WLOS

The station first signed on the air on September 18, 1954; broadcasting at 316,000 watts, it was founded by the Skyway Broadcasting Company, owners of WLOS radio (1380 AM, now WKJV; and 99.9 FM, now WKSF). Having been with the ABC network since its sign-on, WLOS is the second-longest tenured primary ABC affiliate located south of Washington, D.C. (behind Lynchburg, Virginia's WSET-TV, also on virtual channel 13 and also owned by Sinclair). During the late-1950s, WLOS was also briefly affiliated with the NTA Film Network. The station's original studios and transmitter facilities were based alongside its co-owned radio stations in West Asheville; the station's original 300-foot (91 m) self-supporting tower with an analog batwing antenna atop remains standing to this day. A few months after the station signed on, the television station relocated its studio operations to Battle House (a restored mansion on Macon Avenue, northeast of downtown Asheville, next to the historic Grove Park Inn).

WLOS logo used from 2007 until 2013.

At that same time, the transmitter was moved to the much-higher Mount Pisgah, 35 miles (56 km) away. Due to the higher elevation, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules required channel 13 to reduce its transmitter power by half. But even with its power reduced to 178,000 watts, the station still more than doubled its coverage area to include most of Western North Carolina and Upstate South Carolina. Soon afterward, the FCC collapsed the western Carolinas into one large market. With its move to Mount Pisgah, WLOS could now boast the second highest transmitter location east of the Mississippi River at 2,804 feet (855 m) above average terrain (the valley floor) and 6,056 feet (1,846 m) above sea level. At the time, the highest transmitter elevation belonged to WMTW atop Mount Washington, New Hampshire at 3,871 feet (1,180 m) above average terrain (the valley floor), and 6,374 feet (1,943 m) above sea level.

The new tower location gave WLOS one of the largest coverage areas in the nation. In addition to its primary coverage area of the Western Carolinas, the station also had significant viewership in several other nearby markets; WLOS also enjoyed at least secondary coverage in portions of eastern Tennessee, southwestern Virginia and southeastern Kentucky. It provided city-grade coverage to nearly all of the Tri-Cities market and Grade B coverage of most of the Knoxville market. Channel 13 could also be seen in portions of Georgia under certain atmospheric conditions. Before the mid to late-1960s, no other full-time ABC affiliate put a clear signal into much of these areas. Before WKPT-TV signed on as the Tri-Cities' ABC affiliate, WLOS claimed the Tennessee-Virginia border area as part of its primary coverage area. Even after WKPT signed on, WLOS was available on cable in that market well into the 1980s and is still available in certain parts of the area. Indeed, many viewers in the Tri-Cities and the eastern part of the Knoxville market received a better over-the-air signal from WLOS than Knoxville's WTVK (now CBS affiliate WVLT-TV) and WKPT. Both of those stations were on UHF and did not get much signal penetration in their largely mountainous coverage areas. UHF stations, then as now, do not provide adequate reception in rugged terrain. Until the 1990s, WLOS relayed its programming on several separately-owned municipal translator stations in Eastern Kentucky. As mentioned above, WLOS now owns and operates ten analog translators that rebroadcast its digital signal.

The station has also had significant and long-standing viewership in the Charlotte area, particularly in Hickory and points west. Its grade B signal can be seen as far east as Charlotte itself. Until WSOC-TV switched to ABC in 1978, WLOS was the default ABC affiliate for much of the western portion of the Charlotte market; the market's first full-time ABC affiliate, WCCB (channel 18), had marginal coverage at best in this part of the market. WLOS appeared in the Charlotte Observer's television listings for many years (though it was dropped from the weekly listings in the mid-1990s), and advertised its programs in Charlotte-area newspapers well into the 1970s. It is still available on some cable systems in the western portion of the Charlotte market.

WLOS' only competition for ABC programming came from WAIM-TV (channel 40, now sister station WMYA) in Anderson, South Carolina, which also carried select CBS programs. WAIM had been the default ABC affiliate for the Upstate until WLOS' massive power boost. WAIM-TV only provided a reliable signal to Anderson itself and nearby Pickens County. However, it still continued to air some ABC programming. Although WLOS was never seriously threatened by WAIM, it pressured ABC to drop its programming from WAIM from the 1960s onward finally succeeding in 1979.

In 1958, Skyway Broadcasting merged with Wometco Enterprises of Miami, Florida (a movie theater company and former owner of the Blue Circle hamburger chain). Wometco promptly sold the AM station, but operated WLOS-FM-TV as Wometco-Skyway Broadcasting until 1984, when channel 13 was sold to investment firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts. The FM station was also sold at this time and its antenna remained co-located on the Mount Pisgah tower. Channel 13 was later sold to Anchor Media in 1987, which in turn was later sold to River City Broadcasting in 1993. WLOS signed off on weeknights until the debut of World News Now in January 1992, when its sign-offs were scaled back to late Friday and Saturday overnights before being reduced further to Saturday mornings from 5:00 to 6:00 a.m., after the station's weekend overnight movie presentations, in the early 2000s. The channel began broadcasting a 24-hour daily schedule between late-2005 and early 2006 (the station still displays color bars for a few minutes in instances where the movie ends early, but otherwise fills overnight hours on Fridays and Saturdays with paid programming). River City merged with the Sinclair Broadcast Group in 1996.

In 2000, the station moved its operations to new studio facilities on Technology Drive, about 10 miles (16 km) south of Downtown Asheville, which allowed station personnel to make a much shorter driving distance for sales calls and news team coverage to Greenville and Spartanburg, South Carolina. On January 5, 2007, cable provider Mediacom (which serves much of Western North Carolina, with the exception of Asheville itself) dropped all Sinclair-controlled stations, including WLOS and WMYA, from its systems due to a retransmission consent compensation dispute.[4] As a result, much of WLOS' viewing area was left without ABC programming until the dispute was resolved a month later. Additionally, Charter also briefly dropped WLOS' high definition feed due to a compensation dispute.[5]

In recent years, WLOS has been carried on cable systems in areas of North Carolina within the Charlotte and Chattanooga, Tennessee markets, as well as the Augusta and Columbia markets in South Carolina, the Atlanta market in Georgia, the Knoxville market in Tennessee, and the Tri-Cities market in Tennessee and Virginia.[10]

Syndicated programs broadcast on WLOS (as of September 2020) include The Drew Barrymore Show, Rachael Ray, Dr. Phil, Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune (the latter two of which moved to the station from WYFF in September 1985). The station also produced a local children's show called Mr. Bill and Bumbo, featuring now-retired weathermen Bill Norwood and Bob Caldwell (who celebrated his 40th anniversary on the air at WLOS in June 2006). Another popular program on WLOS was Shock Theater, a Saturday afternoon showcase of 1950s black-and-white science fiction films from the Warner Bros., Columbia and Universal libraries. This show was also hosted by Bill Norwood dressed as a Dracula-type character similar to the "Doctor Shock" character of the same era at WTVC-TV in Chattanooga (now also owned by Sinclair).

WLOS presently broadcasts 33½ hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with 5½ hours each weekday and three hours each on Saturdays and Sundays), which is the highest amount of news programming in the Greenville–Spartanburg–Asheville market. In addition, the station broadcasts the regionally syndicated public affairs program NC Spin on Sunday mornings at 5:00 a.m. In addition to its main studios, WLOS operates news bureaus in Spindale (at Isothermal Community College), Waynesville (on South Main Street/US 23), and Greenville, South Carolina (on Verdae Boulevard).

Traditionally, WLOS' newscasts have focused more on the North Carolina side of the sprawling Greenville–Spartanburg–Asheville market, as evidenced by its longtime slogan, "Western North Carolina's News Leader." While WYFF has long been the market's highest-rated station overall, WLOS has consistently trounced WYFF and WSPA on the North Carolina side of the market. In addition to its own newscasts, WLOS produces two weekday-only newscasts for WMYA: a half-hour broadcast at 6:30 p.m. (which competes against the national evening news programs aired by WLOS, WYFF and WSPA-TV) and an hour-long newscast at 10:00 p.m. (which competes against a WSPA-produced half-hour newscast on CW affiliate WYCW and an hour-long in-house newscast on Fox affiliate WHNS).

On April 7, 2008, WLOS began to incorporate traffic reports for the entire market during the station's weekday morning and 5:00 p.m. newscasts, which were originally led by South Florida veteran radio traffic reporter George Sheldon (formerly of WQAM WIOD, WINZ (AM), WXDJ in Miami) until his retirement on January 30, 2013. On September 17, 2008, WLOS began broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition becoming the second pair of stations in the area to upgrade after WSPA and WYCW. On March 28, 2011, WLOS expanded its weekday morning newscast to 2½ hours, with the addition of a half-hour broadcast at 4:30 a.m.

WLOS operates seven translators across the mountains of western North Carolina and upstate South Carolina. These translators serve as low-power, limited-area repeaters that bring the network's signal to towns in deep mountain valleys where the parent signal is blocked by the surrounding terrain. All digital translators use PSIP virtual channel 13.

The following are future translators that will replace existing analog translators.

• WLOS.com - WLOS-TV official website
• My40.tv - WMYA-TV official website
• WLOS in the FCC's TV station database