WCIA is a television station affiliated with CBS. It has been in operation since the 1950’s. It reaches more than 17 counties in Central Illinois including but not limited to Champaign-Urbana, Ford, Morgan, Douglas, Vermilion and Kankakee. Their coverage boundaries go as far North as Kankakee, as far south as Effingham, Indiana to the east and Morgan to the West. There are about 34 members in its staff. The station is owned by a larger corporation called the Nexstar Broadcasting Group. It operates in what is called a hyphenated market.

The station has a bureau located in Springfield covering the state capitol and communicates with them via Skype on iPad every day during their morning meeting. The station holds two meetings each day, one in the morning at 10am where anchors get their assignments and pitch story ideas and one in the afternoon at 2pm to review rundowns that feed into the 10pm newscast.

Each anchor and reporter at WCIA is required to have a Twitter page with the handle @WCIA3name. Some, but not all, anchors also have a professional Facebook page that allows their fans and audience to “Like” it and connect with them.

Some anchors and reporters have amassed a substantial amount of “Likes” and subsequently a high level of audience engagement. Chief meteorologist Derick Fabert has 16,255 likes alone. Yet this is not without cause. According to news director Andy Miller, “The number one reason people connect with WCIA is local weather.” Additionally Fabert has seen that viewership drops off in the thousands after the 10 o’clock weather report.

Andy Miller