WSAZ History | Celebrating 60 Years of WSAZ Television

WSAZ Television is celebrating 60 years of broadcasting to West Virginia, Kentucky, and Ohio this year. The station went on the air October 14, 1949 -- and the rest is history.

This online history of the region's longest-serving TV station will hopefully jog your memory and take you back to the early days of television. We thank you for giving us the opportunity to serve you, our viewers, for so long.

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Our story began October 1949 in Huntington, WV, when radio was king and television was the new kid on the block. WSAZ broadcasted its first programming, a test pattern and signal tone, to about 14 set distributors and a few individual owners. Television had hit the river city.

Originally found on Channel 5, WSAZ's first lineup was all local programming, including song and dance acts from local residents. Shows like Kukla, Fran and Ollie and Godfrey and Friends were later added. In 1950, the station applied for network feeds from Cincinnati and Columbus, Ohio, to give set owners live programming. The number of local television set owners grew beyond 4,000.

The world's largest and most powerful transmitter license was granted to WSAZ in 1952. The station had to be more powerful in order to reach viewers living in the hills and hollows throughout the region. The power boost moved the signal to Channel 3, where it has remained up until the digital conversion in February 2009. There were reports that the station's signal could be received in Cuba and Canada.

The station began broadcasting news as programming in 1951. For the first time, the station was no longer all entertainment, but was also informing the viewers of local and national news. Then, WSAZ pioneered the concept of a two-city newscast -- with one anchor in Huntington and the other in Charleston. The director would cut back between each feed. This is still used today, but to a greater capacity with a custom newscast only for Kanawha Valley viewers.

Since the station first signed-on, WSAZ has dominated the Huntington-Charleston television market. The news department has been long credited with its regional approach to covering all of the region -- in West Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio.

Today, WSAZ is still the most powerful broadcaster in the region, broadcasting a digital signal on channel 23 and providing high definition programming to local viewers from NBC. Our dedication to the Kanawha Valley is seen with our one-of-a-kind split news broadcasting in Charleston. This hyper-local newscast is available over the air on channel 16 and to Suddenlink Cable system subscribers.

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