On January 25, 1953, it was become the first television in the Maine area and begin its operational activities as a broadcasting network. Horace Hildreth a former Governor was the real founder of the station which was owned by the Community Broadcasting Service and also bought WABI radio. Murray Carpenters were the one which was controlling it and NBC affiliation was carried out as primary while the second association with ABC, CBS, and DuMont.
WABI Local News Live:
CBS association was suspended after keeping under possession by WTWO in 1955 and DuMont went in the dark. Swapping affiliation occurred when Rines Thompson bought the WTWO from Carpenter and he decided to change its call letters to WLBZ. They both start sharing ABC programming which was carried earlier by WABI CBS 5 and NTA Film Network is also briefly associated with WABI television. Community Broadcasting Service also constructed another station in the Maine area of Poland Spring as the name of WMTW. There are many stations such as WYOU, WCTI, and WCJB were acquired and operated by Journal Publications after the joint venture with Community Broadcasting in 1971. Only two networks WABI and WCJB was under the custody of the owner and the rest of the other broadcasting assets were sold out.
Viewership of WABI:
The radio broadcasting assets go under the custody of Blueberry Broadcasting. An analog repeated was operated by WABI as W61AO for the area of Calais and its transmitter was installed in Meddybemps. WABI CBS 5 has also shared the same transmitter facility for its services which was facilitated by a cable system in Canadian Maritimes. On July 16, 2014, WABI services were suspended after the contract was expired with Dish Network and it was facing many other issues including financial disturbance and customer services complaints. These two stations went back in transmission services after finalizing the contract with Dish Network on October 8, 2014.
News App:
WABI news app has significantly redesigned and better look for the users of this mobile application. You can watch and read news bulletin and articles, locally based stories around the community and national affairs, weather forecasting and reports along with traffic situations in case of normal or bad weather.
News Team:
WABI news department is managed by Jon Small and he is working as news director and Catherine Pegram is assisting him. Evening anchors and reporters of the news team are Allegra Zamore, Brian Sullivan, and Brittany McHatten. Spencer Roberts and Bryan Sidelinger are performing their duties as the multimedia journalists of the CBS 5 team. The weather department of WABI is controlled by chief meteorologist Todd Simcox.
Brian Sullivan
Allegra Zamore
Joy Hollowell
Brittany McHatten
Angela Luna
Alyssa Thurlow
Jon Small
Catherine Pegram
Weather App:
The weather department of WABI CBS 5 has chief meteorologists and other members who are working and feeding the weather details during transmission and is also available on the mobile app. CBS 5 weather app filled by temperature scale, heavy rainfall predictions with help of radar system, Tornadoes and their alarming areas in which populated area is residing and warnings are generated during the forecast.
First Weather Alert:
Meteorologists of the WABI weather department have Curt Olson which joined the station in April 2021 and Emilie Hillman. This weather team of CBS 5 provide us 24/7 transmission services in case of a weather emergency and residential community have chances to evacuate to safe areas. Warnings and alerts can be watched and available on mobile applications and during news transmission which is monitored by National Weather services.
Live Streaming:
WABI live streaming service is provided and available by the official station website and other sources in the market through cable and satellite connections. Direct news feeding and live match coverage from the venues in high and standard definition is available after subscription plans need to be bought by viewers of CBS 5 programming.
WABI television is operated virtually from channel 5 and on very high-frequency channel 13 which is associated with CW+ and CBS networks. The transmission license is being issued for the area of Bangor, Maine in the United States. The signal broadcasting range is up to Eastern and Central Maine and it has the present owner Gray Television. WABI broadcasting facility is situated in the west of Bangor on Hildreth Street and transmitter tower is constructed in Dixmont on Peaked Mountain.
