WEAR-TV

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WEAR-TV

Pensacola, Florida
Branding	WEAR ABC3
Slogan	Your Clear Choice for News
Channels	3 (VHF) analog, 17 (UHF) digital
Affiliations	ABC(secondary until 1955)
Owner	Sinclair Broadcast Group
Founded	January 13, 1954
Call letters meaning	The word EAR
Former affiliations	CBS
Transmitter Power	100 kW (analog) 8.3 kW (digital)
Website	www.weartv.com

WEAR is the ABC affiliate for the Pensacola, Florida, Mobile, Alabama, and Fort Walton Beach, Florida viewing area. It is one of two major commercial stations in the market that is licensed on the Florida side of the market, the other being sister station WFGX, a My Network TV affiliate.

Its transmitter is located near Robertsdale, Alabama, and its studios are located on Mobile Highway in southwest Pensacola.

As a Pensacola-based station, their newscasts tend to focus on coverage of the Northwestern Florida area as opposed to WKRG and WPMI, which predominantly feature news concerning the southern Alabama area.

WEAR is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, which prohibited Nightline broadcast in 2004 because the company felt it was near anti-war rhetoric. Prior to July 19, 2005 Sinclair prohibited WEAR from broadcasting Jimmy Kimmel Live in the late night time slot. WEAR also chose not to air the soap opera Port Charles for its entire six year run, instead focusing on the lucrative before-noon news telecast Dayside.

WEAR also operates WFGX, a MyNetworkTV affiliate station broadcasting on channel 35.

1 Personnel
2 History
3 Mediacom dispute
4 Notable WEAR Alumni
5 External links

[edit] Personnel

The WEAR news desk is headed by Bob Solarski, who has been anchor since March 1994 and was the host and producer of Channel 3 News This Week with Bob Solarski. "This Week with Bob Solarski" had a ten year run from 1994 to 2004. Solarski also hosted a live call-in program after the late news called "Extra" which ran from 2003 to 2006. The News at Ten now runs a full hour, weekdays, from 10-11pm.

Francesca Maximé joined Bob Solarski as Co-Anchor of the News at 10 in October, 2006. A Harvard graduate who previously worked as a reporter and anchor in Boston, Philadelphia, and New York, Maximé also reports for the early evening newscasts at 5 and 6.

Allen Strum is the chief meteorologist and Dan Shugart is sports director and anchor.

Another key news anchor is Sue Straughn, who is one of the few black female news anchors in the area. She started at the station in 1973 as a clerk typist and now helms the Dayside, five o'clock and six o'clock newscasts.

[edit] History

WEAR began operation on January 13, 1954, which was almost a year after WALA began. The station was founded by Charles Smith and Mel Wheeler. Initially the station ran shows from both CBS and ABC. When WKRG signed on in 1955, WEAR became strictly an ABC affiliate.

In 1959, WEAR was sold to Rollins' Telecasting. The station continued as an ABC affiliate for many years. In 1987, Rollins Telecasting merged with Heritage Broadcasting to form Heritage Media. In October 1997, WEAR and the other Heritage stations were sold to Sinclair Broadcasting, just as the remainder of Heritage Media was merging with News Corporation (the parent company of Fox). This sale also protected former longtime NBC affiliate WALA as the market's Fox affiliate; otherwise, WEAR would have been forced to switch its network affiliation to Fox.

[edit] Mediacom dispute

In late 2006, Sinclair entered into negotiations with Mediacom, the main cable provider for much of the Florida side of the Mobile-Pensacola market (including Santa Rosa County and Pensacola Beach). The two companies could not reach agreement over compensation rights. As a result, Mediacom pulled all of Sinclair's stations, including WEAR, from its systems on January 6, 2007. The dispute ended on February 2, when the two sides reached an agreement that restored WEAR to Mediacom systems.

[edit] Notable WEAR Alumni

Peter Neumann (News Director) - Now News Director at WPTA-TV/WISE-TV in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

[edit] External links

Broadcast television in the Mobile, Alabama / Pensacola - Fort Walton Beach, Florida market (Nielsen DMA #59)
WEAR 3 (ABC) - WKRG 5 (CBS) - WRBD-LP 8 (Ind.) - WALA 10 (FOX) - WBQP-CA 12 (A1/S@H/MTV2) - WPMI 15 (NBC) - WMPV 21 (TBN) - WSRE 23 (PBS) - W30BX (HSN) - WHBR 33 (CTN) - WFGX 35 (MNTV/JWLTV) - W39BP (FamilyNet) - WEIQ 42 (PBS/APT) - WJTC 44 (Ind.) - WFBD 48 (Ind.)- WPAN 53 (S@H/JWLTV) - WBPG 55 (The CW) - WAWD 58 (Ind.) - WRBM-LP 60 (Ind.)

ABC Network Affiliates in the state of Florida

WEAR 3 (Pensacola) - WFTV 9 (Orlando) - WPLG 10 (Miami) - WMBB 13 (Panama City) - WCJB 20 (Gainesville) - WPBF 25 (Tequesta / West Palm Beach) - WJXX 25 (Orange Park / Jacksonville) - WZVN 26 (Naples) - WTXL 27 (Tallahassee) - WFTS 28 (Tampa) - WWSB 40 (Sarasota)
See also: CBS, CW, Fox, MyNetworkTV, NBC, PBS, Religious, Spanish and Other stations in the state of Florida

Sinclair Broadcast Group

v • d • e

CBS Network Affiliates: KGAN | WGME

NBC Network Affiliate: WTWC

¹Sinclair operates this station owned by Tennessee Broadcasting under an outsourcing agreement. Sinclair is looking to acquire the station outright.

²These stations are nominally owned by Cunningham Broadcasting and operated by Sinclair under local marketing agreements. However, Sinclair effectively owns Cunningham because it controls nearly all of Cunningham's stock.

³This station is involved in a "news-share" agreement with Cox Enterprises-owned WPXI.

⁴Sinclair has ownership interests in these stations, but management capabilities belong to Nexstar Broadcasting Group.

⁵Sinclair operates these stations, which are owned by local independent or private companies, with the execption of WTTA where Sinclair CEO David Smith is the station's majority owner.

⁶This station is involved in a "news share" with Meredith Corporation-owned WNEM-TV

⁷This station is involved in a "news share" with Sunbelt Communications Company-owned KVBC

⁸This station is involved in a "news share" with Disney/ABC-owned WTVD.

⁹This station is involved in a "news share" with Gannett-owned WGRZ.

Annual Revenue: $1.24 billion USD (2004) | Employees: Unknown at this time. | Stock Symbol: NASDAQ: SBGI | Website: www.sbgi.net

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WEAR-TV

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents

[edit] Personnel

[edit] History

[edit] Mediacom dispute

[edit] Notable WEAR Alumni

[edit] External links

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