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WIS was sort of local station for Rock Hill and York County, even though it is technically part of the Charlotte media market. Because for years during the analog era WCNC had a weak UHF signal that was hard to receive. Then around 1987 they built a tall 2000 foot tower in Gaston County and increased power to 5 million watts. Then the signal stretched much further to the fringes of Greenville-Spartanburg. But their digital signal is now directional with a null to the west, so it is a bit weaker in the Upstate than WBTV and WJZY which are more omnidirectional. But you can still pick it up.
But WIS can still be received in York County with an antenna, and some may prefer their more extensive coverage of SC government and politics, and USC sports. But no longer offered on cable.
WIS is easily received all the way to the NC border from an area stretching roughly from Clover to Bennettsville, through Rock Hill, Lancaster, and Cheraw, and is also easily received in Florence and Darlington. WIS even has some spillover coverage into the far southern tier counties of NC, southern Mecklenburg County, as well as Anson and Richmond counties. Wadesboro cable still carries WIS, per TVTV.com. (Needless to say, WIS provides absolutely no coverage of NC politics or government, and only covers Charlotte stories of pressing regional or even national interest, such as the tragedy in Rock Hill a few days ago.) Have to wonder if WCNC will ever get around to challenging that, though Charlotte does not need to be particularly greedy about their DMA. Rowan County, i.e., Salisbury and environs, is technically Charlotte DMA but is kind of a no-man's-land between the Charlotte and Triad DMAs, main stations from both DMAs are easily received even with rabbit ears. Stanly County is in similar circumstances. Cable stations in both counties only carry one or two Triad main-network affiliates, presumably for the news.
I know you know this, but anyone who has Roku can easily get local news via NewsOn from most US markets (though, curiously, not NYC or Los Angeles) on demand, and live during actual broadcast times, with commercials usually edited out or replaced with online-only ad spots, either from the home market or the market in which the NewsOn viewer lives. The Roku channels of WBTV and WSOC also provide a nearly-linear news viewing experience, with of course those incessant auto dealership commercials that Charlotte stations churn out one right after the other. If I had a dollar for every time I've seem one of those Toyota of North Charlotte commercials with the attractive blonde and the dog sitting down by the logo at the end of the commercial, I could buy one of those cars! (And let's not forget the Rug and Home spokeswoman...)
Auto dealership ads are as ubiquitous on Charlotte stations as personal injury attorney ads are on Columbia TV. George Sink... Bill Green... Shelly Leeke... late-comer Hawk Law (who recently got one of the coveted repeated-single-digit phone numbers, 333-3333)... and let's not forget Akim Anastopoulo. Whoever dreams up all those "nine-themed" George Sink commercials is an advertising genius!
I have met Darci Strickland in passing, when I arranged a trip for my son's Scout troop at WLTX a few years ago. Nice lady. Alicia Barnes is still at WIS. She is a very good anchor.
WIS puts out a very crisp, corporate-feeling news product, almost NBC network-quality production values. WLTX is more conversational, warm, and friendly. I don't find WOLO to be a high-quality product at all, for the size of the market, it would be less out-of-place in a smaller market such as, for instance, Bristol-Kingsport-Johnson City or Augusta.
Glad to hear Alicia Barnes is doing well at WIS. She was definitely a bright spot during her lengthy tenure at WOLO. I agree about WOLO though oddly they were first news station in Columbia to have HD newscasts.
Glad to hear Alicia Barnes is doing well at WIS. She was definitely a bright spot during her lengthy tenure at WOLO. I agree about WOLO though oddly they were first news station in Columbia to have HD newscasts.
The WOLO news being done from WCCB was a great idea in concept, but "your local news from another city" would be a hard sell under any circumstances, and out-of-state on top of that, and in a city such as Columbia, where local pride and South Carolina pride are huge, it's a non-starter. People might be more relaxed about it in a multi-city market such as Charleston-Huntington WV (where it's not always obvious which city the newscast is actually originating in, and Charleston and Huntington are both in the same state, though all stations have huge viewership in adjacent parts of Ohio and Kentucky), and somehow they are able to make it work in the Myrtle Beach-Florence market (though I can imagine that Florence residents might murmur "we don't have local TV stations anymore"), but for Columbia, it just doesn't work. Square peg in a round hole.
I don't see Columbia as a large enough market to have four free-standing, viable newscasts. I'd like to see WOLO and WACH combine their news departments, possibly using WACH's studios and better production values (but by all means, keep John Farley, and maybe we could even get Ben Hoover back!) under the umbrella name of "Columbia News Now" or something like that. Not sure whether the Bahakels (owners of WOLO) would agree to something like that --- they are a privately held entity, really a very large family business, and tend to be pretty conservative all the way around. In fact, their independent, conservative ownership, which I think must have to percolate its way into their newscasts and general operations, is one of the things I do like about WOLO. It's not the corporate product that Gray and Tegna stations are.
(Or maybe the Bahakels could buy WACH --- is that allowed? --- or at least work out some kind of LMA.)
I think the WOLO master control is still operated from WCCB in Charlotte, but they moved the news studio itself back to Columbia.
Yes. The WOLO news set, to the extent it can even be said to have one, is pretty bare-bones. I think those are pretty small quarters that they have down on Main and Gervais. WACH, a few blocks away, is in a nondescript office building. You usually think of TV stations as being free-standing dedicated buildings, such as WIS and WLTX have. Even WZRB has its own building over on Cushman Road, next to the transmitter, still with CW logo signage. I think I mentioned this elsewhere, but WKTC's studios are unmarked, out in a business park in Pontiac, just off I-20, and if it weren't for the several satellite dishes and microwave tower, you'd have no clue it was a TV station. It looks like just another generic office or warehouse building, such as you'd find in a business park. But I suppose there's no need for either WZRB or WKTC to be flashy --- I don't see "Action News 47" or "63 Eyewitness News" happening anytime soon. While WKTC does have some sort of local origination (religious programming and local commercials to some extent), WZRB, like most Ion stations, is basically a full-power pass-through satellator.
And just to show that the "number five" newscast in a smaller market can be a halfway-decent product, here's a YouTube video that was almost impossible for me to find:
This station had a troubled history, and as for West Virginia news legend Tom McGee, well, I wouldn't be the first one to have made a Ron Burgundy comparison. He's now an attorney.
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