WBMA-LP

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WBMA-LP / WCFT-TV / WJSU-TV
Birmingham / Anniston / Gadsden / Tuscaloosa, Alabama
Branding	ABC 33/40
Slogan	Alabama's News Leader
Channels	58 (WBMA-LP) 33 (WCFT-TV) 40 (WJSU-TV) (UHF) analog, 11 (LD application) (WBMA) 5 (WCFT-TV) 9 (WJSU-TV) (VHF) digital
Affiliations	ABC
Owner	Allbritton Communications Company (TV Alabama, Inc.)
Founded	June 7, 1965 (WCFT) October 29, 1969 (WJSU) September 6, 1996 (WBMA)
Call letters meaning	WBMA: AlaBaMA WCFT: Chapman Family Television WJSU: Jacksonville State University
Former callsigns	WJSU: WHMA-TV (1969-1984)
Former affiliations	WCFT: Independent (1965-1970), CBS (1970-96) WJSU: CBS (1969-96), NBC (secondary, 1969-70)
Transmitter Power	(see FCC data in links below)
Website	http://www.abc3340.com/

WBMA-LP is the ABC television affiliate for Birmingham and central Alabama. Its transmitter is located atop Red Mountain in Birmingham.

WBMA is a low power station whose signal does not extend outside of the immediate Birmingham area. The station's brand name, ABC 33/40, comes from two full-power stations: WCFT-TV, channel 33 in Tuscaloosa and WJSU-TV, channel 40 in Anniston. WBMA is officially Birmingham's ABC affiliate, while WCFT and WJSU are satellite stations. Their combined power carries WBMA's signal to all of central Alabama from the Alabama-Georgia state line westward to Columbus, Mississippi.

WBMA and WCFT are owned by Allbritton Communications through its subsidiary, TV Alabama, Inc. WJSU is operated by Flagship Broadcasting, under an LMA with Albritton.

ABC 33/40's main studio is in Hoover, a suburb of Birmingham. It operates bureaus in Tuscaloosa and Anniston.

Contents 1 History 1.1 WCFT TV-33 1.2 WJSU TV-40 1.3 ABC 33/40 2 Controversy over Ellen 3 Newscast titles 3.1 Saturday 3.2 Sunday 4 Trivia 5 Related items 6 External links

[edit] History

[edit] WCFT TV-33

WCFT signed on the airwaves from Tuscaloosa on June 7, 1965. The call letters stood for Chapman Family Television, the original licensee. The original owner was a consortium of eight Tuscaloosa businessmen who saw the benefits of a television station, in both business and community service. WCFT began as an independent station, but because it did not return a profit suitable to the original owners, they sold the station to Hattiesburg, Miss.-based Service Broadcasters in 1967. The new owners rejuvenated the station by pumping money into it. They purchased new equipment and improved the station's image. Like WBMG-TV in Birmingham, WCFT picked up CBS and NBC programming not cleared by WAPI-TV (now WVTM-TV). In 1970, WCFT became an official CBS affiliate. WCFT had better luck with news than WBMG -- by the early 1980s, WCFT was the leading local news station in Tuscaloosa (with newscasts called "Eyewitness News"). It not only trounced WBMG, but it beat out all of the Birmingham stations broadcasting into the Tuscaloosa area. In 1977, Arbitron made Tuscaloosa its own television market, ranking below number 170. Service Broadcasters sold WCFT to Allbritton in 1995. Its transmitter is located near Windham Springs, Alabama.

[edit] WJSU TV-40

On October 29, 1969, the station now known as WJSU began broadcasting as WHMA-TV, channel 40 as a primary CBS affiliate with a secondary NBC affiliation. The station was operated by the Anniston Broadcasting Company, which was owned by members of the family of Harry M. Ayers (the station's namesake). The Ayers family also owned the Anniston Star newspaper and radio stations WHMA-FM 100.5 (now WWWQ-FM in Atlanta) and WHMA-AM 1390. The station's inaugural general manager, Harry Mabry, came to Anniston from Birmingham, where he had been news director of WBRC in Birmingham for several years. Mabry already was familiar with Anniston, though, having been an announcer on WHMA-AM over fifteen years earlier.

WHMA-TV ultimately served approximately 100,000 households in east central Alabama, and management fought almost constantly to maintain its own Arbitron market between Birmingham and Atlanta. This was a maneuver critical to the station's survival, as it made possible the station's "Number 1" status in the all-important ratings race. Despite being the only station located within the Anniston/East Alabama market, its so-called ratings "victories" garnered it access to national advertisers. In 1970, WHMA-TV dropped NBC programming in favor of full-time CBS coverage after WAPI became the sole NBC affiliate for all of central Alabama that year.

In 1984, the FCC forced the Ayers family to sell the station, citing cross-ownership regulations that the Commission has since abandoned. Later, in a mid-1980s deal that concerned tax-avoidance more than profit, ownership of the station was transferred to the trustees of Jacksonville State University and the call letters were changed to WJSU-TV. The station was ultimately sold in the 1990s to current owners Flagship Broadcasting.

[edit] ABC 33/40

In 1995, Birmingham's longtime ABC affiliate, WBRC, was sold to Fox. However, WBRC's contract with ABC didn't run out until September 1996, giving ABC a year to find a new affiliate in Birmingham. After being turned down by its original choices, WTTO and WBMG, ABC reached a unique deal with Allbritton. WCFT would become an ABC affiliate, and WJSU would become an ABC affiliate as well as part of a local marketing agreement (LMA) with Flagship Broadcasting. The two stations would act as full-powered satellites of WBMA, a low-powered station based in Birmingham.

The new station debuted on September 1, 1996. Its first slogan was "We're Building Our Station Around You," which was also used on WKYC-TV in Cleveland for some years. This was quite accurate because the programming consultants of ABC 33/40 surveyed numerous of people across central Alabama about what they wanted in a station. They also literally built a new station in Birmingham from that information they gathered. The station achieved early success with their newscasts, due in part to hiring many well-known Birmingham television personalities, including news anchors Brenda Ladun and Linda Mays, sports anchor Mike Raita and meterologists James Spann and Mark Prater, all of whom had worked at WBRC. Later, Pam Huff, a former news anchor on WVTM, was hired to anchor the station's early morning newscasts. Since then, 33/40 has changed its slogan from "Where News Comes First" back to the original slogan of "We're Building Our Station Around You"; it is now "Alabama's News Leader". ABC 33/40 has had a long-standing tradition in that when any county in their viewing area is under a tornado warning, the station preempts regular programming for live, non-stop coverage.

[edit] Controversy over Ellen

In 1997, ABC 33/40 refused to air the famous "Puppy Episode" of Ellen DeGeneres' sitcom, Ellen. The station cited a need to respect the family values of the largely conservative evangelical community. The decision was decried as a blatant example of censorship; indeed, in response, ABC sent a special satellite feed of the show to a community center in Birmingham and about 1,000 people, mainly local gays, lesbians, and their supporters, watched as DeGeneres came out of the closet.

[edit] Newscast titles

• Good Morning Alabama - 5:00-7:00AM (Anchors: Pam Huff and Tracy Haynes)
• ABC 33/40 News @ 11:00AM - 11:00-11:30AM (Anchors: Linda Mays and Tracy Haynes)
• ABC 33/40 News @ 5:00 - 5:00-5:30PM (Anchors: Pam Huff and Linda Mays)
• ABC 33/40 News @ 6:00 - 6:00-6:30PM (Anchors: Dave Baird and Brenda Ladun)
• ABC 33/40 News @ 10:00 - 10:00-10:35PM (Anchors: Dave Baird and Brenda Ladun)

[edit] Saturday

• ABC 33/40 News @ 6:00 - 6:00-6:30PM (Anchor:Roy Hobbs)
• ABC 33/40 News @ 10:00 - 10:00-10:35PM (Anchor:Roy Hobbs)

[edit] Sunday

• ABC 33/40 News @ 5:00 - 5:00-5:30PM (Anchor:Roy Hobbs)
• ABC 33/40 News @ 10:00 - 10:00-10:35PM (Anchor:Roy Hobbs)
• The Zone with Mike Raita - 10:35-11:05PM (Sports talk, with Sports Director Mike Raita and Doug Segrest and Ray Melick, sports columnists with the Birmingham News)
• Auburn Football Review - 11:05-11:35PM (during the college football season only)

[edit] Trivia

• In the 1980s through the 1990s, a voice-over announcer would begin WCFT's newscasts by saying "WCFT-TV, Channel 33, CBS in Tuscaloosa".
• ABC 33-40 operates a number of TowerLink Sky Cams throughout the state which send a live shot and weather information from that site. There are skycams in Downtown Birmingham, Inverness, Gadsden, Demopolis, Hamilton, Jasper, Mount Cheaha, Tuscaloosa, Cullman, and Gulf Shores. The Tuscaloosa TowerLink camera, located on the old Channel 33 broadcast tower, caught footage of an F4 tornado that hit Tuscaloosa in Feburary 2000 [1].
• In September 2006, ABC 33-40 moved "All My Children" from 10 a.m., where it had aired since WBRC was an ABC affiliate, to 12 Noon. This is the first time that the ABC daytime drama has aired at the recommended network time in the Birmingham market.

[edit] Related items

• TV Alabama Tower

[edit] External links

• ABC 33/40 Homepage
• Query the FCC's TV station database for WBMA-LP
• Query the FCC's TV station database for WCFT
• Query the FCC's TV station database for WJSU

Broadcast television in the Central Alabama (Birmingham / Anniston / Tuscaloosa) market  (Nielsen DMA #40)
WBXA-CA 2 (MTV2) - WBRC 6 (Fox) - WVUA-CA 7 (i/A1/ShopNBC) - WCIQ 7 / WBIQ 10 (PBS/APT) - WVTM 13 (NBC) - WOTM-LP 19 (Ind) - WTTO 21 / WDBB 17 (The CW) - WUOA 23 (i/A1) - WJXS 24 (FamNet) - WBUN-CA 28 (Daystar) - WCFT 33 (ABC) - W34BI 34 (HSC) - WJSU 40 (ABC) - WIAT 42 (CBS) - WPXH 44 (i) - W49AY 47 (Ind/Rel.) - WOIL-LP 47 (Daystar)- WBMA 58 (ABC) - WTJP 60 (TBN) - WABM 68 (MNTV)