WJAX-TV
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WTEV is the CBS-affiliated television station for the First Coast of Florida that is licensed to Jacksonville. Its transmitter is located in the Kilarney Shores section of the city. Owned by High Plains Broadcasting, the station is operated by Newport Television through joint sales and shared services agreements. This makes it a sister station to Fox affiliate WAWS. The two stations share studios on Central Parkway in the Beechwood section of Jacksonville. Comcast carries WTEV on channel 6. U-Verse carries WTEV on channel 47 and an HD feed on channel 1047. Syndicated programming on WTEV includes: Judge Judy, Two and a Half Men and Family Feud.
Digital television
The station's digital channel:
Digital channels| Virtual Channel |
Physical RF Channel |
Video | Aspect | Programming |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 47.1 | 19.1 | 1080i | 16:9 | Main WTEV-TV programming / CBS HD |
In 2009, WTEV-TV ceased transmitting on channel 47 and became digital-only on channel 19 to complete the analog to digital conversion.[1]
History
Mac Papers owners Tom McGehee and Frank McGehee founded Christian Television of Jacksonville. The non-profit purchased the station before it first signed on as WXAO-TV on August 1, 1980. "XAO" stood for "Christ, the alpha and the omega" in Greek letters. Their intent was to be an alternative to commercial television's sex and violence by broadcasting religious programs from The PTL Club, Christian Television Network, and Trinity Broadcast Network. The station also broadcast secular shows including cartoons, westerns, and a few classic sitcoms. "WXAO, Incorporated" was Jacksonville's first 24-hour station, but never generated a large viewership. Gradually, the station abandoned most of its religious programming. In 1983, the station changed its call letters to WNFT. At that point, the station began running more movies and drama shows. By 1989, WNFT was airing a blend of cartoons, recent off-network sitcoms, movies, and drama shows. It was sold in 1990 for approximately $3 million[2][3] to Krypton Broadcasting, who also owned two other stations with similar formats, WTVX in West Palm Beach and WABM in Birmingham, Alabama. Krypton filed for bankruptcy in 1993 and sold each station to a separate owner within the following year. WNFT was sold to RDS Broadcasting which in turn entered into a local marketing agreement (LMA) with Clear Channel Communications who owned Fox affiliate WAWS.
WNFT moved into WAWS's facilities and the two stations pooled resources and programming. WAWS then began to run more popular cartoons and sitcoms along with Fox programming and talk / reality shows. Meanwhile, WNFT's new schedule focused largely on older cartoons, movies, sitcoms, and drama shows. On January 16, 1995, the station became one of the charter affiliates of UPN. It changed its call letters to the current WTEV later that year. In the late-1990s, WTEV moved away from most classic sitcoms, cut back on cartoons, and began to focus more on talk and reality shows. Clear Channel would buy WTEV outright in 2001. In April 2002, The Florida Times-Union reported that WTEV would become a CBS affiliate. The former affiliate for the network, WJXT, moved to news-intensive independent programming after 53 years of being the area's CBS affiliate. This change was the result of not being able to come to a new affiliation agreement with the network.
WTEV officially became a CBS affiliate on July 15, 2002. At that time, UPN programming (including cartoons) and most syndicated sitcoms moved to WAWS. That station became a secondary UPN affiliate and aired that network's programming from 11 P.M. to 1 A.M. On April 20, 2007, Clear Channel entered into an agreement to sell its entire television station group to Newport Television, a holding company majority-owned by Providence Equity Partners.[4] Since WAWS was also included in the deal, this would violate FCC rules preventing common ownership of two of the four largest stations in a single market. Clear Channel had acquired WTEV when it was a low-rated UPN affiliate and WTEV has since passed WJXT and WCWJ in the sign-on to sign-off ratings. As a result, the FCC granted Newport Television a temporary waiver for the acquisition of WTEV and WAWS. With that, Newport Television was able to complete its purchase of the stations group on March 14, 2008. Newport originally planned to keep WTEV and sell WAWS to another owner. However, in May 2008, the company agreed to sell WTEV and five other stations to High Plains Broadcasting, Inc.[5] The sale closed on September 15.[6] Today, Newport continues to operate WTEV through joint sales and shared services agreements.
On April 13, 2009, WTEV completely revamped their news operation. All newscasts on WTEV and sister WAWS are now branded as Action News. This single branding of the newscasts is similar to the way Gannett operates rivals WTLV and WJXX. The transition to new branding also introduced an entirely new set, on-air graphics, weather operation, and web look. Web operations moved to ActionNewsJax.com.
On January 31, 2010, Action News began broadcasting newscasts in high definition. They are the second local news operation to do so, preceded by WJXT. The next day, First Coast News on WTLV and WJXX also debuted newscasts in high definition, making all of Jacksonville's newscasts high definition.
News Operation
In the late-1990s, a weeknight 6:30 o'clock newscast produced by WAWS was added to WTEV's schedule. After the affiliation switch, the station expanded its newscast production from WAWS's existing news department. The 6:30 P.M. newscast was dropped (it had been off the air for a couple of weeks before the switch) and replaced by a full slate of weekday morning ("moved" over from WAWS), Noon, evening, and late newscasts. Prior to the November 2009 sweeps period, WTEV has continuously ranked behind WJXT and WTLV / WJXX First Coast News broadcasts since the station gained its CBS affiliation in July 2002. A contributing factor to this is WJXT's powerful lead-in to its 5 P.M. newscast, The Oprah Winfrey Show. Another factor would be the duopoly First Coast News organization which sustains both NBC and ABC affiliations. In the November 2009 ratings period WTEV claimed first place for its 11 pm newscast. This made it one of several CBS affiliates—some of which had been relatively weak in local news viewership ratings prior to the 2009-10 television season—to have benefitted from the so-called "Leno Effect" which dragged down the late night newscast ratings of many NBC affiliates across the country, including WTLV. However, with NBC taking Leno off of prime time in February 2010, it remains to be seen whether or not First Coast News would regain the lead over Action News at 11 pm. In general, though, WTEV has been one of CBS's weaker affiliates. By comparison, WJXT dominated the ratings as a CBS affiliate prior to the 2002 affiliation switch and remains one of the highest-rated independent (non-network-affiliated) stations in the country.
In an effort to receive better ratings, WTEV hired Mark Spain (previously the anchor of First Coast News at 7 on WJXX). He debuted as the new anchor for CBS 47 News at 6 and Fox 30 News at 10 on August 27, 2007. Ironically, the station had hired First Coast News traffic reporter Michelle Jacobs just weeks earlier. In October 2008, Michelle returned to First Coast News. Shortly after Michelle left, WTEV and WAWS hired Julie Watkins as their weekend meteorologist. Julie had worked a few years ago at First Coast News before moving to WFTV in Orlando.
Today, WTEV and WAWS share an entire news department.
WTEV uses National Weather Service Doppler Radar on their newscasts. Branded on-air as First Alert Doppler, it is located at Jacksonville International Airport.
Action News uses the The Enforcer as their news music package. It was composed by Gari Media Group.
News team
Current personalities
News Anchors
- Action News This Morning (5:00–7:00am)
- Dawn Lopez
- Evenings
- Paige Kelton
- Mark Spain
- Weekends
- Karen Adams
Meteorologists
- Chief Meteorologist Mike Buresh — weekday evenings
- Meteorologist Jamie Warriner — weekday mornings
- Meteorologist Julie Watkins — weekends
Sports team
- Steve Wrigley — Sports director, weeknights
- Brent Martineau — Weekend sports anchor
- Brian Sexton - Jaguars Insider
Reporters
- Ashley Coleman
- Kristen Cosby
- Leslie Coursey
- Chauncy Glover
- Karl Torp
- Matt Saffer
- Ilyssa Trussel
- Catherine Varnum
- Dee Registre - Multi Media Journalist
- Mike Tolbert
- Cathi Carson - Consumer Reporter
News/Station Presentation
Newscast Titles
- UPN 47 News (1996-2002)
- CBS 47 News (2002-2009)
- Action News (2009-present)
Station Slogans
- It's All Here (2004-2009; local version of CBS slogan)
- Coverage You Can Count On (2009-present)
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References
- ^ http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-06-1082A2.pdf
- ^ McAlister, Nancy: [1] Florida times-Union, June 17, 2002, “New CBS affiliate has garage-studio roots”
- ^ Kerr, Jessie-Lynne: [2] Florida Times-Union, July 14, 2006, "Mac Papers co-founder was civic, religious leader"
- ^ "Clear Channel Agrees to Sell Television Station Group to Providence Equity Partners". Clear Channel Communications. Retrieved 2007-11-21.
- ^ "Newport stations drift to High Plains". Television Business Report. 2008-05-21. Retrieved 2008-09-28.
- ^ "Application Search Details". CDBS Public Access. Federal Communications Commission. Retrieved 2008-09-28.