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| City | Washington, North Carolina |
| Channels | |
| Branding |
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| Programming | |
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| Ownership | |
| Owner |
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| W27DP-D | |
| History | |
First air date | September 28, 1955 (69 years ago) (1955-09-28) |
Former call signs | WITN (1955–1978) |
Former channel number(s) |
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| ABC (secondary, 1955–1963) | |
Call sign meaning | Washington orEyewitness News |
| Technical information[1] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 594 |
| ERP | 1,000kW |
| HAAT | 591.9 m (1,942 ft) |
| Transmitter coordinates | 35°21′55.9″N77°23′34.6″W / 35.365528°N 77.392944°W /35.365528; -77.392944 |
| Links | |
Public license information | |
| Website | www |
WITN-TV (channel 7) is atelevision station licensed toWashington, North Carolina, United States, servingEastern North Carolina as an affiliate ofNBC andMyNetworkTV. Owned byGray Media, the station has primary studio facilities on East Arlington Boulevard inGreenville, with an additional studio inNew Bern.[citation needed] Its transmitter is located inGrifton Township alongNC 118.
The station signed on September 28, 1955, from facilities onUS 17 inChocowinity (outside Washington, though with a Washingtonmailing address). It was the area's second television outlet to launch after Greenville'sWNCT-TV (channel 9). It was an NBC affiliate from the start but shared secondaryABC relations with WNCT until the 1963 sign-on of WNBE-TV (channel 12, nowWCTI-TV) inNew Bern. WITN's first broadcast was game 1 of the1955 World Series.[2]
WITN aired ananalog signal onVHF channel 7 from the region's highest transmitter at that time. The station was originally owned by North Carolina Television, a consortium of radio stations from Northeastern North Carolina. Majority ownership was held by the Roberson family, owners of WITN radio (930 AM, nowWDLX; and FM 93.3, nowWERO).
The group held onto the television station until 1985, when it was sold toAFLAC.[3] It added the "-TV" suffix to itscall sign on July 31, 1978. In 1997, AFLAC sold its broadcasting group to Retirement Systems ofAlabama which merged with Ellis Communications to formRaycom Media. However, Raycom could not keep WITN for long due to a significant signal overlap withWilmington'sWECT, an Ellis property that was part of the deal. WITN's city-grade signal reaches the northern portion of the Wilmington market. At the time, the FCC normally did not allow one company to own two stations with overlapping signals, and would not even consider a waiver for a city-grade overlap. What was then known as Gray Communications (nowGray Television) bought the station later in 1997. It has been broadcasting a full-power digital signal since June 2006. They eventually reunited in 2019 after Gray acquired Raycom, but by then, overlaps of signals were not considered as long as the stations were in separate markets.[4]
On January 7, 2009, a high definition feed of WITN-TV was launched onDirecTV and can now also be obtained onDish Network. WITN-TV ended regular programming over its analog signal, over VHF channel 7, on June 12, 2009, the official date on which full-power television stations in the United Statestransitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transitionUHF channel 32, usingvirtual channel 7.[5][6] As part of theSAFER Act, WITN-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.[6] In June 2013, the station moved from its longtime home outside Washington to new high definition-ready studios in Greenville.
In addition to offering network and syndicated programming, WITN was also a multimedia rights partner forEast Carolina University Athletics from 1998 to 2014. In addition to hosting the weekly coaches' shows forfootball andbasketball, the station produced live broadcasts of select games that were not picked up nationally byESPN as part of its deal withConference USA. Even though most of the broadcasts were limited to its own market, WITN got other television outlets throughout North Carolina to carry a football game in 2003 which saw ECU competing against in-state rivalUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill fromDowdy–Ficklen Stadium. In 2014, WNCT-TV picked up the ECU sports package, just as the school moved its programs to theAmerican Athletic Conference.[7]
WITN-DT2 is theMyNetworkTV-affiliated seconddigital subchannel of WITN-TV, broadcasting instandard definition on channel 7.2.
Originally, WITN-DT2 served as a 24-hour localweather channel. It picked up MyNetworkTV on September 28, 2009, after the area'sIon Televisionowned-and-operated stationWEPX-TV, channel 38 (and its full-timesatellite,WPXU-TV, channel 35) dropped the programming service.[8] At that point, local weather programming was reduced to overnights and mornings while syndicated offerings made up the rest of WITN-DT2's schedule. A further addition to that service occurred April 18, 2011, when it added MeTV and dropped all remaining weather-related programming with the new network taking up most of the weekend and daytime schedule.
Eventually, a new third digital subchannel signed on and began offering a 24-hour live feed of WITN's ownDopplerweather radar.[9] On January 17, 2013, it separated programming from MyNetworkTV and MeTV onto dedicated digital subchannels (with MeTV relocating to the third subchannel).[10]
For a period of time, WITN-DT2 could also be seen on the digital tier ofTime Warner Cable in the greater Wilmington area since that market's MyNetworkTV affiliate,W47CK, was technically ineligible for carriage on cable providers due to itslow-powered status. As a result, the clearance allowed WITN-DT2 to unofficially serve as Wilmington's MeTV outlet (since, at that time, there was no television outlet affiliated with the network in that area). Eventually, Time Warner Cable (nowCharter Spectrum) picked up W47CK and subsequently dropped WITN-DT2 from the lineup.
In terms ofNielsen ratings, Eastern North Carolina is usually not very competitive duringsweeps periods. Historically, WITN has been the #1 ranked newscast in the Greenville–Washington–New Bern market.[11]
The station's direct competitors are WCTI-TV and WNCT-TV. There have been occasions that WITN has come in 2nd place in ratings. WITN News ranked 2nd in the market to WCTI in 2014, before regaining 1st place in 2015. In July 2008, WNCT was the most watched television station in the market after taking first place weeknights at 6 and 11. However, since then, WNCT has fallen to 3rd place weeknights at 6.[12]
While broadcasting from its original facility in Chocowinity, WITN maintained secondary studios in Greenville on East Arlington Boulevard (within the Square Shopping Center) less than two blocks from its current base of operations. This location began broadcasting a weekday morning newscast in 1997 featuring a news anchor,meteorologist, and photographer based out of there. In addition, weeknight interview segments were conducted from the old secondary studios.
After moving into its brand new facility in Greenville on June 5, 2013, WITN became the area's second television outlet to upgrade news production to high definition level.[13] In addition to its main studios in Greenville, the station operates news bureaus inJacksonville (on Valencia Drive) and in New Bern (on Middle Street).
The station's signal ismultiplexed:
| Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7.1 | 1080i | 16:9 | WITN-DT | NBC |
| 7.2 | 480i | WITN-MY | MyNetworkTV | |
| 7.3 | WITN-ME | MeTV | ||
| 7.4 | STARTTV | Start TV | ||
| 7.5 | HEROES | Heroes & Icons | ||
| 7.6 | THE365 | The365 | ||
| 7.7 | OXYGEN | Oxygen |
