About Us

WAND TV is the market leading television station in central Illinois covering 20 counties and broadcasting to more than 375,000 television households.

The station is an affiliate of the NBC television network.WAND News broadcasts 5 ½ live hours of local news every weekday and several hours on Saturdays and Sundays. The station also produces several special programs every year about community and charitable groups, Illini sports, and other notable news events.

WAND News is a partner of NBC News, CNN, and the Associated Press.

The station broadcasts NBC’s Today Show and NBC Nightly News in addition to other NBC programming including the NFL, NBA, NASCAR, Olympics, The Voice, AGT, and Saturday Night Live.WAND TV is in Decatur, IL, in the Champaign-Springfield-Decatur TV market. The market stretches more than 100 miles north-to-south and more than 150 miles east-to-west.

The transmitter is located along I-72 near Argenta. The station has low-power translators in Danville, Effingham, and Jacksonville.WAND first went on-the-air as WTVP on August 16, 1953.

It was the first television station in central Illinois and one of the original 19 ABC affiliates. The call letters were changed in 1966 to WAND when purchased by LIN Broadcasting. On Sept. 5, 2005, WAND switched network affiliations to NBC.

The former WTVP call letters now belong to a PBS affiliate in Peoria, IL.The station has been fully owned by Block Communication, Inc. since Nov. 2007.

WAND News operates three apps; WAND News and WAND Weather is available on iOS and Android devices. WAND Now, a 24/7 streaming platform, is available on mobile and smart TVs. WAND Now was the first streaming app to be launched in the market and regularly boasts live news, news on demand, and other various videos and special programming not available on broadcast television.

In addition to its primary channel on 17.1, the station broadcasts five digital subchannels: COZI (17.2), ion (17.3), ion Plus (17.4), Court TV (17.5), and MeTV (17.6). WAND TV started broadcasting with NextGen TV (ATSC 3.0) in Dec. 2022.

WAND News is an award-winning newsroom with multiple Regional Emmy Awards and Regional Edward R. Murrow Awards. It has also been recognized by the Illinois Broadcasters Association with several Silver Dome Awards. The station also won a National Murrow Award in 2024.