WSAV-TV is the NBC-affiliated television station for Southeastern Georgia's Coastal Empire and Southern South Carolina's Lowcountry. Licensed to Savannah, Georgia, it broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 39 (or virtual channel 3.1 via PSIP) from a transmitter on Little Neck Road in unincorporated northwestern Chatham County, Georgia. The station can also be seen on Time Warner Cable and Comcast channel 2 as well as Charter channel 3. There is a high definition feed provided on Comcast digital channel 432, Charter digital channel 703, and Time Warner Cable digital channel 1120. Owned by Media General, WSAV has studios on East Victory Drive/U.S. 80/SR 26 in Savannah's Live Oak section. Syndicated programming on the station includes Jeopardy!, Wheel of Fortune, The Dr. Oz Show, and Dr. Phil among others.

History[link]

The station signed-on VHF channel 3 on February 1, 1956 and was co-owned with WSAV-AM 630 (now WBMQ) after a long legal battle over the frequency with WJIV-AM 900. It initially aired an analog signal from a transmitter on top of a bank building on Broughton Street in Downtown Savannah. The flashing WSAV sign was a landmark on the street for many years. WSAV-AM had long been with NBC Radio, so WSAV-TV took the NBC television affiliation.

It shared ABC with CBS affiliate WTOC-TV until WJCL-TV signed-on in 1970. During the late-1950s, the station was also briefly affiliated with the NTA Film Network. ^[1] WSAV briefly had an FM station using an antenna atop the middle of three AM towers at the transmitter facility on Oatland Island. However, without many listeners to the simulcast programming, FM operation was ended in the 1950s.

In 1960, WSAV-AM-TV moved into a brand new facility on Victory Drive where WSAV-TV still is today. A new tower was built at the site boosting its signal to many of the surrounding counties in Georgia and South Carolina. The current tower in Pooler was built in 1976. In the same year, WSAV-AM was sold. In 1982, the station swapped affiliations with WJCL and became an ABC affiliate. That network had become number one in the country and was searching for stronger affiliates. However, this channel returned to NBC in 1986 one year after that network became number one again.

In the mid-1990s, like many other commercial television stations in the United States, WSAV was sold several times. At the beginning of that decade, the station was owned by a subsidiary of the News-Press & Gazette Company, who sold its entire broadcasting group of the time to the first incarnation of New Vision Television in 1993. Ellis Communications bought the New Vision stations in 1995. In 1996, Ellis was sold to Retirement Systems of Alabama who merged it with Aflac's former broadcasting division to form Raycom Media. Since Aflac had owned rival WTOC, Raycom could not keep both channels due to Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations forbidding common ownership of two stations in the same market. Raycom opted to keep the higher-rated WTOC and sell WSAV. In early-1997, Raycom traded WSAV and two other stations to current owner Media General in return for WTVR-TV in Richmond, Virginia. In the 2000s, this station acquired the local rights to the syndicated game shows Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy!. Both were previously shown on rival WJCL for almost two decades.

On February 1, 2006, WSAV celebrated its 50th anniversary. To commemorate the event, Savannah Mayor Otis Johnson officially announced the date as "WSAV Day" and lauded the station for its many achievements over the decades. Its continued service to its viewers being always "On Your Side" whenever a viewer needs to get a story out was also recognized. On September 5, WSAV began carrying MyNetworkTV and RTV on a new second digital subchannel. This service is also available to DirecTV customers in Savannah on channel 29. WSAV-DT2's website and the digital subchannel feature a logo in the upper right-hand corner of the screen that reads "WSAV-DT 3.2 Savannah". WSAV-TV ended analog services on June 12, 2009, as part of the DTV transition in the United States. ^[2] The station remained on its pre-transition channel 39. ^[3] Through the use of PSIP, WSAV-TV's main NBC signal is displayed as virtual channel 3. On September 26, 2011, RTV was replaced with classic programming from Me-TV.

Weather with Captain Sandy[link]

This channel was known for an unusual practice on its newscasts from the 1950s to the 1970s. WSAV was home to "Captain Sandy" who was something of a hybrid between a weatherman and children's show host. The character gave the weather on the weeknight news working with puppet sidekicks "Wilbur the Weather Bird", "Arthur Mometer" (the thermometer), and "Calamity Clam". Captain Sandy would appear on the news set wearing a vaguely nautical cap and blazer as a nod to the region's dependence on the Atlantic Ocean. The comedy elements of the forecast included the thermometer and the clam. Captain Sandy's big thermometer was temperamental and would fidget before revealing the next day's high and low temperatures. When Captain Sandy opened Davy Jones' Locker to get the tide information (a crucial component of any weather forecast in the region) out of Calamity Clam, the puppeteer always tried to bite the captain's hand.

By the end of the 1970s, new station ownership found Captain Sandy's routine embarrassing (and likely anachronistic since most television stations had discontinued local children's shows years before) and the owners made the Captain finally conform to convention prescribing him a suit and tie like other newscasters. The owners also fired the puppets shortly after to the almost-certain sorrow of area children. One of the personalities behind the Captain Sandy character was smooth-voiced Joe Cox, who later left WSAV to become weatherman at cross-town rival WJCL, where he also hosted an evening radio program on WJCL-FM 96.5. The original Captain Sandy from 1956 was played by Norm Strand.

Digital Television[link]

News operation[link]

For most of its history, WSAV has been a solid if distant runner-up to longtime dominant WTOC. While WSAV and WJCL made a serious threat in the 1970s, WTOC has won every timeslot since 1980 often garnering more viewers than its rivals combined. The CBS outlet airs more than seven hours of news a day, a considerable amount for a station in the 97th market and far more than any other television station in Savannah. In 1976 as part of a major expansion of its news department, WSAV moved to a former insurance office that is next door to its original East Victory Drive studios.

Unlike most NBC affiliates in the Eastern Time Zone, WSAV does not offer midday or 5 p.m. newscasts during the week. However, the station previously offered a 5 o'clock show for some time but cancelled it sometime in the early 2000s. The most recent addition to local news on this outlet occurred on June 21, 2010 when it added a broadcast weeknights at 5:30. Before this point in time, WTOC had been the area's only station to air local news in the time slot.

In early-March 2009, WSAV-DT2 launched Savannah's only sixty minute newscast weeknights at 7. Known on-air as My Lowcountry 3, this production is specifically targeted to the South Carolina side of the market featuring coverage from throughout the Lowcountry and the state. There is a weather forecast targeted towards Hilton Head and Beaufort in addition to South Carolina sports headlines. WSAV produces My Lowcountry 3 at its main studios since the station lacks a physical bureau in South Carolina. Ironically, rival WJCL actually operates a newsroom on Fording Island Road in Hilton Head. This is the only physical presence that a Savannah station has on the South Carolina side of the market.

WSAV does maintain a bureau on Assembly Street/SC 48 covering the Capitol in Columbia. The operating expenses are shared among Media General's television stations in South Carolina. WSAV became the last Savannah station to upgrade newscasts to high definition level on March 8, 2011. However, since WSAV-DT2 only transmits in standard definition digital, My Lowcountry 3 was not included in the change. After switching to Me-TV, that broadcast was reduced to a half-hour. News and weather updates from this station can be heard on WGCO-FM 98.3, WGZO-FM 103.1, WFXH-FM 106.1, WUBB-FM 106.9, WXYY-FM 107.9, and WHHW-AM 1130. All news anchors also serve as reporters.

Newscast titles[link]

• WSAV-TV News (1956-1964)
• The World Today/The World Tonight (1964-1967)
• The Sixth Hour Report/The Eleventh Hour Report (1967-1976)
• TV 3 News (1971-1974)
• NewsCenter 3 (1974-1990)
• WSAV NewsCenter (1990-1996)
• News 3 (1996-present)

Station slogans[link]

• "Coverage You Can Count On" (mid 1990s-2006)
• "On Your Side" (2006-present)

News team[link]

News anchors

• Tracy Haynes - weekday mornings
• Kim Gusby - weekday mornings
• Andrew Davis - weeknights at 5 and 5:30 (also reporter weeknights at 11)
• Tina Tyus Shaw - weeknights at 5:30 and 6
• Russ Riesinger - weeknights at 6 and 11
• Holly Bounds - weeknights at 7 and South Carolina multimedia journalist
• TBD - weekends

Other anchors

• Kris Posman (AMS Seal of Approval) - Chief Meteorologist seen weeknights
• Lee Haywood (NWA Seal of Approval) - weekday morning meteorologist
• TBD - weekend meteorologist
• Ken Slats - Sports Director seen weeknights at 6, 7, and 11 (also "Slats Superstars" segment producer)
• TBD - weekend sports

Hosts

• Christie Register - Talking Law TV
• Doug Andrews - Talking Law TV
• Michael Shortt - Talking Law TV
• Gene Brooks - Talking Law TV

Reporters

• Amanda Brewer - "My LC3 Book Club" segment producer
• Kris Hummer - "Coastal Link" segment producer
• Robert Kittle - Media General Capitol Bureau
• Alice Massimi - community and military
• Sheila Parker - crime and safety
• Brittany Shane - South Carolina
• JoAnn Merrigan - consumer
• Tuquyen Mach
• Meredith Ley

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• WSAV-TV mobile
• WSAV-DT2 "MyLC"
• Query the FCC's TV station database for WSAV-TV