WAKA
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| WAKA | |
|---|---|
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| Selma / Montgomery, Alabama | |
| Branding | CBS 8 |
| Slogan | Coverage You Can Count On |
| Channels | Analog: 8 (VHF) |
| Affiliations | CBS |
| Owner | Bahakel Communications, Ltd. (Alabama Broadcasting Partners) |
| First air date | March 17, 1960 |
| Former callsigns | WSLA (1960-1984) |
| Former affiliations | ABC/CBS (1960-1968) dark (1968-1972) |
| Transmitter Power | 316 kW (analog) 1000 kW (digital) |
| Height | 515 m (analog) 481 m (digital) |
| Facility ID | 701 |
| Transmitter Coordinates | |
| Website | www.waka.com |
WAKA is a CBS-affiliated television station broadcasting on channel 8 that serves central and south Alabama. The station is licensed to Selma but its main studios are in Montgomery. WAKA's transmitter is located at Gordonsville in Lowndes County.
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[edit] History
Channel 8 debuted on March 17, 1960 as WSLA (acroynm for SeLmA). The station was an independent when it first started, but became Montgomery's ABC affiliate soon afterwards. However, the station only provided a grade B signal to Montgomery. It was owned by the Brennan family and their company, Deep South Broadcasting, along with WBAM radio (740 AM, now WMSP). In 1964, WKAB-TV (channel 32, later WHOA-TV and now WNCF) started up as Montgomery's ABC affiliate, but WSLA continued to broadcast ABC programming to the western part of the market because of UHF's limited coverage of the time. Interestingly, it might be argued that WSLA was almost always a CBS affiliate. Once it ended its brief stint as an independent and affiliated with ABC, it also established a secondary affiliation with CBS by carrying 1 hour of that network's programming every week: "Ted Mack's Original Amateur Hour".
The station found itself in a 30 year battle (probably the longest on record) over its current transmitting facilities. Channel 8 received its construction permit in February 1954, weeks before the area's only other VHF facility, Montgomery's WSFA. It specified a 360-foot (110 m) tower just west of Selma, with only 3,000 watts of visual power--which would have only provided grade B coverage to Montgomery. Almost at once, Deep South applied to amend the permit, specifying full power and a much taller tower located just north of the Montgomery suburb of Prattville. However, the FCC blocked this move due to a protest from then CBS affiliate WCOV-TV, which claimed that the FCC would not be fostering the growth of UHF stations if it allowed the expansion. In truth, WCOV feared that CBS would yank its affiliation if WSLA were permitted to expand its signal. Deep South proposed another facility, this time from unspecified facilities in southern Montgomery County--only to be rejected again due to protests from WCOV. Probably afraid the license would be in jeopardy, Deep South built the originally specified facility at Selma and signed it on in March of 1960.
The station's facilities burned down in 1968. WCOV made a move to purchase the silent channel 8 facility from Deep South, and intended to operate it as a low-powered west Alabama repeater of WCOV. However, the FCC would not allow WCOV to reduce channel 8's power. For some unknown reason, perhaps the enormous amount of capital expense involved, WCOV passed on the chance to operate channel 8 as a full power facility (and one that probably would have not been contested to operate as such, since WCOV--the main protester in the channel 8 expansion case--would now own the facility).
Due to intense competition from the Montgomery stations, especially WSFA, and the enormous amount of money Deep South had invested in the legal fight, WSLA was not rebuilt until 1972, when Charles Grisham of Huntsville, then owner of WHNT there, purchased the station. The station was rebuilt in Selma and returned to the airwaves in 1973, this time as a full-time CBS affiliate. Grisham continued the battle for a tall tower and full power to cover Montgomery. WCOV continued its fight to prevent it. One of WSLA's applications to increase coverage (but out of direct fire from WCOV and WKAB) involved placing their tower in a position that would have allowed respectable coverage into Birmingham and Tuscaloosa, as well as Selma and Montgomery. This application, however, was challenged by UHF stations WCFT-TV in Tuscaloosa and WBMG (now WIAT) in Birmingham.
At one time, WCOV proposed that the FCC move the channel 8 frequency to Tuscaloosa as an educational frequency, then make the entire Montgomery market UHF by re-assigning the channel 12 frequency to Columbus, Georgia (which would have made that market all VHF). This got nowhere, but did extend the battle. Finally, with all arguments exhausted, and the FCC becoming more neutral in the protection of UHF facilities, channel 8 was issued a construction permit in 1984, which would give the station primary coverage of Montgomery.
The callsign changed to WAKA on October 28, 1984 (unofficially said to stand for, in jest, "We Are Kicking Ass"). It was thought the calls WSLA would be confused with WSFA, the NBC affiliate for Montgomery. Bahakel Communications bought WAKA from Grisham in 1985 and remains the owner today. That same year, in April, WAKA began broadcasting from its long-sought 1,757-foot (536 m) tower, with 316,000 watts of power. WAKA now boasted the largest coverage area in the entire state of Alabama. It provides at least secondary coverage from the fringes of the Birmingham and Tuscaloosa suburbs to the Florida panhandle and Wiregrass Region to the southeast (there competing with Dothan's WTVY). The station moved its main operations to a new facility in Montgomery in 1986. CBS officially dropped its programming from WCOV, and WAKA became the sole CBS affiliate for Montgomery effective January 1, 1986. WCOV later joined the then-upstart Fox network.
WAKA was the first station in the Montgomery market to broadcast in stereo, and is the only station there to operate its digital channel at the full power of 1 megawatt. The station has expanded its news department over the past several years with additional personnel, news bureaus and more newscasts. News bureaus with live capabilities are located in Selma and Andalusia. These expansions along with improved production values have helped WAKA make gains in the ratings against long-dominant WSFA. Although usually a close runner-up in sign-on to sign-off numbers, WAKA has from time to time beat WSFA in this category. WAKA has extensive remote microwave capabilities, as well as satellite uplink capability.
[edit] Digital Television
Because of WAKA's original digital allocation of Channel 55, WAKA petitioned to th FCC to move their post-transition channel to 42 since any channel above 51 would not be allocated for digital television after 2/17/09. In order to get their post-transition channel up and running, WAKA must cease analog broadcasting on Channel 8 on November 28, 2008. At that time, the analog antenna and broadcasting equipment will be removed from their tower and replaced with digital equipment. Digital channel 42 is slated to sign on January 19, 2009 while digital channel 55 will sign off on the mandated date(2/17/09). WAKA should have a full-powered digital facility up and running on March 19, 2009.
[edit] Current News Personalities
News Anchors: Ashley Paige, Jeff Sanders, Angela Green, Glenn Halbrooks, Stefanie Hicks, Joy Lambert
Reporters: Krista Littlefield, George McDonald, Madiyah Moseley, Jenna Deery,
Weather: David Baxley, Ashley McDonald, Chris Bailey
Sports: Dee Jackson, John Longshore, Stu McCann,
Former News Personalities:
- Monica Allen
- Rebecca Amos
- Kelly Baker
- Jim Bennidict
- Lauren Bethune
- Tiffany Bittner (now at WBRC-TV in Birmingham, AL)
- Estee Clark
- Brian Corbett
- Damon Cullen
- Laurie Davidson
- Brooke Erickson
- Lisa Gurevitch (now with CNN, Atlanta)
- David Hagood
- Brendan Higgins
- Matt Kelley
- Paul King
- Andrew Lackley
- Melissa Lee (now at WBMA in Birmingham, AL)
- Kevin Long
- Jon Mangum (later of WBMA in its Anniston bureau, deceased)
- John Matson
- Rob Mikler
- Cynthia Milledge (now at KNOE-TV in Monroe, LA)
- Kim Miller
- Amber Moody (now at WHNT-TV in Huntsville, AL, as Amber Stuart)
- Cyndee O'Quinn
- Chris Peddie
- Doug Peters
- Ben Plaut
- Dee Dee Railey
- Jim Reed
- Karli Ritter
- Diana Rugg
- Don Schwenneker
- Rob Smith
- Sean Temple
- Kim Wanous
- Trish Williford (now at KTBS-TV and KPXJ in Shreveport, LA)
- Kristie Welch
[edit] External links
- WAKA website
- [1]
- Query the FCC's TV station database for WAKA
- BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on WAKA-TV
- FCC submission on digital TV transition plan
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