WOAY

[chloesdude]

I live in Charleston are, and from what i've seen on the internet, is WOAY really cheezy??? Do they not have a real studio?

[genlock]

A number of years ago WOAY-TV studios, radio studios and transmitter site for am, fm, and tv burned to the ground.
They moved next door into a building that had a bowling alley and served as a venue for local 'rasslin broadcasts.
It seems to have kept the charm and maybe the smell from those days.

[Airwaves]

True, WOAY did burn nearly 25 years ago. The fire dealt a blow to this family owned station, but perhaps the bigger hit was the loss oh it's founder back around the same era. The AM and FM stations were sold a couple deceases back as well. An ABC affiliate, WOAY was for many years reflected it's small town location with Saturday night wrestling and hokey local news and commercials. (remember all of WV's locals were nearly as humble prior to being bought by larger out of state concerns). Actually, WOAY has looked much more polished over the past couple of years. The on air talent on their local news is actually pretty good by WV standards. They compare well to their competition at Bray Cary' CBS WVNS and his Fox59 as well as NBC WVVA... Plus the WOAY local news is wide screen high def while the other two are not! The strikes against WOAY starts with it's reputation as being small town locally owned but this is overhyped by out of market types who are not exposed to the locals in the Beckley Bluefield market. While WOAy has good anchors & reporters now, good weather graphics, and that nice hig def picture, they still lack a microwave ruck for live reports. The major quirk however is that they still sign off at one o'clock in the owning to not return until six am.

Woay is not much worse than the Huntington-charleston stations, as the local commercials are similar and few have news as you would like (weekends across WV are lacking in local news anywhere here. (thank goodness for WSAZ, right) you just hope not much happens on a Saturday or Sunday morning in WV because there is not much local news. Somehow WOAY is a good reflection of WV tv- it has good and strong points but is no longer quite so easy to poke fun at once you actually see it.

[AmpedNow]

They are improved from what they used to be.

I just don't understand the hokey signoff every night, in 2010. Who even signs off anymore, unless they are an AM daytimer who has to?

There are a lot of options available these days to fill that space. World News Now has been available for 20 years...

Nor is the power bill nearly as high for DTV transmitters.

[Dave Loudin]

WOAY has completely dropped "4" from their identity. Everything is now branded with their real channel - 50.