WVEC
WVEC is a television station licensed to Hampton, Virginia, United States, serving the Hampton Roads area as an affiliate of ABC. The station is owned by Tegna Inc. and maintains studios on Woodis Avenue in Norfolk; its transmitter is located near Driver in Suffolk.
WVEC began broadcasting on UHF channel 15 on September 19, 1953, from studios in Hampton. It was the second television station in Hampton Roads and broke the monopoly on television programming and affiliations held by WTAR-TV, which broadcast on a VHF channel. The station was originally an NBC affiliate; NBC provided pre-launch support to the new station, at a time when UHF stations could only be seen by viewers with specially fitted converters. The station was a modestly successful second-place outlet until 1957, when Hampton Roads gained a second VHF station: WAVY-TV in Portsmouth, originally the ABC affiliate. WVEC-TV lost viewers and some NBC programs to the new VHF station, which could be seen in all homes. It was successful in encouraging the Federal Communications Commission to allocate a third VHF channel, channel 13, to Hampton Roads. It merged with the other applicants for the channel, and WVEC-TV moved to channel 13 on November 13, 1959. It simultaneously opened its current Norfolk studio and switched to a full-time ABC affiliation. The channel 15 facilities were then used for educational television by WHRO-TV, which began in 1961.
The station's limited local news efforts gradually expanded in the 1970s and in the 1980s after Corinthian Broadcasting and the A. H. Belo Corporation in turn acquired channel 13. The bulk of station operations shifted to Norfolk, and after WTKR experienced a collapse in its news ratings in the mid-1980s, WAVY and WVEC began contending for first place in the market. In partnership with Cox Communications and The Virginian-Pilot newspaper in Norfolk, WVEC launched a local cable news channel, Local News on Cable, in 1997; it operated until 2010 and for most of that time featured an original 10 p.m. local newscast co-produced with The Virginian-Pilot. Belo sold the station to the Gannett Company, predecessor to Tegna, in 2013. Tegna's proposed sale to Nexstar Media Group would bring it under common ownership with WAVY-TV and Fox affiliate WVBT.
History
The channel 15 era
The Peninsula Broadcasting Corporation—owner of Hampton, Virginia, radio station WVEC—filed with the Federal Communications Commission on July 14, 1952, for permission to build a new television station on ultra high frequency channel 15. At the time, the Hampton Roads area only had one operating TV station: WTAR-TV. A second very high frequency channel, 10, had been assigned to the area, while on the UHF band channel 27 and 33 were also available for new stations. The FCC awarded the first two post-freeze permits for Hampton Roads television in February 1953, one to WVEC for channel 15 and another for channel 33 in Newport News. For television, WVEC announced it would expand its existing facilities in Hampton with a two-story addition.The advent of a second television station in Hampton Roads triggered an affiliation shift. WTAR agreed to become an exclusive CBS affiliate for radio and television, and in June, NBC signed an affiliation agreement with WVEC-TV. The station began broadcasting a test pattern on the night of August 15 and continued to broadcast it for 12 hours a day.
At the time, not all television sets could receive UHF stations, and conversion of existing sets was necessary. WVEC's test pattern was intended to aid technicians converting sets, and there were many sets to convert. A joint study by WTAR and WVEC found that of all television homes in Hampton Roads, only 5.5% of them could receive UHF. Because of this situation, NBC provided substantial support to WVEC-TV's pre-launch promotion to drive conversions and advertiser support, which was referred to in the press as "Operation Norfolk". Jack Levy, writing in Variety, noted that "seldom, if ever, has a network gone to bat for a new affiliate as has NBC in launching WVEC-TV". Efforts included the resale of converter boxes and door-to-door sales. WVEC-TV began program service on September 19, 1953, with an inaugural program featuring NBC personalities Margaret Truman, Faye Emerson, and Skitch Henderson and utilizing NBC producers. Levy noted, "The result was an opening by a small local independent which would do credit to a large metropolitan station." Converter sales on the first day of telecasting caused some dealers to run out of stock. However, NBC allowed its coverage of the 1953 World Series to air on both WTAR-TV and WVEC-TV. Channel 15 became a basic NBC affiliate—a mandatory buy for sponsors—when it renewed its affiliation agreement in January 1954. By year's end, WVEC-TV was gaining in the ratings, had gone from losing money to turning a profit, and had just opened a studio in Norfolk. About 125,000 of the roughly 220,000 TV sets in Hampton Roads, or 56%, were UHF-converted.
In spite of the initial success, the picture began to change. Channel 10, which had been in the hearing stage, was awarded by the FCC in June 1956 to Portsmouth Radio Corporation, owner of WAVY. Variety openly speculated on whether NBC would move to WAVY-TV and whether WVEC-TV or WTOV-TV would be able to secure the ABC affiliation. As early as 1954, WTOV-TV was beginning efforts to move a third VHF channel to the Hampton Roads area. It filed with the FCC to move channel 13 from New Bern, North Carolina, but then Nathan Frank obtained a permit to use that channel. When the commission proposed to shift New Bern to channel 12 and allocate channel 13 to the Norfolk area, it indicated that any group would be able to apply for it—including WVEC-TV and WTOV-TV, which both expressed interest. The FCC all but finalized this action in June 1957. WVEC applied, specifying a site change to near Kempsville, necessary to maintain spacing to other channel 13 stations in Baltimore and Lynchburg. WTOV-TV, after being partially acquired by Norfolk radio station WNOR, applied for the channel. Also seeking channel 13 were two new groups. Virginian Television Corporation included the stockholders of radio station WBOF in Virginia Beach, while Norfolk–Newport News Television Corporation consisted of stockholders with radio interests in Florida, Georgia, and Kentucky. The latter group dropped out in March 1958 after failing to receive aviation approval for its tower site.
While the channel 13 fight was under way, WVEC-TV introduced new programming. In September 1957, channel 15 began broadcasting two hours a day of educational television programs for Norfolk city schools. An hour in the morning and another in the afternoon was devoted to experimental programs for viewing in elementary and secondary schools. The program was funded by a Ford Foundation grant; WVEC-TV offered the time in exchange for the cost of orthicon tubes used in TV cameras. In February 1958, the station added courses for college credit provided by the College of William & Mary. It also faced new competition. WAVY-TV began broadcasting as an ABC affiliate on channel 10 on September 1, 1957. The presence of a second VHF station hurt WVEC-TV's audience share. NBC found that WVEC-TV's audience share slipped from 16% to 7% between November 1955 and November 1957—while WAVY-TV had a 39% share. WAVY-TV became an NBC affiliate as well, and WVEC-TV waived rights to some programs in light of declining ratings. Station president Thomas P. Chisman told Warner Twyford of The Virginian-Pilot, "We live or die with channel 13." WVEC-TV also complained of harmonic interference from the operation of stations on channel 10 and 15 in the same area. A temporary shift to channel 21 was approved, but Chisman had no interest in a channel other than 13. In July 1958, the WVEC-TV staff of 32 agreed to a station-wide salary cut to help the station continue.
Move to channel 13
On July 30, 1958, it was announced that Peninsula had agreed to merge its WVEC-TV application with those of WTOV and Virginian Television, which each would own 10 percent of the new channel 13, with WVEC radio being spun off. It appeared as though approval was assured until WAVY-TV protested at a hearing that Broadcasting reported "burst into flame", claiming the addition of a third local VHF station would cause it financial distress and that the involvement of WNOR and WBOF in the same application raised questions of a potentially illegal duopoly. In April 1959, FCC examiner J. D. Bond rendered an initial decision approving the combined channel 13 application. Final approval came on July 15, after WAVY withdrew its petition. Before the approval, WVEC-TV had acquired a building in the Atlantic City area of Norfolk, at Third and Woodis streets, for a new Norfolk studio. WVEC-TV began airing ABC programming on August 22, 1959. It moved to channel 13 at 5 p.m. on November 13, 1959—Friday the 13th—from the new Norfolk facility. With its move to channel 13, WVEC-TV became a full ABC affiliate and WAVY-TV a full NBC affiliate. It also gained reception in many fringe areas that had been unable to receive the UHF transmissions on channel 15. The switch to channel 13 brought with it a new local program: the children's show Bungles the Clown, hosted by Jerry Sandford, which ran from 1959 to 1973.Educational programming for schools continued on the new channel 13 after the switch, though afternoon time was dropped and programs were aired in a block from 9 to 11:30 a.m. WVEC-TV announced in December 1960 that it would cease carrying educational programming beginning in June 1961. Three months later, in March 1961, an association of local school systems was formed, with proposals to use channel 15 instead of the locally reserved 21 as well as WVEC-TV's former tower from its channel 15 facility. Only two school systems emerged in favor of the project: those in Hampton and Norfolk, which formed the Hampton Roads Educational Television Association and applied for channel 15 on May 29, 1961. WHRO-TV began broadcasting on October 2, 1961, as Virginia's first noncommercial television station.
While WVEC-TV initially posted strong ratings and competed with WTAR and WAVY, it ran third for most of the years following the 1959 affiliation switch. In 1965, the station became the third to move its transmitter facility to Driver, where a tower was built. The WVEC radio stations, last known under Peninsula ownership as WVEC and WVHR-FM, were sold in 1978 to Larry Saunders and Dick Lamb and became WWDE AM and WWDE-FM.