WGME-TV
WGME-TV is a television station in Portland, Maine, United States, affiliated with CBS and Fox. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, which provides certain services to Waterville-licensed WPFO under a local marketing agreement with Cunningham Broadcasting. However, Sinclair effectively owns WPFO as the majority of Cunningham's stock is owned by the family of deceased group founder Julian Smith. The two stations share studios on Northport Drive in the North Deering section of Portland; WGME-TV's transmitter is located on Brown Hill west of Raymond. The station also maintains regional studios in the Lewiston–Auburn area, and the state capital of Augusta.
History
Construction and early years
When the Federal Communications Commission resumed granting new TV station applications in 1952 after a multi-year freeze, it allocated Portland, Maine, two VHF channels, 6 and 13. The freeze had affected the first television station application in Maine, made by Guy Gannett Broadcasting Service, owners of radio stations WGAN in Portland and WGUY in Bangor. In May 1952, Guy Gannett announced its intention to apply for channel 13. Later in 1952, the Community Broadcasting Service, owner of Bangor radio station WABI, applied for channel 13 in Portland. With competing applications, channel 13 was pushed into a comparative hearing situation, and the FCC in October 1952 ordered hearings be held on the two applications apiece it had received for channels 6 and 13.A third channel played into the channel 13 hearing dispute. Channel 8 had been allocated for use at Mount Washington, New Hampshire, from which it would cover Portland, and Mount Washington TV, Inc., was seeking that channel. Mount Washington and Community had a stakeholder in common: Horace Hildreth. In May 1953, Guy Gannett called on Hildreth to select one or the other application to prosecute because he could not own both channels, with their overlapping coverage areas. On July 8, 1953, Mount Washington TV won the construction permit for channel 8, on the condition that its stockholders remove themselves from competing applications in Portland; these included not only Hildreth but the owners of an applicant for channel 6. If they did so, each channel would have one contested applicant. Another stockholder in Community, Murray Carpenter, declared he had no intention to drop out of the channel 13 contest. Carpenter responded to the FCC action by selling out his ownership interest in WABI radio and WABI-TV to Hildreth in exchange for his shares in the channel 13 applicant. He then filed for channel 13 under his own name in August.
On November 2, days before hearings were to begin, Carpenter simultaneously withdrew his channel 13 application and agreed to buy WGUY radio from Guy Gannett. He told the FCC that he had been unable to find financial backing for the TV station. This left Guy Gannett unopposed for channel 13; the firm received a construction permit on November 19 and declared its intention to be on the air within six months. The WGAN-FM site at Blackstrap in Falmouth was renovated to house the channel 13 transmitter facility; it had been built in 1946 with a possible television use in mind.
WGAN-TV began broadcasting on May 16, 1954, as a primary affiliate of CBS with additional programming from ABC. It was the fifth TV station on the air in Maine; it displaced the combination of WPMT and WLAM-TV, a pair of UHF stations in Portland and Lewiston–Auburn, as the local outlet for CBS and ABC programs. At the outset, WGAN-TV offered a variety of local programs. Three newscasts a day were scheduled, utilizing the resources of Guy Gannett's five Maine newspapers; it also aired a daily afternoon variety show, The Lloyd Knight Show, and locally produced educational and nature programs. The station broadcast from an incomplete tower on reduced power until June 30. Channel 8 from Mount Washington debuted in September as WMTW. It had affiliations with CBS, ABC, and DuMont Television Network, splitting much of channel 13's audience for network programming. WMTW continued to air some CBS programs until July 1958, when it became an all-ABC station.
WGAN announced its intention to build a new, taller TV tower in 1958. Such an expansion had been contemplated from the start, but an attempt to shuffle VHF television station allocations in New England—and possibly force WGAN-TV to another channel—stalled the move. A mast was erected on Brown Hill near Raymond and began use on October 30, 1959. It was the world's tallest man-made structure at its completion, though the next year KFVS-TV in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, eclipsed it with a tower. While WGAN-TV was still losing money by 1961, the station improved its financial standing by the middle of the decade and attracted more than 40 percent of TV advertising revenue. In February 1967, WGAN-FM 102.9 began broadcasting from the Raymond tower.
When the radio stations were sold to Taylor Communications of Maine during 1983, the WGAN call letters remained with them; WGAN-TV became WGME-TV, "We're Gannett of Maine", on January 1, 1984.
Sinclair ownership
Motivated by the impending expiration of the family trust that owned the company and a seller's market for broadcasting properties, Guy Gannett Communications put itself up for sale in 1998, ending 110 years of its history as a publisher. The Seattle Times Company acquired Guy Gannett's newspapers, while the firm's television stations were purchased by Baltimore-based Sinclair Broadcast Group for $310 million, a handsome return on family patriarch Guy Gannett's original investment in WGAN radio 60 years earlier. The Guy Gannett purchase gave Sinclair diversification into affiliates of the Big Three networks and beyond a portfolio heavy with Fox, WB, and UPN stations.On February 5, 2007, WGME-TV began producing a nightly 10 p.m. newscast for WPFO, then Portland's Fox affiliate, after a news share agreement was established between the two. It aired from a secondary set at WGME's studios. The news relationship expanded in 2010 when the newscast was lengthened to an hour; a new two-hour morning newscast from 7 to 9 a.m., titled Good Day Maine, was added.
On October 31, 2013, WGME-TV owner Sinclair Broadcast Group acquired the non-license assets of WPFO from Corporate Media Consultants Group for $13.6 million. An affiliate of Sinclair, Cunningham Broadcasting Corporation, filed to acquire the license assets for $3.4 million on November 19, but the deal was not approved until June 23, 2017. In 2024, WGME began airing a new lifestyle program, ARC Maine, at 9 a.m.; the WPFO morning newscast was shortened to an hour, with the 8 a.m. hour replaced by The National Desk.
Sinclair filed to buy WPFO outright from Cunningham in August 2025, following a decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit that struck down limitations on ownership of two of the four highest-rated TV stations in a market. On December 8, 2025, the Fox affiliation was moved to WGME-TV's second subchannel, while WPFO's main channel flipped to Roar.
News operation
Channel 13 had been the traditional news leader in the Portland market until the mid-1980s. In February 1986, WCSH surpassed WGME at 11 p.m. and tied channel 13 in the vital 6 p.m. news slot. Later that year, WCSH would surpass WGME at 6 and proceed to do so for at least the next 16 years.In 1989, WGME debuted a 5:30 p.m. newscast, 1st News. It was the first time a Portland station had produced an hour of early evening news since WCSH tried the idea in the 1970s.
Historically associated with a newspaper, channel 13's newscasts dominated the ratings in Portland for many years. However, since 1989, WCSH overtook WGME and has dominated in the ratings. WGME produced 24 hours and 30 minutes of produced news content every week, including early-morning, noon, afternoon drive-time, and late-night news programs. WGME also produced 17 hours of weekly news content for partner station WPFO. When taking both stations into account, WGME produced the most local news content in the Portland market, though its primary station carries the least amount of local news content among the market's three major network affiliates.
Former news team for Live at 5 and News 13 at 6, Kim Block and Doug Rafferty were a news team from the mid-1990s until the mid-2000s. Kim Block is one of the most recognized television journalists in both the Portland market and in the State of Maine/New Hampshire. Block has been the lead anchor at WGME for more than three decades, starting in 1981 until her retirement in 2020, recovering from a concussion in May 2018. Rafferty reduced his reporting hours after suffering a stroke during a live cut-in of a syndicated program on January 19, 2006, quitting the anchor desk for a behind-the-scene technical job at the station. He retired during 2012 to become the Public Relations and Education Head at the Maine State Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. Other longtime anchors include weeknight announcer Gregg Lagerquist and morning announcer Jeff Peterson. Sports anchor and director Dave Eid has been with WGME since 1996. Longtime meteorologist Charlie Lopresti has been with the station for more than a decade.
On September 11, 2017, WGME launched a half-hour 7 p.m. weeknight newscast. The opportunity came about as a result of CBS Television Distribution's decision to cancel The Insider, which had previously aired on WGME in the 7:30 p.m. weeknight time slot.
Transition to HD
WGME began broadcasting in 720p high definition on December 18, 2011, with a new wood-styled set designed by Devlin Design Group. WGME's new HD set included video display monitors on either end of the set for anchor stand-up reporting, a 12-monitor video wall used to display a single panoramic video feed or 2, 3, or 12 individual video feeds. A smaller anchor desk at the video wall is used for WPFO broadcasts Good Day Maine and News 13 on FOX at 10 pm. The anchor desk included a large monitor behind the anchors which typically showed a skyline image or the News 13 logo. The entire set included an array of light panels and light boxes. The weather office is fully visible to viewers, with a small desk for the meteorologist above which a four-monitor video wall could show graphics. There was also a traditional green screen and a forecasting system on a raised platform for live reporting of severe weather. The HD newscasts introduced a new graphics package also used by Sinclair station WZTV.WGME's newscasts were referred to as CBS 13 News as of April 2013. The newscasts on WPFO were referred to as FOX 23 News as of February 2014.
On February 28, 2013, WGME's weather department rolled out new graphics to its Weather Central forecasting system, as part of a new graphics package from parent company Sinclair Broadcasting. It is slowly being introduced on other Sinclair stations.
In early 2014, while WGME-TV CBS 13 News received a new graphics package now seen on-air, News 13 Daybreak changed its name to Good Day Maine On CBS 13. On September 15, 2014, WPFO-TV premiered the WGME-produced Fox 23 News @ 6:30 pm featuring the combined anchor team and a new format.