WNAC-TV
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WNAC-TV is the primary FOX and secondary MyNetworkTV-affiliated television station for the state of Rhode Island and Southeastern Massachusetts. Licensed to Providence, the station broadcasts an analog signal on UHF channel 64 and a digital signal on UHF channel 54. WNAC's transmitter is located in Rehoboth (MA). The station is known on-air as "FOX Providence".
The station is operated by LIN TV through a local marketing agreement (LMA) and is sister to the area's CBS affiliate WPRI. However, WNAC is technically owned by Super Towers, Inc. (d/b/a "WNAC, LLC") in order to comply with FCC regulations. The regulations prohibit any company from owning two of the four highest ranking television stations within a single designated market area. In this case, WNAC cannot be co-owned directly with WPRI. The two stations share studios that are located on Catamore Boulevard in East Providence.
History
As WNET-TV
Although WNAC's current incarnation dates to 1981, its license is one of the oldest active UHF licenses in New England. It first signed on August 29, 1953 as WNET-TV, the second television station in Rhode Island. At that time, the station was located on channel 16 and was an ABC affiliate. It also shared DuMont programming with WJAR-TV]. Conventional wisdom suggested that, as the second station in the area, WNET should have taken the CBS affiliation. However, WPRO-TV (now WPRI) had won a construction permit just before WNET got its permit, and had already been promised the CBS affiliation due to WPRO-AM's long affiliation with CBS Radio. WPRO-TV was originally supposed to sign on in the spring of 1953, but had to push it back to 1954 when a legal dispute with Rehobeth town officials forced it to move its transmitter site to Johnston, Rhode Island. CBS refused to let WNET carry CBS programming in the meantime because its signal was too weak, preferring to keep its secondary affiliation with WJAR-TV. This didn't change even after Hurricane Carol destroyed WPRO-TV's transmitter just before it was due to sign on.
WNET struggled against dominant WJAR-TV because television manufacturers did not have to include UHF tuning capability. To watch WNET, viewers had to buy an expensive converter, but even then picture was marginal at best. It did not help matters that Boston's WBZ-TV and WNAC-TV both decently covered the Providence area.
When WPRO-TV finally signed on in 1955 from a transmitter in Rehobeth, ABC allowed it to cherry-pick some of ABC's most popular programming despite the fact that WNET was the ABC affiliate of record in the market. This move by ABC proved fatal to WNET, which had been badly undercapitalized from the start and needed the stronger ABC shows to sustain it. With DuMont in its death throes and few choices for alternative programming available, WNET went off the air almost unnoticed in 1956.
The channel 16 license remained active for 25 years, largely because the FCC was wary of deleting silent UHF stations. In the 1960s, the FCC reassigned channels 14-20 for two-way radio use, and the license was moved to channel 64. However, the licensee remained "Channel 16 of Providence" for many years.
The WNET calls were picked up by a PBS member station in New York City in 1970. At some point between then and 1980, channel 64 changed its calls to WSTG-TV.
As WSTG
WSTG returned to the air on September 5, 1981, after a 25-year absence. For a while it ran religious programs, pre-1948 movies, and old cartoons. The station was only on the air two hours a day--the minimum required to cover the license. The station finally began full-time operations in 1984, after "Channel 16 of Providence" finally sold the station. It was the first general-entertainment independent station in Rhode Island.
While WSTG received modest ratings, financial problems led WSTG's owners to sell the station again two years later, this time to Sudbrink Broadcasting, who changed the calls to the current WNAC-TV. Ironically, the WNAC calls had last been used on channel 7 in Boston, which had been one of the stations that indirectly caused WNET's demise in 1956. That station is now WHDH-TV, Boston's NBC affiliate.
Under Sudbrink, WNAC ran a lot of cartoons as well as some more recent sitcoms, movies, and a lot of drama shows. It became one of the charter affiliates for the FOX network in 1987. That year the station was sold to Price Communications. It was then sold to Northstar Television in 1989.
In the 1990s, WNAC began to add more talk and reality shows to its lineup. The station was sold to Argyle Television in 1993. In 1996, Argyle entered into a local marketing agreement with WPRI (then owned by Clear Channel Communications). WPRI took over the station's operations, and WNAC moved into WPRI's East Providence facility. This resulted in a WPRI-produced 10 PM newscast, the market's second 10 PM newscast after the WJAR-produced WLWC effort which had started nearly a year prior. At some point in time, an hour-long extension of WPRI's weekday morning newscast was added to WNAC. Although the morning newscast was eventually canceled, the 10 PM newscast remains to this day.
In 1998, after Argyle merged with Hearst Corporation's broadcasting unit (creating Hearst-Argyle Television), it sold WNAC to Sunrise Television due to a significant signal overlap with WCVB-TV, Boston's ABC affiliate, whose city-grade signal reaches Providence. FCC regulations at the time did not allow common ownership of two stations with overlapping city-grade signals.
Sunrise bought WPRI from Clear Channel in 2000 and sold WNAC to LIN TV in early 2001. This violated FCC regulations forbidding common ownership of two of the four highest-rated stations in the same market due to the ownership structures of both Sunrise and LIN TV. Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst (now HM Capital), a private-equity firm co-founded by Texas Rangers and Dallas Stars owner Tom Hicks, was (and still is) majority owner of LIN TV. At the same time, HMTF also controlled a large block of Sunrise stock. As a result, LIN TV was forced to seek another buyer for WNAC as soon as it closed on the station's purchase. However, it took LIN TV nearly a year to find a suitable buyer for the station.
In April of 2002, LIN TV sold its interest in WNAC to Super Towers, Inc., a company owned by Timothy Sheehan, a brother-in-law of former LIN TV vice president Paul Karpowicz. The sale allowed Sunrise and LIN TV to complete their merger the following month. LIN TV continues to operate the station today under the same LMA it inherited from Sunrise.
On May 18, 2007, LIN TV announced that it was exploring strategic alternatives that could result in the sale of the company. [1]
Back in 2002, WNAC's website was integrated with WPRI. However, WNAC maintained its own web address that went to a separate section of WPRI's website. That changed on May 25, 2007, when WNAC introduced a new web address for itself. It is separate from WPRI's website and is in the form of a FOX owned and operated station website even though WNAC is not owned by FOX. The websites of other LIN-owned FOX affiliates also underwent a redesign to a format used by other FOX O&O stations.
Secondary Affiliation
On January 24, 2006, The WB and UPN announced that they would cease broadcasting and merge. The new combined network would be called The CW, the letters representing the first initial of its corporate parents: CBS (the parent company of UPN) and the Warner Bros. unit of Time Warner.
On February 22, 2006, News Corporation announced that they would start up another new broadcast network called MyNetworkTV. This new network, which would be sister to FOX, would be operated by FOX Television Stations and its syndication division Twentieth Television. MyNetworkTV was created in order to give UPN and WB stations, not mentioned as becoming CW affiliates, another option besides becoming independent. It was also created to compete against The CW.
It was a given that the area's primary UPN and secondary WB affiliate WLWC would become an affiliate of The CW. This was based on its ownership by CBS (which would own half of The CW).
MyNetworkTV's website has noted WNAC as being an affiliate since August 11, 2006. On August 24, it was confirmed that WNAC would become the area's affiliate in a secondary nature. The network began broadcasting on September 5, 2006. During the week, WNAC delays the broadcast of MyNetworkTV primetime programming until 11:30 PM. For Saturday primetime, it is delayed until early Sunday morning at 1:30 AM. There is no mention of MyNetworkTV on WNAC's website except in the station's television lisitngs. There is also no logo for the secondary affiliation.
WLWC began broadcasting The CW on September 18, 2006.
Newscasts
WPRI produces a daily 10 PM newscast for WNAC called Eyewitness News First on FOX Providence. During the newscasts, WNAC uses WPRI's weather radar which is known as "Live Pinpoint Doppler 12". This weather radar is located in Rehoboth (MA). It also shares WPRI's mobile weather vehicle that is known as the "Pinpoint Weather Mobile".
Until October 1, 2007, WNAC's 10 PM production had been the only one in the market. On that date, WJAR began producing a weeknight 10-minute newscast at that time on its DT2 digital subchannel.
Although not owned by the same company, the two stations have a news partnership with The Providence Journal, a Belo-owned newspaper.
WNAC and WPRI offer a 24-hour weather channel called "Eyewitness News Pinpoint Weather Station" on Cox digital cable channel 125. When the weather channel was first established, it also aired on the two station's DT2 digital subchannels. In 2007, new FCC regulations for educational programing forced the two stations to make the weather channel digital cable-only. Overnight on the weekends, when the main channels of WNAC and WPRI sign off, they simulcast the 24-hour weather channel. There is no separate website for the weather channel.
News Team
Weekdays
- Anchors:
- Steve Aveson
- Erin Kennedy
- Weather:
- Tony Petrarca
- Sports:
- Patrick Little
Weekends
- Anchor:
- Elizabeth Hopkins
- Weather:
- T.J. Del Santo
- Sports:
- Robb Garofalo
WNAC use additional news personnel from WPRI. See that article for a complete listing.
Administration
- Jay Howell - Vice President and General Manager
- Pat Wholey - General Sales Manager
- Nancy Mayers - National Sales Manager
- John Macek - Local Sales Manager:
- Colleen Ouellette - Local Sales Assistant
- Lauren Souto - National Sales Assistant
- Linda Desrochers - National Sales Assistant
- Kathy Douglass - Traffic Manager
- Jennifer Sheehan - Internet Director
- Andy Bernstein - New Business Manager
Account Executives
- Marc Brown
- Tom Gray
- Laura Lee Handel
- Lisa Pluchino
- Meredith Razza
- Heather Gauvin
Logos
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WNAC-TV 64 logo used during the 1988 / 1989 season. The 64 font remained the same until Fall of 1995.
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WNAC's FOX 64 logo used from 1997 until 2002.
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WNAC's current FOX Providence logo used since 2002.
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Logo for the WPRI and WNAC Eyewitness News Pinpoint Weather Channel.
