WHOI (channel 19) is atelevision station inPeoria, Illinois, United States, broadcasting thedigital multicast networkTBD.Owned and operated bySinclair Broadcast Group, the station maintains a transmitter on Springfield Road (alongI-474) inEast Peoria, a section ofGroveland Township,Tazewell County. WHOI was theABC affiliate for the market until 2016.

WHOI was Peoria's second television station, signing-on as WTVH-TV on October 20, 1953. The station was founded by Hugh Norman and Edward Schoede. Hilltop Broadcasting, which co-owned thePeoria Journal Star bought the station in 1954.^[3] Its first studios were on Main Street in Peoria. Originally broadcasting ananalog signal onVHF channel 8,^[4] it was a primaryCBS affiliate but also carried shows from ABC andDuMont. WTVH lost DuMont when the network ceased operations in 1955, and lost CBS whenWMBD-TV (channel 31) began broadcasting. WTVH dropped the "-TV" suffix in its callsign on August 3, 1955.

The Metropolitan Broadcasting Corporation, later known asMetromedia, purchased the station in 1959. In 1963, WTVH was bumped down to UHF channel 19 so that a thirdcommercial VHF station could sign-on in theQuad Cities using that channel (the new station,WQAD-TV, is also an ABC affiliate). In 1965, Metromedia sold the station to Mid-America Media, owners ofWIRL radio (1290 AM) who, on September 13 of that year, changed the call sign to WIRL-TV. It became WRAU-TV in 1971 and adopted its present calls of WHOI on March 17, 1985. TheWTVH call sign was picked up by a station inSyracuse, New York, in 1976.

In 1987, WHOI came under the ownership of Adams Communications following a merger with its previous owner, Forward Communications. The station was sold to Brissette Broadcasting in 1991, then toBenedek Broadcasting in 1996. When Benedek declaredChapter 7 bankruptcy in 2002, WHOI was sold to Chelsey Broadcasting instead ofGray Television (which is coincidentally the current owner of WEEK-TV after acquiringQuincy Media in 2021). In April 2004, WHOI,KHQA-TV in theHannibal, Missouri–Quincy, Illinoismedia market, andWEYI-TV inSaginaw, Michigan, became three of the founding stations ofBarrington Broadcasting.

WHOI carried some programming fromUPN, includingStar Trek: Voyager, from the network's launch in January 1995^[5] untilWAOE (channel 59) went on the air in 1999. Starting in 1998, WHOI began to run acable-onlyWB affiliate. Known by the fictional call sign "WBPE", it was on channel 4 on mostcable systems in the area. On September 18, 2006, when The WB and UPNmerged to create The CW, "WBPE" became part ofThe CW Plus which is a similar operation to The WB 100+. WHOI added a new seconddigital subchannel to simulcast this programming to offer non-cable subscribers access to The CW. The channel then began to use WHOI-DT2 as its official calls.^[6]

WHOI has been digital-only since February 17, 2009^[7] with the "WHOI" calls being transferred from the now-defunct analog channel 19 to the new digital channel 19 and the "WHOI-DT" call sign from the pre-transition digital channel 40 being permanently discontinued. However, the short name still identifies the station's main channel on 19.1 as "WHOI-DT".

On March 2, 2009, it was made public that rivalWEEK-TV (channel 25) would take over the operations of WHOI throughjoint sales andshared services agreements. It resulted in WHOI closing its longtime studios near its transmitter in Creve Coeur and moving into WEEK-TV's facility on Springfield Road, alongI-474, inEast Peoria. Sixteen employees were transferred to WEEK-TV but as many as thirty werelaid off immediately.^[3] This left the five full-power commercial stations in the market operated by two entities; WEEK-TV already controlled the market'sMyNetworkTV outlet, WAOE (owned by Four Seasons Broadcasting), under a separate joint sales agreement (JSA). WHOI's website was immediately changed to a redirect to WEEK-TV's web address. As part of the agreement, Granite-owned CBS affiliate WTVH merged its operations with Barrington's NBC affiliateWSTM-TV andlow-power CW affiliateWSTQ-LP in a similar arrangement on the same day.^[8]

On February 28, 2013, Barrington Broadcasting announced the sale of its entire group, including WHOI, to the Sinclair Broadcast Group.^[9] Sinclair already owned the license ofWYZZ-TV (channel 43), which was sold toCunningham Broadcasting to satisfyFederal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations onduopoly ownership. While most of Cunningham's stations are operated by Sinclair though local marketing agreements, WYZZ is operated separately by theNexstar Media Group at the facility of CBS outlet WMBD-TV. The sale was completed on November 25.^[10] On February 11, 2014, it was announced that Quincy, Illinois–basedQuincy Newspapers would acquire WEEK-TV fromGranite Broadcasting. Originally, Quincy intended to continue providing services to WHOI but Sinclair gave notice that the JSA/SSA between WHOI and WEEK-TV (which was originally set to expire in March 2017) would be terminated within nine months of Quincy closing on its purchase of WEEK-TV.^[11] The Quincy/Granite sale was completed on November 2, 2015.^[12]

On July 26, 2016, Quincy Media announced that it had acquired WHOI's ABC and CW affiliations, and would consolidate them onto subchannels of WEEK beginning August 1, 2016.^[13] As an aspect of this deal, Quincy-ownedWSJV inSouth Bend similarly relinquished its Fox affiliation to Sinclair-ownedWSBT-TV.^[14] The ABC and CW subchannels were simulcast on WHOI for 60 days following the consolidation.^[15] After the end of the transition period, theComet TV affiliation moved to WHOI's main 19.1 channel, making WHOI an owned-and-operated station of Comet.^[16]

On July 1, 2020, Sinclair shifted TBD to WHOI's primary channel, with Comet moving to WHOI-DT2.^[17]

The station's signal ismultiplexed:

• Channel 4 branded TV stations in the United States
• Channel 24 digital TV stations in the United States
• Channel 19 virtual TV stations in the United States

• 1953 establishments in Illinois
• Charge! (TV network) affiliates
• Comet (TV network) affiliates
• Metromedia
• Sinclair Broadcast Group
• TBD (TV network) affiliates
• Television channels and stations established in 1953
• Television stations in Peoria, Illinois

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