Type | Daily newspaper |
---|---|
Format | Broadsheet |
Owner(s) | Lee Enterprises |
Publisher | Samuel Worthington |
Founded | 1886 |
Language | English |
Headquarters | 2l0 Church Ave SW Suite 100 Roanoke, Virginia 24011 United States |
Circulation | 24,889 Daily 25,794 Sunday(as of 2022) [1] |
Website | roanoke.com |
The Roanoke Times is the primary newspaper in Southwestern Virginia and is based in Roanoke, Virginia, United States. It is published by Lee Enterprises. In addition to its headquarters in Roanoke, it maintains a bureau in Christiansburg, covering the eastern New River Valley and Virginia Tech.
According to the 2011 Scarborough “Ranker Report,” The Roanoke Times ranks fifth in the country in terms of percentage of adults reading a newspaper on weekdays in that newspaper's coverage area.
The Roanoke Daily Times began publication in 1886. The paper's original owner, M. H. Claytor, eventually added a companion evening newspaper, The Roanoke Evening News. In 1909, he sold the paper to a group headed by banker J. B. Fishburn. The Fishburn group bought the Roanoke Evening World in 1913, merging it with the Evening News and changing its name to the Roanoke World-News. At the same time, Times-World Corporation was formed as the owner of both papers.
By 1931, Times-World Corporation had expanded into broadcasting with the purchase of WDBJ (now WFIR), Roanoke's first radio station. It eventually spawned an FM station (now WSLC) and a television station (which still has the WDBJ calls). In 1969, Times-World merged with Landmark Communications, which sold off the broadcasting properties and kept the papers. In 1977, Landmark merged the two papers into a single all-day paper, The Roanoke Times & World-News. [2] The World-News was dropped from the masthead in 1995. [3]
Landmark started shopping its newspaper properties in 2008 and sold the Times to Berkshire Hathaway's BH Media Group in 2013. [4] This made the Times a sister publication to the Richmond Times-Dispatch , as well as the News & Advance of Lynchburg, the other major paper serving the Roanoke/Lynchburg media market.
As the major daily newspaper for Roanoke and much of Southwest Virginia, The Roanoke Times has extensively covered news events from the area that have gained national media exposure. Some examples include:
Lynchburg is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. First settled in 1757 by ferry owner John Lynch, the city's population was 79,009 at the 2020 census, making Lynchburg the 11th most populous city in Virginia. Located in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains along the banks of the James River, Lynchburg is known as the "City of Seven Hills" or the "Hill City". In the 1860s, Lynchburg was the only city in Virginia that was not recaptured by the Union before the end of the American Civil War.
WSET-TV is a television station licensed to Lynchburg, Virginia, United States, serving as the ABC affiliate for the Roanoke–Lynchburg market. The station is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, and has studios on Langhorne Road in Lynchburg; its transmitter is located atop Thaxton Mountain, near Thaxton, Virginia.
WSLS-TV is a television station licensed to Roanoke, Virginia, United States, serving the Roanoke–Lynchburg market as an affiliate of NBC. Owned by Graham Media Group, the station maintains studios on Fifth Street in Roanoke, and its transmitter is located on Poor Mountain in Roanoke County. It is the third-oldest continuously operating station in Virginia, behind Richmond's WTVR-TV and Norfolk's WTKR, as well as the state's oldest station west of Richmond.
WDBJ is a television station licensed to Roanoke, Virginia, United States, serving as the CBS affiliate for the Roanoke–Lynchburg market. It is owned by Gray Television alongside Danville-licensed MyNetworkTV affiliate WZBJ, channel 24. WDBJ and WZBJ share studios on Hershberger Road in northwest Roanoke; through a channel sharing agreement, the two stations transmit using WDBJ's spectrum from an antenna on Poor Mountain in Roanoke County.
WZBJ is a television station licensed to Danville, Virginia, United States, serving the Roanoke–Lynchburg market as an affiliate of MyNetworkTV. It is owned by Gray Television alongside Roanoke-licensed CBS affiliate WDBJ. WZBJ and WDBJ share studios on Hershberger Road in northwest Roanoke; through a channel sharing agreement, the two stations transmit using WDBJ's spectrum from an antenna on Poor Mountain in Roanoke County.
WFXR is a television station licensed to Roanoke, Virginia, United States, serving as the Fox affiliate for the Roanoke–Lynchburg market. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group alongside Lynchburg-licensed CW station WWCW. Both stations share studios at the Valleypointe office park on Valleypoint Parkway in northeastern Roanoke County, while WFXR's transmitter is located on Poor Mountain in southwestern Roanoke County. WWCW broadcasts WFXR's Fox programming from its transmitter on Thaxton Mountain in Bedford County as one of its subchannels and vice versa.
WPXR-TV is a television station licensed to Roanoke, Virginia, United States, broadcasting the Ion Television network to the Roanoke–Lynchburg market. The station is owned and operated by the Ion Media subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company, and maintains a transmitter atop Poor Mountain in unincorporated southwestern Roanoke County.
The Miss Virginia competition is a scholarship pageant for women, with the titleholder representing Virginia in the Miss America pageant. The competition was founded in 1953 as a scholarship contest for young women, although women had represented Virginia in the Miss America pageant since the 1930s. Four Miss Virginia winners have gone on to be crowned Miss America, including former national titleholder Caressa Cameron.
WFIR is a commercial radio station licensed to Roanoke, Virginia, and serving the Roanoke Valley. It airs a news/talk radio format and is owned and operated by Mel Wheeler, Inc. WFIR's studios and offices are on Electric Road in Roanoke.
WVTF is a non-commercial educational radio station licensed to serve Roanoke, Virginia, featuring a public radio format branded "Radio IQ". Owned by the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University through its fundraising arm, the Virginia Tech Foundation, the station carries programming from NPR, the Public Radio Exchange, American Public Media and the BBC World Service. WVTF is a listener-supported station, holding periodic fundraisers on the air. The studios and offices are on Kingsbury Lane in Roanoke.
WRVL is a non-commercial radio station licensed to Lynchburg, Virginia, serving the New River Valley. WRVL is owned and operated by Liberty University and was founded by Jerry Falwell. It broadcasts a Christian Contemporary radio format known as "The Journey." The station is listener-supported and holds periodic fundraisers on the air. The studios and offices are on Candlers Mountain Road in Lynchburg.
Salam "Sam" Rasoul is an American politician serving as a member of the Virginia House of Delegates from the 11th district. He is one of the two Muslim members of the Virginia General Assembly. In November 2020, Rasoul announced his candidacy for Lieutenant Governor of Virginia in 2021. Despite a significant fundraising advantage, Rasoul lost the Democratic primary to Hala Ayala by a large margin.
"Television News of the Civil Rights Era 1950-1970" is a digital history project produced by Dr. William Thomas and the Virginia Center for Digital History at the University of Virginia. The project considers the role of Southern television during Virginia's Massive Resistance campaign in opposition to the Brown v. Board of Education decision. The national coverage of the Civil Rights Movement transformed the United States by showing Americans the violence and segregation of African Americans' journey for their civil rights.
WROV-TV was a television station on ultra high frequency (UHF) channel 27 in Roanoke, Virginia, United States. It broadcast from March 2 to July 18, 1953, becoming the first UHF station in the United States to cease broadcasting. Its failure was the first of many in the early days of UHF television, which was hindered by signal issues in mountainous areas and the lack of UHF tuning on all television sets—a problem not resolved until the All-Channel Receiver Act took effect in 1964.
MystiCon is an American science fiction convention held in Roanoke, Virginia. The name "MystiCon" was chosen by the membership as a tribute to an earlier series of Virginia conventions with that name. The organizers include members that left SheVaCon, another Virginia-based science fiction convention, citing concerns with management and operations.
WWCW is a television station licensed to Lynchburg, Virginia, United States, serving as the CW outlet for the Roanoke–Lynchburg market. It is owned and operated by network majority owner Nexstar Media Group alongside Roanoke-licensed Fox affiliate WFXR. Both stations share studios at the Valleypointe office park on Valleypointe Parkway in northeastern Roanoke County; WWCW operates an advertising sales office on Airport Road, along Lynchburg's southwestern border with Campbell County. The station's transmitter is located on Thaxton Mountain in unincorporated central Bedford County. WFXR broadcasts WWCW's CW programming from its transmitter on Poor Mountain in Roanoke County as one of its subchannels and vice versa.
Robin Reed was a former lead news anchor and chief meteorologist at WDBJ-DT in Roanoke, Virginia for over 40 years until his retirement in December 2022.
River Ridge Mall is an enclosed shopping mall in Lynchburg, Virginia. Opened in 1980, the mall features JCPenney, Belk, Dick's Sporting Goods, TJ Maxx, and Regal Cinemas as its primary anchors, with Jo-Ann Fabrics, HomeGoods, and Planet Fitness serving as secondary anchors. Three restaurant outparcels include Red Lobster, Taco Bell, and a local restaurant named Shakers, with a fourth outparcel being Salem, Virginia-based Kemba Roanoke Federal Credit Union. A Residence Inn by Marriott is the mall's first on-site hotel.
Courtney Paige Garrett is an American beauty pageant titleholder from Pamplin City, Virginia, who was chosen as Miss Virginia's Outstanding Teen 2009 and crowned Miss Virginia 2014. She competed for the Miss America 2015 title in September 2014 and was named first runner-up.
On the morning of August 26, 2015, news reporter Alison Parker and photojournalist Adam Ward, both employees of CBS affiliate WDBJ in Roanoke, Virginia, United States, were fatally shot while conducting a live television interview near Smith Mountain Lake in Moneta. They were interviewing Vicki Gardner, executive director of the local chamber of commerce, when all three were attacked by a gunman in a mass shooting. Parker, age 24, and Ward, age 27, died at the scene, while Gardner survived.