WEMT

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For the acronym of WEMT, see Wilderness Emergency Medical Technician. For the TV station in Bangor, Maine that began as WEMT, see WVII-TV.

WEMT
File:Foxtricities.png
CityGreeneville, Tennessee
Channels
BrandingFox 39 Tri-Cities (general)
Fox 39 News
First on Fox
(during WCYB-TV-produced newscasts)
Programming
Affiliations39.1: Fox
39.2: Dabl
39.3: Charge!
39.4: TBD
Ownership
Owner
OperatorSinclair Broadcast Group
(via LMA)
broadcast: WCYB-TV
cable: Fox Sports South, Fox Sports Southeast[1]
History
First air date
November 8, 1985 (38 years ago) (1985-11-08)
Former call signs
WETO (1985–1989)
Former channel number(s)
Analog:
39 (UHF, 1985–2009)
Digital:
38 (UHF, 2002–2019)
Independent (1985–1986)
Call sign meaning
Eastern and Mid-Tennessee
-or-
Former owner MT Communications, founded by Michael Thompson
Technical information[2]
Licensing authority
FCC
Facility ID40761
ERP1,000 kW
HAAT719.3 m (2,360 ft)
Transmitter coordinates36°26′58.2″N 82°6′28.7″W / 36.449500°N 82.107972°W / 36.449500; -82.107972
Links
Public license information

WEMT, virtual channel 39 (UHF digital channel 28), is a Fox-affiliated television station licensed to Greeneville, Tennessee, United States, serving the Tri-Cities area of northeastern Tennessee and southwestern Virginia. The station is owned by Cunningham Broadcasting; the Sinclair Broadcast Group, which owns Bristol, Virginia-licensed dual NBC/CW affiliate WCYB-TV (channel 5), operates WEMT under a local marketing agreement (LMA). However, Sinclair effectively owns WEMT as the majority of Cunningham's stock is owned by the family of deceased group founder Julian Smith. The two stations share studios on Lee Street on the Virginia side of Bristol (straddling the Virginia–Tennessee line) and transmitter facilities at Rye Patch Knob on Holston Mountain in the Cherokee National Forest. WEMT's transmitter was previously located at Camp Creek Bald on Viking Mountain on the Tennessee–North Carolina border outside Greeneville. On cable, the station is available on Comcast Xfinity channel 7 and Charter Spectrum channel 10.

History

This station has the historic distinction of having more owners (at eight) since it signed on-the-air than any other commercial television station in Tennessee. It began operations on November 8, 1985 as WETO, under the ownership of East Tennessee's Own, Inc. It was the first Independent in the area and aired an analog signal on UHF channel 39 from a transmitter on Viking Mountain's Camp Creek Bald on the Tennessee and North Carolina state line. The station first operated from studios located on Industrial Road in Greenville. Prior to WETO's sign-on, the channel allocation was occupied by a translator for ABC affiliate WKPT-TV. It had a general entertainment format consisting of cartoons, sitcoms, old movies, and religious programming.

On October 9, 1986, WETO became a Fox affiliate. East Tennessee's Own sold the station to MT Communications, a company named for and headed by Michael Thompson in 1989. On November 29, 1989, its call sign was changed to the current WEMT; the call letters were originally used by ABC affiliate WVII-TV in Bangor, Maine from 1965 to 1976.[3] MT Communications had earlier purchased two other Tennessee stations, WCAY-TV (renamed WXMT, now WUXP-TV) in Nashville and WMKW-TV (renamed WLMT) in Memphis. All three MT stations were Fox affiliates; however, WXMT and WLMT subsequently lost their affiliations to competing stations in the respective markets under the terms of a deal between Fox and TVX Broadcast Group (those stations' former owner) stipulating any under-performing stations the company sold could lose the network affiliation. WEMT kept its Fox affiliation because it was not a TVX station, and in any event there were no viable choices for a replacement affiliate in the Tri-Cities.

MT Communications sold its three stations—WEMT, WLMT, and satellite station WMTU (now WJKT) in Jackson, Tennessee—to Television Marketing Group, a subsidiary of Chesapeake Bay Holding Company in 1992. Almost immediately, Television Marketing Group then sold the station to Max Television (later Max Media Properties) in 1993. Sinclair Broadcast Group acquired the Max Media stations in 1998. The Sinclair purchase partially reunited the station with WUXP, which had been sold separately in the early-1990s and by then was managed by Sinclair's WZTV. WEMT's digital signal on UHF channel 38 began operations in 2001. On February 8, 2006, Sinclair sold the station to Aurora Broadcasting, Inc.[4] The station immediately entered into a local marketing agreement with WCYB.

In mid-December 2006 as a result of WCYB owner Bluestone Television's acquisition by the Bonten Media Group, Esteem Broadcasting bought WEMT from Aurora. Esteem would then pay $1.4 million in outstanding debt. WEMT then moved from its longtime studios on Hanover Road in Johnson City to WCYB's facilities in Bristol.

On January 13, 2009, it was announced WEMT would be dropped from DirecTV effective January 15 over a retransmission consent dispute. That same day, an agreement was made public and the station continued to be provided on the system. [citation needed]

On December 15, 2009, WEMT obtained a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) construction permit to move its transmitter from Camp Creek Bald to Holston High Point in order to be co-located WCYB's tower, which was completed in late November 2011.[5][6] According to the construction permit, Greeneville continues to be the station's city of license and secondary cities are Bristol (both TN and VA), Kingsport, and Johnson City.

On April 21, 2017, Sinclair announced its intent to purchase the Bonten stations for $240 million. As an aspect of the deal, the Esteem stations will be sold to Sinclair affiliate Cunningham Broadcasting, maintaining the current operational arrangement.[7][8] The sale was completed September 1.[9]

Digital television

Digital channels

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

Channel Video Aspect PSIP Short Name Programming[10]
39.1 720p 16:9 WEMT-HD Main WEMT programming / Fox
39.2 480i MOVIES! Dabl
39.3 4:3 Charge!
39.4 TBD

Analog-to-digital conversion

WEMT shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 39, on June 12, 2009, the official date in which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 38.[11][12] Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former UHF analog channel 39.

Out-of-market cable carriage

In recent years, WEMT has been carried on cable in multiple areas outside of the Tri-Cities media market. That includes cable systems within the Knoxville market in Tennessee and Kentucky, the Lexington market in Kentucky, and the Asheville market in North Carolina.[13]

Programming

WEMT clears the entire Fox schedule, including its Xploration Station E/I block. Prior to picking up Xploration Station, WEMT purchased barter E/I programming, and the block was aired by ABC affiliate WJHL-DT2. Syndicated programming on WEMT includes Judge Mathis, The People’s Court and Hot Bench.[14]

Newscasts

On September 12, 2005, WCYB began producing the area's first and only prime time newscast on WEMT from a secondary set at WCYB's studios. Known as Fox Tri-Cities 10 O'Clock News, it was originally seen every night for thirty minutes. This was expanded to an hour-long format on September 11, 2006. In October 2008, WEMT's newscast dropped WCYB's on-air look. Instead of using all blue graphics, this station now uses blue and red colors. The station also renamed the weather forecast segment and modified many other elements of the broadcast to distinguish itself from WCYB.

At some point in time, Paul Johnson (who was formerly Sports Director and weeknight sports anchor for both stations) began appearing on WEMT as a weeknight news and sports anchor and is now seen on both stations. His weeknight news co-anchor Rebecca Pepin is seen on WCYB also. On June 17, 2010, that station became the area's first to air local newscasts in high definition and the WEMT shows were included in the upgrade.

References

  1. ^ Miller, Mark K. (August 23, 2019). "Sinclair Closes $10.6B Disney RSN Purchase". TVNewsCheck. NewsCheckMedia. Retrieved August 23, 2019.
  2. ^ "Facility Technical Data for WEMT". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission.
  3. ^ http://licensing.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/ws.exe/prod/cdbs/pubacc/prod/call_hist.pl?Facility_id=40761&Callsign=WEMT
  4. ^ http://www.sbgi.net/press/release_200628_145.shtml
  5. ^ http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/tvq?call=WEMT
  6. ^ http://www.wcyb.com/news/29879723/detail.html
  7. ^ "Sinclair Buying Bonten Stations For $240M". TVNewsCheck. Retrieved April 21, 2017.
  8. ^ SINCLAIR BROADCAST GROUP ANNOUNCES AGREEMENT TO PURCHASE BONTEN MEDIA GROUP TV STATIONS - Sinclair Broadcast Group
  9. ^ Consummation Notice, CDBS Public Access, Federal Communications Commission, Retrieved September 6, 2017.
  10. ^ RabbitEars TV Query for WEMT
  11. ^ "DTV Tentative Channel Designations for the First and the Second Rounds" (PDF). Retrieved March 24, 2012.
  12. ^ CDBS Print
  13. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on May 2, 2012. Retrieved September 9, 2012.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  14. ^ http://tv.twcc.com/listings/wemt-fox

External links

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