WVUE-DT
FCC | |
Facility ID | 4149 |
---|---|
ERP | 850 kW |
HAAT | 290 m (951 ft) |
Transmitter coordinates | 29°57′14.9″N 89°56′58.3″W / 29.954139°N 89.949528°W |
Links | |
Public license information | |
Website | www |
WVUE-DT (channel 8), branded Fox 8, is a
History
Early years with ABC and CBS
The station first signed on the air on November 1, 1953, as WJMR-TV. Founded by Supreme Broadcasting Co., a locally based company run by lawyer Chester F. Owens (who served as the company's president),
The station moved to VHF channel 13 on January 13, 1959, and subsequently changed its call letters to WVUE on February 1. The station moved to channel 12 on September 6, 1962, to accommodate
Columbia Pictures sold WVUE to
Fox affiliation
On December 18, 1993, the
WVUE-TV affiliated with Fox on January 1, 1996, ending its 43-year affiliation with ABC, which moved to WGNO (channel 26); New Orleans's original Fox affiliate, WNOL-TV (channel 38), took WGNO's former WB affiliation (that network had been affiliated with WGNO for just shy of a year prior to the switch, due to that station's owner, Tribune Broadcasting's partial ownership interest in The WB). Of the former Burnham stations that switched to Fox, WVUE was the only one involved in the deal that was an ABC affiliate: WALA (once again a sister station after multiple ownership changes), WLUK (now owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group) and KHON (now owned by Nexstar Media Group) had previously been affiliated with NBC.
Because of Fox's acquisition of television rights to the National Football Conference, the switch resulted in channel 8 becoming the unofficial "home" station for the New Orleans Saints, carrying many of the team's Sunday afternoon road games. WWL-TV had aired most of the Saints' games beginning in 1970, when CBS assumed rights to the NFC upon the merger of the American Football League and the National Football League; when CBS lost the NFC broadcast rights to Fox in 1994, the Saints telecasts resided on WNOL-TV for the following two years. In addition to WVUE, the team's regular season games televised over-the-air locally are split primarily between WWL-TV (for select games televised by CBS in which the Saints play against an AFC opponent; CBS also had the rights to the Saints' lone Super Bowl appearance), WGNO (through over-the-air rights to the Amazon Prime Video's Thursday Night Football package), WDSU (through NBC's rights to Sunday prime time and select playoff games as well as its local broadcast rights to Monday Night Football contests during occasions when a game involving the Saints is scheduled) and preseason games (which, as of 2019, are produced by Gray's sports division Raycom Sports).[19] WVUE also gave local coverage to two Super Bowls, XXXVI and XXXI, both of which were held at what is now the Caesars Superdome.
On November 28, 1995, one month before WVUE affiliated with Fox, Silver King Communications (operated by former Fox executive
Hurricane Katrina
After
Following the storm, WVUE presented a rotating 15-minute newscast that was streamed on its website and was produced out of WALA's studios, slowly restoring the station's regular schedule as developments faded and reconstruction on WVUE's news operations continued. WVUE later resumed its over-the-air broadcasts from a low-power transmitter as an alternate site, which provided a reduced signal that did not reach most of the market; the station's analog signal was upgraded to full power on September 19, 2005, from its transmitter facility in
Purchase by Tom Benson
On May 5, 2008, Emmis Communications announced an agreement to sell the station to the Louisiana Media Company, a media group founded by
SSA with and eventual outright sale to Raycom
In October 2013,
The partnership stemmed from a near-acquisition of the station by Raycom, which had been one of several companies to make offers for the station. However, Benson was not prepared to sell WVUE completely, leading to the negotiation of the SSA. Raycom president Paul McTear also noted that the story in The Advisor was the result of human error, and that there was not a deal to acquire the station. Benson had considered expanding his broadcast holdings into other nearby markets, but noticed that Raycom had a presence in all of the markets he considered.[33][34][35]
On February 6, 2017, Louisiana Media Company exercised the option to sell WVUE's license assets to Raycom.[36] Two months later on April 4, Raycom formally announced that it would purchase WVUE from the Louisiana Media Company for $51.8 million.[37] Benson would continue to retain a stake in WVUE.[38] Raycom management and Benson finalized the sale on August 8.[39] Benson died several months later, on March 15, 2018; the Benson estate continued to maintain the minority stake in WVUE.
Sale to Gray Television
On June 25, 2018, less than a year after the full acquisition of WVUE by Raycom, Atlanta-based Gray Television announced it had reached an agreement with Raycom to merge their respective broadcasting assets (consisting of Raycom's 63 existing owned-and/or-operated television stations, including WVUE, and Gray's 93 television stations) under the former's corporate umbrella. The cash-and-stock merger transaction valued at $3.6 billion–in which Gray shareholders would acquire preferred stock currently held by Raycom–resulted in WVUE gaining new sister stations in nearby markets, including CBS/ABC affiliate KNOE-TV in Monroe and NBC/CBS affiliate KALB-TV in Alexandria, in addition to its current Raycom sister stations. The combined company is in every Louisiana market except for Lafayette as a result.[40][41][42][43] The sale was approved on December 20,[44] and was completed on January 2, 2019.[45]
In December 2023, WVUE announced it had purchased a four-story, 37,000-square-foot (3,400 m2) building at 3900 Howard Avenue that currently houses Pontchartrain Housing Corporation. The station plans to "create a state-of-the-art digital television media center" at the new property in time for the
On December 30, 2023, WVUE parent company Gray Television announced it had reached an agreement with the New Orleans Pelicans to air 10 games on the station during the 2023–24 season.[48]
Programming
WVUE-DT currently carries the majority of the Fox network schedule, though like most news-heavy Fox stations, it delays the network's Saturday late night hour by a half-hour due to a 10 p.m. newscast. Channel 8 has aired Fox's prime time, late night, news, children's and sports programming since it joined the network in January 1996; the only regular exception has been Fox NFL Kickoff, which WVUE has declined carriage of since the Sunday pre-game show and Fox NFL Sunday lead-in moved to Fox from Fox Sports 1 in September 2015, due to its existing commitment to carry the "official" New Orleans Saints pregame show Saints Pre Game Live on Sunday mornings during the NFL regular season (the program is not carried at all in the New Orleans market, as Fox has not secured a substitute outlet among the market's minor network affiliates—either CW owned-and-operated station WNOL-TV (channel 38) or MyNetworkTV affiliate WUPL (channel 54)—to carry Fox NFL Kickoff).[49]
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the station consistently ranked at a distant third place in the ratings behind WWL-TV and WDSU-TV, even as ABC topped the national ratings for a time in the mid-1970s. One of the primary reasons for WVUE's third-place position was the station's heavy preemptions of network programs. For example, during much of the 1970s, WVUE preempted portions of ABC's daytime
Unlike the New World Communications-owned stations that joined Fox around the same timeframe, the Savoy stations, including WVUE, carried Fox's children's programming on weekday mornings and afternoons as well as on Saturday mornings; the network later discontinued the Fox Kids weekday blocks in 2002, with the Saturday morning lineup remaining until its successor 4Kids TV ended in December 2008.[50] Ratings for Fox's programming had increased slightly from when the network was affiliated with WNOL; however, viewership for WVUE's newscasts remained well behind that of WWL-TV and WDSU. The station acquired additional syndicated talk shows to fill certain daytime slots where ABC programming formerly aired.
Beginning under Emmis, WVUE strengthened its syndicated programming inventory, including acquiring the local syndication rights to Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! as part of a group deal with Emmis' Fox affiliates, a rarity for a Fox station (prior to airing on channel 8, the two shows aired for about two decades on WWL-TV).
News operation
WVUE-DT presently broadcasts 57 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with 10 hours each weekday and 3+1⁄2 hours each on Saturdays and Sundays); in regards to the number of hours devoted to news programming, it is the highest local newscast output of any television station in the New Orleans market and within the state of Louisiana. WVUE is the only station in the market that airs a local newscast at 5:30 p.m., although it does not run a newscast at 6 p.m. on weeknights. In addition, the station produces the sports discussion program The Final Play, which airs Sundays at 10:30 p.m.
The station had been an also-ran among the New Orleans market's television news outlets for many years; however, the station hired many well-known talent during the 1960s through the 1980s (some of whom had previously worked at WDSU and WWL-TV) including anchor Alec Gifford, weatherman
After WVUE became a Fox affiliate in January 1996, the station increased its news programming output from about 15 hours a week to nearly 25 hours, retaining all of its existing newscasts. The station initially retained its noon and 6 p.m. newscasts, but opted air syndicated programming in the 5:30 p.m. half-hour rather than expand its 5 p.m. newscast to a full hour, a move that was atypical of the Big Three stations that switched to Fox during the affiliation switches that occurred between 1994 and 1996. The existing 10 p.m. newscast was moved one hour earlier to 9 p.m. and was expanded to one hour; however, ten months later in October 1996, it was split into separate half-hour newscasts at 9 and 10 p.m., with off-network syndicated sitcoms filling the 9:30 p.m. timeslot. This scheduling for the late evening newscasts continued until 2001, when the weeknight 9 p.m. newscast reverted to an hour-long broadcast, and the 10 p.m. newscast was dropped for a second time due to the lack of a strong program lead-in. Even after the weeknight broadcast expanded to one hour, atypical for most Fox stations that produce their newscasts in-house, the Saturday and Sunday editions of WVUE's 9 p.m. newscast remained a half-hour in length; until those editions were expanded to one hour in 2012, WVUE had been among the largest Fox affiliates by market size to air its prime time newscast in such a fashion.
Even after becoming a Fox affiliate, the station did not carry a newscast on weekday mornings throughout the 1990s; this changed in 2002, when WVUE debuted what was originally a two-hour morning newscast, airing from 6 to 8 a.m. (which by 2005, expanded to three hours with the addition of an 8 a.m. hour of the broadcast). In 2005, WVUE canceled its weeknight 6 p.m. newscast and expanded its 5 p.m. newscast to one hour; this was in concert with the station's acquisition of the popular Sony-distributed game shows Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune, which the station chose to air together in an hour-long block during the 6 p.m. hour (news-producing stations in the Eastern and Pacific time zones commonly schedule syndicated programs such as Jeopardy! and Wheel in the hour before network prime time, 7 to 8 p.m. in those areas, though this is not very common with such stations in the Central and Mountain time zones).
WVUE's news ratings slowly increased throughout the 2000s (particularly following the station's purchase by the Louisiana Media Company). By the middle of the decade, the station overtook WDSU for the #2 position in the local news ratings, placing behind WWL-TV in the 5 p.m. timeslot. The station remained in second place through 2008 and a see-saw period followed. In May 2011, the station again ranked third in the 5 p.m. time period. The station has consistently ranked third among the market's morning and afternoon newscasts with three or more local options since that time, while posting its best ratings at night. The station bests many network prime time shows during the 9 p.m. hour (WVUE's ratings for its prime time newscast outperformed WNOL-TV and WUPL's newscasts—both produced by their respective duopoly partners, WGNO and WWL-TV—in the same timeslots, with both of those stations eventually cancelling those programs outright), and at 10 p.m., WVUE has generally held second place in the market. In recent years, the station's news department has won several Regional
On April 29, 2007, WVUE became the first television station in New Orleans to begin broadcasting its local newscasts in
On February 1, 2010, WVUE expanded its weekday morning newscast to four hours, with the addition of an hour-long weather-based newscast at 5 a.m. titled Fox 8 Morning Call, the program was replaced in 2012 by a traditional local newscast during that hour. The station restored a 10 p.m. newscast to its schedule after nine years on that same date; initially only airing as a test run, it was added to the schedule full-time on May 5, 2010, after former WWL-TV anchor Lee Zurik joined channel 8 as an anchor and investigative reporter.[55] The 10 p.m. newscast later expanded to weekend evenings in July 2010; as a result, WVUE became one of about a dozen Fox stations nationwide with a newscast in the traditional late news timeslot that airs seven nights a week. On May 23, 2011, channel 8 debuted an hour-long midday newscast that airs Monday through Fridays at noon.[56] This was followed on September 12 of that year, with the debut of an hour-long newscast at 4 p.m.[57]
In the summer of 2012, WVUE entered into a content partnership with
Notable former on-air staff
- ; died in 2005)
- Jennifer Hale – now with Fox Sports
- Jim Henderson – retired sports broadcaster and former commentator and voice of the New Orleans Saints (2012–2018)
- Fred Hickman – sports director/anchor (2011–2015; died November 9, 2022)
- Fox News Channel)
- Nash Roberts – station's first Chief Meteorologist (January 1974 – March 3, 1978; succeeded by Bob Breck, previously at WDSU and later at WWL-TV; died in 2010)
- Norman Robinson – anchor/reporter (1976–1978; later at WWL-TV and at WDSU; retired)
- Chris Rose – provided an editorial weekly on-air and online (former longtime contributor to The Times-Picayune)
- Ron Swoboda – sports anchor (later at Cox Sports Television)
- Leslie Sykes – anchor/reporter (now at KABC-TV in Los Angeles)
Technical information
Subchannels
The station's signal is
Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming |
---|---|---|---|---|
8.1 | 720p | 16:9 |
FOX 8 H | Main WVUE-DT programming / Fox |
8.2 | 480i | Bounce | Bounce TV | |
8.3 | The365 | The365
| ||
8.4 | Escape | Ion Mystery | ||
8.5 | Oxygen | Oxygen | ||
8.6 | StartTV | Start TV | ||
54.5 | 480i | 4:3 |
ThisTV | This TV (WUPL-DT5) |
Digital subchannel 8.2 originally launched in 2007 as the Fox 8 Newschannel, a 24-hour news simulcast and rebroadcast service similar to WWL-TV's
Analog-to-digital conversion
WVUE shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 8, on December 15, 2008, becoming the first New Orleans television station to cease analog transmission of its signal and exclusively broadcast a digital signal, and the second, after Telemundo affiliate KGLA-DT (channel 42, which signed on in June 2007 without a companion analog signal), to become a digital-only station prior to the June 12, 2009 digital television transition. One week later on December 22, the station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition UHF channel 29 to VHF channel 8.[65] Due to reception problems that were reported by viewers following the transition, WVUE petitioned the FCC to move its digital signal back to UHF channel 29.[66] The station opted to do this instead of increasing its transmitter power, which would have caused interference with Baton Rouge CBS affiliate WAFB (whose analog signal operated on VHF channel 9, where its digital signal operates post-transition).[67] WVUE resumed digital operations on UHF channel 29 on November 30, 2010.
After the Louisiana Media Company acquired WVUE from Emmis Communications, a high definition feed of the station's digital signal was finally added to
References
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- ^ "GRAY AND RAYCOM TO COMBINE IN A $3.6 BILLION TRANSACTION". Raycom Media (Press release). June 25, 2018.
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- ^ "Gray Completes Acquisition of Raycom Media and Related Transactions" (PDF). Gray Television. January 2, 2019. Retrieved January 3, 2019.
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- ^ "WAFB will televise 10 of this season's Pelicans games" (Press release). WAFB. December 30, 2023. Retrieved December 30, 2023.
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- ^ Michael Schneider (November 7, 2001). "Fox outgrows kids programs". Variety. Retrieved August 13, 2009.
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- ^ 73rd Annual Peabody Awards, May 2014.
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- The Times-Picayune, April 13, 2010.
- ^ Liz Reyes to anchor new midday newscast for WVUE-TV, The Times-Picayune, April 14, 2011.
- ^ WVUE announces 4 p.m. newscast, Jennifer Hale's move to sports, The Times-Picayune, August 26, 2011.
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- ^ WVUE Hires GM for Bounce TV Subchannel, Broadcasting & Cable, March 21, 2012.
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- ^ "TV Station Information WVUE-DT". Retrieved September 11, 2023.
- ^ Eggerton, John (August 18, 2009). "FCC To Allow WVUE To Return To UHF Digital Channel". Broadcasting & Cable. Retrieved August 21, 2009.