WESV-TV

WESV-TV
Location	Canton, Ohio
Branding	CBS 33
Slogan	Your Eye on the Eastern Valley
Channel(s)	Digital: 51 (UHF) Virtual: 33
subchannel(s)	33.1 CBS-HD 33.2 MGM-HD
Affiliation	CBS
First air date	September 25, 1978
Former call letters	WCMA-TV (1978-1996)
Former channel number	Analog: 33 (UHF) (1957-2009)
Former Affiliation	none
Owner	Marks Radio Group (Eastern Valley Broadcasting Corporation)

WESV-TV is the CBS-affiliated television station for the Akron/Canton, OH market. Licensed to Massillon, it broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 33 (or virtual channel 33.1 via PSIP) from a transmitter in Uptown Canton. Owned by Stephan Marks, WESV-TV has sales and administrative offices in downtown Canton.

Overview

When WAKR-TV signed on, it was Akron's only network affiliate. Had even one more network station signed on around the same time, or even a network affiliate in Canton, the two cities may well have broken off from Cleveland and formed their own market. This market would have been among the top 100 markets in the Midwest and probably the whole country and would have probably served much of east-central and north-central Ohio, where the Cleveland stations have poor reception. And so, Nationwide Communications of Columbus founded WCMA-TV Channel 33, a CBS affiliate for the market, in Massillon with a license in Canton.

History

The station first went on the air on September 25, 1978 as WCMA-TV, by some key people from Nationwide Communications, Inc. of Columbus.

In January 1996, Citicasters of Cincinnati, acquired WCMA from Nationwide in an announcement that Nationwide will exit from broadcasting the next year, making it a sister station to CBS affiliates WTSP (Channel 10) in St. Petersburg, Florida and WKRC-TV (Channel 12) in Cincinnati. Later that year, it changed its call letters to the current WESV-TV.

In 1999, upon Citicasters' acquisition by Clear Channel Communications, WESV was sold to Stephan Marks's company, Eastern Valley Broadcasting Corporation.

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