WVLA (and WRBT) NBC Local 33 id promo montage 1979-2022

Here is an updated id/promo montage from WVLA, the NBC affiliate of Baton Rouge, LA. All copyrights of Vetter Communications, White Knight Broadcasting, and Comcorp and Nexstar acknowledged. WVLA launched as WRBT in 1971, serving as Baton Rouge’s first full time ABC affiliate, later assuming the NBC affiliation from WBRZ in 1977. WRBT changed its call sign to WVLA in 1987 when it upgraded its transmitter tower. In 1996, the station was sold to White Knight Broadcasting and became a sister station to Fox affiliate WGMB. During this time, it became known as NBC 33, holding that branding for nearly 19 years save a small period of time in the early 2000s. In 2015, Nexstar took over management of WVLA when ComCorp sold its stations to Nexstar. The station branded as Local 33 in late 2015, but has also called itself NBC Local 33 with more emphasis on the latter in the past few years.

WVLA had intermittent newscasts throughout its history. After 1989, the station discontinued its primetime newscasts, only having a weekday newscast until late 2004. In 2007, primetime newscasts returned and were locally produced aside from a brief period between 2009-2010 when KETK in Tyler produced them. In terms of slogans and graphics, WVLA has largely used NBC graphics and branding throughout its history. Some unique ones include “A New Vision for Louisiana” (once they adopted the new call sign in 1987), “Entertainment Television” or “Now That’s Entertainment” in the early 1990s, “Your Friends of the Family” in 1992, “We Tell Your Stories Everyday” (coinciding with the return to locally produced newscasts in 2010-2015).

In terms of subchannels, WVLA broadcast NBC’s Weather subchannel until it went under in 2008, then took over This TV until 2012. From 2012 until Nexstar assumed management in 2015, the station had a local news/weather subchannel called Always On. 33.2 went dark for about 20 months and became a Laff TV affiliate in late 2016. In 2017, 33.3 signed on to become Baton Rouge’s second Ion TV affiliate.

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