WAWV-TV

WAWV is the ABC-affiliated television station for the Wabash Valley area of west central Indiana that is licensed to Terre Haute. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 39 from a transmitter at their studios on U.S. 41 and U.S. 150 south of Farmersburg. Owned by Mission Broadcasting, the station is operated through a joint sales agreement (a.k.a. JSA) by the Nexstar Broadcasting Group. This makes WAWV a sister station to NBC affiliate WTWO. Syndicated programming on this station includes: Two and a Half Men, Family Guy, and Judge Judy.

History
The station began on April 3, 1973 as WIIL-TV, a full-time affiliate of ABC. Prior to 1973, the network had been relegated to partial clearances on WTHI-TV and WTWO. Originally assigned to broadcast on UHF channel 66, the station eventually gained permission to broadcast on UHF channel 38. The original owner, Alpha Broadcasting, poured money into the new operation. However, the local market situation led the station immediately into the red.

Viewers had strongly entrenched viewing habits with the longer-established VHF stations WTWO and WTHI, although WTWO was less than a decade old, and were not as familiar with the then-weaker ABC network lineup. At one point in 1974, the station nearly went off the air, but managed to survive. In 1978, North Carolina broadcaster Cy Bahakel purchased the station renaming it WBAK-TV (after his last name). Faith to Live By, a short daily devotional program that previously aired on WTWO, was seen weekday mornings immediately after WBAK's sign-on. Despite stronger ownership, WBAK barely registered as a blip in the Wabash Valley ratings.

In 1995, the station changed affiliation to FOX citing low ratings from the then-overabundance of (stronger-rated) outlying ABC affiliates. Originally, most cable companies in the market carried either WRTV from Indianapolis, WTVW from Evansville, or Decatur, Illinois' WAND-TV in addition to WBAK. In addition to cable, the eastern half of the market (including most of Terre Haute itself) was covered fairly well by WRTV. The flat terrain of much of the market enabled those competing stations a stronger-than-normal signal reach than would have occurred had the landscape been hilly or mountainous. While leaving the Terre Haute area without an over-the-air ABC affiliate, the network switch gave the market its first-ever FOX network affiliate. That network had previously only been available through cable via either the now-defunct FOXNET or Indianapolis' WXIN. Ironically, the network switch actually helped WBAK, which had languished for years as an ABC affiliate.

The outlying ABC affiliates also went through changes. In 1995, WTVW switched to FOX leaving many viewers in the southern half of the DMA without ABC programming. While WTVW's signal decently covered the southern half of the market, new Evansville ABC affiliate WEHT suffered from a weaker UHF signal. In 2005, WAND switched to NBC. ABC was then picked up in that market by WICD in Champaign which replaced WAND on cable systems in the Illinois part of the Terre Haute market. Over-the-air viewers actually benefited from this switch as WICD's transmitter is located near the Illinois/Indiana border and provides a stronger signal.

Bahakel sold WBAK to Mission Broadcasting in 2003. The station then entered into a JSA Nexstar Broadcasting, owner of WTWO. WBAK's call letters were changed to the current WFXW on July 1, 2005.

This station's analog signal was off-the-air between April 16, 2008 and May 9. Their transmitter failed and was dark approximately ten minutes into the American Idol results show. Many viewers were upset over missing the rest of the show. However, its digital signal was used to restore service to local cable systems as well as the signal seen on Dish Network. The American Idol broadcasts during the week of April 21 aired on sister station WTWO. On May 9, the analog signal was restored to service. WFXW's low-power digital signal went off-the-air December 3, 2008 at 9 in the morning to finish work on the digital transmitter. The station came back on-the-air later that same evening in full power digital with a much stronger signal. The analog signal was shut-off permanently at 6:01 P.M. on June 12, 2009.

WFXW is one of three original ABC affiliates in Indiana to have switched to FOX. The other two are WSJV in South Bend and sister station WTVW in Evansville.

Return to ABC
On June 28, 2011, Nexstar signed a long-term deal with ABC to renew the affiliations of the company's existing affiliate in nine other markets; the deal also included an affiliation agreement with WFXW, which would disaffiliate from Fox and rejoin ABC beginning September 1, in a reversal of its 1995 affiliation switch. Nexstar also announced that channel 38 would change its call letters to WAWV-TV (standing for "ABC for the Wabash Valley") at that time. The move came after sister stations WTVW in Evansville, WFFT-TV in Fort Wayne and KSFX-TV (now KOZL-TV) in Springfield, Missouri were stripped of their Fox affiliations following a dispute involving Nexstar and the network over a planned payment increase of its affiliates' retransmission consent fees to Fox.

On August 25, 2011, LIN Media signed an agreement with Fox to move its programming to WTHI's second digital subchannel, which would also add sister programming service MyNetworkTV as a secondary affiliation. This made Terre Haute one of the only U.S. television markets where all three historical commercial broadcast networks (ABC, CBS and NBC) maintained primary affiliations, the Fox and MyNetworkTV affiliations were relegated to a digital subchannel, and The CW (which is currently available in the market on WTHI Subchannel 10-3). The last Fox program to air on WFXW was an episode of Buried Treasure on August 31, 2011, which ended at 10:00 p.m. Eastern Time (9:00 p.m. Central on the Illinois side of the market). All Fox programming moved to WTHI-DT2 starting at 5:00 a.m. the following day. The rebranded station also adopted the brand "WAWV ABC," removing all references to its channel 38 allocation, along with a new logo.

News Operation
In 1973, the station carried a weeknight newscast known as the WIIL-TV Evening News, but this only lasted until 1974. In 1978, local news returned in the form of News 38 which was largely composed of former WTHI employees. This incarnation of local news, which ran as a single daily broadcast, folded in 1981. For the rest of its run as an ABC affiliate, practically the only newscast on the station was Good Morning Terre Haute, a morning show which consisted of taped interviews and a weather forecast.

At the same time that the station switched to FOX, an agreement was reached with WTHI to provide a 10 o'clock prime time news for the newly christened "FOX 38". The station's morning interview program, Good Morning Terre Haute, continued for a short period as Valley Focus on FOX 38. This ended in 1996 as did the devotional program Faith To Live By. Valley Point of View, a weekly public affairs program produced by the Leadership Terre Haute organization, continued on this station until 2004. The WTHI-produced newscast lasted until December 31, 2003 some time after WTWO had taken control of WBAK under a joint sales agreement (JSA). In mid-2004, that station premiered its own 10 P.M. newscast on WBAK entitled NewsChannel 2 Prime Edition. This broadcast utilized the same talent and resources as WTWO's weeknight 6 and 11 newscasts.

After the call letter switch, the 10 o'clock news was re-branded to FOX 38 News at 10 for a brief period then later to WFXW Prime Edition. Originally, the broadcast featured its own news anchor, set, graphics, and music package. On June 7, 2007, the branding was amended to WTWO Prime Edition on WFXW. The format of the newscast was essentially the same as WTWO by this point and featured the main WTWO talent and no longer utilized a separate news set.

On June 8, 2009, the news was revamped and re-branded to FOX 38 News: First at 10. Though still produced by WTWO, the revamped broadcast once again featured a separate news set, graphics package (the same used by many FOX owned-and-operated stations and affiliates), and news music. It was solo anchored by Leanne Tokars who returned to the station in 2009. She originally anchored the first WTWO-produced FOX 38 News at 10 incarnation in 2005. Weather and sports still originate from WTWO's staff. Aside from the stand-alone live weeknight 10 o'clock news, previously WFXW did rebroadcast the 6 A.M. hour of WTWO's weekday morning news at 7 (known on this station as NBC 2 News Today on WFXW).

When the station rejoined ABC, WTWO moved its hour-long 5:00 p.m. newscast, Live at Five, to WAWV-TV. However, the 7:00 a.m. rebroadcast of WTWO's weekday morning newscast was dropped, as ABC airs Good Morning America in that timeslot (though WTWO does provide local news and weather updates during that program, along with half-hourly news and weather updates seen throughout the day, and a special agricultural-related forecast during AgDay on weekday mornings); the existing 10:00 p.m. newscast was removed from the station as well, as unlike Fox, ABC provides prime time network programming during that hour, though it was transitioned into the online-only WAWV News First at Ten, a 15-minute program that was streamed on the website shared by WTWO/WAWV until it was discontinued on December 28, 2012; the station otherwise does not carry a newscast in the traditional 11:00 p.m. timeslot. On September 10, 2012, WAWV launched a half-hour midday newscast at noon on weekdays.

Current News team

 * Dana Winklepleck
 * Jesse Walker

Former News Staff


 * Jason Pensky
 * Leanne Tokars
 * Janet Van De Winkle

''Additional personnel from WTWO are seen on this station. See the WTWO article for a compete listing.''

Newscast titles

 * WIIL-TV Evening News (1973–1974)
 * News 38 (1977–1981)
 * Action 10 News Nightwatch on Fox 38 (1995–1999)
 * Fox 38 News at Ten (1999–2004 and June-August 2005)
 * NewsChannel 2 Prime Edition (10 p.m. newscast; 2004–2005)
 * WFXW Prime Edition (10 p.m. newscast; 2005–2007)
 * WTWO Prime Edition on WFXW (10 p.m. newscast; 2007–2009)
 * FOX 38 News: First at 10 (10 p.m. newscast; 2009–2011)
 * WAWV News (2011-Present)