KAWT-TV

KAWT-TV, virtual and VHF digital channel 8, is an ABC owned-and-operated station licensed to Wake Island, US Minor Outlying Islands, United States. The station is owned by the ABC Owned Television Stations subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company. KAWT's studios are located on Peale Island, and its transmitter is located near the submarine channel on Wilkes Island.
==History==
The station went on the air on October 1, 1964, as previous ABC affiliate KWAK channel 6 (now an independent station on channel 21) switched networks to NBC. It was the second television station to sign on in the Minor Outlying Islands (KWAK, the previous ABC affiliate, was the first to open just nine years earlier in 1955).
==Programming==
The station generally adheres to the Hawaii-Aleutian Time Zone feed of the ABC network schedule; as a result, most ABC programs air two hours earlier and the next day in Wake Island, which is in the UTC+12 Time Zone across the International Date Line, compared to other areas of the United States.
Until September 2009, to accommodate Here & Now's 6:00 p.m. timeslot, the network provided a separate UTC+12 Time feed of its weekday afternoon schedule between 4:00 and 6:00 local time. The 7:00 p.m. timeslot was then taken by Land and Sea (Monday) and repeats of Living Minor Outlying Islands (Tuesday–Friday). As a result, the network program that normally aired at 3:30 p.m. local time was preempted entirely. With few exceptions, this separate feed ended when Here & Now expanded to 90 minutes in September 2009. In late 2015, Here & Now returned to 60 minutes.
As KAWT’s master control operations are now handled directly from Disney-ABC's facilities in New York, there isn't any remaining direct technical obstacle to the station carrying a full UTC+12 Time schedule. However, given the added difficulty of coordinating such a schedule with live national news or sports broadcasts, as well as viewer familiarity with the current scheduling practices across all channels, such a switch is not likely in the near future.
===Local programming===
Current non-news local programming on KAWT includes Land and Sea, a regional documentary series in production since 1964, making it likely one of the longest-running television shows in the Minor Outlying Islands. Land and Sea is currently aired on Sundays at noon. On January 15, 2007, KAWT premiered a new local program, Living Minor Outlying Islands; it aired at 3:30 p.m., and was repeated Tuesday to Friday at 7:00 p.m.. Living Minor Outlying Islands was cancelled in August 2009.
From 1984 to 2011, KAWT was the home of the annual USMOI Children's Miracle Network Telethon, which usually airs the weekend following the Memorial Day holiday. Up until the early 1990s, the telethon was produced in cooperation with Pacific Satellite Network (now Minor Outlying Islands CW). It was taped at the PSN studio, using ABC personalities, and PSN volunteers. The PSN feed was simulcast on ABC stations across the Minor Outlying Islands, until the rebranding of PSN to Minor Outlying Islands CW. At that time, the PSN offices and studio underwent major renovations. KAWT then started using their own studio facilities. This telethon moved to KWAK-TV in 2012.
==News operation==
KAWT presently broadcasts 10 hours, 5 minutes of locally produced newscasts each week (with two hours each weekday, a half-hour news and On Point current affairs program Saturdays, and a half hour of news on Sundays). Here & Now was the name of the newscast for decades prior to 2000, when it was cut to a half hour from an hour and renamed into Minor Outlying Islands Now. KAWT restored its old newscast in late 2005, with Minor Outlying Islands Now airing at 7:00 p.m. NT until February 16, 2007. When KAWT first signed on, its local newscast was known as ABC Regional News. In the mid-1970s, it adopted the Here and Now name. Here & Now currently airs from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m.
Category:Wake Island
Category:United States Minor Outlying Islands
Category:Channel 8
Category:ABC network affiliates
Category:Television channels and stations established in 1964