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WHEC-TV, channel 10, is an NBC-affiliated television station located in Rochester, New York, USA. WHEC-TV is owned by Saint Paul, Minnesota-based Hubbard Broadcasting, and broadcasts from a studio/office facility on East Avenue in Downtown Rochester. The station's transmitter is located on Pinnacle Hill in Brighton, New York.

Digital Television

History

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) awarded the license of Rochester's second-oldest VHF station to two local firms who competed for the license. The Gannett Company, then the Rochester-based publisher of the Democrat and Chronicle and owners of CBS Radio Network affiliate WHEC (1460 AM) and the Veterans Broadcasting Company, owners of WVET radio (1280 AM, now WHTK), began shared operation of channel 10 on November 1, 1953, broadcasting from separate studios but using the same channel and transmitter. The combined WHEC-TV and WVET-TV operation shared a primary affiliation with the CBS Television Network, and also carried ABC programs on a secondary basis.

In 1961, the split-channel, shared-time arrangement ended as Veterans sold its half of channel 10 to Gannett. Veterans subsequently acquired its own, fully-owned station, WROC-TV (then on channel 5) from Transcontinent Broadcasting. The completion of the deal made WHEC-TV the sole occupant of the channel 10 frequency in Rochester. The following year WHEC-TV became a full-time CBS affiliate, as the ABC affiliation moved to newly signed-on WOKR (channel 13, now WHAM-TV). In 1966, channel 10 was one of the founding members of the "Love Network" that airs the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon every Labor Day. WHEC was the creator of the "cut-ins" that local stations insert into the national telethon, a concept that has since spread across the country.

Gannett split up its radio/TV holdings in 1971 when WHEC radio was sold to a local group (the station is now known as WHIC). Channel 10 was allowed to retain the WHEC-TV call letters. The station remained the Gannett Company's lone broadcast holding until 1979, when Gannett sold channel 10 in the wake of its purchase of Combined Communications. Gannett feared the FCC, who several years earlier decided to eliminate several small-market print/broadcast ownership combinations, would force it to sell either the television station or the newspaper. Gannett retained the Democrat and Chronicle, which it continues to publish, and the company maintained its headquarters in Rochester until moving to the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C. in 1985.

The new owners of channel 10 made U.S. television history. WHEC-TV became the first VHF, network-affiliated station to be purchased and wholly owned by an African-American group, led by investor Ragan Henry. Despite the historical notation, the Henry-led group's stewardship of WHEC-TV would be short-lived. In 1983 the Henry group traded channel 10 to the original Viacom in exchange for a pair of radio stations, WDIA in Memphis and KDIA (now KMKY) in San Francisco.

Under Viacom ownership, channel 10 took part in another trade—this one the first (and only) network affiliation switch in Rochester. On July 1, 1989 WHEC-TV joined the NBC network, replacing WROC-TV (now on channel 8), which took on CBS. This move was the result of WROC-TV's poor performance and constant pre-emptions of network programming (NBC was very intolerant of pre-emptions at this time). The swap brought channel 10 in-line with sister stations WNYT in Albany and WVIT in New Britain, Connecticut, which had recently renewed their NBC relationships. In addition, NBC's strong primetime programming—NBC was the most-watched network at the time, while CBS was in distant third near the midpoint of the Laurence Tisch era—was another major factor.

Viacom purchased Paramount Pictures in 1994, and merged its five-station group (WHEC-TV, WNYT, WVIT, KMOV in St. Louis, and KSLA-TV in Shreveport, Louisiana) into the Paramount Stations Group. However, in 1995, the company decided to divest itself of all stations not affiliated with its fledgling UPN network. In Spring 1996, Paramount traded WHEC-TV and WNYT to Hubbard Broadcasting in return for UPN affiliate WTOG-TV in St. Petersburg, Florida.

WHEC's digital signal on UHF channel 58 signed-on September 27, 2002 under a special temporary authority. For many years WHEC-TV was one of three Rochester area stations offered on cable in the Ottawa, Ontario/Gatineau, Quebec and Eastern Ontario regions. The Rochester area stations were replaced with Detroit, Michigan stations when the microwave relay system that provided these signals was discontinued. WHEC and other Rochester stations were available on cable in several communities along the north shore of Lake Ontario such as Belleville and Cobourg, Ontario. All Rochester affiliates with the exception of Fox affiliate WUHF were replaced with Buffalo stations in January 2009.

News operation

During Viacom ownership, WHEC stayed steadily in second place in the Nielsen ratings between WHAM-TV and WROC. This was also because ABC was in first place while NBC was a distant third in the viewership ratings during that period. On January 30, 2006, the station launched a 24-hour weather station known as "News 10 NBC WeatherPlus" on a new second digital subchannel and Time Warner Cable digital systems. After the national service shut down on December 1, 2008, WHEC-DT2 reverted to a local weather channel. WHEC was the first station in Rochester to launch a weeknight newscast at 7 in 2008.

Even with ownership change to Hubbard, WHEC remained a solid runner-up in Rochester for many years. However, during the November 2008 ratings period, WHEC's weeknight broadcast at 11 fell to third place behind WHAM and WROC while the ratings for its other shows also plummeted (largely due to NBC's recent ratings struggles which have continued into the present day). At that time, it fell to a distant second overall closer to third-place WROC than it is to WHAM. However, this station recovered during the May 2009 sweeps with the weeknight news at 11 virtually tying WHAM and both are just ahead of WROC in that time slot.

The three stations became competitive during the May 2009 ratings period each winning different contests. WHAM still won total-day ratings with WHEC's biggest strength at the time being its late-night newscast. Meanwhile, WROC led in prime time. It has a fairly long-standing partnership with local news-talk outlet WYSL-AM 1040. The radio station simulcasts all weekday newscasts from WHEC except weeknights at 7. This arrangement is in exchange for advertisement time. In addition to the main studios, the station maintains a Finger Lakes Bureau in the Messenger-Post newsroom on Buffalo Street in Canandaigua.

During the ratings periods of 2011 (through July), WHEC's newscasts have remained in second place for most time slots. As of October 3, WHEC remains one of two stations in Rochester which have not yet upgraded their newscasts to high definition or 16:9 enhanced definition widescreen.

Newscast titles

• TV-10 News (1970s-1980s)
• NewsWatch 10 (1980s-1987)
• News Team 10 (1987–1993)
• News 10 (1993–1997)
• News 10 NBC (1997–present)

Station slogans

• "Rochester's News Team" (1987-1991)
• "Rochester's News Leader" (1991–1993)
• "Rochester's 24-Hour News Channel" (1993–1997)
• "Live, Local, and Up to the Minute" (1997–2002)
• "Digging for Answers. Reporting Them First." (2002–2006)
• "Coverage You Can Count On" (2006–present)

News music packages

• "WHEC News Theme"
• "CBS News Ticker"
• "The Image Leader"
• "The Palmer News Package"
• "Everyday News Package"
• "Straight Talk"
• "Dayna"
• "Production Music: Action News"
• "The One and Only"
• "The Tower"

News team

On-air staff

Anchors

• Nikki Rudd - Morning Anchor and Reporter
• Rebecca Leclair - Morning Anchor and Reporter
• Rich Funke - Weeknight Anchor
• Janet Lomax - Weeknight Anchor at 5, 5:30, and 6
• Lia Lando - Weeknight Anchor at 7 and 11
• Christine VanTimmeren - Weekend Anchor and Weekday Reporter

Pinpoint Weather 10 Meteorologists

• Kevin Williams - Chief Meteorologist
• Rich Caniglia - Morning Meteorologist
• Josh Nichols (Certified Broadcast Meteorologist) - Weekend Meteorologist

Sports

• Robin DeWind - Sports Director and "Scholar Athlete of the Week" Producer

Reporters

• Ray Levato - Weekday Reporter
• Brett Davidsen - I-Team10 Reporter
• Berkeley Brean- I-Team10 Reporter
• Lynette Adams - Weekday Reporter
• Amanda Ciavarri- Weekday Reporter
• Joangel Concepcion- Reporter
• Art Ginsburg - "Mr. Food" segment producer

Notable former on-air staff

• Steve Scully - anchor/reporter. Now with C-SPAN.

References

1. Where to watch Me-TV: WHEC
2. "Eight stations, 5 VHF, 3 UHF, begin commercial operation." Broadcasting, November 2, 1953, pg. 64.
3. "FCC okays $30 million in station sales." Broadcasting, August 7, 1961, pg. 90.
4. "Gannett broadcast roster down to WHEC-TV." Broadcasting, November 29, 1971, pg. 64.
5. "Gannett goes from mostly newspapers to multiple media in one big deal." Broadcasting, May 15, 1978, pp. 26-27.
6. "FCC clears biggest deal ever." Broadcasting, June 11, 1979, pp. 19-20.
7. "Deal under way for the first black VHF TV." Broadcasting, August 28, 1978, pp. 30-31.
8. "Changing Hands." Broadcasting, July 25, 1983, pg. 86.
9. "In brief." Broadcasting, April 10, 1989, pg. 96 (top of page).
10. "Interview with Steve Scully, C-SPAN -- December 2004". journalismjobs.com. Retrieved May 4, 2011.

External links

• WHEC-TV "10 NBC"
• Template:TVQ

• NBC affiliates
• NBC network affiliates
• Hubbard Broadcasting
• Channel 10 digital TV stations in the United States
• Television channels and stations established in 1953
• Television stations in Rochester, New York
• Television stations in New York
• Me-TV affiliates