WHOI (channel 19) is a

television station A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity, such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the earth ...

Peoria, Illinois Peoria ( ) is the county seat of Peoria County, Illinois, United States, and the largest city on the Illinois River. As of the United States Census, 2020, 2020 census, the city had a population of 113,150. It is the principal city of the Peoria ...

, United States, broadcasting the digital multicast network

TBD To be announced (TBA), to be confirmed (TBC), to be determined or decided or declared (TBD), and other variations, are placeholder terms used very broadly in event planning to indicate that although something is scheduled or expected to happen, a ...

Owned and operated 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 ...

Sinclair Broadcast Group Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. (SBG) is a publicly traded American telecommunications conglomerate that is controlled by the descendants of company founder Julian Sinclair Smith. Headquartered in the Baltimore suburb of Cockeysville, Maryland, t ...

, the station maintains a transmitter on Springfield Road (along

I-474 Interstate 474 (I-474) is an Interstate Highway loop route that provides a southwestern bypass around the north-central Illinois city of Peoria. I-474's parent Interstate is I-74. As the first digit of the Interstate's number is even, it ...

) in

East Peoria East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sunrise, Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from ...

, a section of Groveland Township, Tazewell County. WHOI was 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 ...

affiliate for the market until 2016.

History

WHOI was Peoria's second television station, signing-on as WTVH-TV on October 20, 1953. The station was founded by Hugh Norman and Edward Schoede. Hilltop Broadcasting, which co-owned the ''

Peoria Journal Star The ''Journal Star'' is the major daily newspaper for Peoria, Illinois, and surrounding area. First owned locally, then employee-owned, it became a Copley Press entity in 1996. In 2007, the paper was sold to Fairport, New York-based GateHouse M ...

'' bought the station in 1954. Its first studios were on Main Street in Peoria. Originally broadcasting an

analog Analog or analogue may refer to: Computing and electronics * Analog signal, in which information is encoded in a continuous variable ** Analog device, an apparatus that operates on analog signals *** Analog electronics, circuits which use analog ...

signal on

VHF Very high frequency (VHF) is the ITU designation for the range of radio frequency electromagnetic waves (radio waves) from 30 to 300 megahertz (MHz), with corresponding wavelengths of ten meters to one meter. Frequencies immediately below VHF ...

channel 8, it was a primary

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainmen ...

affiliate but also carried shows from ABC and DuMont. WTVH lost DuMont when the network ceased operations in 1955, and lost CBS when WMBD-TV (channel 31) began broadcasting. WTVH dropped the -TV suffix in its callsign on August 3, 1955. The Metropolitan Broadcasting Corporation, later known as

Metromedia Metromedia (also often MetroMedia) was an American media company that owned radio and television stations in the United States from 1956 to 1986 and controlled Orion Pictures from 1988 to 1997. Metromedia was established in 1956 after the DuMo ...

, purchased the station in 1959. In 1963, WTVH was bumped down to UHF channel 19 so that a third

commercial Commercial may refer to: * a dose of advertising conveyed through media (such as - for example - radio or television) ** Radio advertisement ** Television advertisement * (adjective for:) commerce, a system of voluntary exchange of products and s ...

VHF station could sign-on in the

Quad Cities The Quad Cities is a region of cities (originally four, see History) in the U.S. states of Iowa and Illinois: Davenport and Bettendorf in southeastern Iowa, and Rock Island, Moline and East Moline in northwestern Illinois. These cities are t ...

using that channel (the new station,

WQAD-TV WQAD-TV (channel 8) is a television station licensed to Moline, Illinois, United States, serving the Quad Cities area as an affiliate of ABC and MyNetworkTV. Owned by Tegna Inc., the station maintains studios on Park 16th Street in Moline, and i ...

, is also an ABC affiliate). In 1965, Metromedia sold the station to Mid-America Media, owners of WIRL radio (1290 AM) who, on September 12 of that year, changed the call sign to WIRL-TV. It became WRAU-TV in 1971 and adopted its present

calls Call or Calls may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Games * Call, a type of betting in poker * Call, in the game of contract bridge, a bid, pass, double, or redouble in the bidding stage Music and dance * Call (band), from Lahore, Paki ...

of WHOI on March 17, 1985. The

WTVH WTVH (channel 5) is a television station in Syracuse, New York, United States, affiliated with CBS. It is the only station whose broadcast license continues to be owned by Granite Broadcasting, a moribund company (controlled by Greenwich, Conn ...

call sign was picked up by a station in

Syracuse, New York Syracuse ( ) is a City (New York), city in and the county seat of Onondaga County, New York, Onondaga County, New York, United States. It is the fifth-most populous city in the state of New York following New York City, Buffalo, New York, Buffa ...

in 1976. In 1987, WHOI came under the ownership of Adams Communications following a merger with its previous owner, Forward Communications. The station was sold to Brissette Broadcasting in 1991, then to

Benedek Broadcasting Benedek Broadcasting was a television broadcasting company, who owned and operated 22 network-affiliated television stations throughout the United States, all affiliated with major television networks, serving mainly small and medium-size markets. ...

in 1996. When Benedek declared Chapter 7

bankruptcy Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions, bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor ...

in 2002, WHOI was sold to Chelsey Broadcasting instead of

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 ...

. In April 2004, WHOI and

KHQA-TV KHQA-TV (channel 7) is a television station licensed to Hannibal, Missouri, United States, serving the Quincy, Illinois–Hannibal, Missouri–Keokuk, Iowa market as an affiliate of CBS and ABC. The station is owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Gro ...

in the

Hannibal, Missouri Hannibal is a city along the Mississippi River in Marion and Ralls counties in the U.S. state of Missouri. According to the 2020 U.S. Census, the population was 17,312, making it the largest city in Marion County. The bulk of the city is in Mario ...

–

Quincy, Illinois Quincy ( ), known as Illinois's "Gem City", is a city in and the county seat of Adams County, Illinois, United States, located on the Mississippi River. The 2020 census counted a population of 39,463 in the city itself, down from 40,633 in 2010. ...

media market A media market, broadcast market, media region, designated market area (DMA), television market area, or simply market is a region where the population can receive the same (or similar) television and radio station offerings, and may also incl ...

became two of the founding stations of

Barrington Broadcasting Barrington Broadcasting Group, LLC, headquartered in Schaumburg, Illinois was an American corporation focused on broadcast television, primarily in middle and small size media markets. Barrington owned or operated via duopoly twenty-four televi ...

. WHOI carried some programming from

UPN The United Paramount Network (UPN) was an American broadcast television network that launched on January 16, 1995. It was originally owned by Chris-Craft Industries' United Television. Viacom (through its Paramount Television unit, which prod ...

, including '' Star Trek: Voyager'', from the network's launch in January 1995 (preview of subscription content) until

WAOE WAOE (channel 59) is a television station licensed to Oswego, Illinois, United States, serving the Chicago television market and primarily airing paid programming from Corner Store TV. Owned by Venture Technologies Group, it is a sister station ...

(channel 59) went on the air in 1999. Starting in 1998, WHOI began to run a cable-only WB affiliate. Known by the fictional call sign "WBPE", it was on channel 4 on most

cable Cable may refer to: Mechanical * Nautical cable, an assembly of three or more ropes woven against the weave of the ropes, rendering it virtually waterproof * Wire rope, a type of rope that consists of several strands of metal wire laid into a hel ...

systems in the area. On September 18, 2006, when The WB and UPN merged to create The CW, "WBPE" became part of

The CW Plus The CW Plus is a secondary national programming service feed of The CW that is fully controlled and 75% owned by Nexstar Media Group, with Paramount Global and Warner Bros. Discovery each owning a 12.5% stake in the network. It is intended primar ...

which is a similar operation to The WB 100+. WHOI added a new second

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 ...

to simulcast this programming to offer non-cable subscribers access to The CW. The channel then began to use WHOI-DT2 as its official calls. WHOI has been digital-only since February 17, 2009 http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-06-1082A2.pdf with the "WHOI" calls being transferred from the now-defunct analog channel 19 to the new digital channel 19 and the "WHOI-DT" call sign from the pre-transition digital channel 40 being permanently discontinued. However, the

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 A ...

identifier still identifies the station's main channel on 19.1 as "WHOI-DT". On March 2, 2009, it was made public that rival

WEEK-TV WEEK-TV (channel 25) is a television station in Peoria, Illinois, United States, affiliated with NBC, ABC, and The CW Plus. The station is owned by Gray Television, and maintains studios and transmitter facilities on Springfield Road (along I-4 ...

(channel 25) would take over the operations of WHOI through joint sales and

shared services Shared services is the provision of a service by one part of an organization or group, where that service had previously been found, in more than one part of the organization or group. Thus the funding and resourcing of the service is shared and th ...

agreements. It resulted in WHOI closing its longtime studios near its transmitter in Creve Coeur and moving into WEEK-TV's facility on Springfield Road, along

, in

. Sixteen employees were transferred to WEEK-TV but as many as thirty were

laid off A layoff or downsizing is the temporary suspension or permanent termination of employment of an employee or, more commonly, a group of employees (collective layoff) for business reasons, such as personnel management or downsizing (reducing the ...

immediately. This left the five full-power commercial stations in the market operated by two entities; WEEK-TV already controlled the market's

MyNetworkTV MyNetworkTV (unofficially abbreviated MyTV, MyNet, MNT or MNTV, and sometimes referred to as My Network) is an American commercial broadcast television syndication service and former television network owned by Fox Corporation, operated by its ...

outlet, WAOE (owned by Four Seasons Broadcasting), under a separate joint sales agreement (JSA). WHOI's website was immediately changed to a redirect to WEEK-TV's web address. As part of the agreement, Granite-owned CBS affiliate WTVH merged its operations with Barrington's NBC affiliate

WSTM-TV WSTM-TV (channel 3) is a television station in Syracuse, New York, United States, affiliated with NBC and The CW. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, which provides certain services to CBS affiliate WTVH (channel 5) through a local marketing ...

and low-power CW affiliate

WSTQ-LP WSTQ-LP (channel 14) is a defunct low-power television station in Syracuse, New York, United States, which operated from 2000 to 2021. In its latter years, it was owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group as an affiliate of The CW; it had common owners ...

in a similar arrangement on the same day. On February 28, 2013, Barrington Broadcasting announced the sale of its entire group, including WHOI, to the Sinclair Broadcast Group. Sinclair already owned the license of

WYZZ-TV WYZZ-TV (channel 43) is a television station licensed to Bloomington, Illinois, United States, serving as the Fox affiliate for the Peoria area. It is owned by Cunningham Broadcasting, which maintains a local marketing agreement (LMA) with Nex ...

(channel 43), which was sold to

Cunningham Broadcasting Cunningham Broadcasting Corporation is an owner of broadcast television stations in the United States. The company currently owns fifteen stations – eight affiliated with Fox, three affiliated with The CW, two affiliated with ABC, and two affili ...

to satisfy

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) regulations on

duopoly A duopoly (from Greek δύο, ''duo'' "two" and πωλεῖν, ''polein'' "to sell") is a type of oligopoly where two firms have dominant or exclusive control over a market. It is the most commonly studied form of oligopoly due to its simplicit ...

ownership. While most of Cunningham's stations are operated by Sinclair though local marketing agreements, WYZZ is operated separately by the

Nexstar Media Group Nexstar Media Group, Inc. is an American publicly traded media company with headquarter offices in Irving, Texas; Midtown Manhattan; and Chicago, Illinois. The company is the largest television station owner in the United States, owning 197 te ...

at the facility of CBS outlet WMBD-TV. The sale was completed on November 25. On February 11, 2014, it was announced that Quincy, Illinois-based

Quincy Newspapers Quincy Media, Inc., formerly known as Quincy Newspapers, Inc., was a family-owned media company that originated in the newspapers of Quincy, Illinois. The company's history can be traced back to 1835, when the ''Bounty Land Register'' was one of ...

would acquire WEEK-TV from

Granite Broadcasting Granite Broadcasting LLC is a broadcasting holding company in New York City which owns one television station in the United States, in Syracuse, New York. Granite was founded by W. Don Cornwell and Stuart Beck in 1988,

. Originally, Quincy intended to continue providing services to WHOI but Sinclair gave notice that the JSA/SSA between WHOI and WEEK-TV (which was originally set to expire in March 2017) would be terminated within nine months of Quincy closing on its purchase of WEEK-TV. The Quincy/Granite sale was completed on November 2, 2015. On July 26, 2016, Quincy Media announced that it had acquired WHOI's ABC and CW affiliations, and would consolidate them onto subchannels of WEEK beginning August 1, 2016. As an aspect of this deal, Quincy-owned

WSJV WSJV (channel 28) is a television station licensed to Elkhart, Indiana, United States, serving the South Bend area as an affiliate of the digital multicast network Heroes & Icons. It is owned by Gray Television alongside NBC affiliate WNDU-TV (c ...

South Bend South Bend is a city in and the county seat of St. Joseph County, Indiana, on the St. Joseph River near its southernmost bend, from which it derives its name. As of the 2020 census, the city had a total of 103,453 residents and is the fourt ...

similarly relinquished its Fox affiliation to Sinclair-owned

WSBT-TV WSBT-TV (channel 22) is a television station in South Bend, Indiana, United States, affiliated with CBS and Fox. Owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, the station maintains studios on East Douglas Avenue in Mishawaka, and its transmitter is locate ...

. The ABC and CW subchannels were simulcast on WHOI for 60 days following the consolidation. After the end of the transition period, the Comet TV affiliation moved to WHOI's main 19.1 channel, making WHOI an owned-and-operated station of Comet. On July 1, 2020, Sinclair shifted TBD to WHOI's primary channel, with Comet moving to WHOI-DT2.

Subchannels

The station's digital signal is

multiplexed In telecommunications and computer networking, multiplexing (sometimes contracted to muxing) is a method by which multiple analog or digital signals are combined into one signal over a shared medium. The aim is to share a scarce resource - a ...

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Whoi (Tv) TBD (TV network) affiliates Charge! (TV network) affiliates Comet (TV network) affiliates HOI (TV) Television channels and stations established in 1953 Metromedia Sinclair Broadcast Group 1953 establishments in Illinois

History

Subchannels

See also

References

External links