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WHNS (channel 21), branded Fox Carolina, is a television station licensed to Greenville, South Carolina, United States, serving as the Fox affiliate for Upstate South Carolina and Western North Carolina. It is owned by Gray Media alongside Hendersonville, North Carolina–licensed low-power Telemundo affiliate WDKT-LD (channel 31). The two stations share studios on Interstate Court (just northwest of Interstate 85) in Greenville; WHNS' transmitter is located atop Slick Rock Mountain in Transylvania County, North Carolina ( southeast of Brevard).
WANC-TV's signal had only reached Asheville and did not extend beyond the South Carolina state line. Pappas began the process of filing for new, much more powerful facilities on Slick Rock Mountain just a month after taking possession of the license. However, in 1981, the FCC designated its application for hearing. WGGS-TV had filed to move its transmitter to Caesar's Head in Greenville County, South Carolina, and the two applications were mutually exclusive for technical reasons. While WGGS-TV dropped its conflicting application, another problem had emerged: the proposed facility would not provide a strong enough signal to three percent of the city of Asheville, the city of license, because of shadowing by mountains. As a result, the FCC denied the initial application in 1982. Pappas appealed: the FCC review board found in Pappas's favor given the circumstances, finding that the company's push to restore channel 21's service to Asheville, limited choice of suitable sites, and good faith efforts outweighed the shadowing issues.
With approval from the FCC in hand, Pappas set out to rebuild the station. An existing building near Interstate 85 and Pelham Road, midway between Greenville and Spartanburg, was refitted to serve as the main WHNS studio base; delays in establishing more than a temporary presence in Asheville attracted protests from competitor WMYA-TV in Anderson. The delays were due to site work and sale negotiations.
WHNS began broadcasting April 1, 1984, promoting itself as the market's first general-entertainment independent station. (WAXA-TV, in comparison, did not reach homes in the North Carolina portion of the market.) It used one of the first circularly polarized TV antennas in service, broadcasting 3.5 million watts of power from Slick Rock Mountain. The station represented a $12 million investment in facilities and another $5 million in programs.
WHNS initially ran a schedule typical of an independent on the UHF band, consisting of animated cartoon, , classic feature film, drama series and select sporting events. It became the dominant independent station in the region, placing well ahead of WAXA in the ratings. Its original slogan, "It's Your Station" (which was later changed to "We're Your Station" in 1988) would also be used on then- KMPH-TV in Fresno and KPTM in Omaha, Nebraska.
In 1990, Pappas sold WHNS to Cannell Communications (a broadcast group owned by television producer and author Stephen J. Cannell), earning a handsome return on its original investment; Pappas had successfully built up WHNS as a major player in the market. Cannell sold WHNS to First Media Television in 1994. On January 16, 1995, WHNS took on a secondary affiliation with the United Paramount Network (UPN), airing the network's programming during late-night time periods. First Media sold its stations to Meredith Corporation for $435 million in 1997. In October of that year, UPN's programming moved to WASV-TV (channel 62, now WYCW)—which had been acquired by Pappas two years earlier in 1995. The station became exclusively affiliated with Fox as a result, only to add a secondary affiliation with Ion Television when that network launched on August 31, 1998; WHNS carried select programs from the network until 2003. In the fall of 2002, WHNS began branding itself as "Fox Carolina". On July 24, 2003, Meredith received FCC approval to change WHNS' city of license from Asheville to Greenville to aid identification as a South Carolina station. Under the terms of the reallotment, the station was required to retain city-grade coverage of Asheville and to maintain its existing public interest obligations to that city.
In March 2009, the Meredith Corporation announced that WHNS and Nashville sister station WSMV-TV would have their master control operations moved to a new master control hub based out of the studio facilities of Atlanta sister station WGCL-TV, which began operations in the fall of 2009."Meredith Sets Up Atlanta Hub." Broadcasting & Cable, March 4, 2009. [1]
On September 8, 2015, Media General announced that it would acquire Meredith for $2.4 billion, with the combined group to be renamed Meredith Media General if the sale had been finalized. Because Media General already owned CBS affiliate WSPA-TV (channel 7) and The CW affiliate WYCW, and both WHNS and WSPA ranked among the four highest-rated stations in the Greenville-Spartanburg-Asheville market in total day viewership, the companies would have been required to sell either WHNS or WSPA. However, on January 27, 2016, Nexstar Broadcasting Group announced that it had reached an agreement to acquire Media General, resulting in the termination of Meredith's acquisition by Media General.
On May 3, 2021, Gray Television announced its intent to purchase the Meredith Local Media division, including WHNS, for $2.7 billion. The sale was completed on December 1.
WHNS launched the first prime time newscast in the Greenville-Spartanburg market in September 1996, when WSPA-TV began to produce a nightly half-hour newscast at 10 p.m. through a news share agreement. The program was produced from WSPA's main news set at its International Drive studio facility in Spartanburg and utilized WSPA's anchors and reporters; however, the newscast had a different on-air identity and graphics package than that seen on WSPA's newscasts. Meredith Corporation terminated the news share agreement in 1999, when the station began developing its own in-house news department; its news operation launched that fall with the debut of an hour-long 10 p.m. newscast.
The station eventually expanded their news offerings, adding a morning newscast.
On May 14, 2007, assignment editor Joe Loy was filming the aftermath of a traffic accident on a local highway when another accident occurred right behind him. Loy managed to tape that accident as a white van, which possibly went out-of-control because of a red pickup truck, spun towards and hit him, killing him instantly.
In September 2009, WHNS expanded its news programming into early evenings with the debut of a half-hour newscast at 6:30 p.m.
In 2011, WHNS began broadcasting its local newscasts in widescreen enhanced definition. The station ultimately upgraded its news production to high definition in 2014.
In September 2012, the station canceled their 6:30 p.m. newscast due to low ratings, but the following week launched an 11 p.m. newscast, airing Monday through Friday.
In October 2014, WHNS added a weekday hour-long 4 p.m. newscast, called The Four O'Clock News. WHNS is adding "The 4:00 O'Clock News", starting October 20th. The Changing Newscasts Blog, October 9, 2014.
In 2017, the station added a 5 p.m. newscast and expanded their morning news from 4:30 a.m. until 9 a.m.
The station's 10 p.m. newscast is the highest-rated prime time newscast in the market in that timeslot (outranking the WLOS-produced newscast on WMYA-TV and the WSPA-produced newscast on WYCW) and its other newscasts are seen as competitive in the market.
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From 2007 to 2015, WHNS carried a 24-hour local weather channel on its second digital subchannel, which was branded as "Fox Carolina 3D Radar". Through separate affiliation agreements involving Meredith Corporation and those networks' respective owners (NBCUniversal and Katz Broadcasting) that were signed within days of each other, on March 23, 2015, WHNS announced it would affiliate its second digital subchannel with Cozi TV and launch a third subchannel affiliated with Ion Mystery onto its digital signal that spring. On April 15, 2015, the 21.2 subchannel became a Cozi TV affiliate, while the new 21.3 subchannel launched as an Escape affiliate. In June 2017, a fourth subchannel was added, launching 21.4 as a Bounce TV affiliate. As a result of Circle TV suspending its over-the-air operations, WHNS announced that its channel slot would be replaced with The365, an African American lifestyle network, beginning on January 1, 2024.
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