Branding WMBF News Founded April 20, 2006 | Channels Digital: 32 (UHF) | |
Slogan Live. Local.
Latebreaking. Subchannels 32.1 NBC
32.2 Bounce TV
32.3 Grit TV Owner Raycom Media
(WMBF License Subsidiary, LLC) | ||
WMBF-TV is the NBC-affiliated television station for the Grand Strand and Pee Dee areas of South Carolina that is licensed to Myrtle Beach. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 32 from a transmitter in Bucksville. It can also be seen on Charter Communications channel 10 (analog), 120 (digital), and 1120 (HD). Owned by Raycom Media, the station has its main studio on Frontage Road East (along U.S. 17) in Myrtle Beach as well as one off West Cheves Street in Florence.
Contents
The station is carried on cable channel 10 in most parts of the market.
History
Raycom commenced construction on the station in late-2007. To date, WMBF remains as the only station Raycom has built and signed on. The company inherited the construction permit for the station when it merged with the Liberty Corporation, the owner of WIS in Columbia, which had operated a virtual station in the market since the 1990s. WMBF-TV signed on for testing in late-July 2008 with a station ID slide. On August 7, it officially signed-on at 11:59 p.m. with NBC welcoming the station on-air the following day on Today, NBC Nightly News, and Late Night with Conan O'Brien. The sign-on of WMBF occurred in time for the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Summer Olympics.
Before WMBF's launch, the Myrtle Beach/Florence area was one of only a few areas along the East Coast without its own NBC affiliate. Traditionally, WECT in Wilmington was the affiliate of record for Myrtle Beach and the Grand Strand while WIS served Florence and the Pee Dee. However, both stations were available on most of the cable systems in the area.
With WMBF's sign-on, WECT and WIS were dropped from cable systems due to Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules. WECT has long provided Grade B coverage to Myrtle Beach, but this ended on September 8, 2008 when Wilmington's early digital transition moved that station to the UHF band. While Myrtle Beach itself is just outside the fringe of WECT's digital signal, North Myrtle Beach is just inside it. WECT and WIS have been sister stations since Raycom's merger with Liberty in 2005. WMBF signed on without an analog signal joining several other digital-only television stations in the United States such as KPXJ in Shreveport, Louisiana, WMFD-TV in Mansfield, Ohio, and KVMD in Southern California. Since the sign-on, its digital signal had been multiplexed with NBC Weather Plus until the national network's demise on December 1, 2008. WMBF cost $10 million to build.
WMBF-DT2 previously carried a 24-hour local news and weather channel called "WMBF News XTRA," which launched in June 2009 on the same channel that was occupied by the defunct NBC Weather Plus, programming consisted of simulcasts and repeats of both newscasts and weather reports. It was replaced with Bounce TV on September 26, 2011.
Availability and replacement
Florence, the market's largest city in terms of population, is just outside WMBF's over-the-air fringe area. This is because it must conform its signal in order to protect the digital signal of WRLK-TV (also on channel 32) in Columbia. However, the station is available on all of the market's cable systems. According to its website, WMBF now holds the channel 10 position on the South Carolina Time Warner cable system where WIS was located. WMBF's terrestrial digital signal does not reach the North Carolina side of the market including Lumberton. However, parts of that area once received WECT's analog signal from only 10–15 miles away in nearby Bladen County. The digital signal in Delco in central Brunswick County, reaches Lumberton but not all of Robeson County. WMBF is also seen on Metrocast (formerly Northland Cable) in Bennettsville.
In Georgetown County, part of the Charleston market, WMBF is carried in most of the southern Grand Strand. The Surfside Beach area lost both WECT and WIS, but WCBD-TV in Charleston remained on the lineup until 2013. Cable systems in the southern end of the Grand Strand in DeBordieu Beach do not carry WMBF but it can be received by antenna there. Despite how young WMBF is, it was previously carried out of market in Cheraw on digital cable channel 805. That area is in Chesterfield County which is part of the Charlotte market.
Programming
Syndicated programming on WMBF includes: Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, Access Hollywood, Crime Watch Daily, and The Real.
Newscasts
WMBF was the first in the market to broadcast its local newscasts in high definition. It used the "NBC - Flagship" theme from The NBC Collection by Frank Gari and Gari Communications, Inc. from its launch until about 2015, when its graphics package was changed to the standardized Raycom graphics. WMBF shares regional news content with other Raycom Media stations in the Carolinas and throughout the Southeast. In addition to its main studios, it operates a Florence Bureau on South Cashua Drive. The station uses a mobile weather vehicle, known as the "WMBF News Storm Chaser", that was obtained from a local dealership.