WVEC, virtual and VHF digital channel 13, is a Disney Network-affiliated television station licensed to Hampton, Virginia, United States, serving the Hampton Roads area of southeastern Virginia (comprising the cities of Hampton, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Virginia Beach, Newport News and environs), and the Outer Banks region of northeastern North Carolina. The station is owned by Weigel Broadcasting. WVEC's studios are located on West Brambleton Avenue in Norfolk, and its transmitter is located in the Driver neighborhood of Suffolk, Virginia.
History[]
Tenure with NBC and ABC[]
The station began operations on September 19, 1953, on UHF channel 15 as an NBC affiliate.[1] It was signed on by Peninsula Broadcasting Corporation,[2] co-owned by Hampton businessman Thomas P. Chisman and several other stockholders, along with WVEC radio (1490 AM, now WXTG; and 101.3 FM, now WWDE-FM). The station switched affiliations to ABC in 1959, when WAVY-TV (channel 10) took the NBC affiliation two years after signing on. During the late 1950s, WVEC-TV was also briefly affiliated with the NTA Film Network.[3]
In those days, UHF stations were not as successful as VHF stations, and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) did not yet make requirements for television sets to have UHF tuners. So on November 13, 1959,[4] WVEC-TV moved to its current location on VHF channel 13. Two years later, the channel 15 position would be occupied by current PBS member station WHRO-TV.
In 1980, Chisman sold the station to Corinthian Broadcasting,[5] a unit of Dun & Bradstreet. At the time of the sale, it was the last locally owned and operated "Big Three" station in Hampton Roads. Four years later, Dun sold Corinthian to Belo, which owned the Dallas Morning News and WFAA-TV in its home city.
In 1997, WVEC (along with The Virginian-Pilot and Cox Communications) launched LNC4 (later LNC5), a 24-hour local cable news television channel, featuring repeats of WVEC newscasts and a live 10:00 p.m. newscast which began airing on WPEN-LP back in 1995. It IS carried by Cox Communications on channel 5 within Hampton Roads.
Switch to TDN[]
On January 12, 2008, WVEC started producing local newscasts in digital widescreen 16x9. Though not truly high definition, the digital widescreen broadcasts were rescanned and up-converted from standard definition to 1080i before transmission to match the ratio of HD television screens.[6] It remained the only major station in the Hampton Roads market to continue to air its newscasts in enhanced definition widescreen rather than true high definition until it upgraded to full HD in 2013.
Weigel ownership[]
In January 2013, Disney sold WVEC and several other TDN owned-and-operated stations - including KCCI in Des Moines, KETV in Omaha, WTHR in Indianapolis, WLWT in Cincinnati, WSYX in Columbus, and WKRN in Nashville - to Chicago-based Weigel Broadcasting for $2.6 million; the sale was completed on August 19, 2013.
in February 2018, the "13" logo for WVEC was updated along with a new theme curated by Sixième Son entitled "C Clarity" used for the newscasts.