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|---|---|
| City | Winston-Salem, North Carolina |
| Channels | |
| Branding | WXII 12 |
| Programming | |
| Affiliations |
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| Ownership | |
| Owner |
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| WCWG | |
| History | |
First air date | September 30, 1953 (71 years ago) (1953-09-30) |
Former call signs |
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Former channel number(s) |
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| ABC (secondary, 1953–1963) | |
Call sign meaning | "XII" is theRoman numeral for 12 |
| Technical information[1] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 53921 |
| ERP | 1,000kW |
| HAAT | 571.9 m (1,876 ft) |
| Transmitter coordinates | 36°22′31″N80°22′25″W / 36.37528°N 80.37361°W /36.37528; -80.37361 |
| Links | |
Public license information | |
| Website | www |
WXII-TV (channel 12) is atelevision station licensed toWinston-Salem, North Carolina, United States, serving thePiedmont Triad region as an affiliate ofNBC. It is owned byHearst Television alongsideLexington-licensedCW affiliateWCWG (channel 20). WXII-TV and WCWG share studios on Coliseum Drive in Winston-Salem; through achannel sharing agreement, the stations transmit using WXII-TV's spectrum from an antenna onSauratown Mountain inStokes County.
The station first signed on the air on September 30, 1953, as WSJS-TV. It is the third-oldest surviving television station in North Carolina, behindCharlotte'sWBTV and channel 12's rival in theGreensboro market,WFMY-TV. The station at first was owned by a partnership of Piedmont Publishing, publishers of theWinston-Salem Journal andTwin City Sentinel, and Hollywood starMary Pickford and her husbandCharles "Buddy" Rogers. It took its calls from Piedmont Publishing's WSJS radio (600 AM and 104.1 FM, nowWTQR),[2] which in turn took them from the newspapers' initials.
Johnny Beckman, an early employee, recalled working at WSJS-TV in those early years:
There were three of us, and we all did multiple jobs—the weather, commercials, a teenage dance party. We were all scrambling around trying to make a living. Broadcasting was not high-paying then. The pay has certainly improved, but it was a more enjoyable career than it has become now.[3]
The station has always been affiliated with NBC.ABC programming was shared (through a secondary affiliation) with WFMY untilWGHP (channel 8) signed on in October 1963. The station's operations were originally housed from the basement of the WSJS studios on Spruce Street in Winston-Salem. The first broadcast was of the first game of the1953 World Series between theNew York Yankees and theBrooklyn Dodgers. Channel 12 originally broadcast its signal from an antenna nearKernersville. WSJS-TV opened its new transmitter site atop Sauratown Mountain in 1955. In 1959, Piedmont exercised an option agreement to buy out Pickford and Rogers, and gained complete control of the station. The matter ended up in court when Pickford and Rogers felt that Piedmont had undervalued the amount of their shares, but was eventually resolved in Piedmont's favor.
In 1968, Glenn Scott joined the station at a time when weather reporters "climbed" theShell Weather Tower, used by TV stations around the United States in the 1950s and 1960s.[4]
Piedmont Publishing was sold toMedia General in 1968. By this time, theFederal Communications Commission (FCC) was giving serious thought to barring common ownership of newspapers and broadcast outlets.Gordon Gray, the longtime publisher of both papers, thus formed Triangle Broadcasting to hold onto WSJS-AM-FM-TV. Gray also received the franchise for the city's cable system, Summit Cable. However, soon afterward, the FCC ruled that media companies could not own both a television station and a cable system in the same market. Gray was thus forced to sell WSJS-TV in 1972 toMultimedia, Inc., earning a handsome return on his purchase of theJournal andSentinel in 1937. The new owners changed the station's call letters to WXII-TV on October 2[5](the letters "XII" from "WXII" are theRoman numerals for the station's channel number, "12"). At the time of the call letter change, the station ran a promotional ad parodying the death ofJulius Caesar to amplify the Roman numeral theme. Two other stations in the market later switched to Roman numeral call letters (WXLV-TV, channel 45 andWLXI-TV, channel 61;WGSR-LD's previous incarnation also used Roman numerals as WXIV).
Multimedia swapped WXII and WFBC-TV (nowWYFF) inGreenville, South Carolina, toPulitzer in 1983 in exchange forKSDK inSt. Louis. Pulitzer sold its entire broadcasting division, including WXII, to Hearst-Argyle Television, now Hearst Television, in 1998.
That same year, Hearst boughtWETR (830 AM) and changed its callsign to WXII, and switched it to anews radio format that included audio from some WXII newscasts.[6]
On July 9, 2012, Hearst Television became involved in acarriage dispute withTime Warner Cable, resulting in WXII being pulled from the provider'sPiedmont Triad systems and being temporarily replaced withNexstar Broadcasting Group-ownedWBRE-TV fromWilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania;[7] Time Warner opted for such a distant signal like WBRE, as it did not have the rights to carry any NBC affiliate closer in proximity.[8] The substitution of WBRE in place of WXII lasted until July 19, 2012, when Hearst and Time Warner reached a new carriage agreement.[9]
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WXII presently broadcasts38+1⁄2 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with6+1⁄2 hours each weekday and three hours each on Saturdays and Sundays).
Long a distant runner-up to WFMY-TV, channel 12's newscast ratings began to increase following a series of severe weather events in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Since then, WXII has regularly traded the number one spot in the ratings with WFMY.
On February 12, 2010, after theopening ceremony of theWinter Olympics, WXII began broadcasting its local newscasts in16:9widescreenstandard definition, becoming the third station to do so after WGHP and WFMY. In-studio segments and news video was presented in widescreen. For a few months after the switch, weather graphics were still presented in the4:3 format with blue-colored pillarboxing, but were later upgraded to the 16:9 widescreen format. In 2012, WXII began broadcasting its local newscasts inhigh definition.
On August 13, 2012, WXII debuted a half-hour 10 p.m. newscast on itsMeTV-affiliated subchannel on digital channel 12.2, to compete with the longer-established hour-long 10 p.m. newscast onFox affiliate WGHP.[10] On March 4, 2013, WXII started simulcasting its weeknight 6 p.m. newscast on its former sister radio station, WSJS. The two properties also entered into a news sharing agreement in which members of WSJS's reporting staff provide stories on WXII's newscasts while members of channel 12's news staff would also report for WSJS.[11][12]
On July 26, 2017, WXII announced that it would move its 10 p.m. newscast to its new sister station WCWG beginning July 31 and expanded it to a full hour on weeknights while remain as a half-hour on weekends.[13][14]
On September 5, 2017, WXII added an hour-long 4 p.m. newscast, expanding its early-evening news block to two-and-a-half hours from 4 to 6:30 p.m.[15]
| License | Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WXII-TV | 12.1 | 1080i | 16:9 | WXII-TV | NBC |
| 12.2 | 480i | Me-TV | MeTV | ||
| 12.3 | Story | Story Television[17] | |||
| 12.4 | QVC2 | QVC2 | |||
| WCWG | 20.1 | 1080i | WCWG CW | The CW | |
| 20.4 | 480i | Dabl | Dabl |
WXII addedThis TV on digital subchannel 12.2 on June 1, 2009.[18] On July 24, 2012, Hearst Television renewed its affiliation agreement with MeTV to maintain existing affiliations with eight Hearst-owned stations already carrying the digital multicast network through 2015. As part of the renewal, Hearst also signed agreements to add the network as digital subchannels of WXII-TV and four other stations inSacramento,Baltimore,Boston, andOklahoma City.[19] Digital subchannel 12.2 replaced This TV with MeTV on August 6, 2012.[20]
WXII-TV ended regular programming on its analog signal, overVHF channel 12, on June 12, 2009, as part of the FCC-mandatedtransition to digital television for full-power stations.[21] The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transitionUHF channel 31, usingvirtual channel 12.
As part of theSAFER Act, WXII kept its analog signal on the air until July 12 to inform viewers of the digital television transition through a loop ofpublic service announcements from theNational Association of Broadcasters.[22]
In recent years, WXII has been carried oncable in areas outside of the Greensboro television market including cable systems within the Charlotte market in North Carolina and theRoanoke market inVirginia. OnDirecTV, WXII has been carried in multiple areas within the Roanoke market in Virginia.[23]
In the 1970s and 1980s, WXII was once carried inMoore andRichmond counties.[24]
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