALA as the market's Fox affiliate; otherwise, WEAR would have been forced to switch its network affiliation to Fox.

WEAR recently announced the addition of a 4:00 pm newscast that will start December 10th.

Mediacom dispute

In late 2006, Sinclair entered into negotiations with Mediacom, the main cable provider for much of the Florida side of the Mobile-Pensacola market (including Santa Rosa County and Pensacola Beach). The two companies could not reach agreement over compensation rights. As a result, Mediacom pulled all of Sinclair's stations, including WEAR, from its systems on January 6, 2007. The dispute ended on February 2, when the two sides reached an agreement that restored WEAR to Mediacom systems.

Digital Television

WEAR will cease analog broadcasting on channel 3 on February 17, 2009. Its digital signal will remain on channel 17.

Notable WEAR Alumni

• Peter Neumann (News Director) - Now News Director at WPTA-TV/WISE-TV in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

• Ashley Chisolm (Chief Meteorologist) - At WEAR from 1993 until 2000 before leaving TV.

• Lance Sandstead (News Anchor) - Remains in the Pensacola area, but is no longer working on TV.

• Hank Astengo (Sport Anchor) - Now Sports anchor for WCJB in Gainesville.

• Katie Horner (Chief Meteorologist) - Left WEAR in 1993 and is now the Chief Meteorologist at KCTV in Kansas City.

• Beth Morgan (Weekend Weather)

• Sarah Pitzen (Weekend Weather) - Left WEAR in 1998 for Austin, Minnesota before leaving TV.

• Annette Falwell (Weekend News Anchor) - Left WEAR in early 90's and turned up at WPMI in Mobile when WPMI started carrying NBC programming. She is now a weekend anchor working under the name Annette Newell at News14 in Charlotte, NC.

• Dave Daughtry (News Anchor) - Left WEAR in early 90's and moved to WALA in Mobile.

• Jeff Weeks (Morning Weather) - Left WEAR in late 90's and briefly worked at WKRG in Mobile before leaving TV. He married former WEAR morning anchor Sherri Hemminghaus and still lives in the Pensacola area.

• Ann Kerian - Left WEAR for Iowa before leaving TV.

• Bob O'Brien

• Shauna Dunlap - Former morning anchor, left WEAR and began working for the FBI

• Charles Basset - Former weekend anchor, now at News9 in Oklahoma City

• Catherine Pegram - Former morning anchor, now at WABI in Bangor, Maine

• Sherri Hemminghaus - Left TV and married former weather anchor Jeff Weeks and live in the Pensacola area.

• Doug Mouton - Former weekend sports anchor, now works as a reporter at WWL-TV in New Orleans.

• Rob Manning - Former news reporter

• David Brandao - Former news reporter

• Geoff Davenport - Production Assistant

• Marlene Dela Cruz - 10pm Producer, currently a producer in Kansas City

• Jason Allen- Executive Producer, currently News Producer in Atlanta

• Sara Baumgartner - Anchor

External links

• Official site
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