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WCNC-TV
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| WCNC-TV | |
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| Charlotte, North Carolina | |
| Branding | WCNC |
| Slogan | Carolinas' News Connection |
| Channels | Analog: 36 (UHF) Digital: 22 (UHF) |
| Translators | W29BC 29 Biscoe, NC W24AY 24 Lilesville, NC |
| Affiliations | NBC NBC Weather Plus (DT2) |
| Owner | Belo |
| Founded | January 8, 1968 |
| Call letters meaning | official: Charlotte, North Carolina unofficially based on slogans: Charlotte's News Channel Carolinas' News Channel Carolinas' News Connection |
| Former callsigns | WCTU (1968-71) WRET (1971-80) WPCQ-TV (1980-89) |
| Former affiliations | Independent (1968-78) |
| Website | www.wcnc.com |
WCNC-TV is the NBC affiliate in Charlotte, North Carolina. It broadcasts its analog signal on UHF channel 36 and its digital signal on UHF channel 22 and is carried on cable channel 6 on all area cable systems. Charlotte is the largest market with an NBC affiliate on the UHF band. It is owned by the Belo Corporation. Its studios are located in the Wood Ridge Center office park, off Billy Graham Parkway in south Charlotte, at . Its transmitter is located in Dallas, North Carolina. It offers "WCNC WeatherPlus" on its digital subcarrier.
NBC News has its satellite news feed headquarters right next door to WCNC's studios. The complex is called the NBC Newschannel and in the 1990s, NBC Newschannel produced an overnight newscast on the network (NBC Nightside), and also produced the weather segments for Europe's NBC Super Channel, before that channel folded. It also served as headquarters of the failed Spanish language news venture "Canal de Noticias, NBC" from 1993-1997, before NBC purchased the Telemundo network from Sony.
WCNC's programming is repeated on low-powered W29BC in Biscoe, North Carolina, and W24AY in Lilesville, North Carolina. These are the only low-powered translators operated by one of Charlotte's major television stations.
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The first station to broadcast on channel 36 in the Charlotte market signed on in 1953 and was known at various times as WQMC-TV, WAYS-TV and WUTV. However, it made no headway against WBTV because television set manufacturers were not required to include UHF tuning capability. The station further struggled when WSOC-TV signed on in 1957, and it went dark in 1959. Cy Bahakel bought the dormant channel 36 license 1964 as WCCB, and moved to its current location on channel 18 in 1966.
The channel 36 frequency was revived on January 8, 1968 as WCTU-TV. It was North Carolina's first independent station, beating Hickory's WHKY-TV by only a month. WCTU was a typical UHF independent, airing a lineup of cartoons, sitcoms, old movies and sports. It was also the original home of Jim Bakker's television ministry after he broke off from Pat Robertson and CBN. The station hit hard times financially and was put up for sale in 1971.
Ted Turner bought the station in 1971 and renamed it WRET (after his initials, Robert Edward Turner). He significantly upgraded the station's programming and made it profitable almost immediately, as he did in Atlanta with what became WTBS.
In 1978, ABC moved its Charlotte affiliation from WCCB to WSOC-TV. In a considerable upset, WRET won the NBC affiliation despite having been on the verge of closing down a few years earlier. There are conflicting reports for why this happened; while some accounts say that NBC turned down Bahakel's offer because it did not want ABC's "leftovers" (as was the case in the Twin Cities), others say that Bahakel himself turned it down because NBC was performing badly in the ratings. Turner sold about half of WRET's programming to WCCB, including older sitcoms, movies and most of its inventory of syndicated cartoons. At NBC's request, the station also began a local news department--the first news operation ever owned by the future founder of CNN. Within a few months, "Action News 36" had become competitive with WBTV and WSOC.
Turner's ambitious ownership of the station would not last long, however. In 1980, he sold WRET to Westinghouse Electric Corporation (Group W), using the proceeds to start CNN. The $20 million sales price was then the highest ever paid for a UHF station. Westinghouse changed the call letters to WPCQ-TV (People [of the] Carolinas [and the] Queen [City]), and added more syndicated game shows and talk shows to its lineup. It was Group W's only station on UHF, and at the time the only one not located in a top-25 market (though Nielsen Media Research ranks Charlotte the 25th-largest market as of 2008).
Under Group W, WPCQ entered a downward trend that lasted for almost two decades. Despite the record purchase price, Group W ran channel 36 did not invest much in the station. The news department was significantly cut back. Group W immediately dropped the station's weekend news programs, and moved the 11 p.m. newscast to 12:30 a.m. before canceling it altogether in 1981. The early evening newscast was shifted between the 5:30 and 6 p.m. time slots until the fall of 1982, when it was canceled as well. For the remainder of Group W's ownership, the station's only remaining local news programming consisted of a half-hour broadcast at noon, hourly cut-ins, five-minute local inserts during the Today show, a weekly magazine program and occasional specials. Network news also suffered; WPCQ dropped NBC Nightly News on weekends in 1980, and on weeknights in 1982 (making it the only NBC affiliate not to carry Nightly News). The David Brinkley-anchored NBC Magazine, an early-1980's attempt to compete with 60 Minutes, was bumped from its prime-time network time slot to Sunday at midnight in Charlotte. Even Westinghouse's own productions were not guaranteed an audience on the station; Group W's nationally popular PM Magazine had been seen on WBTV since before Westinghouse's purchase of WPCQ, while Hour Magazine moved to WBTV after being canceled due to low ratings on WPCQ.
By the fall of 1982, the station's programming lineup resembled that of an independent station rather than an NBC affiliate. In addition to airing minimal news programming, WPCQ pre-empted much of NBC's daytime schedule in favor of cartoons and reruns of 1960's and 1970's situation comedies. This was common practice for Group W's affiliates, even though NBC was (then as now) far less tolerant of local preemptions than the other networks. This was a sharp contrast at the time to its then-longer standing Group W sister stations that turned profits, ran full-time newscasts, and aired programs produced by the owners. The station also retained a few syndicated cartoons that aired on weekday afternoons, a practice which dated to its early days as an NBC affiliate.
For most of the 1980s, WPCQ was the third station in what was essentially a two-station market--even with NBC's powerful Thursday night lineup. It not only had to compete with WBTV and WSOC-TV, which had been on the air far longer and on more powerful VHF channels, as well as WCCB with a more powerful UHF signal than its own, but it also lost audience and ratings to longer-established NBC stations on VHF channels in the neighboring cities of Winston-Salem, Columbia and Greenville, which were available to many viewers in the Charlotte market over-the-air and on cable. But many of this station's problems were of its own making. Besides the lack of a competitive news operation, its signal was somewhat lower than expected for a major-network affiliate on UHF, at only 2.1 million watts. It only put a "rimshot" signal into much of the South Carolina portion of the market, and was all but unviewable in the western portion.
Renaissance Broadcasting bought the station from Group W in 1984. NBC Nightly News returned to the schedule in the spring of 1985, but the local newscast at noon was discontinued. It also dropped cartoons from the weekday schedule, though syndicated reruns continued to make up a significant portion of the station's daytime programming. In 1986, WPCQ restarted a full-scale news department. At first, WPCQ scheduled its evening news for 5:30 p.m.--Charlotte's first drive-time newscast--knowing at the time that it couldn't compete with WBTV and WSOC-TV at 6 p.m. In 1987, WPCQ boosted its signal to 5 million watts, the maximum power allowed for a UHF station. This gave it a coverage area comparable to WBTV and WSOC-TV. It also expanded the 5:30 news to one hour, and added a 6 p.m. newscast on weekends.
Renaissance sold WPCQ to The Providence Journal Company in 1988. Journal Broadcasting renamed the station WCNC-TV (for Charlotte, North Carolina) on September 3, 1989 and added a distinct 6 p.m. newscast to the weeknight schedule. On the same day of the call letter change, it moved to channel 6 on all Charlotte area cable systems, and began promoting itself as "WCNC-TV36, Cable 6." In 1991, the station moved from its longtime studios in northeast Charlotte to its current studios. From 1995 to 2003, the station was known on-air as NBC6, after its cable location. It called itself "channel 6" on-air for some years after dropping the NBC6 moniker.
Despite making a more credible effort at news than ever before, WCNC continued to drag along in the ratings until Journal Broadcasting merged with Belo in 1997.
When Belo took over in 1997, it invested large amounts of money in the station by hiring talent away from rival stations.
WCNC hired Terri Bennett from WSOC-TV when that station declined to promote her to chief meteorologist upon Ray Boylan's retirement; coincidentally, Boylan filled in at WCNC until Bennett's non-compete clause was up. (Bennett left the station in the fall of 2007 when her contract was not renewed.) Sonja Gantt, formerly of WBTV, was lured back to her hometown from Chicago, where she had been working at WGN-TV. Belo also invested large amounts of money into new sets, a news helicopter, a powerful live doppler radar system and other equipment.
For much of the early part of the 21st century, it waged a spirited battle with WBTV for second place behind WSOC-TV, though it has recently returned to a distant third place. WCCB's 10 p.m. newscast also draws a larger audience than WCNC's at 11 p.m. [1]
WCNC is most successful in Mecklenburg County (home to Charlotte itself), and it actually leads WSOC and WBTV in higher income neighborhoods in Charlotte (as opposed to the outlying suburbs and rural counties). WCNC has a higher percentage of college-educated viewers than WSOC and WBTV.
In late 2005, WCNC added Charlotte's first 4:30 p.m. newscast, creating a two-hour local news block running from 4:30 p.m to 6:30 p.m. In 2007, the station phased out its longtime brand of "6News" and now calls itself "WCNC, the Carolinas' News Connection."
- Sonja Gantt: WCNC News at 5, 6, Nightcast (11 PM)
- Chris Justice: WCNC News at 4:30, 6, Nightcast
- John Snyder: WCNC News Midday (11 AM), 5 (Snyder's contract is not being renewed in winter 2007-2008.) [2]
- Colleen Odegaard: WCNC News Today (5-7 AM), WCNC News Midday
- Bobby Sisk: WCNC News Today
- Maria Kotula: WCNC News Today (Saturday 6-8 AM, Sunday 7-10 AM)
- Jeff Sonier: WCNC News Today (Saturday 6-8 AM, Sunday 7-10 AM)
- Janelle Martinez: WCNC News at 6 (PM), Nightcast
- Mark Boone
- Michelle Boudin
- Tony Burbeck
- Glenn Counts
- Anna Crowley
- Maria Kotula
- Frances Kuo
- Amy Lehtonen
- Daniela Lopez
- Melissa Martin
- Janelle Martinez
- Kristin Moore
- Mike Redding
- Alex Reed
- Diana Rugg
- Ann Sheridan
- Bobby Sisk
- Jeff Sonier
- Stuart Watson
- Brad Panovich: Meteorologist, weeknights
- Larry Sprinkle: Weather Anchor, weekday mornings
- John Wendel: Meteorologist, weekend mornings
- Daniela Lopez: Weather Anchor, weekend evenings
- Greg Bailey: WCNC News at 6, WCNC News Nightcast Sports Director/Anchor
- Ira Cronin: WCNC News at 6, WCNC News Nightcast (weekend) Sports Anchor/Reporter
(Under Construction)
Bob (Robert D.) Raiford (anchor and talk show host, 1978-1986, now on The John Boy and Billy Show)
Amanda Davis (anchor, 1978-1982, now at WAGA-TV Atlanta)
Charles Fishburne (anchor, 1978-1981, now owner of Charles Fishburne Productions in Richmond, Va.)
Cecily Newton (anchor, early 1980s)
Dee Earley (Crosby)(anchor/reporter, 1978-1981, now living in Mount Pleasant, SC)
Lou Tilley (sports anchor, early 1980s, now at CN8)
Janet McGill (meteorologist, 1978-1979, now living in Centerville, Ohio)
Mike Thompson (meteorologist, early 1980s, now at WDAF-TV Kansas City)
Art Norman (reporter, 1978-1980, now an anchor at WMAQ-TV Chicago)
Norma Rashid (reporter, 1979-1983, now living in Cincinnati, Ohio)
Leesa Kelly (reporter, 1983-1984, now principal owner of Horizons TV in Great Falls, Virginia)
Frank Clark (reporter, early 1980s)
Kyle Hampton (reporter, early 1980s)
Ellen Shuman (reporter, 1980-1983, now author & founder of an eating disorder clinic, Cincinnati, Ohio)
Cassandra Lawton (reporter, early 1980s)
Jackie Nedell (reporter, early 1980s, was HHS Secretary Donna Shalala's Communications Director, now with the Porter Norvelli Agency in Washington, DC)
Hope Hines (sports anchor, 1979-1980, now sports director at WTVF in Nashville, Tenn.)
Doug McKelway (reporter, 1980-1982, now at WJLA-TV Washington)
Karen Adams (anchor, 1986-?, now at WPRI-TV Providence)
John McKnight (anchor, 1986-1988, now in public relations in Atlanta)
Rick Jackson (anchor, 1986-1995, now at WVIZ TV/PBS WCPN-FM NPR in Cleveland)
Lori Waldon (reporter, 1986-1988, now the news director at WISN-TV in Milwaukee)
Pierre Kimsey (reporter, 1986-1988, now writer, producer at WKNO-TV PBS in Memphis)
Peter Combs (reporter, 1986-1988, now based out of Atlanta with CBS Radio News)
Jim Celania (sports anchor, 1990's, now at WFNZ Sports Radio)
Larry Blucher (sports anchor, 1986-1988, now living in Bradenton, Fla.)
Dave Stanley (anchor/reporter) 1988-1995, now a Realter/Broker in Charlotte
Hannah Storm (sports anchor, 1988-1989, later at NBC Sports and on The Early Show on CBS)
Mary Shalvarjian (general assignment reporter 1988-1990, then to Reporter WAGA-TV Atlanta) Kurt Lee (Government news, 1988-1999)
Steve Raleigh (meteorologist, late 1980s, now at WCPO-TV Cincinnati)
Dr. Joe Conway (meteorologist, late 1980s)
Tom Miller (Donovan) (anchor, 1988-1992, now an anchor at WHP-TV in Harrisburg, Pa.)
Jesse Johnson (anchor, 1988-?)
Chuck Howard (sports anchor/sports director, 1995-2006)
Russ Riesinger (anchor, 1998-2003, now at WSAV-TV Savannah)
Allen Denton (anchor, 1996-1998, now at KNTV San Jose)
Alicia Booth (anchor, late 1990's, now at WEWS-TV Cleveland)
Val Holley-Dennis (anchor, ?-1997, now in public relations in Charlotte)
Chris Clackum (anchor, ?-1997, now at NBC News)
Tim Knol (reporter, 2003-2006)
Tracy Flanagan (reporter, 1998-2000, WAGA-TV Atlanta 2000-2005, now media consultant/producer)
Coretta Robinson (Weekend Morning Anchor/Traffic Reporter, 1995-2006)
Joey Popp (reporter, ?-?, now at WFAE, Charlotte's National Public Radio station)
Peggy Fox (anchor/reporter, ?-?, now at WUSA-TV Washington)
Beatrice Thompson (anchor/reporter, ?-?, now at WBAV-FM Charlotte)
Jerry Peterson (weather/commentary, ?-?, now at WRHI/WRHM radio, Rock Hill, SC)
Bob Ormseth (reporter, 1987-?), now spokesman for the Fort Mill, SC, School District
B.G. Metzler (late 1970's-early 1980's)
Steve Gasque (reporter, early 1980's)
Terry Chick (sports, late 1970's-early 1980's)
Terri Bennett (chief meteorologist, 1996-2007)
Despite still being in third place in the ratings, WCNC's news operation is one of the country's most frequent recipients of Regional Emmy and Edward R. Murrow Awards.
- WCNC-TV web site
- Query the FCC's TV station database for WCNC
- Query the FCC's TV station database for W29BC
- Query the FCC's TV station database for W24AY
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WBTV 3 (CBS) - WSOC 9 (ABC) - WHKY 14 (Ind) - W16CF 16 / W38CN 38 / W66ST 66 (TBN) - WCCB 18 (Fox) - WLNN-LP 24 / WTBL-LP 49 (A1) - WGTB-LP 28 (FN/LeSEA) - WNSC 30 (PBS/SCETV) - WCNC 36 (NBC, WX Plus on DT2) - WTVI 42 (PBS, Create on DT3) - WJZY 46 (The CW) - WMYT 55 (MNTV, WGTB-LP on DT3) - WUNG 58 / WUNE 17 (PBS/UNC-TV) - WAXN 64 (Ind) Local cable television channels |
| See also Broadcast television in Greenville/Spartanburg/Asheville, Columbia and Piedmont Triad |
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WECT 6 (Wilmington) - WITN 7 (Washington) - WXII 12 (Winston-Salem) - WNCN 17 (Goldsboro / Raleigh) - WCNC 36 (Charlotte) |
| See also: ABC, CBS, Fox, PBS, UPN, WB and Other stations in North Carolina |