WAMY-TV

"WAMY-TV"

Huntsville / Decatur / The Shoals, Alabama
Branding	My WAMY
Channels	Digital: WZDX-DT 41.2 (UHF)
Affiliations	MyNetworkTV
Owner	Grant Broadcasting System II (Huntsville Television Acquisition Licensing, LLC)
Founded	1998
Call letters' meaning	We're Alabama's MYNetworkTV
Sister station(s)	WZDX
Former callsigns	"WAWB-TV" (1995-2006)
Former affiliations	The WB (1995-2006, via The WB 100+)
Transmitter power	700 kW (digital)
Height	517.9 m (digital)
Facility ID	28119 (digital)
Transmitter coordinates	34°44′12.7″N 86°31′58.9″W / 34.736861°N 86.533028°W / 34.736861; -86.533028 (digital)

"WAMY-TV" is the MyNetworkTV-affiliated television station for the Tennessee Valley area of Northeastern Alabama. In most areas, the station broadcasts on Comcast and Charter cable channel 8. As a result, its logo refers to this although it is known on-air as My WAMY. There some locations, including Decatur, where the station is located on other cable systems and channels. Owned by Grant Broadcasting System II, WAMY is sister to Fox affiliate WZDX and the two share studios on North Memorial Parkway (U.S. 231/U.S. 431/and U.S. 72) in Huntsville.

WAMY can also be seen on WZDX's second digital subchannel. This airs on UHF channel 41.2 from a transmitter in Monte Sano Mountain in the Mountain Heights section of the city. Syndicated programing on the station includes: Everybody Loves Raymond, Seinfeld, Maury, and The Wendy Williams Show. Many MyNetworkTV affiliates are housed on digital subchannels of other stations and use their call signs but WAMY and cable-only "WNFM-TV" in Southwest Florida are the only network affiliates that have fictional calls.

History

The station's logo when it was known as WAWB and affiliated with The WB.

The station first began broadcasting in 1998. It was only offered on cable and was affiliated with the new WB network via The WB 100+, a group of cable-only WB stations that shared programming outside of primetime. It had the call letters WAWB-TV and used them in a fictional manner. Those calls should not be confused with WUPV in Richmond, Virginia which used the calls officially from 1995 until 1997. As a WB affiliate, WAWB was known on-air as "The Valley's WB". It was unusual that when the station signed-on it was a cable-only WB affiliate. That arrangement was common for television markets numerically ranked at 100 or above. In those areas, The WB was offered on cable as part of The WB 100+. The Huntsville/Decatur/Florence market is ranked at 84 well below the cut off at 100.

In 2002, when WZDX launched the second digital signal of the market on UHF channel 41, WAWB began to be seen on that station's new second digital subchannel. This move was made in order to offer non-cable viewers access to WB programming. On January 24, 2006, The WB and UPN announced that they would end broadcasting and merge. The new network would be called The CW. The letters would represent the first initial of its corporate parents: CBS (the parent company of UPN) and the Warner Bros. unit of Time Warner. On February 22, News Corporation announced that it would start up another new broadcast network called MyNetworkTV. This new network, which would be sister to Fox, would be operated by Fox Television Stations and its syndication division Twentieth Television.

MyNetworkTV was created to give UPN and WB stations, not mentioned as becoming CW affiliates, another option besides becoming independent. It was also created to compete against The CW. On April 4, UPN affiliate WHDF was announced as becoming the market's CW affiliate. On April 18, it was made public that WAWB was to become the area's MyNetworkTV affiliate. The staton began showing the new MyNetworkTV network logo in the corner of the screen on June 1 during promotions of the coming switch. WAWB changed its fictional call letters to "WAMY-TV" when MyNetworkTV began broadcasting on September 5. WHDF began broadcasting The CW on September 18.

External links

• "WAMY-TV" "My WAMY"
• WZDX "Fox 54"
• MyNetworkTV
• Query the FCC's TV station database for WAMY
• BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on WAMY-TV