WDTV

WDTV is the CBS-affiliated television station for North-Central West Virginia licensed to Weston. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on VHF channel 5 from a transmitter in anunincorporated area between Clarksburg and Arlington. The station can also be seen onComcast, Suddenlink, and Time Warner Cable channel 5. There is a high definition feed offered on Suddenlink digital channel 782 and Comcast digital channel 905. Locally-owned by the Withers Broadcasting Company, WDTV is sister to Fox/CW affiliate WVFX and the two share studios on Television Drive in Bridgeport along I-79/Jennings Randolph Expressway. However, the latter also maintains facilities on West Pike Street/SR 20 in Downtown Clarksburg.Syndicated programming on this station includes The Insider, Entertainment Tonight, Judge Judy, and Judge Joe Brown among others.

Digital programming
On WDTV-DT2 and Comcast digital channel 192 is The Local AccuWeather Channel.

Translators
The station has construction permits to air two digital fill-in translators on VHF. Both will have the same call sign as the main signal. WDTV also has a petition to add/modify a digital allotment on VHF channel 6 in Weston presumably for a third translator.

History
It signed-on as WJPB-TV on March 17, 1954 as the second television station in the marketlicensed to Fairmont. WJPB was a primary NBC affiliate but maintained secondary relations withABC and CBS. WTAP-TV in Parkersburg was technically the area's first outlet having launched October 8, 1953. That station cleared programming from NBC, CBS, and ABC but was intended to be a primary NBC outlet. Originally, there were plans calling for WJPB to join WTAP (located seventy miles to the west) and turn North-Central West Virginia into one giant market. However, the latter's analog signal on UHF channel 15 was not strong enough to reach across the very rugged dissected plateau to provide Fairmont, Clarksburg, and Weston with adequate reception. Likewise, WJPB's analog signal on UHF channel 35 did not reach Parkerburg. Those two issues, combined with the fact UHF converters were very expensive, led the station to shut down on February 28, 1955.

Meanwhile, the area's third station WBOY-TV signed-on from Clarksburg on November 17, 1957. That was originally intended to be the ABC affiliate for all of North-Central West Virginia. After it became clear Clarksburg/Weston/Fairmont and Parkersburg were going to be separate markets, WBOY joined NBC and remains with the network to this day. On December 30, 1959, WJPB's owner was awarded a construction permit for an analog signal on the more desirable VHF channel 5. It signed back on in June 1960 as a sole ABC affiliate licensed to Weston. In 1965, the station changed its call letters to WDTV. The calls had previously been used from 1949 until 1954 on what is now CBS O&O KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh. The call sign was reportedly chosen for use on this West Virginia outlet "in honor" of KDKA which had been a charter affiliate with DuMont and served as the default station to Clarksburg/Weston/Fairmont.

In 1967, WDTV switched primary affiliation to CBS. However, for many years it continued sharing ABC with WBOY and aired select sports programming from the network since the market was one of the few in the country without a primary ABC affiliate. The area's cable companies piped in WTAE-TV from Pittsburgh to bring the full ABC schedule to the area. At some point in the 1980s, WDTV and WBOY dropped ABC altogether. The network would not return to a Clarksburg/Weston/Fairmont based station until August 1, 2008 when WBOY launched a new second digital subchannel to offer the network. WDTV aired programming from UPN on its second digital subchannel until September 18, 2006 when the network merged with The WB to form The CW. WVFX, at the time owned separately from this station, became an affiliate with the new combined service (through The CW Plus) on a second digital subchannel.

In 2007, WFVX's owner Davis Television (relation unknown to Wisconsin company of the same name controlling WFXS-DT) merged with Withers Broadcasting. Since the Clarksburg/Weston/Fairmont market has only five full-powered stations, this amount is too few to allow a duopoly under normal Federal Communication Commission (FCC) guidelines. However, Withers obtained a "failed station" waiver allowing the purchase to go through. WDTV shut down analog transmissions on June 12, 2009 [1] and moved its digital broadcasts back to its previous analog channel. [2] Fairmont is technically the market's largest city because Morgantown (though only twenty miles north) has the largest population of any city in the geographic area and is part of the Pittsburgh market. Despite this technicality, the station is still able to sell commercials to businesses in that area. Locations around Morgantown are within reach of over-the-air signals from Pittsburgh stations. In addition to WDTV, most cable providers offer KDKA on their basic tiers. In some cases, that station's high definition feed is offered on the digital tiers instead of WDTV.

News operation
 After acquiring WVFX, WDTV made plans to produce a prime time newscast at 10 on the former. It would be the second time a broadcast has been attempted on the station in its history. In late-2010, the plans became a reality. The show is known as Fox 10 News at 10 and it features the Fox Interactive Media graphics package and music theme. WVFX also simulcasts WDTV's early evening broadcasts on weeknights from 5 until 6:30. This station does not air its weekday morning show for a full two hours unlike most CBS affiliates. It uses a similar graphics package to those seen on Hearst Televisionstations such as WTAE in Pittsburgh.WBOY currently leads WDTV in local Nielsen ratings because it operates a news bureau in Morgantown and provides other stations in the West Virginia Media Holdings group with a large amount of sports content relative to West Virginia University. However, WDTV's news department holds its own. In Summer 2005, its newscast operation and commercial production went completely digital using electronic news gathering cameras. The station was also first in West Virginia (and quite possibly the East Coast) to exchange audio and video files through various compression formats and high speed FTP servers.

Newscast titles

 * WJPB-TV News (1960-1964)
 * The Night Report (1964-1965)
 * TV-5 News (1965-1974)
 * Newsroom 5 (1974-1981)
 * NewsCentral 5 (1981-1985)
 * News 5 Alive (1985-1994)
 * News 5 (1994-1998)
 * NewsChannel 5 (1998-2008)
 * 5 News (2008-present)

Station slogans

 * You and Channel 5, We've Got the Touch (1984-1985; localized version of CBS ad campaign)
 * We've Got the Touch on 'DTV (1985-1986; localized version of CBS ad campaign)
 * Your Hometown News (1998-2008)
 * Live, Local News (2008-present)

News team
Anchors


 * Matt Heckel - weekday mornings and noon (also producer)
 * Brittany Hoke - weekday mornings and noon (also reporter)
 * Nate Smail- News Director seen weeknights at 5 and 6
 * Karilynn Galiotos- weeknights at 5:30 and 10pm (also producer)
 * Ben Katko- weeknights at 11
 * Katie Lusson- weekends and producer (weekday reporter)

5 News First Alert Stormcenter Team


 * Ken Meehan - Chief seen weeknights
 * Brandon Stover - weekday mornings and noon
 * Larry Hallock- weekends and "Going Green" segment producer

Sports


 * Joe Brocato - Director seen weeknights at 6, 10, and 11
 * Brad Bowden - weekends and reporter

Reporters


 * Melinda Myers - "Melinda's Garden Moment" segment producer
 * Nicole Porter - Harrison, Lewis and Doddridge Counties
 * Katie Lusso - Upshur, Randolph, and Barbour Counties
 * Ben Katko - Monongalia and Preston Counties
 * Lindsey Burnworth - weekends
 * Ashton Marra - weekends
 * Zach Maskell

Former on-air staff
Anchors


 * Ken Selvaggi - now at Raycom
 * Anne Linaberger - now at KDKA-TV
 * Flora Posteraro - now at WHTM-TV
 * Tim Irr - now at WSAZ-TV
 * Bill Murray - now at WSAZ-TV
 * Mary Ravasio - now at MSN
 * Mary Berecky - now at KDKA-TV
 * Tracy Carloss- now at WEWS-TV
 * Craig Friedman - now at WBNS-TV
 * Whitney Daniel - was at WVLT-TV
 * Alison Latos - now at WTOV-TV
 * Christi Paul - now at CNN Headline News
 * Jodine Costanzo - now at WPXI-TV
 * Tom Schaad - now at WAVY-TV
 * Karen Schroeder
 * Kate Weidaw - now at KXAN
 * Jennifer Vargo - was at KPTM-TV
 * Susan Barnett - now at KYW-TV
 * Eva Mastromatteo - now at WBRE-TV
 * Molly Line - now at Fox News Channel
 * Jeff Schrock - now at WBOY-TV
 * Amy Lutz - was at WCSC-TV
 * Andrea Mock - now at WLTX
 * Jessica Ralston - now at WSAZ
 * Jake Glance - now at WCHS-TV
 * Janice Carpio - now at WOAI-TV
 * Sunshine Wiles (now Selena) - now at WJET-TV
 * Kelli Nabors - now English Teacher in Hagerstown, MD
 * Nicole Ducouer - now at WXII-TV
 * Ron Corning - was at WNYW-TV
 * Jennifer Serda - now at WRBL-TV
 * Ashley Swann (Wharton) - now at WWBT-TV
 * Jeff Halliday - now Assistant Professor at Longwood University
 * John Cooper - weekend news, now at WBOY-TV and WOTR
 * Robert Glen "Bob" Bolyard - was news anchor and teen dance show host when WJPB-TV - deceased

<p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">Weather anchors


 * John Carlin - now at WSLS-TV
 * Mark Loudin - now at Ohio University
 * Tony Mainolfi - now at WESH-TV
 * Jason Cooper - now at NCDC
 * Brandon Butcher - now at WSHM-TV
 * Jason Parrish - now at WBOY-TV
 * James Canterbury - now at WTOL-TV
 * Bob Metcalfe - now at WROC-TV
 * Rusty McCranie - now at KOCO-TV
 * Whitney Kent- now at WVLT-TV

<p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">Sports anchors


 * Dave Stingo - now at WBOY-TV
 * Dan Potash - now at Fox Sports Pittsburgh
 * Sean Pragano - now at Speed Channel
 * Jason Knapp - now at CBS College Sports
 * Brian Sinkoff- now at WTMM-FM
 * Jeff Radcliffe - now at Bright House Sports Network Orlando, FL
 * Dave Weekley - now at The Charleston Gazette
 * Kurt Dusterberg - author of the non-fiction sports book Journeymen: 24 Bittersweet Tales of Short Major League Sports Careers
 * Jeff Halliday - now at Longwood University (Richmond, VA)
 * Sam Lordi - now at YNN Buffalo
 * Jon Linder- Sports Talk Show Host at WQAM in Miami, FL

<p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">Reporters