WHOI (TV)

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WHOI
Peoria, Illinois
Branding	HOI 19 (general) HOI 19 News (newscasts) CW 4 (on DT2)
Slogan	Your Heart of Illinois
Channels	Digital: 19 (UHF) Virtual: 19 (PSIP)
Subchannels	19.1 ABC 19.2 The CW
Owner	Barrington Broadcasting (operated through JSA and SSA by Granite Broadcasting Corporation) (Barrington Peoria License, LLC)
First air date	October 20, 1953
Call letters’ meaning	Heart Of Illinois
Sister station(s)	WEEK-TV WAOE
Former callsigns	WTVH-TV (1953–1965) WIRL-TV (1965–1973) WRAU-TV (1973–1985)
Former channel number(s)	Analog: 8 (VHF, 1953–1963) 19 (UHF, 1963–2009) Digital: 40 (UHF, 2003–2009)
Former affiliations	CBS (1953–1957) DuMont (secondary, 1953–1955)
Transmitter Power	195 kW
Height	203.1 m
Facility ID	6866
Transmitter Coordinates	40°39′11.1″N 89°35′14.4″W / 40.653083°N 89.587333°W / 40.653083; -89.587333 (WHOI)

WHOI is the ABC-affiliated television station for Peoria, Illinois. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 19 from a transmitter on North Stewart Street in Creve Coeur. Owned by Barrington Broadcasting, the station is operated by the Granite Broadcasting Corporation through joint sales and shared services agreements. This makes WHOI a sister station to NBC affiliate WEEK-TV and MyNetworkTV affiliate WAOE. All three share studios on Springfield Road in East Peoria. Syndicated programming on WHOI includes: Entertainment Tonight, Extra, Ellen, and The Doctors. They operates the area's CW affiliate on a second digital subchannel and Comcast channel 4. Known on-air as CW 4 from the cable channel, WHOI-DT2 gets all of its programming from The CW Plus.

Digital programming

Their signal is multiplexed.

History

They were Peoria's second television station signing-on as WTVH-TV on October 20, 1953. The station was owned-and-operated by Hilltop Broadcasting which was co-owned by the Peoria Journal Star. ^[1] Their first studios were on North Madison Street in downtown Peoria. Originally broadcasting an analog signal on VHF channel 8 ^[2], it was a primary CBS affiliate but also carried shows from ABC and DuMont. The latter ceased operations in 1955 and WTVH lost CBS when WMBD-TV began broadcasting.

The Metropolitan Broadcasting Corporation, later known as Metromedia, purchased the station in 1959 and owned it for six years up to 1965. They were then sold to the owners of WIRL-AM who changed the call sign to WIRL-TV. It became WRAU-TV in 1973 and adopted its present calls of WHOI in 1985. The call sign WTVH was picked up by channel 5 in Syracuse, New York around 1976. In 1963, WHOI was bumped down to UHF channel 19 so that a third commercial VHF station could sign-on in the Quad Cities using that channel (the new station, WQAD-TV, is also an ABC affiliate).

In 1987, WHOI came under the ownership of Adams Communications following a merger with their previous owner, Forward Communications. The station was sold to Brisette Broadcasting in 1991 then to Benedek Broadcasting in 1996. When Benedek merged with Gray Television in 2002 following a Chapter 11 bankruptcy, WHOI was spun-off to Chelsey Broadcasting. Starting in 1998, it began to run a cable-only WB affiliate known by the fictional call sign "WBPE" on channel 4 on most cable systems in the area. The newly-incorporated Barrington Broadcasting acquired WHOI and KHQA-TV in the Hannibal, Missouri / Quincy, Illinois media market from Chelsey in April 2004. On September 18, 2006, when The WB and UPN merged to create The CW, "WBPE" became part of The CW Plus which is a similar operation to The WB 100+. WHOI's digital signal added a new second digital subchannel to simulcast this programming to offer non-cable subscribers access to The CW. The channel then began to use WHOI-DT2 as their official calls. ^[3]

On March 2, 2009, it was announced that the operations of WHOI and its CW subchannel would be taken over by WEEK-TV through joint sales and shared services agreements. Sixteen employees were transferred to WEEK-TV but as many as thirty were laid-off immediately while WHOI moved to WEEK's studios. ^[1] This left the five full-power commercial stations in the market operated by two entities. The WHOI and CW subchannel websites were immediately changed to redirects to WEEK's web address. As part of the agreement, Granite-owned CBS affiliate WTVH which is the oldest television station in Syracuse, was folded into Barrington's NBC affiliate WSTM-TV in a similar way on the same day. ^[4] On June 12, WHOI remained on channel 19 when the analog to digital conversion was ^[5] with the "WHOI" calls being transferred from the now-defunct analog channel 19 to the new digital channel 19 and the "WHOI-DT" call sign from the pre-transition digital channel 40 being permanently discontinued. However, the PSIP identifier still identifies the station's main channel on 19.1 as "WHOI-DT".

Newscasts

During the 1980s and early-1990s, WHOI aired a nightly 5:30 o'clock newscast and showed ABC World News Tonight weeknights at 6 and weekends at 5. This provided viewers with a local broadcast seven nights a week while other stations aired national news. By 2009 before being consolidated with WEEK-TV, WHOI produced local newscasts weeknights at 5, 6, and 10; Saturday nights at 6 and 10; and Sunday nights at 5:30 and 10. The weekday morning show, HOI News Daybreak, continues to air from 5 to 7 after America This Morning and before Good Morning America. After the merger, four personalities were merged with WEEK's news department and continue to be seen on-air. Otherwise, WHOI uses other personalities from that station for all other content. The weeknight 5 and 6 o'clock broadcasts were replaced with one at 5:30 and ABC World News Tonight, now known as World News with Charles Gibson, was moved back to 6. There is still a local newscast weeknights at 10. The weekday broadcasts air from a secondary set at WEEK's studios and WHOI simulcasts that station's weekend news although this may be pre-empted by ABC programming. Like all CW Plus stations in the Central Time Zone, WHOI-DT2 airs the nationally syndicated morning show The Daily Buzz on weekdays from 5 to 8.

Newscast titles

• 19 Eyewitness News (1992-1995)
• HOI 19 News (2001-present)

Station slogans

• "Count on a Friend, Turn to 19" (1989-1992, used during period station used Frank Gari's "Turn To News")
• "The Heart of Illinois" (1992-2008, general slogan)
• "Your News Source" (1992-1995)
• "Where Every Second Counts" (2002-2008, news slogan)
• "Accurate. Balanced. To the Point." (news) / "Your Heart of Illinois" (general, 2008-present)

News team

+ denotes WHOI personnel not seen on WEEK-TV

Anchors

• + Mark Welp - weekday mornings
• + Jen Christensen - weeknights
• Denise Jackson - weekends and reporter
• Jeff Muniz - weekends and reporter
  • fill-in meteorologist

Meteorologists

• Lee Ranson - weeknights at 5:30
• Chuck Collins (AMS and NWA Seals of Approval) - weeknights at 10
• + Gretchen Wirtz - weekday mornings
• Ashley McNamee - weekends and news reporter
  • fill-in news anchor

Sports

• Jim Mattson - Director seen weeknights at 10
  • Sports Final and Pep Rally host
• Marc Strauss - weekends and sports reporter
• Josh Simon - sports reporter
• Lee Hall - Sports Final and Pep Rally host

Reporters

• Eric Shangraw - "You Gotta Eat" segment producer
• Emily West - fill-in anchor
• Turney Magelin
• Gina Ford

Past personalities

These personalities were seen on-air until the consolidation with WEEK-TV.

Anchors

• Mark Welp - weekday mornings (retained)
• Tim McGinnis - Managing Editor seen weeknights
• Jen Christensen - weeknights (retained)
• Laura Michels - weekends and reporter

Storm Team 19 Meteorologists

• Ric Kearbey - Chief seen weeknights
• Gretchen Wirtz - weekday mornings (retained)
• Jessica Wheeler - weekends and news reporter
  • fill-in news anchor

Sports

• Jim Mattson - Director seen weeknights at 6 and 10 (retained)
• Donnie Tillman - weekends and sports reporter

Reporters

• Brock Spencer - Assignment Editor and special projects
• Ian Schwartz
• Nishi Gupta

These personnel were also seen on the station at some point in time.

References

External links

• WHOI page on WEEK-DT's website
• ABC
• Query the FCC's TV station database for WHOI

Sponsors:

Friends: