WHOI (TV)

WHOI, virtual channel 19 (UHF digital channel 24), is a primary TBD owned-and-operated television station licensed to Peoria, Illinois, United States and serving the North-Central Illinois television market. The station is owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group. WHOI's transmitter is located on Springfield Road (along I-474) in East Peoria, a section of Groveland Township, Tazewell County. The station was the ABC affiliate for the market until 2016.

For the marine science research facility in Massachusetts, see Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
WHOI
Peoria/Bloomington–Normal, Illinois
United States
CityPeoria, Illinois
ChannelsDigital: 24 (UHF)
Virtual: 19 (PSIP)
Programming
Affiliations19.1: TBD (O&O)
19.2: Comet (O&O)
19.3: True Crime Network
19.5: Quest
59.1: MyNetworkTV
Ownership
OwnerSinclair Broadcast Group
(WHOI Licensee, LLC)
History
First air dateOctober 20, 1953 (1953-10-20)
Former call signsWTVH (1953–1965)
WIRL-TV (1965–1971)
WRAU-TV (1971–1985)
Former channel number(s)Analog:
8 (VHF, 1953–1963)
19 (UHF, 1963–2009)
Digital:
40 (UHF, 2003–2009)
Former affiliationsAnalog/DT1:
CBS (1953–1957)
ABC (1953–2016; secondary until 1957)
Comet (2016–2020)
Secondary:
DuMont (1953–1955)
UPN (1995–1999)
DT2:
CW+ (DT2, 2006–2016)
TBD (2017–2020)
Call sign meaningThe Heart Of Illinois
Technical information
Licensing authorityFCC
Facility ID6866
ClassDT
ERP402 kW
HAAT211.6 m (694 ft)
Transmitter coordinates40°37′46″N 89°32′53″W
Links
Public license informationProfile
LMS

History
WHOI's last logo as an ABC affiliate, used from 2009 to 2016. This logo was also used from 2004 to 2009, but featured the blue ABC logo before the network introduced a new logo in 2007.
WHOI-DT2's only logo as an affiliate of The CW Plus, used from 2006 to 2016.

WHOI was Peoria's second television station, signing-on as WTVH on October 20, 1953. The station was founded by Hugh Norman and Edward Schoede. Hilltop Broadcasting, which co-owned the Peoria Journal Star bought the station in 1954.[1] Its first studios were on Main Street in 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. WTVH lost DuMont when the network ceased operations in 1955, and lost CBS when WMBD-TV (channel 31) began broadcasting.

The Metropolitan Broadcasting Corporation, later known as Metromedia, purchased the station in 1959. In 1963, WTVH 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 1965, Metromedia sold the station to Mid-America Media, owners of WIRL radio (1290 AM) who, on September 12 of that year, changed the call sign to WIRL-TV. It became WRAU-TV in 1971 and adopted its present calls of WHOI on March 17, 1985. The WTVH call sign was picked up by a station in Syracuse, New York in 1976.

In 1987, WHOI came under the ownership of Adams Communications following a merger with its previous owner, Forward Communications. The station was sold to Brissette Broadcasting in 1991, then to Benedek Broadcasting in 1996. When Benedek declared Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2002, WHOI was sold to Chelsey Broadcasting instead of Gray Television. In April 2004, WHOI and KHQA-TV in the Hannibal, Missouri/Quincy, Illinois media market became two of the founding stations of Barrington Broadcasting.

WHOI carried some programming from UPN, including Star Trek: Voyager, from the network's launch in January 1995[3] until WAOE (channel 59) went on the air in 1999. Starting in 1998, WHOI began to run a cable-only WB affiliate. Known by the fictional call sign "WBPE", it was on channel 4 on most cable systems in the area. 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 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 its official calls.[4]

WHOI has been digital-only since February 17, 2009 [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".

On March 2, 2009, it was made public that rival WEEK-TV (channel 25) would take over the operations of WHOI through joint sales and shared services agreements. It resulted in WHOI closing its longtime studios near its transmitter in Creve Coeur and moving into WEEK-TV's facility on Springfield Road, along I-474, in East Peoria. Sixteen employees were transferred to WEEK-TV but as many as thirty were laid off immediately.[1] This left the five full-power commercial stations in the market operated by two entities; WEEK-TV already controlled the market's MyNetworkTV outlet, WAOE (owned by Four Seasons Broadcasting), under a separate joint sales agreement (JSA). WHOI's website was immediately changed to a redirect to WEEK-TV's web address. As part of the agreement, Granite-owned CBS affiliate WTVH merged its operations with Barrington's NBC affiliate WSTM-TV and low-powered CW affiliate WSTQ-LP in a similar arrangement on the same day.[6]

On February 28, 2013, Barrington Broadcasting announced the sale of its entire group, including WHOI, to the Sinclair Broadcast Group.[7] Sinclair already owned the license of WYZZ-TV (channel 43), which was sold to Cunningham Broadcasting to satisfy Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations on duopoly ownership. While most of Cunningham's stations are operated by Sinclair though local marketing agreements, WYZZ is operated separately by the Nexstar Media Group at the facility of CBS outlet WMBD-TV. The sale was completed on November 25.[8] On February 11, 2014, it was announced that Quincy, Illinois-based Quincy Newspapers would acquire WEEK-TV from Granite Broadcasting. Originally, Quincy intended to continue providing services to WHOI but Sinclair gave notice that the JSA/SSA between WHOI and WEEK-TV (which was originally set to expire in March 2017) would be terminated within nine months of Quincy closing on its purchase of WEEK-TV.[9] The Quincy/Granite sale was completed on November 2, 2015.[10]

On July 26, 2016, Quincy Media announced that it had acquired WHOI's ABC and CW affiliations, and would consolidate them onto subchannels of WEEK beginning August 1, 2016.[11] As an aspect of this deal, Quincy-owned WSJV in South Bend similarly relinquished its Fox affiliation to Sinclair-owned WSBT-TV.[12] The ABC and CW subchannels were simulcast on WHOI for 60 days following the consolidation.[13] After the end of the transition period, the Comet TV affiliation moved to WHOI's main 19.1 channel, making WHOI an owned-and-operated station of Comet.[14]

On July 1, 2020, Sinclair shifted TBD to WHOI's primary channel, with Comet moving to WHOI-DT2.[15]

Digital channels

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

Channel Video Aspect PSIP short name Programming
19.1720p16:9WHOITBDMain WHOI programming / TBD
19.2WHOICOMComet
19.3480iJUSTICETrue Crime Network
19.5QUESTQuest

See also

References
  1. Tarter, Steve (March 2, 2009). "Owners of WEEK taking over WHOI operations". Peoria Journal Star. Retrieved March 2, 2009.
  2. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2014-07-13. Retrieved 2014-08-11.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  3. "'Voyager' transported to WHOI". Peoria Journal Star. January 22, 1995. Retrieved January 3, 2016. (preview of subscription content)
  4. http://www.hoinews.com/news/content.aspx?id=14614
  5. http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-06-1082A2.pdf
  6. "Syracuse's Channel 5 shuts down its newsroom". 3 March 2009.
  7. Malone, Michael (February 28, 2013). "Sinclair's Chesapeake TV Acquires Barrington Stations". Broadcasting & Cable. Retrieved March 1, 2013.
  8. "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-12-03. Retrieved 2013-11-25.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  9. "Quincy Buying Stations From Granite, Malara". TVNewsCheck. February 11, 2014. Retrieved February 11, 2014.
  10. Quincy Newspapers Inc. acquires four TV stations Archived 2015-11-07 at the Wayback Machine Quincy Herald-Whig, Retrieved 2 November 2015
  11. "Quincy Media purchases ABC, CW affiliations from Sinclair Broadcast Group". CINewsNow.com. Quincy Media. Archived from the original on 27 July 2016. Retrieved 26 July 2016.
  12. Eck, Kevin (26 July 2016). "Sinclair and Quincy Make Affiliation Deal, WSJV Employees Wonder What's Next". TVSpy. Adweek Blog Network. Retrieved 1 August 2016.
  13. Tarter, Steve (July 26, 2016). "WEEK-TV to broadcast ABC and CW signals". Peoria Journal Star. Retrieved July 27, 2016.
  14. Tarter, Steve (August 2, 2016). "Along with new look at WEEK-TV, Quincy Media moving ABC, CW to Channel 25". Peoria Journal Star. Retrieved September 24, 2016.
  15. "Sinclair - WHOI Channel Change" (Press release). National Cable Television Cooperative. Retrieved 15 June 2020.
Preceded by
None		 ABC affiliate for the Peoria Television Market
1953–2016		 Succeeded by
WEEK-DT2
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