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WSIL-TV

Harrisburg/Marion/Carbondale, Illinois/ Cape Girardeau, Missouri/ Paducah, Kentucky United States
City	Harrisburg, Illinois
Channels	Digital: 34 (UHF) Virtual: 3
Branding	WSIL-TV 3; News 3 WSIL
Programming
Affiliations	3.1: ABC for others, see § Subchannels
Ownership
Owner	Allen Media Broadcasting (Harrisburg TV License Company, LLC)
History
First air date	December 1, 1953 (71 years ago) (1953-12-01)
Former channel number(s)	Analog: 22 (UHF, 1953–1959) 3 (VHF, 1959–2009)
Call sign meaning	Southern Illinois
Technical information
Licensing authority	FCC
Facility ID	73999
ERP	1,000 kW
HAAT	291 m (955 ft)
Transmitter coordinates	37°36′50″N 88°52′20″W / 37.61389°N 88.87222°W / 37.61389; -88.87222
Translator(s)	K10KM-D 10 Cape Girardeau, MO
Links
Public license information	Public file LMS
Website	www.wsiltv.com
Satellite station
KPOB-TV
Poplar Bluff, Missouri United States
Channels	Digital: 15 (UHF) Virtual: 15
Branding	KPOB-TV 15; News 3
Programming
Affiliations	15.1: ABC for others, see § Subchannels
Ownership
Owner	Allen Media Broadcasting (Harrisburg TV License Company, LLC)
History
First air date	September 1, 1961 (63 years ago) (1961-09-01)
Former channel number(s)	Analog: 15 (UHF, 1967–2009) Digital: 18 (UHF, until 2009)
Call sign meaning	Poplar Bluff
Technical information
Facility ID	73998
ERP	34.5 kW
HAAT	184 m (604 ft)
Transmitter coordinates	36°48′4″N 90°27′6″W / 36.80111°N 90.45167°W / 36.80111; -90.45167 (KPOB-TV)
Links
Public license information	Public file LMS

WSIL-TV (channel 3) is a television station licensed to Harrisburg, Illinois, United States, serving as the ABC affiliate for Southern Illinois, Southeast Missouri, the Purchase area of Western Kentucky, and Northwest Tennessee. Owned by Allen Media Broadcasting, the station maintains studios on Country Aire Drive (IL 13) in Carterville and a transmitter near Creal Springs, Illinois.

KPOB-TV (channel 15) in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, operates as a full-time satellite of WSIL-TV; this station's transmitter is located along US 60/67 in Poplar Bluff. KPOB-TV covers areas of southeastern Missouri and northeastern Arkansas that receive a marginal to non-existent over-the-air signal from WSIL-TV, although there is significant overlap between the two stations' contours otherwise. KPOB-TV is a straight simulcast of WSIL-TV; on-air references to KPOB-TV are limited to Federal Communications Commission (FCC)-mandated hourly station identifications during newscasts and other programming. Aside from the transmitter, KPOB-TV does not maintain any physical presence locally in Poplar Bluff.

WSIL-TV can also be seen on a digital translator, K10KM-D (channel 10), in Cape Girardeau, Missouri.

History

WSIL signed-on for the first time December 1, 1953, as the first television station to sign on in southern Illinois and the Illinois–Kentucky–Missouri tri-state area. It originally broadcast an analog signal on UHF channel 22, but moved to VHF channel 3 in March 1959 as did numerous stations originally assigned to UHF allocations before the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) mandated that television-set manufacturers include UHF tuning capability in their products in 1964. The original UHF transmitter had been built in Harrisburg before Paducah, Harrisburg, and Cape Girardeau had been collapsed into one large market. The station moved its facilities from Harrisburg to Carterville in 1989.

In May 1960, the Turner–Farrar Association applied to the FCC to build ultra high frequency (UHF) channel 15 in Poplar Bluff to serve southeast Missouri. The transmitter was completed in August 1961 and began broadcasting programs on September 1 of that year. KPOB-TV was off the air on several occasions in its first 15 years: for over a month in June and July 1962 (due to lack of network signal), from September 1966 to October 1967, and for more than a month in 1974 for construction. The last of these outages, from April 1976 to January 1977, was for financial reasons. During this time, WSIL attempted to sell KPOB-TV to the Hernreich Group, which would have switched it to rebroadcasting KAIT in Jonesboro, Arkansas, but negotiations proved unfruitful. In the early 1980s, KPOB briefly broadcast some local programming of its own.

WSIL was the first station in the market to broadcast a digital signal at a full 1 megawatt of power (equivalent to 5 megawatts in analog) on October 22, 2002. It was also the first to air a mobile digital signal.

On January 3, 2018, WSIL and KPOB began airing Heroes & Icons on their .2 subchannels.

On October 31, 2018, it was announced that Quincy Media would acquire WSIL and KPOB for $24.5 million. WSIL would be Quincy's fourth station in its home state of Illinois. The sale was approved by the FCC on December 20. The sale was completed on January 15, 2019.

On January 7, 2021, less than two years after acquiring WSIL, Quincy Media announced that it had put itself up for sale. A few weeks later, Gray Television announced its intent to purchase Quincy for $925 million. As Gray already owns the market's KFVS-TV and both that and WSIL rank among the top four in ratings in the Paducah–Cape Girardeau–Harrisburg market, it intended to keep KFVS and sell WSIL (and KPOB) in order to satisfy FCC requirements. On April 29, 2021, it was announced that Allen Media Broadcasting would acquire WSIL, KPOB and the remaining Quincy stations not being acquired by Gray Television for $380 million. The sale was completed on August 2.

Programming

For many years, WSIL did not air the weeknight broadcasts of ABC News, broadcasting instead a children's show featuring cartoons and Three Stooges shorts in the 5:30 to 6:30 time slot. It was not until sometime in the late-1970s it became the last ABC affiliate in the United States to abandon the practice of preempting the network news. However, in ABC's earlier years, quite a number of local stations did not carry the newscasts because their ratings trailed competitors CBS and NBC by a large margin. This changed when ABC initiated the World News Tonight format in 1978, finally establishing the network as a significant news operation.

The station was one of the ABC affiliates that refused to air NYPD Blue during its first season in 1993–1994. Station Manager Steve Wheeler appeared on Good Morning America to explain his decision. During the interview with Charles Gibson, Wheeler announced that if the program was successful, WSIL would reconsider. During this first season, Fox affiliate KBSI aired the program during the assigned network slot Tuesdays nights at 9 Central Time.

News operation

WSIL's newscasts are known as News 3 WSIL.

On January 18, 2004, the news operation underwent a major renovation, including the set, logo and on-air graphics. Some personnel changes were also made.

On October 6, 2010, WSIL became the first station in the market to offer news in high definition.

Notable current on-air staff

• Jason Lindsey – freelance meteorologist

Notable former on-air staff

• Christen Drew – reporter
• Briggs Gordon – children's show host
• Tony Laubach – meteorologist; Weather Warrior

Technical information

Subchannels

The stations' digital signals are multiplexed:

Analog-to-digital conversion

Both stations shut down their analog signals, respectively on June 12, 2009, the official date in which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital channel allocations post-transition are as follows:

• WSIL-TV shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 3; the station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 34. Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former VHF analog channel 3.
• KPOB-TV shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 15; the station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition UHF channel 18 to channel 15.

References

1. "Facility Technical Data for WSIL-TV". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission.
2. "Facility Technical Data for KPOB-TV". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission.
3. Nash, Francis M. (1995). Towers Over Kentucky: A History of Radio and TV in the Bluegrass State. ISBN 9781879688933.
4. "Southern Illinois' First Television Station » South of 64". southof64.cdale.biz. Retrieved September 12, 2018.
5. "FCC Asked For Permit To Build TV Station Here". Weekly Citizen Democrat. June 9, 1960. p. 1. Retrieved June 15, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
6. "Test Pattern For KPOB-TV Started Today". Daily American Republic. August 8, 1961. p. 3. Retrieved June 15, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
7. "FCC History Cards for KPOB-TV". Federal Communications Commission.
8. "Kpob Goes Off the Air". Daily American Republic. April 14, 1976. p. 1. Retrieved June 15, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
9. "Arkansas Firm Negotiating To Purchase Local Station". Daily American Republic. July 16, 1976. p. 1. Retrieved June 15, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
10. Lopata, Roger (December 23, 1976). "KPOB Announces It Will Resume Broadcasts". Daily American Republic. p. 1. Retrieved June 15, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
11. Stanard, John R. (September 20, 1982). "KPOB Begins Local Programming". Daily American Republic. p. 6. Retrieved June 15, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
12. Divine, Robin (March 14, 1983). "WSIL Manager Ends KPOB Local Originations". Daily American Republic. p. 8. Retrieved June 15, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
13. "Quincy Buys Second Station This Week". TVNewsCheck. NewsCheckMedia LLC. October 31, 2018. Retrieved October 31, 2018.
14. ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on December 21, 2018. Retrieved December 21, 2018.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
15. "Application For Consent to Assignment of Broadcast Station Construction Permit or License". CDBS Public Access. Federal Communications Commission. Retrieved November 1, 2018.
16. "Quincy Media now owns WSIL-TV". WSIL-TV. January 15, 2019. Retrieved January 16, 2019.
17. "Consummation Notice". CDBS Public Access. Federal Communications Commission. January 16, 2019. Retrieved January 16, 2019.
18. "Quincy Media, Inc. Considering sale of company".
19. Goldsmith, Jill (February 1, 2021). "Gray Television Acquires Quincy Media For $925 Million In Cash". Deadline Hollywood. Penske Media Corporation. Retrieved February 1, 2021.
20. "Byron Allen's Allen Media Will Buy 7 Stations From Gray TV for $380 Million". Variety. April 29, 2021. Retrieved April 30, 2021.
21. Howell Jr., Hilton (August 2, 2021). "Gray Television Closes Quincy Acquisition". Gray Television (Press release). Globe Newswire. Retrieved August 2, 2021.
22. http://tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/program.pl?ID=781790 Vanderbilt Television News Archive
23. 2004], JOHN D. HOMAN THE SOUTHERN [Sat Jan 17. "WSIL-TV MAKEOVER EXPECTED TO SURPRISE VIEWERS". The Southern. Retrieved October 2, 2018. {{cite news}}: |last= has numeric name (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
24. TVTechnology (October 7, 2010). "WSIL-TV Launches HD Newscast". TvTechnology. Retrieved December 28, 2019.
25. RabbitEars TV Query for WSIL
26. RabbitEars TV Query for KPOB
27. "DTV Tentative Channel Designations for the First and the Second Rounds" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on August 29, 2013. Retrieved March 24, 2012.

External links

• WSIL-TV/KPOB-TV
• WSIL Station History

• American Broadcasting Company affiliates
• Ion Television affiliates
• ABC network affiliates
• Heroes & Icons affiliates
• True Crime Network affiliates
• Court TV affiliates
• Television stations in the Paducah–Cape Girardeau–Harrisburg market
• Television channels and stations established in 1953
• 1953 establishments in Illinois
• Entertainment Studios