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WOLO-TV
WOLO-TV (channel 25), branded ABC Columbia, is a television station in Columbia, South Carolina, United States, affiliated with ABC and owned by Bahakel Communications. Its studios and business offices are located on Cushman Drive (near US 1) in northeast Columbia. WOLO-TV's transmitter is located on Rush Road in southwestern Kershaw County, near Camden.
WOLO-TV began broadcasting on October 1, 1961, as WCCA-TV. It used the facilities of WCOS-TV, South Carolina's first TV station, which left the air in 1956. It brought Columbia back to having three commercial television stations. Its first owners, First Carolina Corporation, went bankrupt and sold the station to Cy Bahakel in 1964; the call sign was changed to WOLO-TV. It was one of several stations Bahakel upgraded to coincide with the All-Channel Receiver Act making UHF stations more economically viable.
WOLO-TV has perennially been a third-place outlet in local news ratings, lacking investment and, until 1991, a late local newscast. In the 1990s, it gained a reputation as a station with instability in management and news leadership. Between 2002 and 2005, the newscast was produced entirely from the studios of Bahakel-owned WCCB in Charlotte, North Carolina. From 2005 to 2022, the station's newscasts originated from a streetside studio in downtown Columbia.
Channel 25 in Columbia was originally occupied by WCOS-TV, South Carolina's first television station. It signed on the air on May 9, 1953, and operated as an ABC affiliate until January 21, 1956, when competitor WNOK-TV bought most of WCOS-TV's assets.
The First Carolina Corporation, a group of local investors, obtained a construction permit from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to build a new station on channel 25 on June 1, 1961, after applying on August 5, 1960. Construction was in full swing by the summer. The former physical plant of WCOS-TV on Shakespeare Road was purchased for use by the new station, and a new 348-foot (106 m) tower was erected on the site. The station signed on for the first time on October 1, 1961, as WCCA-TV, using the former WCOS-TV facilities and downtown sales offices in the Hotel Columbia. The FCC granted First Carolina a license to cover the permit on July 24, 1962.
In 1964, Cy Bahakel bought the station out of bankruptcy and changed its call sign to WOLO-TV, seeking a fresh start. Immediately, work began to add height to the station's tower to increase its coverage area. WOLO announced another upgrade in 1966, with the height going from 522 feet (159 m) to 933 feet (284 m) and an increase in power to 550,000 watts. This ultimately materialized in 1969 as an increase to 904,000 watts, followed up in 1981 by a boost to 3.6 million watts.
The case of WOLO-TV was not unique. Instead of one VHF station in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Bahakel bought three similar UHF stations: WOLO, WKAB-TV in Montgomery, and WCCB in Charlotte—all ABC affiliates at the time, and two of them off the air—in the same year. All three were then upgraded to increase their coverage areas at the same time that the All-Channel Receiver Act meant that all new sets could receive UHF stations; the three stations had become profitable operations by the early 1980s. Cash flow increased fivefold from 1975 to 1979, and the staff tripled in size.
In 2001, WOLO activated a new transmitter tower along I-20 outside Camden, one of the tallest structures in South Carolina at 1,764 feet (537.7 m). Prior to then, the station had long been plagued by a weak signal. Although it decently covered Columbia and most of its inner suburbs in Richland and Lexington counties, it only provided grade B signal coverage of the second-largest city in the market, Sumter, and was all but unviewable in some outlying areas even after the 1981 power increase. The new tower, in contrast, increased WOLO's coverage by 50 percent, providing at least secondary coverage of 24 counties from Charlotte's outer suburbs to the Pee Dee. It also allowed the station to begin digital broadcasts. The station rebranded from "ABC 25" to "ABC Columbia" in 2005; the move coincided with the return of local news production to the city after three years where the anchors were based at WCCB.
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WOLO-TV
WOLO-TV (channel 25), branded ABC Columbia, is a television station in Columbia, South Carolina, United States, affiliated with ABC and owned by Bahakel Communications. Its studios and business offices are located on Cushman Drive (near US 1) in northeast Columbia. WOLO-TV's transmitter is located on Rush Road in southwestern Kershaw County, near Camden.
WOLO-TV began broadcasting on October 1, 1961, as WCCA-TV. It used the facilities of WCOS-TV, South Carolina's first TV station, which left the air in 1956. It brought Columbia back to having three commercial television stations. Its first owners, First Carolina Corporation, went bankrupt and sold the station to Cy Bahakel in 1964; the call sign was changed to WOLO-TV. It was one of several stations Bahakel upgraded to coincide with the All-Channel Receiver Act making UHF stations more economically viable.
WOLO-TV has perennially been a third-place outlet in local news ratings, lacking investment and, until 1991, a late local newscast. In the 1990s, it gained a reputation as a station with instability in management and news leadership. Between 2002 and 2005, the newscast was produced entirely from the studios of Bahakel-owned WCCB in Charlotte, North Carolina. From 2005 to 2022, the station's newscasts originated from a streetside studio in downtown Columbia.
Channel 25 in Columbia was originally occupied by WCOS-TV, South Carolina's first television station. It signed on the air on May 9, 1953, and operated as an ABC affiliate until January 21, 1956, when competitor WNOK-TV bought most of WCOS-TV's assets.
The First Carolina Corporation, a group of local investors, obtained a construction permit from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to build a new station on channel 25 on June 1, 1961, after applying on August 5, 1960. Construction was in full swing by the summer. The former physical plant of WCOS-TV on Shakespeare Road was purchased for use by the new station, and a new 348-foot (106 m) tower was erected on the site. The station signed on for the first time on October 1, 1961, as WCCA-TV, using the former WCOS-TV facilities and downtown sales offices in the Hotel Columbia. The FCC granted First Carolina a license to cover the permit on July 24, 1962.
In 1964, Cy Bahakel bought the station out of bankruptcy and changed its call sign to WOLO-TV, seeking a fresh start. Immediately, work began to add height to the station's tower to increase its coverage area. WOLO announced another upgrade in 1966, with the height going from 522 feet (159 m) to 933 feet (284 m) and an increase in power to 550,000 watts. This ultimately materialized in 1969 as an increase to 904,000 watts, followed up in 1981 by a boost to 3.6 million watts.
The case of WOLO-TV was not unique. Instead of one VHF station in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Bahakel bought three similar UHF stations: WOLO, WKAB-TV in Montgomery, and WCCB in Charlotte—all ABC affiliates at the time, and two of them off the air—in the same year. All three were then upgraded to increase their coverage areas at the same time that the All-Channel Receiver Act meant that all new sets could receive UHF stations; the three stations had become profitable operations by the early 1980s. Cash flow increased fivefold from 1975 to 1979, and the staff tripled in size.
In 2001, WOLO activated a new transmitter tower along I-20 outside Camden, one of the tallest structures in South Carolina at 1,764 feet (537.7 m). Prior to then, the station had long been plagued by a weak signal. Although it decently covered Columbia and most of its inner suburbs in Richland and Lexington counties, it only provided grade B signal coverage of the second-largest city in the market, Sumter, and was all but unviewable in some outlying areas even after the 1981 power increase. The new tower, in contrast, increased WOLO's coverage by 50 percent, providing at least secondary coverage of 24 counties from Charlotte's outer suburbs to the Pee Dee. It also allowed the station to begin digital broadcasts. The station rebranded from "ABC 25" to "ABC Columbia" in 2005; the move coincided with the return of local news production to the city after three years where the anchors were based at WCCB.