WDTV in West Virginia is a CBS affiliate broadcasting in North-Central West Virginia. The station broadcasts in HD on VHF Ch 5 from a transmitter maintained in Arlington and Clarksburg. It is carried by Charter Spectrum, Comcast Xfinity and Suddenlink. Gray Television is the owner of the service that shares duopoly with WVFX. The two sisters share space on Television Drive in Bridgeport.
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Read MoreCatchphrase: Live, Local News
Sub-channels: 5.1 CBS
5.2 MeTV
5.3 Heroes & Icons
Siblings: WSAZ, WVFX
Website: www.wdtv.com/
History
WDTV launched as WJPB-TV on March 17, 1954 as second channel in the market and was originally licensed to Fairmont. It was primarily an NBC affiliate having secondary affiliations with CBS and ABC. Parkesburg-based WTAP was the maiden service in the area that signed on air on Oct 8, 1953. Primarily an NBC service, the service cleared content from ABC, CBS and NBC. There was an understanding to link WJPB and WTAP to create one large market in North-Central West Virginia. However, due to the weak signal strength of WWTAP in Fairmont, Clarksburg and Weston the plan couldn’t be materialized. The analog signal of JPB on UHF Ch 35 also didn’t have the adequate reception in Parkesburg. Another issue was the expensiveness of UHF converters which led WJPB to shut down on Feb 28, 1955. WBOY went on air on Nov 17, 1957 as the third station in the market.
WBOY was originally going to be an ABC affiliate however, this changed when it was reckoned that Parkesburg and Clarksburg/Fairmont were going to be separate markets; the channel joined NBC instead and is with the network to the date. A construction permit was granted to WJPB for VHF Ch 5 on Dec 30, 1959. The callsign was changed to WDTV in 1965; the call letters were previously used by a Pittsburgh based service from 1949 until 1954. It became a CBS affiliate in 1967 and is one of the few channels in the US that has maintained primary affiliation with all Big Three networks. Nevertheless, it for a number of years continued to host WBOY and ABC content and select sports programming since the market was running without an ABC affiliate. The cable carriers then went on to bring WTAE-TV from Pittsburg to offer ABC in the market. On May 13, 2016, Gray Television acquired the outlet on May 13, 2016. Gray took over the operations via an LMA on June 1, 2007 and the deal closed on May 1, 2017.
Programming
Notable syndicated content carried by the service includes Judge Judy, Live with Kelly and Ryan and Entertainment Tonight. It started news operations in HD on Nov 12, 2011 making it third in the state of West Virginia to offer local news in HD. Local news, weather alerts, sports stories, closings, contests and more. Follow the service on Facebook and Twitter. Here is the website: https://www.wdtv.com/
