WWAY is an ABC/CBS/CW-affiliated television station licensed to Wilmington, North Carolina, United States and serving the Cape Fear region. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 46 (or virtual channel 3 via PSIP) from a transmitter, west of Winnabow, in Town Creek Township. Owned by Morris Multimedia, the station has studios on Magnolia Village Way in Leland. On cable, the station is carried on Charter Spectrum channel 10.
History
WWAY signed-on October 30, 1964 as the second television station in Wilmington, 10½ years after NBC affiliate WECT (channel 6). It was originally owned by Cape Fear Telecasting, a firm controlled by local interests. Logically, it should have signed on as a CBS affiliate. However, it has been an ABC affiliate from the very first day. This was somewhat unusual for a two-station market, especially one of Wilmington's size. For most of its first 20 years in television, ABC was relegated to secondary status on existing stations in most two-station markets. However, at the time channel 3 signed on, no ABC affiliate put even a grade B signal into Wilmington. In contrast, WBTW in Florence, South Carolina put a fairly strong grade B signal into the area. Cape Fear thus figured that if it signed with ABC, it would not get much local competition.
In 1968, Cape Fear sold WWAY to Clay Broadcasting (later to become Clay Communications). In 1981, a military jet destroyed the WWAY broadcast tower near Winnabow. The tower was replaced with one nearly 2,000 feet (610 m) tall. In 1987, Clay sold its broadcasting interests, including WWAY, to Price Communications, setting off a revolving door of owners over the course of the next two decades. In 1988, Price sold WWAY to Adams Television who flipped the station to Hillside Broadcasting in 1995. Hillside then sold WWAY to Cosmos Broadcasting, a subsidiary of the Liberty Corporation, in 1999. That company sold off its insurance interests two years later, bringing WWAY directly under the Liberty banner.
In 2005, Liberty merged with Raycom Media, which already owned WECT. That company could not keep both stations as Federal Communications Commission (FCC) duopoly rules do not allow common ownership of two of the four largest stations in a single market. As a result, Raycom opted to keep the higher-rated WECT and spun off WWAY to current owner Morris Multimedia in 2006. However, the station retained the Liberty-era logo that was introduced in 2003. On May 8, 2008, the FCC announced that Wilmington had been selected as a test market for the 2009 national digital television transition. Five stations in Wilmington, including WWAY, also agreed to voluntarily cease analog broadcasting on September 8. Channel 3 made its transition from analog to digital at Noon on that date. On June 15, WWAY started broadcasting the Retro Television Network on its second digital channel. This had previously served as a 24-hour local weather channel.
In September 2013, WWAY announced that it would add The CW on a digital subchannel. The new channel launched on September 30, 2013 under the branding "Cape Fear CW". The addition of The CW pushed RTV to channel 3.3, before Cozi TV took over the tertiary frequency in January 2015. On March 30, 2016, CBS announced that it would move its local affiliation to WWAY-DT2 from WILM-LD on January 1, 2017. The move shifted Cape Fear CW to 3.3, thereby bumping Cozi TV from that spot.
In March 2017, the station's parent announced the purchase of the former Thunder Alley bowling center in Leland, to be converted to the station's new state-of-the-art broadcast studios.. On April 29, 2018, WWAY began on-air programming from the Leland facilities at 1224 Magnolia Village Way, completing the move from the 615 N. Front Street studios in Downtown Wilmington that the station had occupied since 1969.
| TV stations in North Carolina |
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| WTVD, Durham WSOC, Charlotte |
| TV stations in North Carolina |
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| WNCN, Goldsboro WBTV, Charlotte |
| TV stations in North Carolina |
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| WLFL, Raleigh WCCB, Charlotte |
| TV stations in the Wilmington, North Carolina area |
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| WWAY 3 (ABC) WECT 6 (NBC) WILM-LD 10 (Ind) WSFX 26 (Fox) WUNJ 39 (PBS) W47CK 47 (MNTV) |