WVNS-TV - History

History

The station began broadcasting on August 12, 1995 as The WB affiliate WVGV-TV. It was the first station in the market not affiliated with one of the big three networks. The station was originally set to sign-on as a Fox affiliate but the network canceled the affiliation when the launch was delayed past the start of the fall season in 1994. WVGV was not successful due to difficulty in selling advertising time in the primarily urban-oriented programming that dominated The WB's schedule at the time as well as the difficulty competing with a UHF signal in a market used to receiving VHF stations. Furthermore, the late sign-on made it difficult to get carriage on the area's cable systems. This was a serious problem since cable is a must for acceptable television in this market, most of which is very mountainous.

By May, when cable systems in the area were ready to carry the station, WVGV had agreed to be sold to High Mountain Broadcasting. The new owners took the station dark in order to relocate the studios from Lewisburg to Ghent (between Beckley and Bluefield) and move the transmitter site from Cross Mountain to a more central location to better serve Beckley and Bluefield as well as Lewisburg. The station returned to the air on December 24, 1996 as Fox affiliate WVSX. However, due to problems with the transmitter's unique power supply design, it did not transmit regularly until after January 1, 1997. The station continued to struggle financially. WVSX changed its affiliation to CBS on September 29, 2001.

Prior to 2001, WOWK-TV in Charleston served as the default CBS affiliate for the West Virginia side of the market while WDBJ in Roanoke served the Virginia portion. Both stations are still available on most of the area's cable systems. On February 28, 2003, the station was again sold this time to West Virginia Media Holdings. As a result, the company owns three of the four CBS affiliates serving the state. The call sign was changed on June 7 to the current WVNS-TV. Bluefield/Beckley/Oak Hill is a relatively small television market. WVVA has held its rank as the number one station for a long time, and recent personnel moves have solidified WVNS-TV as the number two station in the market.

The Fox affiliation on a new second digital subchannel was acquired September 13, 2006 following a summer 2006 retransmission dispute between Charleston's WVAH-TV and Suddenlink Communications (the cable system serving Beckley). The demise of the Foxnet cable network on September 12 also played a role. Although it is carried on a digital subchannel, this is practically a return of Fox to WVNS after a five year absence. WVNS turned off its analog signal on UHF channel 59 at 12:30 P.M. on February 17, 2009. Although WVNS transmits its digital signal on channel 8, it remaps to channel 59 using PSIP.