Branding WWAY CBS Call letters' meaning see WWAY | Affiliations CBS (2017–present) | |
Channels Digital: WWAY-DT 46.2 (UHF)
Virtual: 3.2 (PSIP) Owner Morris Multimedia
(WWAY-TV, LLC) First air date September 21, 1998 (cable only)
September 30, 2013 (Free OTA launch) | ||
WWAY-DT2 is the CBS-affiliated television station for North Carolina's Cape Fear region. It is a second digital subchannel of ABC affiliate WWAY (owned by Morris Multimedia) Over-the-air, the station airs a 1080i high definition digital signal on UHF channel 46.2 (or virtual channel 3.2 via PSIP) from a transmitter, west of Winnabow, in Town Creek Township. It can also be seen on Charter channel 17, and on Time Warner Cable digital channel 106 and on ATMC Cable digital channel 913. WWAY's parent station has studios on North Front Street in Downtown Wilmington next to Cape Fear Community College.
Contents
History
WWAY-DT2 began life as "WBW", a cable-only affiliate with The WB through the national WB 100+ service. Since it was only available on cable, the call sign was fictional in nature and thus not officially recognized by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Before the cable-only WBW signed-on, Wilmington was the one of the portions of North Carolina, and one of the few in the Eastern Time Zone, without a WB affiliate of its own, despite several of the network's shows such as Dawson's Creek and One Tree Hill being produced in Wilmington and surrounding areas.
The area's cable systems piped in WRAZ in Raleigh, and later WLFL when WRAZ switched to Fox. With the merge between UPN and The WB on September 18, 2006, "WBW" became part of The CW through the new network's similar national service, The CW Plus. During this time, the station was seen exclusively on Charter channel 17 and Time Warner Cable channel 20.
In September 2013, WWAY announced it would add The CW to its second digital subchannel displacing Retro TV to a new third subchannel. The CW was officially added to WWAY-DT2 on September 30, 2013 giving over-the-air viewers in the Wilmington market access to the network for the first time. As a result, the faux "WBW" call letters were dropped and WWAY-DT2 immediately took over the Charter channel location. The CW was relocated to the digital tier of Time Warner Cable at that point.
On March 30, 2016, it was announced that CBS has signed an affiliation deal with WWAY, and would move its programming to WWAY-DT2 effective January 1, 2017. At that time all of WWAY's CW programming was moved to WWAY's DT3 subchannel, which formerly served as a Cozi TV affiliate.
News operation
WWAY launched a thirty-minute weeknight newscast on WWAY-DT2 beginning January 6, 2014 called Cape Fear CW Primetime News at 10. It features a separate graphics package from the main shows seen on WWAY. It is the first competition to Fox affiliate WSFX-TV which has a well-established nightly newscast at 10pm produced by NBC outlet WECT.
On January 1, 2017, when WWAY-DT2 switched affiliations to CBS, it began to simulcast all of its parent station's newscasts. In addition, WWAY produces a midday newscast and a full-hour 7pm newscast that is exclusive to the subchannel. Cape Fear CW Primetime News at 10 was moved with the rest of WWAY-DT2's CW programming to WWAY-DT3.