WAAY-TV

WAAY-TV is the ABC-affiliated television station for the Tennessee Valley area of North Alabama that is licensed to Huntsville. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 32 from a transmitter at its studios on Monte Sano Boulevard on top of Monte Sano Mountain. The station is owned by Calkins Media. Syndicated programming on WAAY includes: Entertainment Tonight, The Doctors, Jeopardy! and Live with Kelly and Michael.

History

The station's first broadcast was on August 1, 1959 as WAFG-TV. It was Alabama's first primary ABC affiliate. There was only one other station in the area at the time, Decatur's WMSL-TV (now Huntsville's WAFF), an NBC affiliate. This was an unusual arrangement for a two-station market, especially one as small as Huntsville was at the time. When the station was sold to Smith Broadcasting (owners of WAAY, now WLOR, radio) in 1963, the call sign was changed to WAAY-TV. At the time Smith Broadcasting held a permit from the FCC to put a new station on the air broadcasting on UHF channel 25, but when the Smith family received the offer to purchase WAFG, they decided to take that instead of building a new facility. (Channel 25 was later licensed to Alabama Public Television station WHIQ.)