WEHT
Encyclopedia
WEHT is the ABC
-affiliated television station
for the Tri-State area of Southwestern Indiana
, Northwestern Kentucky
and Southeastern Illinois
; it is owned by Nexstar Broadcasting Group
under a shared services agreement
with independent station WTVW
(owned by Mission Broadcasting
). Licensed to Evansville, Indiana
, it broadcasts a high definition
digital signal on VHF channel 7 (or virtual channel
25.1 via PSIP) from a transmitter at its studios on Marywood Drive in Henderson, Kentucky
. The station can also be seen on WOW!, Time Warner Cable
and Insight
channel 11. There is a high definition feed provided on Time Warner
Cable digital channel 711, WOW! digital channel 811 and Insight digital channel 908. Syndicated
programming on WEHT includes Who Wants to Be a Millionaire
, The Rachael Ray Show and Live with Regis and Kelly
among others.
On WEHT-DT2, WOW digital channel 111, Time Warner Cable digital channel 311 and Insight digital channel 524 is a 24-hour local sports channel. The service is also part of the Wazoo Sports Network
carrying football and basketball games from area high schools as well as some college-level games in those sports.
This station's digital signal is multiplexed:>
Virtual
channel
Physical
channel
Name
Video
Aspect
Programming
7.1
25.1
WEHT-HD
720p
16:9
Main WEHT programming / ABC (HD)
7.2
25.2
WEHT-DT2
480i
4:3
"News 25 Sports Channel" (SD)
WEHT began broadcasting a digital signal on channel 59 in 2002. Following the DTV transition, the station moved its digital signal to VHF channel 7 (used by WTVW for its analog operations).
On August 25, 2008, the station began airing programming from Retro Television Network
(RTV) on its second digital subchannel
. This lasted until July 31, 2010 when WEHT-DT2 became the third affiliate of the Wazoo Sports Network which launched in late-2009 on WHAS-TV
in Louisville
and WLEX in Lexington
. WEHT-DT2 brands it locally as the "News 25 Sports Channel" and the service has digital cable carriage. The regional sports television network is dedicated to carrying live coverage of sporting events as well as classic coverage of past high school and college events. There are also locally-produced shows, the first being After Further Review, a sports talk show which airs each weeknight at 9 p.m. Central
(10 p.m. Eastern
). At some point under Nexstar control, the "News 25 Sports Channel" may be phased out since most company-owned outlets do not utilize digital subchannels.
as the first television station in the Tri-State area. It aired an analog signal on UHF channel 50 and was a primary CBS
affiliate with secondary relations with ABC. WEHT was originally owned by the Malco Theater Corporation of Memphis, Tennessee
; minority interest was held by several Henderson businessmen for the first year. It would drop ABC when WTVW
launched in August 1956. Hilberg Packing of Cincinnati, Ohio
bought the station from Malco in 1957.
The Gilmore Broadcasting Corporation, owned by former Kalamazoo, Michigan
mayor and businessman James Gilmore, Jr., bought WEHT and sister station KGUN
in Tucson, Arizona
from Hilberg in 1964. In September 1966, the station activated its current 988-foot tower. On the same day the new tower came into service, it moved to the stronger channel 25. The move allowed WEHT to boast of reaching an additional 70,000 families in the area, with improved picture quality for its total audience of 250,000 households. In mid-1995, WTVW was sold to Petracom Broadcasting, and as part of the deal, that station announced it was switching its affiliation from ABC to Fox
. The result brought about a network scramble in Evansville with WEHT quickly joining ABC and WEVV
(the original Fox affiliate) switching to CBS. The final switch for all three stations was made on December 3, 1995 although some programming was swapped between the stations prior to the date of the actual change.
WEHT is the last station owned by Gilmore Broadcasting, which has been in the hands of James Gilmore, Jr.'s family since his death in a 2000 auto accident. At its height, Gilmore owned five television stations, nine radio station
s and nineteen cable television
systems in nine states. Among WEHT's former sisters were WSVA-AM
-FM
-TV
in Harrisonburg, Virginia
, KODE-AM
-TV
in Joplin, Missouri
and WREX-TV
in Rockford, Illinois
. On August 8, 2011, Gilmore announced it would sell WEHT to the Nexstar Broadcasting Group
, the current owner of WTVW, effectively placing WEHT under the co-management of the station that formerly carried the ABC affiliation that WEHT currently carries. As part of the deal, WTVW would be sold to Mission Broadcasting
with WEHT taking over its operations as the senior partner through shared services
and joint sales
agreements. In a way, the Nexstar acquisition of WEHT would reunite it with KODE-TV, which is also owned by Mission Broadcasting and managed by Nexstar. The transaction, which received Federal Communications Commission
(FCC) approval on October 12, was completed on December 1, 2011; at that point, the station rebranded from "News 25" to "WEHT Local".
. The station operates its own Doppler
weather radar
across the street from its Henderson facility.
In the early-2000s through a news share agreement, WEHT produced the market
's second prime time newscast at 9 on then-WB affiliate WAZE-TV
(owned by Roberts Broadcasting
). The broadcast was eventually cancelled due to low ratings
and inconsistent viewership being unable to compete with then-Fox affiliate WTVW. It was the first station to enter into the afternoon local news race on September 10 of that year after debuting a thirty minute broadcast at 4:30. Three years later in the same month, this would be expanded to a full hour. WEHT began having its first competitor in the time slot on September 12, 2011 when WFIE debuted a 4 p.m. newscast.
Originally, WEHT-DT2 simulcasted live news from the main channel in addition to offering repeats of those shows as well as local weather. This programming was dropped with the addition of RTV. The service would bring back a prime time broadcast at 9 on June 10, 2009. Soon after in September, WFIE introduced its own newscast in the time slot (on its own second digital subchannel
) offering a third alternative of late news an hour earlier. With the decision to switch WEHT-DT2 to a sports channel in July 2010, the 9 o'clock broadcast was cancelled.
In April 2009, the station's weekday morning news anchors started voicing updates for several Townsquare Media-owned radio station
s. The stations also air weather updates from Eyewitness News meteorologists as part of the "First Warning Doppler Radio Network" and will simulcast the television station's audio feed whenever severe weather
necessitates wall-to-wall coverage. The Townsquare Media stations include WKDQ
-FM, WGBF-FM
, WJLT
-FM, WDKS
-FM, WGBF-AM
, WBKR-FM, WRAY-FM
, WOMI
-AM and WBNL
-AM.
Pending approval of the sale to Nexstar, WEHT and WTVW would have their operations merged together and be based out of the WEHT facility in Henderson; all personnel of WEHT would then have to re-apply for their current positions starting in late-September 2011. On November 7, 2011, Nexstar announced the layoff of 45 staffers effective November 30; news staffers laid off include weekday morning anchor Whitney Ray, sports director Mark McVicar, sports reporters Aaron Hancock and Sean Clark-Weis, and reporter Nick LaGrange; remaining on-air staff members from WEHT will be carried over to the newscasts on WTVW, and vice versa. In addition, WTVW will no longer air newscasts in timeslots in which WEHT offers newscasts (5-7 a.m. on weekday mornings and 6-6:30 p.m. Monday-Saturdays); on December 1, 2011, the two stations' combined news operation debuted as Eyewitness News
, the title WTVW had used from 1974 until its 1995 switch from ABC to Fox. As a result of the consolidation of WTVW and WEHT's news operations, this leaves the Evansville market with only two local news operations amongst three stations, the other belonging to NBC affiliate WFIE
(CBS
affiliate WEVV-TV, which began running newscasts starting in 1992, had shut down its news operation in 2001). Ownership by Nexstar could also result in the two stations upgrading broadcasts to 16:9 enhanced definition widescreen
or even full high definition.
Eyewitness News First Warning Doppler Weather
Sports team
Reporters
Local program hosts
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
-affiliated television station
Television station
A television station is a business, organisation or other such as an amateur television operator that transmits content over terrestrial television. A television transmission can be by analog television signals or, more recently, by digital television. Broadcast television systems standards are...
for the Tri-State area of Southwestern Indiana
Southwestern Indiana
Southwestern Indiana is a 11-county region of Indiana located at the southernmost and westernmost part of the state. As of the 2000 census, the region's combined population is 465,338. Evansville, Indiana's third largest city, is the primary hub for the region as well as the primary regional hub...
, Northwestern Kentucky
Kentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...
and Southeastern Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
; it is owned by Nexstar Broadcasting Group
Nexstar Broadcasting Group
Nexstar Broadcasting Group, Inc., is an entity of broadcast television stations headquartered in Irving, Texas. The company consists of 50 television stations across the U.S., ranging from market sizes 9 to 201 . 43 of the stations are broadcasting at full power, with the other 4 broadcasting at...
under a shared services agreement
Shared services
Shared services refers to the provision of a service by one part of an organization or group where that service had previously been found in more than one part of the organization or group. Thus the funding and resourcing of the service is shared and the providing department effectively becomes an...
with independent station WTVW
WTVW
Banam sold WTVW to Petracom Broadcasting in 1995. A 20-percent equity stake in Petracom was purchased by Fox soon afterward, eventually leading to a three-way affiliation swap in which WTVW ended its 39-year ABC affiliation and joined Fox on December 3, 1995, with ABC moving to former CBS...
(owned by Mission Broadcasting
Mission Broadcasting
Mission Broadcasting, Inc. is a television station group that owns 15 television stations operated by Nexstar Broadcasting. The group's president is David S. Smith, who founded the company in 1998. In most areas where Mission owns a station, its arrangements allow Nexstar to control two of the top...
). Licensed to Evansville, Indiana
Evansville, Indiana
Evansville is the third-largest city in the U.S. state of Indiana and the largest city in Southern Indiana. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 117,429. It is the county seat of Vanderburgh County and the regional hub for both Southwestern Indiana and the...
, it broadcasts a high definition
High-definition television
High-definition television is video that has resolution substantially higher than that of traditional television systems . HDTV has one or two million pixels per frame, roughly five times that of SD...
digital signal on VHF channel 7 (or virtual channel
Virtual channel
In telecommunications, a logical channel number , also known as virtual channel, is a channel designation which differs from that of the actual radio channel on which the signal travels....
25.1 via PSIP) from a transmitter at its studios on Marywood Drive in Henderson, Kentucky
Henderson, Kentucky
Henderson is a city in Henderson County, Kentucky, United States, along the Ohio River in the western part of the state. The population was 27,952 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Evansville Metropolitan Area often referred to as "Kentuckiana", although "Tri-State Area" or "Tri-State" are more...
. The station can also be seen on WOW!, Time Warner Cable
Time Warner Cable
Time Warner Cable is an American cable television company that operates in 28 states and has 31 operating divisions...
and Insight
Insight Communications
Insight Communications is the 13th largest multiple system operator in the United States with approximately 692,000 customers in the three contiguous states of Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio...
channel 11. There is a high definition feed provided on Time Warner
Time Warner
Time Warner is one of the world's largest media companies, headquartered in the Time Warner Center in New York City. Formerly two separate companies, Warner Communications, Inc...
Cable digital channel 711, WOW! digital channel 811 and Insight digital channel 908. Syndicated
Television syndication
In broadcasting, syndication is the sale of the right to broadcast radio shows and television shows by multiple radio stations and television stations, without going through a broadcast network, though the process of syndication may conjure up structures like those of a network itself, by its very...
programming on WEHT includes Who Wants to Be a Millionaire
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (US game show)
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire is an American television quiz show which offers a maximum prize of $1,000,000 for correctly answering 14 consecutive multiple-choice questions of random difficulty. Until 2010, the format required contestants to correctly answer 15 consecutive questions of increasing...
, The Rachael Ray Show and Live with Regis and Kelly
Live with Regis and Kelly
Live! with Kelly is a syndicated American television morning talk show, hosted by Kelly Ripa. The show has aired since 1983 in New York City and 1988 nationwide. Tony Pigg has been the show's announcer since its inception...
among others.
Digital programming
WEHT-DT broadcasts its digital signal on VHF channel 7.On WEHT-DT2, WOW digital channel 111, Time Warner Cable digital channel 311 and Insight digital channel 524 is a 24-hour local sports channel. The service is also part of the Wazoo Sports Network
Wazoo Sports Network
Wazoo Sports Network is a regional sports network specializing in airing local high school, college, and minor league sports mainly in the Kentuckiana and Bluegrass regions of Kentucky and southern Indiana, The network, which started out as online-only in 2005, became a digital subchannel network...
carrying football and basketball games from area high schools as well as some college-level games in those sports.
channel
channel
Display resolution
The display resolution of a digital television or display device is the number of distinct pixels in each dimension that can be displayed. It can be an ambiguous term especially as the displayed resolution is controlled by all different factors in cathode ray tube , flat panel or projection...
Aspect ratio
The aspect ratio of a shape is the ratio of its longer dimension to its shorter dimension. It may be applied to two characteristic dimensions of a three-dimensional shape, such as the ratio of the longest and shortest axis, or for symmetrical objects that are described by just two measurements,...
720p
720p is the shorthand name for 1280x720, a category of High-definition television video modes having a resolution of 1080 or 720p and a progressive scan...
16:9
16:9 is an aspect ratio with a width of 16 units and height of 9. Since 2009, it has become the most common aspect ratio for sold televisions and computer monitors and is also the international standard format of HDTV, Full HD, non-HD digital television and analog widescreen television ...
480i
480i is the shorthand name for a video mode, namely the US NTSC television system or digital television systems with the same characteristics. The i, which is sometimes uppercase, stands for interlaced, the 480 for a vertical frame resolution of 480 lines containing picture information; while NTSC...
WEHT began broadcasting a digital signal on channel 59 in 2002. Following the DTV transition, the station moved its digital signal to VHF channel 7 (used by WTVW for its analog operations).
On August 25, 2008, the station began airing programming from Retro Television Network
Retro Television Network
The Retro Television Network is a system of television stations that airs classic television shows as well as more recently produced programs...
(RTV) on its second digital subchannel
Digital subchannel
In broadcasting, digital subchannels are a means to transmit more than one independent program at the same time from the same digital radio or digital television station on the same radio frequency channel. This is done by using data compression techniques to reduce the size of each individual...
. This lasted until July 31, 2010 when WEHT-DT2 became the third affiliate of the Wazoo Sports Network which launched in late-2009 on WHAS-TV
WHAS-TV
WHAS-TV channel 11 is the ABC affiliated television station in Louisville, Kentucky. Owned by Belo Corporation, the station's transmitter is located in Floyd County, Indiana, near the community of Floyds Knobs...
in Louisville
Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...
and WLEX in Lexington
Lexington, Kentucky
Lexington is the second-largest city in Kentucky and the 63rd largest in the US. Known as the "Thoroughbred City" and the "Horse Capital of the World", it is located in the heart of Kentucky's Bluegrass region...
. WEHT-DT2 brands it locally as the "News 25 Sports Channel" and the service has digital cable carriage. The regional sports television network is dedicated to carrying live coverage of sporting events as well as classic coverage of past high school and college events. There are also locally-produced shows, the first being After Further Review, a sports talk show which airs each weeknight at 9 p.m. Central
Central Time zone
In North America, the Central Time Zone refers to national time zones which observe standard time by subtracting six hours from UTC , and daylight saving, or summer time by subtracting five hours...
(10 p.m. Eastern
Eastern Time Zone
The Eastern Time Zone of the United States and Canada is a time zone that falls mostly along the east coast of North America. Its UTC time offset is −5 hrs during standard time and −4 hrs during daylight saving time...
). At some point under Nexstar control, the "News 25 Sports Channel" may be phased out since most company-owned outlets do not utilize digital subchannels.
History
The station signed-on September 27, 19531953 in television
The year 1953 in television involved some significant events.Below is a list of television-related events in 1953.-Events:*January 19 – 68% of all US television sets were tuned in to I Love Lucy to watch Lucy give birth to little Ricky....
as the first television station in the Tri-State area. It aired an analog signal on UHF channel 50 and was a primary CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
affiliate with secondary relations with ABC. WEHT was originally owned by the Malco Theater Corporation of Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....
; minority interest was held by several Henderson businessmen for the first year. It would drop ABC when WTVW
WTVW
Banam sold WTVW to Petracom Broadcasting in 1995. A 20-percent equity stake in Petracom was purchased by Fox soon afterward, eventually leading to a three-way affiliation swap in which WTVW ended its 39-year ABC affiliation and joined Fox on December 3, 1995, with ABC moving to former CBS...
launched in August 1956. Hilberg Packing of Cincinnati, Ohio
Cincinnati, Ohio
Cincinnati is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio. Cincinnati is the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located to north of the Ohio River at the Ohio-Kentucky border, near Indiana. The population within city limits is 296,943 according to the 2010 census, making it Ohio's...
bought the station from Malco in 1957.
The Gilmore Broadcasting Corporation, owned by former Kalamazoo, Michigan
Kalamazoo, Michigan
The area on which the modern city stands was once home to Native Americans of the Hopewell culture, who migrated into the area sometime before the first millennium. Evidence of their early residency remains in the form of a small mound in downtown's Bronson Park. The Hopewell civilization began to...
mayor and businessman James Gilmore, Jr., bought WEHT and sister station KGUN
KGUN
KGUN-TV, channel 9, is the ABC-affiliated television station serving Tucson, Arizona, owned by Journal Broadcast Group, Inc.. It broadcasts its digital signal on VHF channel 9 from Mount Bigelow, located northeast of Tucson...
in Tucson, Arizona
Tucson, Arizona
Tucson is a city in and the county seat of Pima County, Arizona, United States. The city is located 118 miles southeast of Phoenix and 60 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border. The 2010 United States Census puts the city's population at 520,116 with a metropolitan area population at 1,020,200...
from Hilberg in 1964. In September 1966, the station activated its current 988-foot tower. On the same day the new tower came into service, it moved to the stronger channel 25. The move allowed WEHT to boast of reaching an additional 70,000 families in the area, with improved picture quality for its total audience of 250,000 households. In mid-1995, WTVW was sold to Petracom Broadcasting, and as part of the deal, that station announced it was switching its affiliation from ABC to Fox
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
. The result brought about a network scramble in Evansville with WEHT quickly joining ABC and WEVV
WEVV
WEVV-TV is a CBS-affiliated television station located in Evansville, Indiana. The station operates on digital channel 45, or virtual channel 44 via PSIP, from a transmitter located in Henderson, Kentucky. WEVV is owned and operated by Communications Corporation of America...
(the original Fox affiliate) switching to CBS. The final switch for all three stations was made on December 3, 1995 although some programming was swapped between the stations prior to the date of the actual change.
WEHT is the last station owned by Gilmore Broadcasting, which has been in the hands of James Gilmore, Jr.'s family since his death in a 2000 auto accident. At its height, Gilmore owned five television stations, nine radio station
Radio station
Radio broadcasting is a one-way wireless transmission over radio waves intended to reach a wide audience. Stations can be linked in radio networks to broadcast a common radio format, either in broadcast syndication or simulcast or both...
s and nineteen cable television
Cable television
Cable television is a system of providing television programs to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through coaxial cables or digital light pulses through fixed optical fibers located on the subscriber's property, much like the over-the-air method used in traditional...
systems in nine states. Among WEHT's former sisters were WSVA-AM
WSVA
WSVA is a News/Talk/Sports formatted broadcast radio station licensed to Harrisonburg, Virginia, serving the Central Shenandoah Valley. WSVA is owned and operated by M. Belmont VerStandig, Inc.-History:...
-FM
WQPO
WQPO is a Contemporary Hit Radio formatted broadcast radio station licensed to Harrisonburg, Virginia, serving the Central Shenandoah Valley. WQPO is owned and operated by M. Belmont Verstandig, Inc.-History:...
-TV
WHSV-TV
WHSV-TV, channel 3 , is an ABC affiliate television station for the Harrisonburg, Virginia, market. WHSV News 3, as it is known on-air, is owned by Gray Television and has its transmitter located west of the town of Stanley on Massanutten Mountain...
in Harrisonburg, Virginia
Harrisonburg, Virginia
Harrisonburg is an independent city in the Shenandoah Valley region of Virginia in the United States. Its population as of 2010 is 48,914, and at the 2000 census, 40,468. Harrisonburg is the county seat of Rockingham County and the core city of the Harrisonburg, Virginia Metropolitan Statistical...
, KODE-AM
KZYM
KZYM is an American radio station broadcasting from Joplin, Missouri, and assigned to frequency 1230 kHz. It is a 1,000 watt radio station.-Programming :AM 1230 The Talker features: Rick and Bubba In The Morning, Laura Ingraham, Dr...
-TV
KODE-TV
KODE-TV, virtual channel 12, is the ABC network affiliated television station serving all of Joplin, Missouri and its surrounding areas and Pittsburg, Kansas and its rural communities. Its transmitter is located in Joplin...
in Joplin, Missouri
Joplin, Missouri
Joplin is a city in southern Jasper County and northern Newton County in the southwestern corner of the US state of Missouri. Joplin is the largest city in Jasper County, though it is not the county seat. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 50,150...
and WREX-TV
WREX-TV
WREX, channel 13, is the NBC television affiliate serving the Rockford, Illinois area. It is the market's only full-powered VHF station and is Rockford's second oldest television station. Its studios and transmitter are located at Auburn and Winnebago Roads, west of Rockford and north of...
in Rockford, Illinois
Rockford, Illinois
Rockford is a mid-sized city located on both banks of the Rock River in far northern Illinois. Often referred to as "The Forest City", Rockford is the county seat of Winnebago County, Illinois, USA. As reported in the 2010 U.S. census, the city was home to 152,871 people, the third most populated...
. On August 8, 2011, Gilmore announced it would sell WEHT to the Nexstar Broadcasting Group
Nexstar Broadcasting Group
Nexstar Broadcasting Group, Inc., is an entity of broadcast television stations headquartered in Irving, Texas. The company consists of 50 television stations across the U.S., ranging from market sizes 9 to 201 . 43 of the stations are broadcasting at full power, with the other 4 broadcasting at...
, the current owner of WTVW, effectively placing WEHT under the co-management of the station that formerly carried the ABC affiliation that WEHT currently carries. As part of the deal, WTVW would be sold to Mission Broadcasting
Mission Broadcasting
Mission Broadcasting, Inc. is a television station group that owns 15 television stations operated by Nexstar Broadcasting. The group's president is David S. Smith, who founded the company in 1998. In most areas where Mission owns a station, its arrangements allow Nexstar to control two of the top...
with WEHT taking over its operations as the senior partner through shared services
Shared services
Shared services refers to the provision of a service by one part of an organization or group where that service had previously been found in more than one part of the organization or group. Thus the funding and resourcing of the service is shared and the providing department effectively becomes an...
and joint sales
Local marketing agreement
In U.S. and Canadian broadcasting, a local marketing agreement is an agreement in which one company agrees to operate a radio or television station owned by another licensee...
agreements. In a way, the Nexstar acquisition of WEHT would reunite it with KODE-TV, which is also owned by Mission Broadcasting and managed by Nexstar. The transaction, which received Federal Communications Commission
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, created, Congressional statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the...
(FCC) approval on October 12, was completed on December 1, 2011; at that point, the station rebranded from "News 25" to "WEHT Local".
News operation
The station currently carries 24 hours of local newscasts per week (with five hours on weekdays, 1½ hours on Saturdays, and a half-hour on Sundays); unlike most ABC affiliates, WEHT does not broadcast an early evening newscast on Sundays, and it has also not aired a midday newscast during the week since dropping a half-hour 11:30 a.m. newscast in 2007. In addition to its main studios, WEHT also operates a news bureau in OwensboroOwensboro, Kentucky
Owensboro is the fourth largest city by population in the U.S. state of Kentucky. It is the county seat of Daviess County. It is located on U.S. Route 60 about southeast of Evansville, Indiana, and is the principal city of the Owensboro, Kentucky, Metropolitan Statistical Area. The city's...
. The station operates its own Doppler
Pulse-doppler radar
Pulse-Doppler is a 4D radar system capable of detecting both target 3D location as well as measuring radial velocity . It uses the Doppler effect to avoid overloading computers and operators as well as to reduce power consumption...
weather radar
Weather radar
Weather radar, also called weather surveillance radar and Doppler weather radar, is a type of radar used to locate precipitation, calculate its motion, estimate its type . Modern weather radars are mostly pulse-Doppler radars, capable of detecting the motion of rain droplets in addition to the...
across the street from its Henderson facility.
In the early-2000s through a news share agreement, WEHT produced the market
Media market
A media market, broadcast market, media region, designated market area , Television Market Area , or simply market is a region where the population can receive the same television and radio station offerings, and may also include other types of media including newspapers and Internet content...
's second prime time newscast at 9 on then-WB affiliate WAZE-TV
WAZE-TV
WAZE-TV was a television station in Madisonville, Kentucky, in the United States, serving the Evansville, Indiana DMA. The station, which was owned by Roberts Broadcasting WAZE-TV was a television station in Madisonville, Kentucky, in the United States, serving the Evansville, Indiana DMA. The...
(owned by Roberts Broadcasting
Roberts Broadcasting
Roberts Broadcasting Company is a media company based in St. Louis, Missouri. It is a subsidiary of the parent company, the Roberts Companies, one of the largest African American owned conglomerates and is co-owned by brothers Steven and Michael Roberts. The company owns four network affiliates,...
). The broadcast was eventually cancelled due to low ratings
Nielsen Ratings
Nielsen ratings are the audience measurement systems developed by Nielsen Media Research, in an effort to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States...
and inconsistent viewership being unable to compete with then-Fox affiliate WTVW. It was the first station to enter into the afternoon local news race on September 10 of that year after debuting a thirty minute broadcast at 4:30. Three years later in the same month, this would be expanded to a full hour. WEHT began having its first competitor in the time slot on September 12, 2011 when WFIE debuted a 4 p.m. newscast.
Originally, WEHT-DT2 simulcasted live news from the main channel in addition to offering repeats of those shows as well as local weather. This programming was dropped with the addition of RTV. The service would bring back a prime time broadcast at 9 on June 10, 2009. Soon after in September, WFIE introduced its own newscast in the time slot (on its own second digital subchannel
Digital subchannel
In broadcasting, digital subchannels are a means to transmit more than one independent program at the same time from the same digital radio or digital television station on the same radio frequency channel. This is done by using data compression techniques to reduce the size of each individual...
) offering a third alternative of late news an hour earlier. With the decision to switch WEHT-DT2 to a sports channel in July 2010, the 9 o'clock broadcast was cancelled.
In April 2009, the station's weekday morning news anchors started voicing updates for several Townsquare Media-owned radio station
Radio station
Radio broadcasting is a one-way wireless transmission over radio waves intended to reach a wide audience. Stations can be linked in radio networks to broadcast a common radio format, either in broadcast syndication or simulcast or both...
s. The stations also air weather updates from Eyewitness News meteorologists as part of the "First Warning Doppler Radio Network" and will simulcast the television station's audio feed whenever severe weather
Severe weather
Severe weather phenomena are weather conditions that are hazardous to human life and property.- Examples Include :Severe weather can occur under a variety of situations, but three characteristics are generally needed: a temperature or moisture boundary, moisture, and , instability in the...
necessitates wall-to-wall coverage. The Townsquare Media stations include WKDQ
WKDQ
WKDQ is a country music formatted radio station in Henderson, Kentucky radio market, broadcasting to Evansville, Indiana. The owner is Townsquare Media.- History :...
-FM, WGBF-FM
WGBF-FM
WGBF-FM is a radio station broadcasting a Active Rock format. Licensed to Henderson, Kentucky, USA, the station serves the Evansville area. The station is currently owned by Townsquare Media and features programing from Premiere Radio Networks and Westwood One. The station is also broadcast on...
, WJLT
WJLT
WJLT is a radio station licensed to broadcast at 105.3 on the FM in Evansville, Indiana.- History :The station started as WVHI-FM, a religious station....
-FM, WDKS
WDKS
WDKS is a Class A radio station at 106.1 FM licensed to Newburgh, Indiana and serving Evansville, Indiana. They are owned by Townsquare Media, which acquired the station from Clear Channel Communications in 2003.- History :...
-FM, WGBF-AM
WGBF (AM)
WGBF is a radio station broadcasting a News Talk Information format. Licensed to Evansville, Indiana, USA, the station serves the Evansville area...
, WBKR-FM, WRAY-FM
WRAY-FM
WRAY-FM is a radio station licensed to Princeton, Indiana, USA, the station serves the Evansville area. Studios are located at the corner of 5th and Broadway Avenues in Princeton, Indiana. The station is currently owned by Princeton Broadcasting Co..-External links:*...
, WOMI
WOMI
WOMI is a radio station broadcasting a News Talk Information format. Licensed to Owensboro, Kentucky, USA, the station serves the Owensboro area. The station is currently owned by Townsquare Media and features programing from ABC Radio , Premiere Radio Networks and Westwood One....
-AM and WBNL
WBNL
WBNL is a radio station licensed to Boonville, Indiana. The station is owned by Ralph Turpen, who purchased WBNL in 2001.WBNL, which was founded by Jack Sanders and Norman Hall, went on the air in 1950...
-AM.
Pending approval of the sale to Nexstar, WEHT and WTVW would have their operations merged together and be based out of the WEHT facility in Henderson; all personnel of WEHT would then have to re-apply for their current positions starting in late-September 2011. On November 7, 2011, Nexstar announced the layoff of 45 staffers effective November 30; news staffers laid off include weekday morning anchor Whitney Ray, sports director Mark McVicar, sports reporters Aaron Hancock and Sean Clark-Weis, and reporter Nick LaGrange; remaining on-air staff members from WEHT will be carried over to the newscasts on WTVW, and vice versa. In addition, WTVW will no longer air newscasts in timeslots in which WEHT offers newscasts (5-7 a.m. on weekday mornings and 6-6:30 p.m. Monday-Saturdays); on December 1, 2011, the two stations' combined news operation debuted as Eyewitness News
Eyewitness News
Eyewitness News is a style of news broadcasting used by local television stations in different markets across the United States. It refers to a particular style of television newscast with an emphasis on visual elements and action video...
, the title WTVW had used from 1974 until its 1995 switch from ABC to Fox. As a result of the consolidation of WTVW and WEHT's news operations, this leaves the Evansville market with only two local news operations amongst three stations, the other belonging to NBC affiliate WFIE
WFIE
WFIE is the NBC-afifliated television station for the Tri-State area of Southwestern Indiana, Northwestern Kentucky and Southeastern Illinois that's licensed to Evansville, Indiana. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 46 from a transmitter in the Wolf Hills section of...
(CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
affiliate WEVV-TV, which began running newscasts starting in 1992, had shut down its news operation in 2001). Ownership by Nexstar could also result in the two stations upgrading broadcasts to 16:9 enhanced definition widescreen
Widescreen
Widescreen images are a variety of aspect ratios used in film, television and computer screens. In film, a widescreen film is any film image with a width-to-height aspect ratio greater than the standard 1.37:1 Academy aspect ratio provided by 35mm film....
or even full high definition.
Newscast titles
- Your Esso Reporter (1953–1960)
- Channel 50 News (1960–1964)
- Channel 25 News (1964–1974)
- NewsCenter 25 (1974–1979)
- 25 Alive News (1979–1984)
- NewsFirst 25 (1984–1994)
- News 25 (1994–2011)
- Eyewitness NewsEyewitness NewsEyewitness News is a style of news broadcasting used by local television stations in different markets across the United States. It refers to a particular style of television newscast with an emphasis on visual elements and action video...
(2011–present)
Station slogans
- "First at Home" (1990–1994)
- "This is CBS, on 25" (1992–1995, local version of CBS ad campaign)
- "Where News Comes First" (1994–2001)
- "Always Tracking. Always Watching. Always Alerting." (2001–2011, primary)
- "News 25 Gets Answers" (2009–2011, secondary)
News team
Anchors- Brad Byrd - weeknights at 5, 6 and 10 p.m.
- Julie Dolan - weekday mornings Eyewitness News Daybreak (5-7 a.m.)
- Shelley Kirk - weekdays at 4 and 4:30, and weeknights at 5, 6 and 10 p.m.
- Lindsay Merwin - weekend evenings; also weeknight reporter
- Randy Moore - weekday mornings Eyewitness News Daybreak (5-7 a.m.); also reporter
- Shalah Sasse - weekend evenings; also weeknight reporter
Eyewitness News First Warning Doppler Weather
- Wayne Hart (AMSAmerican Meteorological SocietyThe American Meteorological Society promotes the development and dissemination of information and education on the atmospheric and related oceanic and hydrologic sciences and the advancement of their professional applications. Founded in 1919, the American Meteorological Society has a membership...
Certified Broadcast MeteorologistCertified Broadcast MeteorologistCertified Broadcast Meteorologist is a rating for meteorologists given by the American Meteorological Society.The Certified Broadcast Meteorologist program was established to raise the professional standard in broadcast meteorology and encourage a broader range of scientific understanding,...
Seal of Approval) - chief meteorologist; weekdays at 4 and 4:30, and weeknights at 5, 5:30, 6 and 10 p.m. - Ron Rhodes (NWANational Weather AssociationThe National Weather Association is an American professional association with a mission to support and promote excellence in operational meteorology and related activities...
Seal of Approval) - meteorologist; weekday mornings Eyewitness News Daybreak (5-7 a.m.) - David Heckard (AMS Certified Broadcast Meteorologist Seal of Approval) - meteorologist; weekend evenings
- Drew Gardner - weather anchor; fill-in
- Tom Sandquist - meterorologist; fill-in
Sports team
- Drew Amman - sports anchor; weeknights at 6 and 10 p.m.
- Doug Kufner - sports anchor; weekend evenings
- Randall Parmley - sports anchor; fill-in, also sports reporter
Reporters
- Corey Allan - Owensboro Bureau photographer
- Ryan Braschler - general assignment reporter
- Tabnie Dozier - general assignment reporter
- Drew Gardner - general assignment reporter
- Andrea Giczewski - general assignment reporter; also producer
- Ariza Miyagi - general assignment reporter; also web producer
- Kayla Moody - weekday morning reporter
- Melissa Payne - general assignment reporter
- Ian Preston - general assignment reporter
- David Shepherd - weeknight multimedia journalist
- Jordan Vandenberge - weekday morning reporter
Local program hosts
- Travasa Holloway - My Color is Beautiful host
- Hal Wolford - Backroads Classics host
Notable former staff
- Peggy Mitchell - hosted The Peggy Mitchell Show (1961–1986), a local children's show starring her "Peggets" (died in 2009)
- Nischelle TurnerNischelle TurnerNischelle Turner is an entertainment & lifestyle reporter for KNBC in Los Angeles. She was a general assignment reporter for KTTV FOX 11 from 2004 and to October 2, 2008 and worked as a sideline reporter for FOX's Sunday NFL broadcasts, and did segments for a show called Dailies...
(now NFL on FoxNFL on FOXNFL on Fox is the brand name of the Fox Broadcasting Company's coverage of the National Football League's National Football Conference games, produced by Fox Sports...
sideline reporter) - Bill WeberBill WeberBill Weber is a former television sports commentator, perhaps best known for his work on TNT and NBC NASCAR broadcasts. Weber was also the lead announcer for Champ Car World Series events and other auto racing series on NBC. He currently is working as an illusionist.-Early life and career:Weber...
(now with NBC SportsNBC SportsNBC Sports is the sports division of the NBC television network. Formerly "a service of NBC News," it broadcasts a diverse array of programs, including the Olympic Games, the NFL, the NHL, MLS, Notre Dame football, the PGA Tour, the Triple Crown, and the French Open, among others...
) - Lloyd WinneckeLloyd WinneckeLloyd Winnecke is the 34th mayor of Evansville, Indiana. He was elected in November of 2011. His four-year term begins January 1, 2012. He is a member of the Republican party and has never lost an election.-Biography:...
(became the 34th Mayor of Evansville)