WVAH-TV (channel 11) is atelevision station licensed toCharleston, West Virginia, United States, serving the Charleston–Huntingtonmarket as an affiliate of thedigital multicast networkCatchy Comedy. It is owned byCunningham Broadcasting, which maintains alocal marketing agreement (LMA) withSinclair Broadcast Group, owner of dualABC/Fox affiliateWCHS-TV (channel 8, also licensed to Charleston), for the provision of certain services. However, Sinclair effectively owns WVAH-TV as the majority of Cunningham's stock is owned by the family of deceased group founder Julian Smith. The two stations share studios on Piedmont Road in Charleston; WVAH-TV's transmitter is located atop Coal Mountain, south ofScott Depot, West Virginia.

The station began airing ananalog signal on UHF channel 23 on September 19, 1982, with anElvis Presley movie marathon. It was owned by the newly created Meridian Communications based out ofPittsburgh, which won the license after theWest Virginia Legislature forcedWest Virginia Public Broadcasting to withdraw its own application for the channel. It was the firstindependent station in West Virginia, as well as the first new commercial station in the market since what is nowWOWK-TV (channel 13) signed-on in 1955, and the first commercial UHF station in the state sinceWKNA-TV in Charleston went off-the-air in 1955. Studios were located on Mount Vernon Road inTeays Valley, an unincorporated area halfway between Huntington and Charleston, though its mailing address saidHurricane (the two areas share a ZIP code). It became a charterFox affiliate on October 9, 1986.Act III Broadcasting bought the station in 1987, along withWRGT-TV inDayton, Ohio, from Meridian Communications, in a two-station group deal.^[2]

Soon after buying control, Act III applied to move the station to theVHF band. Despite broadcasting from a 1,500-foot (457 m) tower with the maximum five millionwatts of power, WVAH had considerable difficulty penetrating the market. The Charleston–Huntington market covers 61 counties in Central West Virginia, EasternKentucky, and SouthernOhio. Most of this area is a very ruggeddissected plateau, and as a result, UHF stations usually do not get good reception in this kind of terrain. Some areas of the market were among the few wherecable television still wasn't available. As a result, WVAH was permitted to switch to VHF channel 11 on April 11, 1988,^[3] barely two years after Fox's launch. This marked the first time that any station in the United States signed off as a UHF station, and return to the air as a VHF station.^[4] However, the station was short-spaced toWPXI in Pittsburgh andWJHL-TV inJohnson City, Tennessee. It then had to conform its signal to protect WJHL. As a result, it did not provide a clear over-the-air signal to the southwestern part of the market.

On January 16, 1995, WVAH began airingUPN programming during overnight hours. However, the station could not clear the entire schedule and dropped the network in early 2000.

Act III merged with Abry Broadcast Partners in 1995, with the company's stations coming under the Sullivan Broadcasting banner.^[5] In 1998, Sullivan merged withSinclair Broadcast Group.^[6] A year earlier, Sinclair had purchased the broadcasting properties ofHeritage Media, which included WCHS (the remainder of Heritage Media went toNews Corporation). It could not keep both WCHS and WVAH due toFederal Communications Commission (FCC) rules in effect at the time forbidding duopolies. Sinclair opted to keep the longer-established WCHS and sold WVAH to Glencairn, Ltd. which was headed by former Sinclair executive Edwin Edwards. However, nearly all of Glencairn's stock was held by the Smith family, owners, and founders of Sinclair. In effect, Sinclair still owned WVAH. Sinclair further circumvented the rules by signing a local marketing agreement with Glencairn that allowed it to continue operating WVAH. While WVAH retained its own studios in Teays Valley, most of its operations were merged into WCHS' studios in Charleston.

In 2001, Sinclair tried to acquire Glencairn outright, but the FCC did not allow Sinclair to re-acquire WVAH because it does not allow common ownership of two of the four highest-rated stations in a single market. As a result, Glencairn kept WVAH and changed its name to Cunningham Broadcasting. However, nearly all of Cunningham's stock is controlled by trusts in the name of the Smith family. There is virtually irrefutable evidence that Cunningham is ashell corporation that Sinclair operates to circumvent FCC ownership limits.

Following a tower collapse on February 19, 2003, WVAH moved its transmitter and almost all of its facilities to WCHS' studios in Charleston. However, its main studios remained in Teays Valley until late 2009.

On May 15, 2012, Sinclair and Fox agreed to a five-year extension to the network's affiliation agreement with Sinclair's 19 Fox stations, including WVAH-TV, allowing them to continue carrying the network's programming until 2017.^[7]

On February 1, 2021, Sinclair moved its Fox affiliation to sister station WCHS-TV on channel 8.2, although it still markets the signal as "Fox 11". Sinclair did so in several markets to consolidate its affiliations onto stations owned directly by Sinclair rather than with its sidecar divisions.^[8] The station began to carry programming fromWeigel Broadcasting's Decades network (now known asCatchy Comedy).

In summer 2006,Charter Communications streamlined its operations which included selling off portions of its cable system which were "geographically non-strategic". Charter accounts in the Charleston–Huntington area were purchased bySuddenlink Communications (formerly known as Cebridge). Sinclair requested a $40 million one time fee and a $1 per sub per month fee from Suddenlink for retransmission rights of WVAH and WCHS on the Suddenlink cable system.^[9] This led to a protracted media battle and smear campaign between the two companies and Sinclair pulled the two stations from Suddenlink's lineup in theBeckley market. After several weeks of negotiations, the two companies reached an agreement allowing WVAH and WCHS to continue transmission over the Suddenlink cable system. The terms of the agreement were not released to the public.^[10]

As a Fox affiliate, WVAH had aired newscasts produced by sister station WCHS under theEyewitness News branding. This includedEyewitness News This Morning on Fox 11, which was seen weekday mornings from 6 to 8 a.m., along with a 6:30 p.m. half-hour newscast weeknights, and an hour-long 10 p.m. newscast every night until the Fox affiliation moved to WCHS-DT2 in February 2021.^[11]

WCHS and WVAH started the switch over tohigh definition in June 2012 by first installing a new HD Master Control room. In July 2012, the station started to remove the set from the studio that was installed in the late 1990s. The old news desk, backdrop, monitors, and the chroma key wall were moved to a small conference room in the station until the transition to HD news was completed. In late July 2012, the new set arrived from Devlin Design Group based out ofCrested Butte, Colorado. During the months of August and September, the new set was installed. On September 29, 2012, WCHS and WVAH became the third and fourth stations in the market to launch high definition newscasts.

The station's signal ismultiplexed:

WVAH-TV ended regular programming on its analog signal, over VHF channel 11, on February 17, 2009, the original target date on which full-power television stations in the United States were totransition from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate (which was later pushed back to June 12, 2009). The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transitionUHF channel 19, usingvirtual channel 11.^[13][14][15]

As part of theSAFER Act,^[16] WVAH-TV kept its analog signal on the air until June 26 to inform viewers of the digital television transition through a loop ofpublic service announcements from theNational Association of Broadcasters.

• Channel 11 virtual TV stations in the United States
• Channel 24 digital TV stations in the United States

• 1982 establishments in West Virginia
• Catchy Comedy affiliates
• Charge! (TV network) affiliates
• Comet (TV network) affiliates
• The Nest (TV network) affiliates
• Sinclair Broadcast Group
• Roar (TV network) affiliates
• Television channels and stations established in 1982
• Television stations in the Charleston–Huntington market

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