Throwback Thursday: WWAY marks 8 years in Leland, looks back at station history

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — This week’s Throwback Thursday marks eight years since WWAY moved its operations to Leland, highlighting the station’s history and evolution over the decades.

Before relocating, WWAY operated for years out of its downtown Wilmington studio, a building the station moved into in the late 1960s, five years after it first began broadcasting.

In November 1983, the station expanded that facility, adding approximately 6,000 square feet for a larger newsroom and studio, along with two satellite receiving dishes.

“The 6,000 square feet will provide tremendously increased space for the newsroom, the new equipment of course will give us an opportunity to expand our news operation into the outlying areas,” a station representative said at the time.

The downtown building continued to evolve in the years that followed, including a major studio renovation in September 1997 that was considered state-of-the-art at the time.

In the early 2010s, WWAY transitioned to a virtual green screen set as technology advanced.

In 2017, the station’s parent company purchased the former Thunder Alley bowling alley in Leland and began converting the space into a modern broadcast facility.

On April 29, 2018, WWAY officially began broadcasting from its new location, where operations remain today.

The segment is part of a new weekly Throwback Thursday series that will feature stories from WWAY’s historical news archives. That archive can be accessed here.