WQCW
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WQCW is the CW affiliate for the Huntington/Charleston, West Virginia television market. It is licensed to Portsmouth, Ohio and is the one of two commercial stations in the market licensed outside of West Virginia. Its transmitter is located in West Portsmouth, Ohio. The station operates a low-powered repeater: WOCW, channel 21 in Charleston.
History
Although a construction permit was issued for channel 30 in 1984 under the calls WUXA, no station signed on this channel until 1998, when WHCP signed on as an affiliate of The WB. It added UPN programming in 2000 after it was dropped from WVAH-TV, although it retained the on-air name WB30. It showed WB programming in-pattern, with UPN programming at odd hours, sometimes after the WB primetime programming ended or on weekends.
Channel 30's analog transmitter, despite its over 2 million-watt ERP, was not strong enough to cover the entire Huntington-Charleston market, even though it identifies itself on-air as "Portsmouth-Charleston." The market, the largest geographic market east of the Mississippi River, covers 61 counties in central West Virginia, eastern Kentucky and southern Ohio. Most of this territory is a very rugged dissected plateau, making UHF reception difficult. WVAH faced similar problems when it originally signed on in 1982 on channel 23, forcing it to move to channel 11 in 1989. WHCP, on the other hand, couldn't move to another channel or increase the power on its analog transmitter because it would interfere with digital television stations in Roanoke, Virginia and Knoxville, Tennessee. Shortly after going on the air, it signed on two low-power satellites-- WBWV, channel 69 in Huntington and WOWB channel 53 in Charleston. Even with these satellites, it still had to rely on cable for most of its viewership, especially in the market's share of Kentucky. The station's digital signal, on channel 17, has far better reception.
The station was not carried on DirecTV's Huntington/Charleston local feed when DirecTV began airing local channels because its signal did not meet DirecTV's technical requirements. However, DirecTV added WHCP to its lineup on January 25, 2006. It has always been carried on Dish Network's local feed, however.
When CBS and Time Warner announced formation of The CW in January 2006, it was generally expected that WHCP would join the new network. On March 9, WHCP officially agreed to become a CW affiliate.
On May 26, WOWB and WBWV became WOCW channel 21 and WVCW channel 45, respectively. WHCP followed suit on May 31, changing its calls to WQCW. It initially rebranded itself as "The Q," with a logo showing The CW's logo turning into a capital "Q." It has since rebranded itself as "Tri-State's CW."
On January 20, 2007, longtime owner Commonwealth Broadcasting sold the station to Lockwood Broadcasting Group. The deal closed on May 21, 2007. All of Lockwood's stations are either primary CW stations or have the CW on a digital subchannel.
On June 12, 2009, WQCW ceased transmitting on channel 30 and became digital-only TV station on channel 17. [1]
On November 9, 2010, DirecTV began carrying WQCW in 1080i high definition.
On March 7, 2012 Dish Network began carrying WQCW in 1080i high definition.
On June 1, 2012, WVCW-LP surrendered its license to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The FCC cancelled the license and deleted the call sign from its database.
Local programming
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In the last few years, WQCW had been offering more local programming, mostly sports-related. The station offered local professional wrestling on Saturday afternoons, from Portsmouth-based promotion Revolutionary Championship Wrestling, these have since moved to another station. During the fall and winter of 2006 and 2007, WQCW aired taped high school football and basketball games from 9-11 p.m. on Saturday nights, but the practice ended when Lockwood Broadcasting bought the station. Musical theme performances were shown on late-Saturday night, but this too has ended also.
On November 7, 2005 WQCW (as WHCP) began airing newscasts at 6 and 10 p.m. with popular, but controversial local anchor Tom McGee at the helm. The newscast was regarded as very amateurish, with no teleprompters, no IFB system and generally sloppy presentation. Furthermore, WHCP never even subscribed to The Associated Press newswire. The newscast never seriously threatened the "Big Three" newscasts at 6 p.m. or WVAH's newscast at 10 p.m.
On February 21, 2006, McGee quit the newscast. He claimed that the station made false promises made to the employees over health insurance which never even went into effect and paid some employees with food coupons. He also had a dispute over the addition of a news helicopter. Two days later, on February 23, the entire news staff was fired and the 4-month-old newscast was canceled. The manager cited low ratings and recent shakeups in the newscasts.