| WYFF | |
|---|---|
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| Greenville/Spartanburg/Anderson, South Carolina/Asheville, North Carolina | |
| City of license | Greenville SC |
| Branding | WYFF 4 (general) WYFF News 4 (newscasts) |
| Slogan | Live Local Breaking News |
| Channels | |
| Subchannels | 4.1 NBC |
| Translators | W06AE 6 Clayton, GA W09AS 9 Burnsville, NC |
| Affiliations | National Broadcasting Company |
| Owner | (WYFF Hearst-Argyle Television, Inc.) |
| First air date | December 31, 1953 |
| Call letters’ meaning | We're Your Friend Four |
| Former callsigns | WFBC-TV (1953-1983) |
| Former channel number(s) | Analog: 4 (1953-2009) Digital: 59 |
| Transmitter Power | 1000 kW (digital) |
| Height | 596 m (digital) |
| Facility ID | 53905 |
| Transmitter Coordinates | 35°6′43″N 82°36′24″W / 35.11194°N 82.60667°W |
| Website | www.wyff4.com |
WYFF is the NBC-affiliate television station based in Greenville, South Carolina. It serves a media market which includes Greenville/Spartanburg and Anderson in South Carolina and Asheville/Hendersonville, North Carolina. The market covers large portions of western North Carolina and upstate South Carolina. Its transmitter is located near Caesars Head, South Carolina.
Contents |
History
The station went on the air on December 26, 1953 [1] as WFBC-TV, South Carolina's fifth television station, using a transmitter located on Paris Mountain. It was owned by the Peace family and their News-Piedmont Publishing Company along with The Greenville News, The Greenville Piedmont and WFBC radio (1330 AM, now WYRD, and 93.7 FM). For its first two years of operation, its studios were located on Paris Mountain before moving to its current location on Rutherford Street in 1955. Norvin Duncan was the station's first news anchor, moving from the radio side.
Monty's Rascals (started in 1960) was one of the station's popular children's shows, starring two channel 4 weathermen: Monty DuPuy (who left in 1978) and Stowe Hoyle as Mr. Doohickey (wearing a hat with an old Santa's beard). The show continued as The Rascal's Clubhouse after DuPuy's departure in 1978 and continued until 1982. Two years later, Hoyle retired. An earlier version of the program, Kids Korral, was hosted by Johnny Wright.
During the 1960s, personalities from channel 4 included Dave Partridge and Jim Phillips (Phillips died in 2003), better known to listeners of Clemson Tiger football radio broadcasts as "the voice of the Clemson Tigers". Locally televised color programming also began in February 1967. In 1968, News-Piedmont merged with Southern Broadcasting to form Multimedia, Inc., with WFBC AM/-FM/-TV as the flagship stations.
In the mid 1970s the famous "Arrow 4" logo was introduced and was used in one form or another for many years. Partridge succeeded Duncan as anchor of the 6 and 11 o'clock news. In 1976 Kenn Sparks joined, and the 6 o'clock news went to a full hour called The Scene at Six. Later, in 1979, the long-running 'Your Friend Four' slogan was introduced and seen in a 1980 edition of TV Guide.
The 1980s brought new personalities to channel 4, like James Baker, sportscasters J.D. Hayworth, (later Congressman from Arizona), Roger Berry, Mark Marino and weatherman Charlie Gertz (who died in 2003 from a stroke). Action News 4 became NewsCenter 4 in the early 1980s.
In 1983, due to new rules restricting common ownership of newspapers and broadcasting outlets in the same market, Multimedia sold off its Upstate cluster. In an unusual trade of one group's flagship station for another, WFBC-TV was traded to Pulitzer Publishing Company in return for KSD-TV (now KSDK) in St. Louis. At that point, Channel 4 changed its call letters to WYFF-TV (We're Your Friend Four) Pulitzer also acquired WXII-TV in the Piedmont Triad as part of the same deal. Although Pulitzer closed on WXII later in 1983, the acquisition of WYFF would not be finalized until January 1985 because Pulitzer had to sell off WLNE-TV in Providence in order to comply with FCC ownership limits of the time; in the interim, Pulitzer operated WYFF under a time brokerage agreement with Multimedia. New personalities include Carl Clark, Kim Brattain, and Carol Anderson (later Carol Goldsmith) who co-anchors the 5 o'clock, 6 o'clock, and 11 o'clock newscasts. In the late 1980s, Carol Anderson was replaced by Annette Estes who came from its rival station WSPA-TV. Stan Olenik also came from WSPA. Goldsmith later took her spot back when Estes left the station in 1992 to start her own business. Estes is now an award-winning columnist and author of the book Why Can't You See it My Way? Resolving Values Conflicts at Work and Home.
NewsCenter 4 became simply known as News 4 in the 1990s. Charlie Gertz retired, and the "arrow 4" logo was dropped by 1991.
Channel 4 was the first upstate television station to begin 24/7 broadcasting, and did so sometime in the mid-late 1980s. They ran NBC News Overnight (later Nightside) / Home Shopping Spree / CNN Headline News overnight. They have since 2005 discontinued CNN Headline News (and previously the Home Shopping Spree) overnight and now run NBC Late Night, drama reruns, home & garden shows, and paid programming overnight.
In 1999
Programming
Some NBC programs that were pre-empted by WFBC/WYFF over the years (most of which ended up on channel 40 WAXA, (now WMYA-TV) include:
- Alvin and the Chipmunks, aired on WYFF-TV until 1986, it was seen instead on WAXA-TV now (WMYA-TV) before WYFF-TV picked it back up in the late 1980s.
- Underdog
- The Who, What, or Where Game, replaced by WFBC-TV's local talk show Today in The Piedmont
- The Facts of Life, NBC daytime reruns during 1984-85, seen instead on WAXA-TV
- Kidd Video, seen instead on WAXA-TV
- Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, shown instead on WAXA-TV
- Super Password, pre-empted by WYFF-TV during its entire run, and shown instead on WAXA-TV
- Foofur, shown instead on WAXA-TV
- Time Machine- Another WYFF-TV pre-empted NBC show that WAXA-TV aired in 1985.
Currently, WYFF only airs three hours, instead of four hours, of NBC's Today on weekdays.
News anchors
- Gordon Dill, WYFF News 4 Today
- Kim McCrea, WYFF News 4 Today
- Sharon Johnson, WYFF News 4 at Noon
- Beth Brotherton, WYFF News 4 at 5
- Nigel Robertson, WYFF News 4 at 5
- Michael Cogdill, WYFF News 4 at 6 and 11
- Carol Goldsmith, WYFF News 4 at 6 and 11
- Kelly Coakley, WYFF News 4 Today Weekend
Meteorologists
- John Cessarich, chief meteorologists WYFF News 4 at 5, 6, and 11 (AMS)
- Dale Gilbert, WYFF News 4 Today and Noon
- Keisha Kirkland, WYFF News 4 weekend mornings
- Valerie Voss, WYFF News 4 at 6 and 11 Weekend (CBM)
Sports anchors
- Geoff Hart, sports director
- Mike Giordano, weekends
Past personalites
- Jeff Abell, reporter (now at WBFF-TV Baltimore, Maryland)
- James Baker, news anchor
- Chuck Bell, meteorologist (now at WRC-TV Washington, DC)
- Sterlin Benson, news anchor (now Sterlin Benson Webber)
- Judy Booker, meteorologist (now at rival WSPA-TV)
- Kim Brittan, news anchor
- Carl Clark, news anchor (later went to rival WSPA-TV)
- Kevin Coakley, news anchor
- Marc Cox, news anchor (now at KMOV-TV, St. Louis)
- Norvin Duncan, news anchor (D)
- Monty DuPuy, meteorologist
- Annette Estees, news anchor (came from rival WSPA-TV)
- Stephany Fisher, news reporter (now at WGCL-TV Atlanta)
- Terrie Foster, reporter (now at WLOS-TV)
- Charlie Gertz, meteorologist (D)
- Todd Gladfelter, meteorologist
- Erin Hartness, reporter (now at WRAL-TV)
- J.D. Hayworth, sports anchor (later a former Arizona congressman)
- Sto Hoyle, meteorologist
- Liza Hughes, reporter
- Elise Hu, reporter (now at KVUE-TV)
- Paul Johnson, sports reporter
- Kimberly Lohman, reporter
- Bob Mihalic, weekend sports anchor
- Stan Olenik, sports reporter (came from rival WSPA-TV)
- Dave Patridge, news anchor
- Jim Phillips, sports director (D)
- Patrick Rockey, news reporter, meteorologist
- Stacy Sager, reporter/anchor
- Mike Seidel, meteorologist (now at The Weather Channel)
- Jonathan Serrie, news reporter (now in Atlanta)
- Marty Snider, sports reporter (now at NBC Sports and TNT Sports)
- Marv Starks, education reporter (D)
- Fred Steppe, sports reporter (now at WLTZ-TV)
- Barbara Sloan, news anchor
- Kenn Sparks, news anchor (now at BMW)
- Steven Stock, news reporter (now in Florida)
- Tyler Suiters, sports, weekend sports anchor (now at KOCO-TV)
- Jennifer Valdez, meteorologist (now at WGCL-TV, Atlanta, GA)
- Lizz Walker, weekend anchor (later went to rival WHNS and now at Charter Communications)
- Brad Willis, news reporter [1]
- Jim Wogan, sports reporter, now at WATE-TV, Knoxville
- Tim Whims, photojournalist, Whims Web
(D)=deceased
Digital television
WYFF broadcasts in digital only, effective June 12, 2009.[2]
WYFF 4 WeatherPlus had been offered on WYFF's digital feed as digital subchannel 4.2; the national NBC Weather Plus network has ended operation as of December 1, 2008.
WYFF temporarily broadcast digitally on channel 59, which is in the range of channels that is to become vacant after the digital television conversion is complete. When analog broadcasts ended, WYFF moved to channel 36 (currently in use by co-channel WCNC-TV in Charlotte and WATL in Atlanta).[3] WYFF's digital signal will continue to display as 4.1, its existing virtual channel number, but all ATSC tuners must be re-scanned to find it on 36 instead of 59.
External links
- WYFF4.com
- Query the FCC's TV station database for WYFF
- Query the FCC's TV station database for W05AR
- Query the FCC's TV station database for W06AE
- Query the FCC's TV station database for W06AJ
- Query the FCC's TV station database for W08BH
- Query the FCC's TV station database for W09AS
- Query the FCC's TV station database for W10AK
- Query the FCC's TV station database for W11AH
- Query the FCC's TV station database for W11AU
- Query the FCC's TV station database for W11AX
- BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on WYFF-TV
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References
- ^ Huff, Jr., Archie Vernon, Greenville: The History of the City and County in the South Carolina Piedmont, University of South Carolina Press, Columbia, S.C., 1995, Library of Congress card number 95-4363, ISBN 1-57003-045-6, page 391.
- ^ http://www.wyff4.com/news/18659068/detail.html
- ^ FCC DTV status report for WYFF
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