alabama formerly known as waay see wlor . waay tv huntsville decatur alabama united states branding waay abc 31 general waay 31 hometown news newscasts pronounced way slogan this is home channels digital 32 uhf virtual 31 psip subchannels 31.1 abc 31.2 weathernation tv 31.3 qvc owner calkins media sale to heartland media pending waay tv license llc first air date august 1 1959 ; 57 years ago 1959 08 01 call letters meaning corresponds to ex sister radio station s branding as the great american waay with an extraneous a former callsigns wafg tv 1959 1963 former channel number s analog 31 1959 2009 former affiliations primary abc 1959 1968 nbc 1968 1977 secondary cbs 1959 1963 nbc 1980 s transmitter power 468 kw height 537.8 m facility id 57292 transmitter coordinates 34 44 12.7 n 86 31 58.9 w 34.736861 n 86.533028 w 34.736861 ; 86.533028 licensing authority fcc public license information profile cdbs website www.waaytv.com waay tv is the abc affiliated television station for the tennessee valley area of north alabama that is licensed to huntsville . it broadcasts a high definition digital signal on uhf channel 32 from a transmitter at its studios on monte sano boulevard on top of monte sano mountain . the station is owned by calkins media . syndicated programming on waay includes entertainment tonight the doctors jeopardy and live with kelly . contents 1 history 2 digital television 2.1 digital channel 2.2 analog to digital conversion 3 news operation 4 references 5 external links history edit the station s first broadcast was on august 1 1959 as wafg tv . it was alabama s first primary abc affiliate . there was only one other station in the area at the time decatur s wmsl tv now huntsville s waff an nbc affiliate . this was an unusual arrangement for a two station market especially one as small as huntsville was at the time . when the station was sold to smith broadcasting owners of waay now wlor radio in 1963 the call sign was changed to waay tv . at the time smith broadcasting held a permit from the fcc to put a new station on the air broadcasting on uhf channel 25 but when the smith family received the offer to purchase wafg they decided to take that instead of building a new facility . channel 25 was later licensed to alabama public television station whiq . waay tv switched network affiliation to nbc on september 2 1967 but returned to abc nearly ten years later on december 11 1977 citing higher network ratings and the lack of a duplicate abc affiliate in florence where wowl now whdf was then an nbc affiliate as reasons . despite abc s fall from first place in the 1980s in favor of a renewed nbc waay still routinely came in first or second place in the ratings during the 1980s and 1990s . however despite having left full nbc affiliation behind back in 1977 waay would once again clear some nbc programming during the 1980s most notably late night with david letterman and friday night videos which waff preempted in favor of evangelist jimmy swaggart s daily program at 11 30 p.m. it was only when swaggart had to discontinue his weekday show in the aftermath of his sexual scandal in 1988 that waff resumed carrying letterman and fnv . since that time waay has remained a strictly abc affiliate clearing most if not all its programs . waay tv was an early adopter of weather radar systems for its weather coverage in the early 1970s . during the 1974 tornado outbreak the station was able to track the storms in real time using its radar system while other media outlets had to rely on telephoned reports of visual sightings as had been done traditionally . 1 in 1995 the station decided to expand its internal data network to become the internet service provider now known as hiwaay information services . the service survived a period of intense local competition in the huntsville area in the 1990s and remains in business as an independent regional provider . smith broadcasting sold waay tv to gocom broadcasting originally grapevine communications later renamed piedmont communications in 1999 . the smith family who previously owned broadcasting properties in birmingham before coming to huntsville was the last local owner of a huntsville television station as rivals whnt tv and waff had been sold to larger corporations years before . wzdx which was the first station in northern alabama not affiliated with the traditional networks or the educational television system has always belonged to outside interests . the smith family also at various times owned radio stations in fort walton beach florida and south pittsburg tennessee . at one time all three of huntsville s major network affiliates waay included had studios located beside its transmitters and towers on monte sano . after a 1982 fire gutted the building of waff that station and later whnt moved offices and production facilities into the city itself employing microwave relays to send signals to the transmitters . only waay continues to maintain its full operations on monte sano boulevard . whiq tv which is a pbs affiliate serves as a translator relay of alabama public television with programming originating from birmingham not huntsville . on september 4 2003 the 1 000 foot broadcasting tower leased by waay collapsed killing three people . in 2006 piedmont broadcasting agreed to sell waay to calkins media a pennsylvania based company that owns several small newspapers in pennsylvania and two other television stations wwsb in sarasota florida and wtxl in tallahassee florida . the sale to calkins became official on february 1 2007 . waay is calkins first broadcasting property outside of florida . on april 11 2016 it was reported that calkins would exit the broadcasting industry and sell its stations to raycom media . as raycom already owns waff waay s license was to be sold to american spirit media with raycom operating the station under a shared services agreement . 2 however on august 26 2016 calkins agreed to instead sell waay to heartland media through its usa television midamerica holdings joint venture with msouth equity partners . 3 digital television edit digital channel edit the station s digital signal is multiplexed channel video aspect psip short name programming 4 31.1 720p 16 9 waay hd main waay tv programming abc 31.2 480i tbd stormforce 31 weathernation 31.3 4 3 waayqvc qvc ota analog to digital conversion edit waay tv shut down its analog signal over uhf channel 31 on february 17 2009 as part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television which congress had moved the previous month to june 12 . 5 6 the station s digital signal remained on its pre transition uhf channel 32 7 using psip to display waay tv s virtual channel as 31 on digital television receivers . news operation edit in the spring 2007 ratings period all of the station s newscasts ranked in third place . this is in contrast from the 1970s through the early 1990s when waay was still family owned . at one point the station aired weekend morning newscasts but currently does not . on july 16 2007 at 5 waay unveiled a new set and graphics package similar to that of sister stations wwsb and wtxl . beginning september 13 2010 its news title became waay 31 firstnews . the station is now using the firstnews brand and logo in all branding including commercials for syndicated programming . the station was the first to air a 4 30 a.m. newscast in the market and is the only station in the area airing local news weekday at 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. 8 the channel produced a prime time newscast at 9 for upn affiliate whdf during the early 2000s . on september 20 2010 through a new news share agreement a second waay produced broadcast at 9 began airing every night on fox affiliate wzdx . 9 in addition to its main studios waay maintains news bureaus in decatur on lee street northeast and florence on north pine street within the university of north alabama campus . the station operates its own weather radar at the main studios called live storm force 31 doppler max . also in 2010 after some years of a third place finish in the ratings waay did something relatively rare for a central time zone station it cancelled its 6 p.m. newscast deciding to counterprogram whnt and waff with first run episodes of jeopardy it acquired the rights to the long running syndicated show from waff which had aired it in daytime slots since its inception in 1984 . waay is thus one of only a few stations in the central time zone affiliated with the traditional networks that allows a full hour of prime time access between 6 and 7 p.m. rather than just a half hour . on december 12 2011 waay began broadcasting its news programming in high definition making it the third station in the huntsville television market to do so behind waff and whnt . the wzdx shows were included in the upgrade . in mid 2014 the station launched three websites spacealabama.com redstonealabama.com and techalabama.com to cover the space military and tech industries in the northern alabama area . in late september 2014 the stormforce 31 weather team launched a 24 7 weather channel for northern alabama called stormforce 31 weathernation . the channel features regional and national weather from weathernation tv with local forecasts from the waay weather team every 10 minutes on the 5 s. the channel can be see on digital channel 31.2 . 10 references edit history of smith broadcasting http fly.hiwaay.net mdsmith 31histor.htm calkins selling 3 tvs exiting broadcasting . tvnewscheck . retrieved 11 april 2016 . application for consent to assignment of broadcast station construction permit or license . cdbs public access . federal communications commission . september 2 2016 . retrieved september 6 2016 . rabbitears tv query for waay http www.al.com news huntsvilletimes local.ssf base news 1233829009315960 . xml & coll 1 list of digital full power stations cdbs print http www.waaytv.com global story.asp s 12972053 http www.waaytv.com global story.asp s 13097072 waay tv weathernation tv partner to provide 24 7 weather coverage in north alabama al.com september 29th 2014 . external links edit waay tv website wzdx website waay tv 31 alumni website query the fcc s tv station database for waay v t e television stations in northern alabama including huntsville decatur florence and the shoals reception may vary by location and some stations may only be viewable with cable television local stations wxfl ld 10.1 dream tv wtzt cd 11.1 cozi tv whdf 15.1 cw whnt tv 19.1 cbs 19.2 whnt2 hd 19.3 antenna tv whiq wfiq 25.1 36.1 pbs apt 25.2 36.2 world 25.3 36.3 create wmjn lp 29.1 heartland 29.2 retro tv waay tv 31.1 abc 31.2 wx 31.3 qvc over the air wnal ld 32.1 pbj w17dj d 38.1 3abn 38.2 3abn proclaim 38.3 dare to dream 38.4 3abn latino 38.5 3abn radio 38.6 3abn radio latino 38.7 radio 74 wbcf ld 39.1 me u tv 39.2 youtoo america 39.3 biz tv waff tv 48.1 nbc 48.2 bounce tv 48.3 grittv wyam ld 51.1 launch tv 51.2 azteca 51.3 wyam am simulcast wzdx 54.1 fox 54.2 mntv asn 54.3 metv 54.4 escape whvd ld 67.1 daystar adjacent locals wmae 12 pbs mpb wngh 18 pbs booneville ms gpb dalton ga cable channels wamy 8 mntv defunct stations wyle 26 the wb s h jtv w46cf 46 w59cf 59 ubn w64bj 64 tbn w67co 67 tbn via wtjp tv gadsden al see also memphis tv nashville tv chattanooga tv atlanta tv birmingham tv tupelo tv v t e abc network affiliates in the state of alabama wdhn 18 dothan wear 3