WDVM-TV


WDVM-TV, virtual channel 25, is an independent television station licensed to Hagerstown, Maryland, United States and serving the northwestern portion of the Washington, D.C. television market. The station is owned by Nexstar Media Group, as part of a nominal duopoly with Washington-licensed CW affiliate WDCW ; however, the two stations maintain separate operations. WDVM-TV's studios are located in the Alexander House Hotel on East Washington Street in downtown Hagerstown, and its transmitter is located in Fairview Mountain, west of Clear Spring, Maryland.

History

The station signed on the air as WHAG-TV on January 3, 1970. It was originally owned by Warren Adler along with WHAG radio in Halfway. WHAG-TV's original analog transmitter was to be on top of the Hagerstown Motor Inn but was rejected due to structural incompatibility. A site on Fairview Mountain would become the location of the analog signal on UHF channel 25. The station was an NBC affiliate; network anchors Chet Huntley and David Brinkley welcomed the station to the network during their newscast that night.
Adler Communications sold WHAG-TV to Sheldon and Samuel Magazine of Washington, D.C. in 1973. The Magazine brothers then sold it to local aviation pioneer Richard Henson in 1977. Henson then sold the station to Great Trails Broadcasting in 1981. Great Trails then exited broadcasting and sold WHAG along with 2 of its stations—WFFT-TV in Fort Wayne, Indiana and KSVI in Billings, Montana to Quorum Broadcasting in 1998 for $65 million.
On September 8, 2003, Nexstar Broadcasting Group announced that it would acquire Quorum Broadcasting and its stations for $230 million. The sale was completed on December 31, 2003.

Loss of NBC affiliation

NBC confirmed to The Herald-Mail that it was declining to renew its affiliation with WHAG on February 19, 2016; the station ceased broadcasting network programming on July 1. A factor in this decision was perceived competition with network-owned WRC-TV. Since 2014, NBC has removed its programming from several affiliates, including WHAG-TV, WMGM-TV, and KENV-DT, that functioned as secondary NBC stations serving outlying areas of their larger markets. In addition to expanding local news, WHAG-TV also added programs from Heroes & Icons at the time.
On July 1, 2017, the station rebranded itself and adopted the call sign WDVM-TV. The change came after the station expanded its coverage area by 1.2 million households, with news director Mark Kraham stating that "we wanted to make it clear that we're not just a Hagerstown station." The callsign had previously been used in the market by what is now WUSA from 1978 through 1986.
On December 3, 2018, Nexstar announced it would acquire the assets of Chicago-based Tribune Media—which has owned Washington-based CW affiliate WDCW since 1999—for $6.4 billion in cash and debt. The sale was approved by the FCC on September 16 and was completed on September 19, 2019, forming a nominal duopoly with WDCW; however, Nexstar plans to keep their operations separate due to WDVM-TV serving a smaller portion of the viewing area while WDCW serves the entire viewing area.
On July 1, 2019, all Heroes & Icons programming was dropped in favor of additional syndicated programming.

Digital channels

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:
ChannelVideoAspectPSIP short nameProgramming
25.11080iWDVM-DTMain WDVM-TV programming
25.2480iEscapeCourt TV Mystery
25.3480iGritGrit
25.4480iLaffLaff

WHAG's broadcasts became digital-only, effective June 12, 2009.
As part of the spectrum repacking process following the FCC's incentive auction, WDVM changed from channel 26 to 23 on August 2, 2019. However, their virtual channel number remains 25 through the use of PSIP.

News operation

Right from the start, WHAG began offering local newscasts with The Valley News which aired weeknights at 6, 7, and 11. The original anchors were Bob Witt with news, Glenn Presgraves with sports, and Bill Wolfinger forecasting the weather. Bill Wolfinger also did a Saturday night horror movie show where he would be in costume similar to Lon Chaney. The news department expanded in 1972 to include weekend evening broadcasts at 11 that totaled six hours of local news per week. By the year 2000, news content increased to over 22 hours of broadcasts per week. In 1997, WHAG added a microwave truck allowing the transmitting of live breaking news from the viewing area. On February 12, 2010, WHAG dropped the "NBC 25" branding for "WHAG" and switched its news branding from NBC 25 News to WHAG News.
Outside of a few senior staffers, the station's news department mainly acts as a "farm team" operation that features new journalists and behind the scenes staff who have graduated from their schools looking for experience at a small-market television station and serve as "one man band" personnel that shoot, write, and edit their own stories, and eventually move on to further opportunities in larger markets. The station operates a bureau on East Patrick Street in Frederick.
On August 30, 2010, WHAG added a half hour to its weekday noon and 5 p.m. newscasts. Until this point unlike most NBC affiliates in the Eastern Time Zone, the station had not aired a broadcast weeknights at 5:30. It still does not offer a full two-hour weekday morning show. There is now a half hour broadcast seen Monday through Saturday nights at 7. On weekends, an hour-long morning show at 6 as well as a half hour Sunday morning broadcast at 9 were added. In addition, a Northern Virginia Bureau covering Leesburg, Berryville, and Winchester was opened. Although not a full news department, this is now the second local news operation established in those areas after TV3 Winchester launched back on March 5, 2007. All of the preceding changes required the expansion of WHAG's personnel. On October 21, 2013, WHAG began broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition.
On February 19, 2016, concurrent with the announcement that WHAG would lose its NBC affiliation, Nexstar announced plans for a major expansion of the station's news operation that launched on July 1, 2016, promising 20 hours of additional news programming per-week, including Maryland and Northern Virginia-specific coverage and a simulcast of WOWK-TV's West Virginia Tonight.

Cable and satellite carriage

Recently, it has been added to the Dish Network lineup of local offerings and is available to subscribers that currently receive the Washington, D.C. market locals. WDVM-TV had also been seen on Dish as the default NBC affiliate for the Salisbury television market, as that market did not have an NBC affiliate of its own until June 2014, when WRDE-LD in nearby Rehoboth Beach, Delaware switched its affiliation to NBC. It is also viewed in widescreen standard definition on Verizon FiOS in Montgomery County, Maryland.
On February 26, 2020, WDVM-TV was added to DirecTV's lineup of local offerings and, like with rival Dish, is also available to subscribers that currently receive the Washington, D.C. market locals. It is seen on channel 25 and only in high definition.