City Peoria | Slogan Dare To Defy | |
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Branding CW 4
(a reference to the station's channel position on most cable systems) Channels Digital: WEEK-DT 25.3 (UHF)
Virtual: 25.3 (PSIP) Affiliations The CW (via The CW Plus) Owner Quincy Media
(WEEK License, LLC) | ||
WEEK-DT3 is the CW affiliated television station for North-Central Illinois that is licensed to Peoria. It is a third digital subchannel of NBC outlet WEEK-TV that is owned and operated by Quincy Media. Over-the-air, the station broadcasts a 720p high definition digital signal on UHF channel 25.3 (or virtual channel 25.3 via PSIP) from a transmitter at the WEEK-TV studios on Springfield Road (along I-474) in East Peoria, a section of Groveland Township.
History
WEEK-TV had been operating ABC affiliate WHOI (channel 19) and its CW affiliated digital subchannel under a joint sales agreement (JSA) and a shared services agreement (SSA) since March 2, 2009. At that time, WHOI shut down its separate news department and merged it with WEEK. A new secondary set was built at the Springfield Road studios for use by WHOI in order for that station to continue to produce separate newscasts. WHOI then dropped its own weeknight newscasts at 5 and 6 for a new show seen at 5:30 so it would not directly compete with WEEK-TV's own programs in those time slots. ABC World News Tonight was moved to 6 pm, thus airing a half hour later on WHOI than it does on most ABC affiliates in the Central Time Zone.
When WHOI first merged with WEEK in 2009, WHOI's owner was Barrington Broadcasting and WEEK's owner was the Granite Broadcasting Corporation. Since then, both WHOI and WEEK have experienced ownership changes. On November 25, 2013, WHOI was sold to the Sinclair Broadcast Group. On November 2, 2015, WEEK was sold to Quincy Newspapers (now known as Quincy Media).
On July 26, 2016, Quincy Media announced that it had acquired WHOI's ABC and CW affiliations from Sinclair, and would consolidate them onto subchannels of WEEK beginning August 1, 2016. As an aspect of this deal, Quincy-owned WSJV in South Bend similarly relinquished its Fox affiliation to Sinclair-owned WSBT-TV. The ABC and CW subchannels were simulcast on WHOI for 60 days following the consolidation. The JSA between WHOI and WEEK was terminated on October 1, 2016, at which point WHOI moved its Comet TV affiliation from its 19.3 subchannel to its main 19.1 channel, thereby taking the 19.2 and 19.3 subchannels TBD and Charge!, and WEEK-DT3 became the sole CW affiliate for the Peoria television market. By the end of 2016, the over-the-air feed of WEEK-DT3 was upgraded into 720p high-definition, thus restoring over-the-air HD access to the CW+ in the Peoria/Bloomington/Normal, Illinois market.