WTVA, home of the NBC affiliate in the Columbus-Tupelo-West Point, MS market (#133), will add the ABC TV network to its digital channel 9.2 Saturday morning. The current ABC station in the market WKDH will cease operations Friday night. WTVA already operated WKDH through a local marketing agreement, but today announced a long term deal with ABC bringing programming to the digital channel.

“We are very pleased to have reached an agreement with WTVA coverage in the Columbus/Tupelo market,” said John Rouse, SVP of Affiliate Relations for ABC. “Local viewers will continue to be able to see all their favorite ABC and ESPN on ABC programs, including this Saturday’s 2012 Cowboys Classic featuring Michigan vs. Alabama.”

On its website, WKDH wrote, “It is with extreme regret, remorse, and disappointment that we must make the following announcement. Due to financial conditions in recent years, effective at 11:59 p.m. on August 31, 2012, WKDH will terminate operations for the foreseeable future.”

Matt Laubhan has been named chief meteorologist at WTVA in Tupelo, MS. The NBC-affiliate announced the move this week, saying that Laubhan would become the first and only certified meteorologist in northern Mississippi.

“Dozens of meteorologists applied for this opportunity, but in the end we kept coming back to Matt,” said WTVA news director Jeff Houston. “His passion and knowledge for weather is obvious to anyone who talks to him.”

Laubhan, who is currently the chief meteorologist at KLBK in Lubbock, TX, will succeed WTVA’s longtime weather chief Dick Rice. The station announced in December that Rice, who has been with WTVA for 31 years, would be scaling back his duties, becoming chief meteorologist emeritus.

Laubhan is perhaps best know, at least nationally, for proposing to his girlfriend, KAMC anchor Emily Leonard, during a newscast. Read more