WSVF-CD (channel 43) is a low-powered,

Class A television station The class A television service is a system for regulating some low-power television (LPTV) stations in the United States. Class A stations are denoted by the broadcast callsign suffix "-CA" (analog) or "-CD" (digital), although very many analog -C ...

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 ...

, United States, affiliated with

Fox Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush''). Twelve sp ...

and CBS. It is 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 ...

alongside

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 ...

affiliate WHSV-TV (channel 3) and low-powered dual NBC/ CW+ affiliate

WSVW-LD WSVW-LD (channel 30) is a low-power television station in Harrisonburg, Virginia, United States, affiliated with NBC and The CW Plus. It is owned by Gray Television alongside ABC affiliate WHSV-TV (channel 3) and Class A dual Fox/CBS affiliate W ...

(channel 30). The three stations share studios on North Main Street/ US 11 in downtown Harrisonburg, and operate a newsroom in Fishersville, serving Staunton, Waynesboro, and

Augusta County Augusta County is a county in the Shenandoah Valley on the western edge of the Commonwealth of Virginia. The second-largest county of Virginia by total area, it completely surrounds the independent cities of Staunton and Waynesboro. Its county ...

. WSVF-CD's transmitter is located atop Massanutten Mountain. There is no separate website for WSVF-CD; instead, it is integrated with that of sister station WHSV-TV. Even though WSVF-CD has a digital signal of its own, the low-power broadcast range only covers the immediate Harrisonburg area. Therefore, the CBS-affiliated CD2 feed is

simulcast Simulcast (a portmanteau of simultaneous broadcast) is the broadcasting of programmes/programs or events across more than one resolution, bitrate or medium, or more than one service on the same medium, at exactly the same time (that is, simultane ...

in 16:9

widescreen Widescreen images are displayed within a set of aspect ratios (relationship of image width to height) used in film, television and computer screens. In film, a widescreen film is any film image with a width-to-height aspect ratio greater than t ...

standard definition on WHSV's fifth

digital subchannel In broadcasting, digital subchannels are a method of transmitting more than one independent program stream simultaneously from the same digital radio or television station on the same radio frequency channel. This is done by using data compress ...

in order to reach the entire

market Market is a term used to describe concepts such as: * Market (economics), system in which parties engage in transactions according to supply and demand * Market economy *Marketplace, a physical marketplace or public market Geography *Märket, a ...

; this signal can be seen on channel 3.5 from a transmitter atop

Elliott Knob Elliott Knob is one of the highest mountains in the northern portions of the U.S. state of Virginia. At , the peak is located on the ridge known as Great North Mountain. A subpeak known simply as "Hogback" () is located to the southwest. A small, ...

west of Staunton.

History

The Valley's Fox

The Fox affiliation currently seen on WSVF-CD began on October 26, 2006 with the launch of WHSV-DT2, a standard definition subchannel of WHSV-TV. The subchannel's launch gave the Shenandoah Valley its first full-time Fox affiliate; until then, WTTG, the Fox

owned-and-operated station In the broadcasting industry, an owned-and-operated station (frequently abbreviated as an O&O) usually refers to a television or radio station owned by the network with which it is associated. This distinguishes such a station from an affiliate ...

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

, served as the area's default Fox affiliate, though WHSV was a secondary Fox affiliate from 1994 through 1996. To this day, WTTG continues to be carried on

Comcast Comcast Corporation (formerly known as American Cable Systems and Comcast Holdings),Before the AT&T merger in 2001, the parent company was Comcast Holdings Corporation. Comcast Holdings Corporation now refers to a subsidiary of Comcast Corpora ...

systems in the Shenandoah Valley. During the late summer and early fall of 2006, WHSV underwent major technical upgrades to make way for the creation of WHSV-DT2. A large receiving tower was built behind its Harrisonburg studios to accommodate the additional satellite receiver needed for the Fox venture. In March 2007, WHSV-DT2 was added to Comcast systems in the market on digital channel 705. Eventually, it moved to the current location on channel 192. The OTA high definition feed of WSVF-CD1 is available on channel 213.

Broadcast license

What is now WSVF-CD was started in 1996 as W25CC, operating on channel 25 as the Staunton and Waynesboro translator for WAZT-LP, a

Woodstock Woodstock Music and Art Fair, commonly referred to as Woodstock, was a music festival held during August 15–18, 1969, on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York, United States, southwest of the town of Woodstock, New York, Woodstock. ...

-based religious

independent station An independent station is an independent radio or terrestrial television station which is independent in some way from broadcast networks. The definition of "independence" varies from country to country, reflecting governmental regulations, market ...

. It changed its call letters to W25AZ in 1997 and WAZM-LP in 2000, and upgraded to class A status in 2002 (as WAZM-CA). However, WAZM was all but invisible in the market because the area's cable companies wouldn't carry it. Cable and satellite are all but essential for acceptable television in the Shenandoah Valley, even more so because nearly all of this market is in the United States National Radio Quiet Zone. In April 2012, then-owner Jones Broadcasting announced it was selling WAZM-CA to Gray Television. Gray changed its callsign to WSVF-CA on June 4, 2012. On June 1, 2012, Gray Television applied for and was granted a Notification of Suspension of Operations Request from the

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdiction ...

(FCC), as Jones Broadcasting had no digital facilities built, and Gray preferred to relaunch the station as a digital-only operation clear of WAZM-LP's history (though it retains the license's previous history and FCC facility ID number). WAZM-CA's analog signal, operating at 21,900

watt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James Wa ...

s, completely missed the major cities in the market, including its city of license. However, WSVF's digital signal covers virtually all of the market, and extends as far southeast as the adjacent market of

Charlottesville 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 Cha ...

. On July 17, 2012, Gray Television signed an affiliation agreement with CBS for WSVF-LD and two other low-powered stations

WECP-LD WECP-LD (channel 21) is a low-power television station in Panama City, Florida, United States, affiliated with CBS and MyNetworkTV. It is owned by Gray Television alongside dual NBC/ CW+ affiliate WJHG-TV (channel 7). The two stations share stud ...

in Panama City, Florida, and WIYE-LP in

Parkersburg, West Virginia Parkersburg is a city in and the county seat of Wood County, West Virginia, Wood County, West Virginia. Located at the confluence of the Ohio River, Ohio and Little Kanawha River, Little Kanawha rivers, it is the state's fourth-largest city and ...

. As a result, WSVF-LD became the CBS affiliate for the

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- ...

in October 2012. It is the first time CBS programming has been seen on a Shenandoah Valley station since WHSV-TV (then WSVA-TV) dropped CBS programming in 1963; since then, WUSA in

had served as the default CBS affiliate for the Shenandoah Valley. However, CBS programming is aired on the station's second

, while the Fox programming previously seen on WHSV-DT2 airs on WSVF's primary channel. This is to provide a high-definition signal for Fox network programming to the Shenandoah Valley; technical limitations do not allow any of WHSV's subchannels outside of the main ABC signal to air in high definition. WSVF is the second full-time terrestrial network affiliate in the area; WHSV has had the market more or less to itself since it signed on in 1953. In February 2013, WSVF's class A status was transferred from the former analog channel 25 signal to the digital station. Due to WSVF's link to WHSV, the same FCC must-carry rules that kept it off cable now forced its addition. The must-carry rules also give full-powered stations the option of retransmission consent, which allows these stations to request compensation from cable systems as a condition of carrying them. In this case, Gray has the right to require cable systems to carry WSVF as part of the compensation for carrying WHSV. In early 2013, Gray won FCC permission to move the station's license to Harrisonburg.

Newscast

WHSV currently produces a weeknight prime time newscast on WSVF. Known on-air as ''The Valley's Fox 10 O'Clock News'', the show can be seen for thirty minutes from a secondary set at the North Main Street facility. Although it features additional reporters seen on WHSV, the show maintains a dedicated news anchor and reporter. The broadcast primarily features news anchor Gloria Balding, meteorologist Aubrey Urbanowicz, and reporter Tim Wronka (also fill-in news anchor). MyNetworkTV/ MeTV affiliate

WHSV-DT4 WHSV-TV (channel 3) is a television station in Harrisonburg, Virginia, United States, affiliated with American Broadcasting Company, ABC. It is owned by Gray Television alongside two low-power broadcasting#Television, low-power stations: Class A ...

simulcasts the prime time newscast. Even if the program is delayed or preempted on WSVF, it still airs in the regular time slot on WHSV-DT4. Simulcasts of some local newscasts seen on WHSV-TV are included on the WSVF-CD2 schedule. More specifically, WHSV's two-hour weekday morning newscast, and its weeknight at 5 and nightly 6 p.m. news broadcasts are not seen on WSVF-CD2. In lieu of a locally-produced weekday morning news program, the station airs CBS' late night news program '' CBS Overnight News'' and a double-run of the '' CBS Morning News'' between 5 and 7 a.m. The station does not carry any newscasts produced by WHSV-TV that are exclusive to the station.

Subchannels

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Wsvf-cd Television channels and stations established in 1996 1996 establishments in Virginia Television channels and stations established in 2006 SVF-CD Low-power television stations in the United States Gray Television Fox network affiliates