WILM-LD (LD standing for low-power digital) is the CBS-affiliated television station for Wilmington, North Carolina. The station broadcasts a digital signal on UHF channel 40.

WILM is one of five Wilmington commercial television stations that agreed to end analog transmissions early and became digital-only on September 8, 2008, a move intended to make Wilmington the first all-digital television market in the United States.

Its transmitter is located in Delco. Owned by the Capitol Broadcasting Company, WILM is a sister station to WRAL-TV in Raleigh. WILM has studios on Wrightsville Avenue in the Forest Hills section of Wilmington. Syndicated programming on WILM inclides: Extra, Access Hollywood, and The Andy Griffith Show.

History

The channel began in 1989 as analog low-powered station W10BZ. The station broadcasted a signal on VHF channel 10 from a transmitter located in the Forest Hills section of Wilmington. It changing its callsign to WSSN-LP in 1995. It eventually became a UPN affiliate. In 1999, Capitol Broadcasting Company of Raleigh acquired the station. On March 23, 2000, the station became a CBS affiliate filling a void created when the previous CBS affiliate WJKA-TV changed its calls to WSFX-TV and dropped the network to become a Fox affiliate. WSSN changed its call sign to WILM on that date as well. Before WILM gained the CBS affiliation, programming from that network was seen in Wilmington on WNCT-TV (from Greenville), WBTW-TV (from Florence, South Carolina) and WRAL (from Raleigh).

WILM retained a secondary affiliation with UPN until that network stopped operations in September of 2006. Interestingly enough, CBS and UPN had the same parent company, CBS Corporation. After UPN and The WB merged to form The CW, WILM finally became a full-time CBS station due to cable-only WB 100+ affiliate "WBW" becoming part of The CW Plus. News Corporation's MyNetworkTV launched on a new station in Wilmington, WMYW-LP. The station's low-powered digital signal, WILM-LD, began broadcasting on UHF channel 40 in August of 2008, increasing the station's effective radiated power from its former 75 watts (analog VHF) to 15 thousand watts (digital UHF), the highest power available for US low-power digital television. On September 8, WILM shut down its analog signal along with four other Wilmington television stations as part of a voluntary early digital transition. The decision to shut off analog transmission at any time is voluntary for WILM as FCC regulations currently exempt low-power television stations from the 2009 analog shutdown.

Newscasts

Unlike most Big Three-affiliated stations, WILM does not produce its own newscasts. Instead, it simulcasts WRAL's newscasts (except during the week at Noon, 5, and 5:30) with local weather inserts. In addition, starting on March 10, 2008, WILM began airing a weeknight 7 o'clock newscast produced by ABC affiliate WWAY.

External links

• WILM-LD "CBS 10"
• WRAL-TV/DT
• WWAY "NewsChannel 3"

References