View source for WEAU

{{Short description|Television station in Eau Claire, Wisconsin}}
{{for|the South African suffrage organization|Women’s Enfranchisement Association of the Union}}
{{update|date=August 2021}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=April 2024}}
{{Infobox television station
| callsign               = WEAU
| city                   = Eau Claire, Wisconsin
| logo                   = WEAU 13 2023.svg
| logo_size              = 175px
| image                  = 
| image_size             = 
| caption                = 
| branding               = WEAU 13; CW Eau Claire La Crosse (on 14.10)
| digital                = 17 ([[UHF]])
| virtual                = 13
| subchannels            =
| translators            = ''see {{section link||Translators}}''
| affiliations           = {{ubl|'''13.1:''' [[NBC]]|'''14.10:''' [[CW+]]|''for others, see {{section link||Subchannels}}''}}
| founded                = 
| airdate                = {{start date and age|1953|12|17|p=y}}
| location               = [[Eau Claire, Wisconsin|Eau Claire]]–[[La Crosse, Wisconsin]]
| country                = United States
| callsign_meaning       = Eau Claire
| former_callsigns       = WEAU-TV (1953–2012)<ref>[https://cdbs.recnet.com/corres/?doc=86149 FCC History Cards for WEAU]. [[Federal Communications Commission]].</ref><ref>[https://licensing.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/ws.exe/prod/cdbs/pubacc/prod/call_hist.pl?Facility_id=7893 Call Sign History for WEAU].</ref>
| former_channel_numbers = {{ubl|'''Analog:''' 13 ([[VHF]], 1953–2009)|'''Digital:''' 39 (UHF, 2002–2009), 13 (VHF, 2009–2011), 38 (UHF, 2011–2020)}}
| owner                  = [[Gray Media]]
| licensee               = Gray Television Licensee, [[LLC]]
| former_affiliations    = {{ubl|'''All secondary:'''<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.ellwanger.tv/collect/tvg/eds/old/nw.html|title=TV Guide: Northwest Edition}}</ref>|[[DuMont Television Network|DuMont]] (1954–1956)|[[CBS]] (1954−{{circa|1958}})|[[American Broadcasting Company|ABC]] (1954−1970)|[[NTA Film Network|NTA]] (1956–1961)}}
| erp                    = 740 [[kW]]
| haat                   = {{convert|615.5|m|ft|0|abbr=on}}
| class                  = 
| facility_id            = 7893
| coordinates            = {{nowrap|{{coord|44|39|50|N|90|57|41|W|type:landmark_scale:2000}}}}
| licensing_authority    = [[FCC]]
| website                = {{URL|https://www.weau.com/}} 
}}

'''WEAU''' (channel 13) is a [[television station]] licensed to [[Eau Claire, Wisconsin]], United States, serving the [[La Crosse]]–Eau Claire [[media market|market]] as an affiliate of [[NBC]] and [[The CW Plus]]. The station is owned by [[Gray Media]], and maintains studios on South Hastings Way / [[U.S. Route 53|US 53 Business]] in [[Altoona, Wisconsin|Altoona]] (with an Eau Claire [[United States Postal Service|postal]] address); its transmitter is located north of [[Fairchild, Wisconsin|Fairchild]], near the [[Eau Claire County, Wisconsin|Eau Claire]]–[[Clark County, Wisconsin|Clark]] county line.

==History==
WEAU-TV signed-on December 17, 1953, under the ownership of Central Broadcasting Company. This ownership group was led by a predecessor to [[Morgan Murphy Media]] and also included the ''[[Eau Claire Leader-Telegram]]'' along with WEAU radio (790 AM, now [[WEAQ]] at 1150 AM, and 94.1 FM, now [[WIAL]]).<ref name="ty1955">{{cite book|title=Telecasting Yearbook-Marketbook 1954|year=1954|page=319|url=http://www.davidgleason.com/Archive%20BC-YB/1954-1955%20TV/Telecasting-1954-1955-All.pdf|access-date=March 26, 2011}}</ref> It has always been a primary NBC affiliate but initially carried programs from [[CBS]], [[American Broadcasting Company|ABC]], and [[DuMont Television Network|DuMont]]. The station later lost DuMont following that network's shutdown in 1956, CBS when La Crosse and Eau Claire were mixed into one giant market in 1958 (with La Crosse's [[WKBT]] becoming the market's CBS  affiliate), and ABC when [[WXOW]] (channel 19) signed on in 1970. During the late-1950s, the station was also briefly affiliated with the [[NTA Film Network]].<ref name="Boxoffice7">{{Citation| title = Require Prime Evening Time for NTA Films| journal = Boxoffice| pages = 13| date = November 10, 1956| url = http://issuu.com/boxoffice/docs/boxoffice_111056-1}}</ref> One of the first well-known personalities on WEAU was "Sheriff Bob" Dawson who hosted a children's show during the 1950s and 1960s.
[[File:WEAU-13 TV Tower.png|thumb|left|The WEAU-13 tower in Fairchild, Wisconsin pictured in July 2024 from a distance of approximately 3,500 feet]] 
The station initially broadcast from a tower immediately behind the WEAU studios on South Hastings Way in Eau Claire. A new tower, approximately {{convert|1000|ft|m}} tall, was built in the same location in 1956 {{coord|44|39|50|N|90|57|41|W|}} before an approximately {{convert|2000|ft|m|adj=on}} tower was constructed near Fairchild in 1966. The tower in Eau Claire is now topped by the digital transmitter of rival ABC affiliate [[WQOW]] (channel 18).

Morgan Murphy sold off WEAU radio in 1959; in 1962, it sold WEAU-TV to The [[The Post-Crescent|Post Corporation]] of [[Appleton, Wisconsin|Appleton]] (Morgan Murphy would later purchase rival [[WKBT]], channel 8). WEAU's departure from radio proved short-lived as The Post Corporation purchased [[Chippewa Falls]] [[radio station]] WAXX (1150 AM) in 1963,<ref name=b-waxxbuy>{{cite news|title=For the Record|url=http://www.davidgleason.com/Archive%20BC/63-OCR/BC-1963-01-21-Page-84.pdf|access-date=March 26, 2011|newspaper=[[Broadcasting & Cable|Broadcasting]]|date=January 21, 1963}}</ref> and two years later, established a new WEAU-FM at 100.7 (moving to 104.5 when the Fairchild tower was built) which largely simulcasted WAXX's [[country music]] format. WEAU-FM's call letters were switched to [[WAXX-FM]] in 1977,<ref name=b-weaufmtowaxxfm>{{cite news|title=For the Record|url=http://www.davidgleason.com/Archive%20BC/77-OCR/BC-1977-09-26-Page-59.pdf|access-date=March 26, 2011|newspaper=Broadcasting|date=September 26, 1977}}</ref> and in 1978, the country format was moved exclusively to WAXX-FM with the AM station becoming [[WAYY]] (which later moved to 790 AM in a swap with WEAQ).

In 1984, [[Racine, Wisconsin|Racine]]-born [[George N. Gillett Jr.]] purchased the Post Corporation stations, including WEAU-TV, making it a sister station to [[Milwaukee]]'s [[WITI (TV)|WITI]] for a short time. WAXX and WAYY were spun off to Central Communications at the same time, and in 1985, the two radio stations moved out of the WEAU building to a new facility behind its parking lot. Despite being under separate ownership, WEAU continued to provide [[weather forecasting]] services for WAXX and WAYY as well as other stations purchased by Central Communications (which included WEAU's original radio properties, WEAQ and WIAL, in addition to [[WECL]] and [[WGNW|WDRK]]) until December 31, 2001. WEAU resumed providing weather services to those same six stations, now under the ownership of Maverick Media, on September 11, 2006.

Gillett began defaulting on some of his purchases in the late-1980s culminating in 1990 when he sold WEAU to Busse Broadcasting, owner of [[KOLN]] in [[Lincoln, Nebraska]] and KGIN in [[Grand Island, Nebraska]] (and at one point also owned [[WWMT]] in [[Kalamazoo, Michigan]] and [[KOKH-TV]] in [[Oklahoma City]]). In 1998, Gray Communications Systems (which was subsequently renamed Gray Television) and Cosmos Broadcasting (the broadcasting division of the [[Liberty Corporation]] which was later merged into [[Raycom Media]] and itself sold to Gray) teamed up to purchase the Busse stations with WEAU going to Cosmos and KOLN/KGIN going to Gray. Cosmos then traded WEAU back to Gray in exchange for [[WALB]] (Gray's original flagship station) in [[Albany, Georgia]] (that station returned to Gray in 2019 after WALB's last owner Raycom merged with Gray). Technology was the highlight of the following decade as WEAU-DT, which originally transmitted on channel 39, signed-on April 30, 2002, with the digital transmitter located at the top of the tower in Fairchild.

The station turned off its analog transmitter at 12:30 p.m. on February 16, 2009. At around 1 p.m., WEAU's digital signal relocated from channel 39 to channel 13. On October 1, 2012, WEAU dropped the "-TV" suffix from its [[Call signs in North America|call sign]].<ref name=fcc-callsigns>{{cite web|url=http://licensing.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/ws.exe/prod/cdbs/pubacc/prod/call_hist.pl?Facility_id=7893&Callsign=WEAU|title=Call Sign History|work=CDBS Public Access|publisher=[[Federal Communications Commission]]|access-date=October 2, 2012}}</ref> The transmission tower for WEAU was the tallest structure in the state of Wisconsin topping out at {{convert|2000|ft|m}}, or over {{convert|500|ft|m}} taller than the [[Empire State Building]]. The tower was shared with former sister radio station WAXX. On March 22, 2011, this tower collapsed during an intense [[winter storm]] that brought a mixture of terrible weather conditions.<ref>{{cite web|title=WEAU 13 tower collapses in Fairchild|url=http://www.weau.com/home/headlines/WEAU_13_tower_collapses_in_Fairchild.html|work=WEAU-TV|access-date=March 23, 2011|archive-date=March 25, 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110325081129/http://www.weau.com/home/headlines/WEAU_13_tower_collapses_in_Fairchild.html|url-status=dead}}</ref> A replacement tower was completed by December 15, 2011, and broadcasts resumed on UHF channel 38 in late December.

In [[2023–24 Milwaukee Bucks season|2024]], WEAU and WECX-LD aired 10 [[Milwaukee Bucks]] games as part of an agreement with [[Weigel Broadcasting]].<ref>{{cite web|last=Knox|first=Heather|title=Catch the Milwaukee Bucks on WEAU|url=https://www.weau.com/2024/02/09/catch-milwaukee-bucks-weau/|access-date=February 10, 2024|website=WEAU.com|date=February 9, 2024}}</ref>

==News operation==
WEAU tends to focus its local news coverage on Eau Claire and the Chippewa Valley, with a secondary emphasis on La Crosse.{{citation needed|date=March 2019}}

WEAU constructed its own [[Doppler weather radar]] in 1979, becoming the first television station in the market to have its own device and no longer rely on delayed data from the [[National Weather Service]]. It premiered a 5 o'clock weeknight newscast on September 14, 1981. A satellite truck to provide live remote broadcasts came into use by 1983. The station was met with tragedy in September 1991 when weeknight news anchor Cindy Schott died unexpectedly. Her death was later the subject of a story on ''[[Real Life with Jane Pauley]]'' and ''[[Dateline NBC]]''. WEAU resorted to a solo anchor format for the 6 and 10 p.m. news (John Froyd) following Schott's death but returned to a co-anchor format for their weeknight 10 o'clock program (Pat Kreitlow and Judy Clark) in August 1998 upon Froyd's retirement.

On August 28, 2006, WEAU entered into a news share agreement with [[Fox Broadcasting Company|Fox]] affiliates [[WLAX|WLAX/WEUX]] (then owned by [[Grant Broadcasting System II]]). The arrangement resulted in those stations airing a weeknight prime time newscast produced by this NBC outlet. Known as ''Fox 25/48 News at 9'', the half-hour broadcast would eventually be expanded to weekends starting January 20, 2007.

WLAX/WEUX features a majority of WEAU's on-air team except for maintaining a separate weeknight [[meteorologist]] and weekend news anchor (although they can fill in on the NBC outlet when needed). ''Fox 25/48 News at 9'' originates from a secondary set at WEAU's studios and is fed to the WLAX/WEUX facility through a fiber-optic link. On August 5, 2011, WEAU upgraded its newscasts to high definition level. However, the WLAX/WEUX newscasts were not included in the change because they were produced from a secondary set that lacked HD cameras. As of fall 2015, ''Fox 25/48 News'' is broadcast in high definition.

=== Notable former on-air staff ===
*[[Craig Coshun]] – [[FanDuel Sports Network|FanDuel Sports Network Wisconsin]] Broadcaster/Big Ten Play-By-Play Announcer; WEAU Reporter/Anchor: 1988–90
*[[Pat Kreitlow]] – [[Wisconsin State Senator]], 23rd District ([[Democratic Party (United States)|D]]-[[Chippewa Falls]]), 2007–2011; WEAU Anchor/Reporter: mid 1990s–2005
*[[Cameron Sanders]] – [[CNN]] Correspondent & Host of public radio's ''[[Marketplace (radio program)|Marketplace]]''; WEAU Reporter: 1979–80

==Technical information==
===Subchannels===
The station's digital signal is [[multiplex (TV)|multiplexed]]:
{| class="wikitable"
|+Subchannels of WEAU<ref>[http://www.rabbitEars.info/market.php?request=station_search&callsign=WEAU#station RabbitEars TV Query for WEAU]</ref><ref name="weaurescan">{{Cite web|url=https://www.weau.com/2021/08/02/weau-13-news-is-offering-new-channels-starting-august-2-rescan-required/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210816131159/https://www.weau.com/2021/08/02/weau-13-news-is-offering-new-channels-starting-august-2-rescan-required/|archive-date=August 16, 2021|title=WEAU 13 News is offering new channels starting August 2; rescan required|date=August 2, 2021 }}</ref>
! scope = "col" | [[Digital subchannel#United States|Channel]]
! scope = "col" | [[Display resolution|Res.]]
! scope = "col" | [[Aspect ratio (image)|Aspect]]
! scope = "col" | Short name
! scope = "col" | Programming
|-
! scope = "row" | 13.1 
| [[1080i]] || rowspan=7| [[16:9]] || WEAUHD || [[NBC]] 
|-
! scope = "row" | 13.2 
| rowspan=6|[[480i]] || COZI || [[Cozi TV]]
|-
! scope = "row" | 13.3 
| MeTV|| [[MeTV]]
|-
! scope = "row" | 13.4 
| MOVIES || [[Movies!]]
|-
! scope = "row" | 13.5 
| Defy || [[Ion Plus]]
|-
! scope = "row" | 13.6
| OUTLAW || [[Free TV Networks|Outlaw TV]]
|-
! scope = "row" | 14.10 
| style="background-color: #E6FFF7;"|WECXSD || style="background-color: #E6FFF7;"|[[The CW Plus]] (WECX-LD)
|}
{{legend|#E6FFF7|Simulcast of subchannels of another station}}

{| class="wikitable"
|+Subchannels of WECX-LD{{r|weaurescan}}<ref>[http://www.rabbitEars.info/market.php?request=station_search&callsign=WECX-LD#station RabbitEars TV Query for WECX-LD]</ref>
! scope = "col" | [[Digital subchannel#United States|Channel]]
! scope = "col" | [[Display resolution|Res.]]
! scope = "col" | [[Aspect ratio (image)|Aspect]]
! scope = "col" | Short name
! scope = "col" | Programming
|-
! scope = "row" | 14.1 
| [[720p]] || rowspan=5| [[16:9]] || WECX-HD || [[The CW Plus]] 
|-
! scope = "row" | 14.2 
| rowspan=3|480i || HandI || [[Heroes & Icons]]
|-
! scope = "row" | 14.3 
| StartTV || [[Start TV]]
|-
! scope = "row" | 14.4 
| MeTV || [[MeTV]]
|-
! scope = "row" | 13.10 
| [[1080i]] || style="background-color: #E6FFF7;"|WEAU-HD || style="background-color: #E6FFF7;"|[[NBC]] (WEAU)
|}
{{legend|#E6FFF7|Simulcast of subchannels of another station}}

===Translators===
{| class="sortable wikitable"
|-
! City of license
! Callsign
! Translating
! Channel
! [[effective radiated power|ERP]]
! [[HAAT]]
! [[Facility ID]]
! Transmitter coordinates
|-
| rowspan=2|[[Eau Claire, Wisconsin|Eau Claire]] ||'''{{FCC-LMS-Facility|185705|3=WECX-LD}}'''|| || style="text-align: center;"| 14 || 10.1 kW || {{convert|474.9|m|ft|0|abbr=on}} || 185705 || {{coord|44|39|50|N|90|57|41|W|type:landmark_scale:2000|name=WECX-LD}}
|-
||'''{{FCC-LMS-Facility|184506|3=W33DH-D}}'''|| rowspan=2|WECX-LD || style="text-align: center;"| 33 || rowspan=2|15 kW || {{convert|123.5|m|ft|0|abbr=on}} || 184506 || {{coord|44|48|0.0|N|91|27|57.0|W|type:landmark_scale:2000|name=W33DH-D}}
|-
|| [[La Crosse]] ||'''{{FCC-LMS-Facility|35676|3=W34FC-D}}'''|| style="text-align: center;"| 34 || {{convert|327|m|ft|0|abbr=on}} || 35676 || {{coord|43|48|23|N|91|22|3|W|type:landmark_scale:2000|name=W34FC-D}}
|}
{{reflist|group=note}}

From July 2020 to September 13, 2021, WEAU was rebroadcast via a Digital Replacement Translator in the La Crosse area on RF channel 30.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.avsforum.com/threads/lacrosse-wausau-wi-hdtv.448653/page-87|title=AVS Forum - LaCrosse / Wausau, WI - HDTV, post #1737}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.avsforum.com/threads/lacrosse-wausau-wi-hdtv.448653/page-91|title=AVS Forum - LaCrosse / Wausau, WI - HDTV, post #1815}}</ref><ref name="weaudrt">{{Cite web|url=https://enterpriseefiling.fcc.gov/dataentry/public/tv/draftCopy.html?displayType=html&appKey=25076ff363828d7901639d90f9023d06&id=25076ff363828d7901639d90f9023d06&goBack=N|title=New Digital Replacement Translator Construction Permit Application|work=Licensing and Management System|publisher=[[Federal Communications Commission]]|date=May 30, 2018|access-date=June 26, 2019}}</ref><ref name="weau-ld">{{Cite web|url=https://www.avsforum.com/threads/lacrosse-wausau-wi-hdtv.448653/page-83#post-60049162|title = LaCrosse / Wausau, WI - HDTV}}</ref>

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
*{{Official website|https://www.weau.com/}}
*{{Structurae|id=20014030|title=WEAU Television Tower}}
*{{ASR|key=598749|number=1033664}}

{{Eau Claire TV}}
{{NBC Wisconsin}}
{{NBC Minnesota}}
{{Other Wisconsin Stations}}
{{Gray TV}}

[[Category:1953 establishments in Wisconsin]]
[[Category:Cozi TV affiliates]]
[[Category:The CW affiliates]]
[[Category:Gray Media]]
[[Category:Heroes & Icons affiliates]]
[[Category:MeTV affiliates]]
[[Category:Movies! affiliates]]
[[Category:NBC affiliates]]
[[Category:Start TV affiliates]]
[[Category:Television channels and stations established in 1953]]
[[Category:Television stations in Wisconsin|EAU]]