WUVC-TV

Infobox_Broadcast
call_letters = WUVC-TV
city =
station_
station_slogan =
station_branding =
analog = 40 (UHF)
digital = 38 (UHF)
other_chs =
affiliations = Univision
network =
founded =
airdate = June 1, 1981
location = Fayetteville/Raleigh/Durham, North Carolina
callsign_meaning = UniVision Carolina
former_callsigns = WKFT (1981-2003)
WUVC (2003)
former_channel_numbers =
owner = Univision Communications, Inc.
licensee = WUVC License Partnership, GP
sister_stations =
former_affiliations = independent (1981-2003)
effective_radiated_power = 5000 kW (analog)
500 kW (digital)
HAAT = 561 m (analog)
509 m (digital)
class =
facility_id = 16517
coordinates = coord|35|30|43.9|N|78|58|39.8|W|type:landmark_scale:2000
homepage =

WUVC-TV is a broadcast television station based in Fayetteville, North Carolina and serving the Triangle (Fayetteville-Raleigh-Durham) television market. It broadcasts on UHF channel 40. It is a Univision television network owned and operated station.

WUVC shows on cable channel 8 in Raleigh, Fayetteville, Carrboro, and most suburbs, channel 2 in Cary, Garner, Clayton, and Smithfield, and on channel 11 in Durham and Chapel Hill.

History

Channel 40 first had its beginnings in Fayetteville as WKFT-TV, the first independent station in eastern North Carolina. Although the call letters were originally assigned to the original owners on July 22, 1980, the station itself did not go on the air until June 1, 1981. WKFT first set up shop at the old First Union Bank on the corner of Donaldson and Russell Streets in downtown Fayetteville and operated from a convert|750|ft|m|sing=on tower in unincorporated Cumberland County with 1.54 million watts of power (the tower site has since been annexed into Fayetteville).

Fayetteville Television, a group of local businessmen organized by Robert Warren, the former Fayetteville reporter for CBS affiliate WRAL-TV in Raleigh, founded the station. Warren served as WKFT's first general manager, but was never an investor and was let go after only a month. WKFT offered a general entertainment format consisting of cartoons, westerns, religious shows, dramas, and classic sitcoms. The station put a fairly decent signal into the southern portion of the Triangle, but was a hard catch in the more populated areas of the market.

In 1985, WKFT was sold to SJL Broadcasting, which formed Central Carolina Television to manage the station. The new owners subsequently invested about $5 million to build a new convert|1800|ft|m|sing=on tower near Broadway near the Harnett/Lee County line. The new tower, activated in August 1986, operated with 5 million watts of power and brought WKFT's signal to the entire Triangle, and as far west as Greensboro. The station also rebranded itself as "Counterforce 40" and significantly upgraded its programming, adding a locally-produced 10 p.m. newscast which focused focused more on Fayetteville and the southern part of the Triangle market. However, it operated on a low budget, selling advertising mainly in the southern part of the market.

By 1989, the news broadcast had been canceled and the station was in dire financial straits, most reportedly from debts owned to film houses for movies shown on the station.

In December 1989, WRAL-TV's transmission tower was destroyed in a severe ice storm, forcing it off the air. Within three hours, WKFT picked up WRAL-TV's entire broadcast schedule. It simulcast WRAL until October 1990, when WRAL's new tower was erected. Additionally, WRAL-TV purchased the WKFT tower at Broadway. It installedhad electronic news gathering microwave receivers vital to relaying Fayetteville coverage to the WRAL studios in West Raleigh.

In the spring of 1991, Delta Broadcasting bought WKFT and resumed the station's general entertainment format that fall with stronger programming offering a blend of sitcoms, cartoons, movies, talk shows and reality shows. News programming was also reinstated, although relegated to hourly newsbriefs. By this time, the station was known as simply "TV 40." WKFT lost bids for the UPN and WB affiliations, and remained an independent.

In 1994 the station was sold to Allied Communications, who subsequently sold it to Bahakel in 1996. Stronger programming became more difficult to find, and WKFT moved toward more paid programming (though it did briefly serve as the over-the-air home of the Carolina Hurricanes). On March 14,2002 the station's transmission tower was struck by a small aircraft. Although the station's broadcasts continued on local cable systems, the station remained off the air for a few months.

The station was purchased by Univision in April 2003. It switched its call-sign and affiliation on June 1 of that year, becoming the Research Triangle area's first Spanish-language television channel. Its programming inventory was picked up by WLFL-TV and WRDC-TV.

Soon after joining Univision, WUVC was picked up by cable providers in the Triad.

ee also

* WTNC-LP

External links

*TVQ|WUVC
*BIA|WUVC|TV|TV
* [http://web.archive.org/web/20020606122057/www.wkft-tv.com/abouttv40.htm|Info about WKFT from former Web site]