TV3 Winchester was a subchannel service of

Harrisonburg, Virginia Harrisonburg is an independent city in the Shenandoah Valley region of the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. It is also the county seat of the surrounding Rockingham County, although the two are separate jurisdictions. At the 2 ...

-based television station

WHSV-TV WHSV-TV (channel 3) is a television station in Harrisonburg, Virginia, United States, affiliated with ABC. It is owned by Gray Television alongside two low-power stations: Class A dual Fox/ CBS affiliate WSVF-CD (channel 43) and dual NBC/ CW ...

, programmed as a standalone, primarily-cable station serving as the

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...

and secondary

This TV This TV (also known as This TV Network and alternately stylized as thisTV) is an American free-to-air television network owned by Allen Media Broadcast Networks, LLC, part of the Allen Media Group division of Entertainment Studios. Originally fo ...

affiliate for nearby

Winchester, Virginia Winchester is the most north western independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is the county seat of Frederick County, although the two are separate jurisdictions. The Bureau of Economic Analysis combines the city of Winchester wit ...

from 2007 to 2013. Owned by

Gray Television Gray Television, Inc. is an American publicly traded television broadcasting company based in Atlanta, Georgia. Founded in 1946 by James Harrison Gray as Gray Communications Systems, the company owns or operates 180 stations across the United St ...

, it maintained studios on Millwood Avenue and

US 50 U.S. Route 50 or U.S. Highway 50 (US 50) is a major east–west route of the U.S. Highway system, stretching from Interstate 80 (I-80) in West Sacramento, California, to Maryland Route 528 (MD 528) in Ocean City, Maryland, on the Atlantic ...

in Winchester, separate from its parent's studios in Harrisonburg. The channel was available on

Comcast Xfinity Comcast Cable Communications, LLC, doing business as Xfinity, is an American telecommunications company and division of Comcast Corporation used to market consumer cable television, internet, telephone, and wireless services provided by the com ...

channel 3 in

Frederick Frederick may refer to: People * Frederick (given name), the name Nobility Anhalt-Harzgerode *Frederick, Prince of Anhalt-Harzgerode (1613–1670) Austria * Frederick I, Duke of Austria (Babenberg), Duke of Austria from 1195 to 1198 * Frederick ...

Clarke Clarke is a surname which means "clerk". The surname is of English and Irish origin and comes from the Latin . Variants include Clerk and Clark. Clarke is also uncommonly chosen as a given name. Irish surname origin Clarke is a popular surname i ...

and Warren counties and ShenTel Cable channel 101 in

Shenandoah County Shenandoah County (formerly Dunmore County) is a county located in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 United States Census, the population was 44,186. Its county seat is Woodstock. It is part of the Shenandoah Valley region of Virgin ...

, and on UHF channels 49.3 (

PSIP The Program and System Information Protocol (PSIP) is the MPEG (a video and audio industry group) and privately defined program-specific information originally defined by General Instrument for the DigiCipher 2 system and later extended for the AT ...

3.3) in the Harrisonburg area via the main WHSV transmitter. From 2010 until its 2013 shutdown, it was also available in the northern

Shenandoah Valley The Shenandoah Valley () is a geographic valley and cultural region of western Virginia and the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia. The valley is bounded to the east by the Blue Ridge Mountains, to the west by the eastern front of the Ridge- ...

on UHF channel 42.3 via a translator station on Signal Knob near Strasburg. It was never available on cable in the immediate Harrisonburg market.

History and personnel

TV-3 Winchester was first announced at a press conference at

Shenandoah University Shenandoah University is a private university in Winchester, Virginia. It has an enrollment of approximately 4,000 students across more than 200 areas of study in six schools: College of Arts & Sciences (including the Division of Education and Le ...

in 2005. Ground was broken for the new studios, which is located along Millwood Pike in Winchester, on March 1, 2006. The studios were shared with

Public-access television Public-access television is traditionally a form of non-commercial mass media where the general public can create content television programming which is narrowcast through cable television specialty channels. Public-access television was creat ...

cable TV Cable television is a system of delivering television programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This contrasts with broadc ...

-only station, "Winchester Community Television". Construction was completed in November 2006 and the station launched on March 5, 2007. Brad Ramsey, formerly the sports director/anchor and more recently a sales account executive at WHSV, handled general manager duties. Brad brought Tony Versley, an Emmy Award-winning broadcast engineer on board as Director of Operations and Doug Stanford, formerly of WHSV, as Director of Creative Services and Promotions. Bill DuVall was hired in September 2006 as TV-3's News Director. DuVall previously worked at

WVIR WVIR-TV (channel 29) is a television station in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, affiliated with NBC and The CW Plus. Owned by Gray Television, the station has studios on East Market Street ( US 250 Business) in downtown Charlottesvi ...

Charlottesville, Virginia Charlottesville, colloquially known as C'ville, is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is the county seat of Albemarle County, which surrounds the city, though the two are separate legal entities. It is named after Queen Ch ...

as a co-anchor of ''NBC29 News at Sunrise'', and before that at WYVN (now

WWPX WWPX-TV (channel 60) is a television station licensed to Martinsburg, West Virginia, United States, broadcasting the Ion Television network to the northwestern portion of the Washington, D.C. television market. Owned and operated by Ion Media, the ...

) in

Martinsburg, West Virginia Martinsburg is a city in and the seat of Berkeley County, West Virginia, in the tip of the state's Eastern Panhandle region in the lower Shenandoah Valley. Its population was 18,835 in the 2021 census estimate, making it the largest city in the E ...

from 1991 to 1994. DuVall turned the reins of TV-3 Winchester over to Denise Chandler in 2008. Gray Television shut down TV3 Winchester on December 5, 2013, citing inability to make the station a viable long-term operation. Gray kept the UHF 42

translator in Strasburg on the air providing the same programming as the main Harrisonburg service, but area cable systems returned to uniformly providing Washington's

WJLA-TV WJLA-TV (channel 7) is a television station in Washington, D.C., affiliated with ABC. It is one of two flagship stations of Sinclair Broadcast Group (alongside dual Fox/ MyNetworkTV affiliate WBFF hannel 45in Baltimore), and is also s ...

as ABC affiliate, as they had before the launch of TV3 Winchester. WHSV-DT3 remained vacant until October 2018 when a 16:9

standard definition Standard-definition television (SDTV, SD, often shortened to standard definition) is a television system which uses a resolution that is not considered to be either high or enhanced definition. "Standard" refers to it being the prevailing sp ...

feed of

Ion Television Ion Television is an American broadcast television network owned by the Katz Broadcasting subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company. The network first began broadcasting on August 31, 1998, as Pax TV, focusing primarily on family-oriented enter ...

was eventually added to that subchannel.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tv3 Winchester Gray Television Television channels and stations established in 2007 Television channels and stations disestablished in 2013 Defunct television stations in the United States 2007 establishments in Virginia 2013 disestablishments in Virginia Television stations in Virginia Winchester, Virginia Defunct mass media in Virginia