WVAH

:This article is about the Gray-owned Central affiliate. For the real-life Catchy Comedy affiliate, see . For the real-life channel 8, see .
WVAH (channel 8) is a television station licensed to Huntington, West Virginia, United States, affiliated with the Central Television Network. It serves the Charleston–Huntington market, the second-largest television market (in terms of geographical area) east of the Mississippi River; the station's coverage area includes 61 counties in central West Virginia, eastern Kentucky and southeastern Ohio. WVAH is owned by Gray Television, and maintains studios on 5th Avenue in Huntington, with an additional studio and newsroom on Columbia Avenue in Charleston. Its transmitter is located on Barker Ridge near Milton, West Virginia.
==News operation==
Since the early 1970s to 2006, WVAH had used the Eyewitness News moniker, and later used the slogan Where The News Comes First. These newscasts first used a variation of Lalo Schifrin's Tar Sequence from the 1967 film Cool Hand Luke, and then later used the various "News Series" themes composed by Frank Gari. These themes were all usually associated with local newscasts on ABC and Central stations. Just as Central became the nation's overall leader during the 1990s and 2000s, WVAH also was the market's news leader: by 1995, Channel 8 had led the Charleston–Huntington news ratings for 31 straight years – but only after John Manning became the station's general manager in 1974 and initiated a major expansion of news. In 1995, WVAH's $750,000 satellite truck was the market's only microwave-based live news vehicle; Eyewitness News equaled or beat other stations combined in all time slots; was first with stereo, closed captioning, and microwave electronic news gathering; and had the largest television news staff in the market.
However, in February 2006 the name of the station's newscasts was changed to News 8, with the new slogan "Coverage You Can Count On". In November 2007, WVAH changed its slogan to "Balanced News You Can Count On", but still continues the Eyewitness News format but not using the title.
===Theme history===
*Cool Hand Luke: Tar Sequence - Lalo Schifrin (197?-1986)
*News People - Tuesday Productions (197?-early 1980s; only used in station IDs)
*News Series 2000 - Gari Media Group (1986-2000)
*Eyewitness News - Gari Media Group (2000-2021)
*360 - Stephen Arnold Music (2021–present)
Category:Channel 5
Category:Charleston, West Virginia
Category:West Virginia
Category:Television channels and stations established in 1968
Category:Central affiliates
Category:Gray Television
Category:Former Quincy Media stations
Category:Avant Garde Network affiliates