WVNS-TV

WVNS-TV, channel 59, is a television station licensed to Lewisburg, West Virginia, USA. Owned by West Virginia Media Holdings, WVNS is the primary CBS affiliate for the Bluefield/Beckley/Oak Hill television market, which also covers portions of southwestern Virginia. WVNS also carries programming from Fox and MyNetworkTV over its second digital subchannel (59.2). The station's studios are located on Old Cline Road in Ghent, West Virginia, and its transmitter is near Alderson, West Virginia.

WVNS-TV is one of four West Virginia television stations owned by West Virginia Media Holdings; the others are fellow CBS affiliates WOWK-TV in Huntington and WTRF-TV in Wheeling; and NBC-affiliated WBOY-TV in Clarksburg.

Digital channels

History

The station began broadcasting on August 12, 1995 as The WB affiliate WVGV-TV. It was the first station in the market not affiliated with one of the big three networks. The station was originally set to sign-on in 1994 as a Fox affiliate. However, after the station's launch was delayed past the start of the 1994-95 season, Fox canceled the affiliation. WVGV was not successful due to difficulty in selling advertising time in the primarily urban-oriented programming that dominated The WB's schedule at the time as well as the difficulty competing with a UHF signal in a market used to receiving VHF stations. Furthermore, the late sign-on made it difficult to get carriage on the area's cable systems. This was a serious problem since cable is a must for acceptable television in this market, most of which is very mountainous.