Florida News Center

Last week, Florida News Center reported that Gray Television had licensed a new television station, finally bringing a CBS affiliate to the Panama City market. The new station, WECP-LD (a low powered/range station) will be contained in the Panama City studios of Gray owned WJHG-TV. Along with studio space, WECP will share tower and transmitter space with WJHG, creating Panama City’s first duopoly.

While this sounds like a boon for Gray, WJHG and Panama City, WECP comes with a plethora of issues. Sources in the panhandle tell Florida News Center that the weak powered WECP signal, will be a drain on its sister, WJHG. Since the two stations will both share the same transmitter and power, estimates demonstrate that WECP will degrade the WJHG signal by almost 49%.

Of course most viewers in this day and age do not use the actual television signals anymore, opting for cable or satellite instead. However, sources point out that Comcast (the primary cable provider for Panama City) does not have fiber optic links to its local affiliates. Comcast retransmits its local affiliates by receiving the over-the-air signal and then using that to feed to its customers. So, the question is; will the 49% signal degradation by WECP, then effect the Comcast signal as well?

Stay tuned to Florida News Center for any developing changes.

With less than a week until the 2012 Ölympics (in London this year, for those who might be in a coma) begin, Florida NBC affiliates have dusted off and polished their own gold. Check out the NBC Ölympic custom affiliate logos below.

WFLA – Tampa	WTVJ – Miami	WESH – Orlando
WPTV – West Palm Beach	WTLV – Jacksonville	WPMI – Pensacola
WBBH – Fort Myers	WJHG – Panama City	WNBW – Gainesville
WTWC – Tallahassee

 ***This post is for educational, informational and archival purposes only. Florida News Center does not intend to infringe on any copyrights claimed by the International Olympic Committee, NBCUniversal/Comcast or NBC affiliates. This post is for educational, informational an archival purposes only.***

(from WJHG.com) – Panama City is getting a new television station and with it comes the market’s first exclusive CBS television affiliate.

Gray Television, Inc, owners of WJHG-TV in Panama City, confirm the new station will be on Channel 18 and the call letters are WECP. It will be on the air, on all area cable TV systems and satellite programming suppliers.

The new station has been in the works for months and construction of the transmitter facility is nearly complete and is located at the WJHG-TV NewsChannel 7 transmitter location on State Road 20 and US 231 in Youngstown, Green Hills in northern Bay County.

WECP studios will be co-located with NewsChannel 7, WJHG at 8195 Front Beach Road, Panama City Beach….Cont….

(from MediaPost.com) – Gray Television released preliminary figures for the second quarter showing revenues will be up about 6%, stripping out dollars from political spending and retransmission consent. Total revenues are projected to increase 24% to $95 million.

The company was helped by about $13 million in political spending as its three Wisconsin stations benefited from special recall elections in the state.

The political dollars sucking up inventory did lead to lesser increases in both local (1%) and national (7%) ad dollars than expected….Cont….

Sources tell Florida News Center that WJHG news director Gavin Maliska announced yesterday that he is leaving the Panama City station. He is headed to an unnamed station in Macon, GA. While unconfirmed, we are guessing that Maliska will replace George Jobin, who left as news director at Macon’s WGXA Fox 24 just two weeks ago (H/T to NewsBlues.com)

Maliska has been at WJHG for just under a year. He joined WJHG in July 2011, replacing then news director Mark Wildman, who was abruptly let go from the station in March 2011.

So far there is no word on who will replace Maliska as news director. Stay tuned to Florida News Center for further details.