WFIE

WFIE (channel 14) is a television station in Evansville, Indiana, United States, affiliated with NBC and owned by Gray Media. The station's studios are located on Mount Auburn Road in Evansville, and its transmitter is located in the Wolf Hills section of Henderson, Kentucky.

History

WFIE was granted a construction permit on June 10, 1953, and began broadcasting on November 15, 1953, on analog UHF channel 62.[1] The station, Indiana's sixth, was originally co-owned by Jesse, Isadore, and Oscar Fine. WFIE was the second station in the Tri-State, but the first to be based in Evansville proper. WEHT (channel 25), while licensed to Evansville and having launched over a month before WFIE, has always had its studio located across the Ohio River in Henderson.

WFIE has always been an NBC affiliate, but originally carried secondary affiliations with ABC (shared with WEHT) and DuMont.[2]

WFIE-DT2

WFIE-DT2 is the MeTV-affiliated second digital subchannel of WFIE, broadcasting in widescreen standard definition on channel 14.2.

History

As an NBC Weather Plus outlet

WFIE-DT2 was launched in fall 2005 as an affiliate of the NBC Weather Plus service, a 24-hour weather channel that provided regional and national weather information forecasts on a continuous basis, along with cut-ins of local weather forecasts from WFIE's weather forecasting team. WFIE's weather team provided the cut-ins for WFIE-DT2 during the entire existence of NBC Weather Plus. The channel's original branding was "First Alert Weather Now."

As "14Xtra"

In 2008, when the NBC Weather Plus was shut down and discontinued, it became a locally oriented weather channel until it was replaced by a local news-oriented format in the late quarter of 2008. It became an independent TV channel devoted to local news, weather, and sports in the Evansville media market. The channel was branded as 14Xtra. WFIE-DT2 also broadcast a prime time newscast weeknights at 9 p.m., which competed with CW affiliate WTVW's hour-long newscast.

MeTV affiliation

MeTV was first carried as a secondary affiliation of WTVW after that station lost their Fox network affiliation to WEVV-DT2, thereby becoming an independent station in 2011. MeTV programming was only shown during the overnight hours, and during time slots where specific programming was not scheduled to air. WTVW dropped the partial MeTV schedule when that station became the Evansville market's new affiliate of The CW in January 2013. MeTV was carried in full by WTSN-CD and WYYW-CD from November 2011 until the former station dropped that network in favor of a new network called Heroes & Icons on October 23, 2014. WYYW also switched to Heroes & Icons in February 2014.

MeTV replaced the Movies! network on WFIE-DT3 (channel 14.3) for five days until it was replaced by a new movie network, Grit, a multicast network that specifically targets men in the 25–54 age group. To make room for the new Grit network, and in order for MeTV to remain available in the Evansville market, the full MeTV programming lineup was moved up to WFIE-DT2 at noon CT on October 28, 2014, after Grit made its Evansville debut on WFIE-DT3. After the switch, 14Xtra was no more.

As an NBC Weather Plus outlet

As "14Xtra"

MeTV affiliation

Programming

WFIE-DT2 clears all of MeTV's programming since the subchannel switched to MeTV from a local news-formatted channel in 2014. Until 2016, the only other programming besides the full MeTV schedule was the syndicated Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) football and men's basketball provided by the ACC Network that is operated by Raycom Media's sports syndication division, Raycom Sports. This is due in part of University of Notre Dame's sports programs (with the exception of the football team) joining the ACC that year.[10] WTVW took over local rights to the ACC Network in 2016.

callsign	WFIE
city	Evansville, Indiana
branding	14 WFIE; 14 News MeTV Tri-State (14.2)
digital	26 (UHF)
virtual	14
affiliations	14.1: NBC for others, see
country	United States
airdate	November 15, 1953
location	Evansville, Indiana Henderson–Owensboro, Kentucky
callsign meaning	"We're First in Evansville" -or- Fine family (founding owners)
former callsigns	WFIE-TV (1953–2003)
former channel numbers	Analog: 62 (UHF, 1953–1957), 14 (UHF, 1957–2009) Digital: 46 (UHF, 2001–2019)
owner	Gray Media
licensee	Gray Television Licensee, LLC
former affiliations	All secondary: DuMont (1953–1956) ABC (1953–1956)
erp	200 kW
haat	310 m
facility id	13991
coordinates	37.88728°N, -87.51861°W
licensing authority	FCC
website	https://www.14news.com/

History

Sale to Gray Television

WFIE-DT2

History

As an NBC Weather Plus outlet

As "14Xtra"

MeTV affiliation

As an NBC Weather Plus outlet

As "14Xtra"

MeTV affiliation

Programming

News operation

Technical information

Subchannels

Analog-to-digital conversion

External links

References