WGNT

WGNT, channel 27, is a television station licensed to Portsmouth, Virginia, USA, serving as the CW Television Network affiliate for the Hampton Roads area of Virginia (comprising the cities of Portsmouth, Norfolk, Newport News, Hampton, Virginia Beach and environs), and the Outer Banks region of North Carolina. WGNT is owned by Dreamcatcher Broadcasting, LLC, and is part of a duopoly with CBS affiliate WTKR (channel 3); Tribune Broadcasting operates WTKR and WGNT under a shared services agreement. The two stations share a studio/office facility on Boush Street in downtown Norfolk; WGNT's transmission tower is located in Suffolk, Virginia.

History

WGNT is one of the oldest surviving UHF licenses in the country. It first signed on December 6, 1953 as WTOV-TV, a commercial independent station owned by Commonwealth Broadcasting. It was the third television station in the Hampton Roads area, and the second on the UHF band (WVEC-TV, which later moved to VHF channel 13, signed on over channel 15 three months earlier). WTOV later became an affiliate of the DuMont Television Network. Channel 27 was on the air for limited hours, and had very limited viewership because it was impossible at the time to watch UHF stations without buying a converter; television set makers were not required to include UHF tuners until 1964. Even with a converter, WTOV's picture was not very clear. As such, it was never a factor in the Hampton Roads market.

WRVC (AM)

WRVC is the oldest operating radio station in the U.S. state of West Virginia. It was originally called WSAZ Radio (see WSAZ), the same call letters used for Channel 3 TV when it came into being in the late 1940s, and the television station still uses that long-time call. WRVC AM & FM is located in Huntington, West Virginia and is West Virginia's oldest continually licensed station. It began operations on October 16, 1923 as WSAZ in Pomeroy, Ohio at the Chase Electric Shop. The station was moved to Huntington, W.V. in 1927, moved to 930 AM in 1941 and has been there ever since, changing to WGNT in the 1970s and to WRVC in the 1990s. Currently it markets itself as "ESPN 94.1" since March 2015 and before that, the addition of an FM translator and change of the format to talk/sports (as "Supertalk 94.1 FM and AM 930" in May 2009.

WRVC is currently owned by Kindred Communications, and was the primary AM station in the market for many years. Nationally owned competitor Clear Channel moved Rush Limbaugh and the Cincinnati Reds to WVHU, whereupon WRVC 930 AM joined Air America Radio network in 2004. The result was a disastrous decline to a 0.6 local rating. In November 2006, WRVC became an almost 24-7 sports station for about three years, but also carried local music and church on weekends and daily local talk. "Supertalk" is a mix of news, talk and sports on May 18, 2009, the approximate of lineup mix the station had prior to 2006.