WSET-TV
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Lynchburg - Roanoke, Virginia United States |
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| City | Lynchburg, Virginia |
| Branding | ABC 13 (general) ABC 13 News (newscasts) |
| Slogan | The heart of Virginia (general) Coverage you can count on (news) |
| Channels |
Digital: 13 (VHF) Virtual: 13 () |
| Subchannels | 13.1 ABC 13.2 ASN 13.3 Comet TV 13.4 Retro TV |
| Translators | W05AA-D 5 Roanoke |
| Affiliations | ABC (secondary until 1954) |
| Owner |
Sinclair Broadcast Group (WSET Licensee, LLC) |
| Founded | February 8, 1953 |
| Call letters' meaning | NeWSET 13 |
| Former callsigns | WLVA-TV (1953–1977) |
| Former channel number(s) |
Analog: 13 (VHF, 1953–2009) Digital: 34 (UHF, 2004–2009) |
| Former affiliations | CBS (1953–1954) |
| Transmitter power | 28.7 kW |
| Height | 625 m (2,051 ft) |
| Facility ID | 73988 |
| Transmitter coordinates | 37°18′54.6″N 79°38′5.1″W / 37.315167°N 79.634750°W |
| Licensing authority | FCC |
| Public license information: |
Profile CDBS |
| Website | wset |
WSET-TV, channel 13, is an ABC-affiliated television station located in Lynchburg, Virginia, USA, owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group. WSET's studios and offices are located on Langhorne Road in Lynchburg, and its transmitter is located atop Thaxton Mountain, near Thaxton, Virginia.
Channel 13 began operations on February 8, 1953 as WLVA-TV (W-Lynchburg-VirginiA) from a transmitter on Tobacco Row Mountain. The station was owned by Lynchburg Broadcasting Corporation, which also owned WLVA radio (580 AM). WLVA-TV was the first station in Virginia to operate at full power, and served the Charlottesville area as well. The station was originally a CBS affiliate, but also carried programs from ABC, NBC, and DuMont as well. By the end of 1954, Roanoke and Lynchburg had been collapsed into a single market. Accordingly, channel 13 moved its transmitter and tower to Evington, Virginia in 1954 in an attempt to better serve Roanoke and the western part of the market. Since Roanoke was already served by NBC affiliate WSLS-TV (channel 10), WLVA-TV opted to become a primary ABC affiliate—Virginia's first, and the longest-tenured south of Washington, D.C. WLVA-TV and WSLS-TV split CBS programming until WDBJ-TV (channel 7) signed on from Roanoke in 1955.
For most of its first 30 years on the air, channel 13 provided spotty coverage to the western part of the market because it is sandwiched between WLOS-TV in Asheville, North Carolina and WOWK-TV in Huntington, West Virginia. The station made numerous requests to move its transmitter closer to Roanoke. However, they were all turned down by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) each time due to concerns about interference, principally with WOWK. This was despite the fact that the Roanoke/Lynchburg and Huntington/Charleston markets do not border each other. However, the FCC believed that the two markets were close enough that the two channel 13 transmitters had to be as far apart as possible to avoid interference. Its signal was so weak in Roanoke that ABC actually granted an affiliation to a second station in the market, WRFT-TV (channel 27, frequency now occupied by WFXR), for much of the 1960s and 1970s.
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Wikipedia