WESH (pronounced "wesh" in its branding) is the NBC affiliate in Orlando, Florida. It is licensed to Daytona Beach, with studio facilities in Winter Park. It transmits its digital signal on VHF channel 11, when viewed over the air PSIP will display 2.1. It is currently owned by Hearst Television along with the area's CW affiliate, WKCF. WESH's transmitter is located in Orange City, Florida. The tower is the tallest man-made structure in Florida, at 1,740 feet (530 m). WESH-TV can be seen on Bright House Networks channel 4 and Comcast channel 3.
Since the Gainesville market didn't carry a local NBC service, the station also served as the default NBC affiliate for the Gainesville market; this changed on January 1, 2009, when WNBW channel 9, the NBC affiliate for Gainesville, signed on the air (though Cox plan to keep WESH on its lineup).[2] WESH can also be seen on the fringes of the Tampa Bay and Jacksonville markets.
WESH was the first station in Orlando to carry an on-site radar facility, SuperDoppler 2 as opposed to relying on National Weather Service radars. It is installed on top of the tower located at the Winter Park broadcast studio. Today it also promotes a VIPIR 3D radar system, taking advantage of the fact that the radars at Melbourne, Tampa, Jacksonville and Miami can all reach Orlando, in addition to SuperDoppler 2.
The primary news anchors at WESH are Martha Sugalski and Jim Payne. The position of "Chief Meteorologist" was formerly held by Dave Marsh, who retired on July 31, 2006, after 37 years at WESH. Tony Mainolfi was named the new "Chief Meteorologist" on May 3, 2007.
[edit] History
WESH first went on the air on June 11, 1956. Businessman W. Wright Esch (for whom the station is named) won the license, but sold it to Perry Publications of Palm Beach just before the station went on the air. The original studio was located in Holly Hill, near Daytona Beach.
WESH has always been an NBC affiliate. However, WESH's original tower was only 300 feet (91 m) high, which was tiny even by 1950s standards. This limited its coverage to Volusia County. As such, it shared the NBC affiliation in Central Florida with WDBO-TV (now WKMG-TV). It finally became the sole NBC affiliate for the Central Florida market on November 5, 1957. On that day, the station activated a new 1,000-foot (300 m) tower in Orange City. WESH's tower is located farther north than the other major Orlando stations because of FCC rules requiring a station's tower to be within 15 miles (24 km) of its city of license. Also, WESH is short-spaced to WPBT, the PBS member station in Miami.
Perry sold WESH to Cowles Communications of Des Moines, Iowa in 1965. Cowles later moved its headquarters to Daytona Beach, and built a satellite studio in Winter Park. Cowles exited broadcasting in 1984 and sold two of its stations, WESH and Des Moines' KCCI, to H&C Communications of Houston. Under H&C, WESH closed its original Holly Hill studio in 1989, replacing it with a new studio on Ridgewood Avenue (U.S. 1), near International Speedway Boulevard (US 92) in Daytona Beach. The station's primary operations also moved to a brand new studio in Winter Park in 1991, located on Wymore Road, alongside Interstate 4.
In 1980, while still owned by Cowles, the station built its current tower on the same site as the 1,000-foot (300 m) tower. The new tower allowed for WESH to expand its coverage into areas like Lakeland, Gainesville, and St. Augustine. The channel 2 signal travels a very long distance under normal conditions. The 1,000-foot (300 m) tower was dismantled in the late 80's.
The Hobby family, owners of H&C, exited broadcasting in 1995, selling off its stations to various owners. WESH and KCCI were sold to Pulitzer. Pulitzer sold its entire broadcasting division, including WESH and KCCI, to Hearst-Argyle in 1999. This gave WESH its third owner in 15 years.
On May 8, 2006, Hearst-Argyle announced its purchase of then-WB (now CW) affiliate WKCF from Emmis Communications. Emmis is also exiting broadcast television so it could concentrate on radio. This acquisition was completed on August 31, 2006; resulting in Orlando's third commercial duopoly operation. Orlando's other two duoplies are Cox-owned WFTV/WRDQ and Fox-owned WOFL/WRBW. WESH began producing a morning newscast for WKCF in January 2007. WESH also produces a nightly weathercast for its independent sister station serving the Tampa Bay market, WMOR-TV.
Since the 1980s, WESH's newscasts have usually been in second place in the Central Florida television market to WFTV. However, from 2004 to 2008, WESH's newscasts have traded second and third place with WKMG, while its 4 pm newscast, which was launched in 2007, has continued to trail The Oprah Winfrey Show on WFTV by a wide margin. This coincided with NBC's recent ratings struggles. In the March 2009 ratings period, however, WESH regained second place in most newscast timeslots except at 11 pm. And as of May 2009, WESH is the only station in Central Florida which airs a newscast at 4 pm since WKMG cancelled its late afternoon newscasts. The May ratings period found WESH's morning and 11 pm newscasts nearly tying WFTV in the Adults 25-54 demo, and (continuing its ratings upswing) all of its newscasts came in second in total households.
WESH called its news department "NewsCenter 2" for most of the 1980s, and it's eleven o'clock newscast was called the NewsCenter 2 Nightcast. The station then switched to "Newschannel 2" in the 1990s before adopting the current "WESH 2 News" in 2005. Also in 2005, it began pronouncing the call letters as a word.
WESH began broadcasting newscasts in high definition on November 1, making WESH the 2nd station in Orlando to go HD behind WFTV, and the 4th Hearst-Argyle station to go HD. [1] Their graphics are similar in ways to sister stations WCVB and KMBC. As part of the HD revamp, music from the NBC Collection (which they used for openings, teases and bumpers since 2005) officially replaced the mandated Hearst TV News Music package while the chimes of "Where the News Comes First" were retained during the weekly forecast. However, as of November 2008, the Hearst TV News Music Package (with the de facto "Where the News Comes First" signature) has been fully reinstated.
[edit] Personalities
[edit] Anchors
- Jim Payne, 4pm-6:30pm and 11pm
- Martha Sugalski, 4pm-6:30pm and 11pm
- Scott Walker, 5am-7am, 7am-9am (CW) and 12pm
- Syan Rhodes, 5am-7am, 7am-9am (CW) and 12pm
- Eryka Washington, Weekends 5am-8am and weekday morning reporter
- Aixa Diaz, Weekends 6pm and 11pm and weekday reporter
[edit] Meteorologists
- Tony Mainolfi, Chief, 5pm-6:30pm & 11pm (CBM/NWA)
- Amy Sweezey, 12pm and 4pm (CBM/NWA)
- Jason Brewer, 5am-7am and 7am-9am (CW) (CBM)
- Malachi Rodgers, Weekend mornings 5am-8am and evenings 6pm and 11pm (AMS)
- Dan Billow, Fill-in meteorologist and space reporter (AMS)
[edit] Sportscasters
- Guy Rawlings, weeknights 6pm and 11pm
- Pat Clarke, weekend sports anchor 6pm and 11pm, Host of UCF Sports Sunday (12pm during football season) and sports reporter
[edit] Reporters
- Danielle Bellini, General assignment reporter
- Bob Kealing, Investigative reporter
- Jeff Lennox, General assignment reporter (AM) & fill-in anchor
- Craig Lucie, General assignment reporter
- Dan McCarthy, Chopper 2 pilot
- Dave McDaniel, Seminole County reporter
- Michelle Meredith, Investigative reporter
- Claire Metz, Volusia/Flagler County reporter
- Amanda Ober, General assignment reporter & fill-in anchor
- Kendra Oestreich, General assignment reporter
- Gail Paschall-Brown, General Assignment reporter
- Tim Trudell, General assignment reporter
- Kimberly Williams, Traffic reporter weekdays from 5am-7am and 7am-9am (CW)
- Todd Wilson, General assignment reporter
[edit] Notable alumni
- Jay Barbree
- Mike Boguslawski
- Wayne Bennett
- Robin Chapman
- Wendy Chioji
- Andrea Coudriet
- Stacey Donaldson - now at KCNC-TV
- Bruce Hamilton - now at WJXT
- Ed Heiland
- David Johnson - now at WPXI-TV
- Dave Marsh
- John McIntire
- Marc Middleton
- Brad Nitz - now at WSB-TV
- John O'Connor - now at WTEV-TV
- Sheila O'Connor
- Mike O'Lenick
- Joe Oliver
- Buddy Pittman
- Laural Porter - now at KGW
- Lisa Rayam - now at WAGA
- Steve Rondinaro - now at WWAY
- Terry Sater - now at WISN-TV
- Dan Satterfield - now at WHNT-TV
- Stuart Scott - now at ESPN
- Bill Shafer
- Marty Stebbins
[edit] Digital television
WESH had carried NBC Weather Plus as a digital subchannel 2.2; national WX+ operations have since been terminated by the originating network, effective December 1, 2008.
After the analog television shutdown and digital conversion to take place on June 12, 2009, WESH will continue digital broadcasts on its current pre-transition channel number, 11. [3] However, through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers will display WESH's virtual channel as 2. WESH will be the only VHF station in Orlando after the DTV transition, since WFTV and WKMG-TV will opt for the UHF dial instead.
[edit] External links
[edit] References
