WMYA-TV

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

WMYA-TV
Anderson/Greenville/Spartanburg, South Carolina/Asheville, North Carolina
Branding	MY 40
Slogan	Carolina's MY40
Channels	40 (UHF) analog, 14 (UHF) digital
Affiliations	My Network TV
Owner	Cunningham Broadcasting (local marketing agreement with Sinclair Broadcast Group)
Founded	September 5, 1953
Call letters meaning	W MY Network TV Anderson
Former callsigns	WAIM-TV (1953-79) WAXA (1979-88, 1992-95) WFBC-TV (1995-99) WBSC-TV (1999-2006)
Former affiliations	CBS (1953-76 and 1979-88, secondary from 1956) ABC (1953-79, secondary until 1956; simulcast with WLOS 1992-95) Independent (1979-87, 1995-99) NBC (secondary, 1979-88) Fox (1986-88) The WB (1999-2006)
Transmitter Power	178 kW/853 m (analog)
Website	www.my40.tv/

WMYA-TV is the MyNetworkTV television affiliate station for the Greenville-Spartanburg-Asheville television market in western North and South Carolina. It is owned by Cunningham Broadcasting, but is operated by Sinclair Broadcast Group through a local marketing agreement with the market's ABC affiliate, WLOS-TV. However, it is effectively owned by Sinclair due to the financial structure of Cunningham (see below). Its transmitter is located near Forkshoals, South Carolina.

The station is licensed to Anderson, South Carolina; but is operated out of WLOS' studios in Asheville. It broadcasts its analog signal on UHF channel 40 and its digital signal on UHF channel 14. However, the station provides only a grade B signal to most of the North Carolina portion of the market.

WMYA rebroadcasts WLOS' weekday 6 PM newscast at 6:30 PM, branded as News 13 on My 40.

[edit] History

WMYA signed on September 5, 1953 as WAIM-TV, the fourth television station in South Carolina and the first west of Columbia. It was owned by Wilton E. Hall, publisher of the Anderson Independent and Daily Mail, along with WAIM-AM 1230. The calls stood for Anderson Independent-Mail. It was a CBS affiliate with a secondary ABC affiliation. When CBS afiliate WSPA-TV signed on from Spartanburg in 1956, channel 40 became a primary ABC affiliate. However, until 1976 it cleared any CBS programs that WSPA turned down. It was sold to Harte-Hanks Communications in 1972.

WAIM-TV had a very weak signal which covered only Anderson and Pickens counties. Nearby Greenville could only receive a fringe signal. As a result, WAIM-TV never thrived; only the revenues from WAIM-AM kept it afloat. The station wouldn't sign on on weekdays until 11 a.m., when ABC's afternoon shows begin, and would sign off at 11 p.m., when ABC's prime time ends; much of its non-network programming during this time was mainly religious shows and travelogues.

WLOS pressured ABC to drop its affiliation with WAIM-TV from the 1960s onward, finally succeeding in 1979. Harte-Hanks sold the station to Frank Outlaw, who changed the station's calls to WAXA and built a much more powerful transmitting facility in south Greenville. He turned the station into the state's first general-entertainment independent. The schedule was filled mostly with cartoons, barter sitcoms, low budget talk and syndicated shows, wildlife and sportsman shows, low budget and public domain movies, and other shows the competition passed on that cost no money. It also aired programs from NBC and CBS that WYFF and WSPA turned down. One of the NBC programs shown on the station was the game show Super Password, which was pre-empted from WYFF for its entire run. The station was the only source of non-network programming in town until WHNS-TV signed on in 1984. The station became a charter Fox affiliate at the network's launch in 1986.

Frank Outlaw died suddenly in 1988. His widow did not have the enthusiasm her husband did for running WAXA. The station was off the air by the end of the year. River City Broadcasting, owner of WLOS, bought the dormant WAXA license and returned the station to the air in 1992 as a full-time simulcast of WLOS. This created a strong combined signal with about 50% overlap.

River City merged with Sinclair in 1995. Sinclair sold WAXA to Glencairn, Ltd., a new group headed by former Sinclair executive Edwin Edwards. Glencairn dropped the simulcast with WLOS and changed channel 40's calls to WFBC-TV--calls that had last been held by what is now WYFF from 1953 to 1983. However, Glencairn's stock was almost entirely controlled by the Smith family, founders and owners of Sinclair. In effect, Sinclair owned both stations even though FCC rules did not permit duopolies at the time. Glencairn and Sinclair further circumvented the rules by moving WFBC's operations to WLOS' studios under an LMA, with WLOS as senior partner.

WFBC-TV became a WB affiliate on September 6, 1999 and changed its call letters to WBSC in 2000 to reflect its status as the only full-time WB affiliate serving a South Carolina-based market.

WBSC began 24/7 broadcasting sometime in 2004, having previously signed off late Sunday night/early Monday morning.

When Sinclair attempted to merge with Glencairn in 2001 (after Sinclair was fined $40,000 for illegally controlling Glencairn), the FCC refused to allow Sinclair to buy WBSC and five other Glencairn stations. The FCC had already allowed Media General, owner of WSPA, to buy LMA partner WASV-TV (now WYCW-TV) outright, and a Sinclair purchase of WBSC would have left the Greenville-Spartanburg-Asheville market with only seven unique station owners. FCC rules require a market to be left with eight unique station owners after a duopoly is formed. Glencairn changed its name to Cunningham Broadcasting, but is stock is still almost entirely owned by the Smith family. As a result, Sinclair still effectively has a duopoly in the market. There is considerable evidence that Cunningham is simply a shell corporation used by Sinclair to evade FCC rules.

The WLOS-WBSC arrangement led Sinclair Media Watch, an Asheville-based grassroots organization, to file an informal objection to WBSC and WLOS' license renewals in 2004.

On March 2, 2006, it was announced that WBSC would become the My Network TV affiliate for the Greenville-Spartanburg-Asheville market when the WB had shut down in September 2006. On June 19, WBSC changed its call letters to WMYA-TV to reflect its upcoming affiliation.

[edit] Previous Logos

Former WB40 logo.

[edit] External links

• WMYA-TV homepage
• Sinclair Media Watch challenge to WBSC's license
• Query the FCC's TV station database for WMYA

Broadcast television in the Greenville/Spartanburg/Asheville market  (Nielsen DMA #36)
WYFF 4 (NBC, WX Plus on DT2) - WSPA 7 (CBS) - WGTV 8 (PBS/GPB) - WLOS 13 (ABC, The Tube on DT2) - WGGS 16 (Rel./TBN) - WHNS 21 (Fox) - WNTV 29 / WNEH 38 / WRET 49 (PBS/SCETV) - W31AZ 31 / W50CL 50 / W50CZ 50 (TBN) - WNEG 32 (CBS) - WUNF 33 (PBS/UNC-TV) - WMYA 40 (MNTV) - WYCW 62 (The CW) - WAEN-LP 64 (A1)