WEAR-TV

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WEAR is the ABC affiliate for the Pensacola, Florida, Mobile, Alabama, and Fort Walton Beach, Florida viewing area. It is one of two major commercial stations in the market that is licensed on the Florida side of the market, the other being sister station WFGX, a My Network TV affiliate.

Its transmitter is located near Robertsdale, Alabama, and its studios are located on Mobile Highway in southwest Pensacola.

As a Pensacola-based station, their newscasts tend to focus on coverage of the Northwestern Florida area as opposed to WKRG and WPMI, which predominantly feature news concerning the southern Alabama area.

WEAR is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, which prohibited Nightline broadcast in 2004 because the company felt it was near anti-war rhetoric. Prior to July 19, 2005 Sinclair prohibited WEAR from broadcasting Jimmy Kimmel Live in the late night time slot. WEAR also chose not to air the soap opera Port Charles for its entire six year run, instead focusing on the lucrative before-noon news telecast Dayside.

WEAR also operates WFGX, a MyNetworkTV affiliate station broadcasting on channel 35.

Personnel

The WEAR news desk is headed by Bob Solarski, who has been anchor since March 1994 and was the host and producer of Channel 3 News This Week with Bob Solarski. "This Week with Bob Solarski" had a ten year run from 1994 to 2004. Solarski also hosted a live call-in program after the late news called "Extra" which ran from 2003 to 2006. The News at Ten now runs a full hour, weekdays, from 10-11pm.

Francesca Maximé joined Bob Solarski as Co-Anchor of the News at 10 in October, 2006. A Harvard graduate who previously worked as a reporter and anchor in Boston, Philadelphia, and New York, Maximé also reports for the early evening newscasts at 5 and 6.

Allen Strum is the chief meteorologist and Dan Shugart is sports director and anchor.

Another key news anchor is Sue Straughn, who is one of the few black female news anchors in the area. She started at the station in 1973 as a clerk typist and now helms the Dayside, five o'clock and six o'clock newscasts.

History

WEAR began operation on January 13, 1954, which was almost a year after WALA began. The station was founded by Charles Smith and Mel Wheeler. Initially the station ran shows from both CBS and ABC. When WKRG signed on in 1955, WEAR became strictly an ABC affiliate.

In 1959, WEAR was sold to Rollins' Telecasting. The station continued as an ABC affiliate for many years. In 1987, Rollins Telecasting merged with Heritage Broadcasting to form Heritage Media. In October 1997, WEAR and the other Heritage stations were sold to Sinclair Broadcasting, just as the remainder of Heritage Media was merging with News Corporation (the parent company of Fox). This sale also protected former longtime NBC affiliate WALA as the market's Fox affiliate; otherwise, WEAR would have been forced to switch its network affiliation to Fox.

Mediacom dispute

In late 2006, Sinclair entered into negotiations with Mediacom, the main cable provider for much of the Florida side of the Mobile-Pensacola market (including Santa Rosa County and Pensacola Beach). The two companies could not reach agreement over compensation rights. As a result, Mediacom pulled all of Sinclair's stations, including WEAR, from its systems on January 6, 2007. The dispute ended on February 2, when the two sides reached an agreement that restored WEAR to Mediacom systems.

Newscasts

• First News - 5 AM-5:30 AM weekdays
• Three in the Morning - 5:30 AM-7 AM weekdays
• Dayside - 11 AM-11:30 AM weekdays
• Channel 3 News at 5 - 5 PM-5:30 PM weekdays and Sundays
• Channel 3 News at 6 - 6 PM-6:30 PM weekdays, 6 PM-7 PM Saturdays
• Channel 3 News Late - 10 PM-10:35 PM every night
• Channel 3 News Extra - 10:35 PM-11:05 PM weeknights

External links

• Official site
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