WECT

callsign	WECT
branding	WECT; WECT News
digital	23 (UHF)
virtual	6
affiliations	6.1: NBC for others, see
airdate	April 9, 1954
location	Wilmington, North Carolina
country	United States
callsign meaning	We're Eastern Carolina Television
former callsigns	WMFD-TV (1954–1958)
owner	Gray Media
licensee	Gray Television Licensee, LLC
sister stations	WSFX-TV, WTWL-LD
former affiliations	All secondary: DuMont (1954–1956) ABC (1954–1964) CBS (1954–1975)
former channel numbers	Analog: 6 (VHF, 1954–2008) Digital: 44 (UHF, until 2020)
erp	550 kW
haat	592.2 m
facility id	48666
translators	W17DO-D Wilmington W22FN-D Wilmington
coordinates	34.13167°N, -78.18778°W
licensing authority	FCC
website	https://www.wect.com/

WECT (channel 6) is a television station in Wilmington, North Carolina, United States, affiliated with NBC. It is owned by Gray Media alongside Telemundo affiliate WTWL-LD (channel 31); Gray provides certain services to Fox affiliate WSFX-TV (channel 26) under a shared services agreement (SSA) with American Spirit Media. The three stations share studios on Shipyard Boulevard in Wilmington; WECT's transmitter is located near Winnabow, North Carolina.

History

Channel 6 began broadcasting on April 9, 1954, with the call sign WMFD-TV. It aired an analog signal on VHF channel 6 from a 941 ft transmitter near Delco.[1] The station was owned by Atlantic Telecasting Corporation[2]

Digital transition

On May 8, 2008, the FCC announced that five stations in Wilmington (including WECT) had agreed to voluntarily cease analog broadcasting on September 8[4] five months ahead of the February 17, 2009, tentative date for television stations to complete the analog-to-digital transition.[5][6] The market was used by the FCC as a pre-transition test market.[7] After the digital transition, WGNI radio agreed to air emergency weather information from WECT. Previously, because channel 6 is adjacent to the FM band, its broadcasts could be heard on FM 87.7.

The September 8, 2008, transition, was particularly noteworthy for WECT because the digital transmitter site at Winnabow was more than 35 mi from the White Lake tower in Bladen County. This site was closer to Wilmington but put Fayetteville—a city where WECT once maintained a news bureau—outside of the coverage area.[11][12] Another area that lost WECT was Myrtle Beach, where WECT and WIS were supplanted by a new Raycom-owned NBC affiliate, WMBF-TV, which began broadcasting on August 7, 2008.[13][14]

Raycom donated the White Lake tower site and 77 acre of land to the Green Beret Foundation in 2011. On September 20, 2012, the tower was imploded by Controlled Demolition, Inc., which did the work on a pro bono basis. At the time, it was the tallest-ever man-made structure leveled via explosive demolition.[15] Plans called for the scrap metal and land to be sold to benefit the foundation.[16]

Sale to Gray Television

On June 25, 2018, Atlanta-based Gray Television announced it had reached an agreement to merge with Raycom, with Gray as the surviving company. The cash-and-stock merger transaction valued at $3.6 billion—in which Gray shareholders would acquire preferred stock currently held by Raycom—made WECT a sister station to fellow NBC affiliate WITN-TV in Greenville. WITN-TV and WECT had briefly been sister stations when Raycom was formed in 1997. However, Raycom was forced to sell WITN to Gray in 1997 because WITN's signal has city-grade quality in the northern portion of the Wilmington market. At the time, the FCC normally did not allow one company to own two stations with overlapping signals, and would not even consider a waiver for a city-grade overlap.[17][18][19][20] The sale was approved on December 20 and completed on January 2, 2019.[21]

WECT

History

Digital transition

Sale to Gray Television

News operation

Subchannels

External links

References