Getting Started With WABI TV5's News Platform
WABI-TV is the ABC affiliate for central and northern Maine, broadcasting from Bangor. They cover everything from winter road conditions on Route 1 to city council meetings in Penobscot County. If you live in the area or have family there, their digital platforms are worth knowing about. I have spent years telling people how to actually use these tools instead of just opening the app and getting lost in a feed of national news. The core way most people get their daily news from this station is through their mobile app, available for both iOS and Android. You download it from your respective app store, sign up is not required but recommended if you want push notifications. The homepage shows local stories prioritized above national ones. That is one thing they do better than most big-market stations that bury local news three scrolls down. There is also their website at wabi.tv, which mirrors the app content but adds longer-form articles and video clips that do not always make it into the broadcast. Their weather section is genuinely useful if you are dealing with Maine winters. The radar covers the whole state with enough detail to see exactly when that lake-effect snow band will hit your town.
Here is something most people miss. The app has a feature where you can pin specific counties or cities for alerts. If you only care about Knox and Waldo counties, you can filter out the rest. I learned this after a friend kept getting flooded with alerts about Aroostook County and deleted the app out of frustration. I ran into a real problem a couple of years ago during a major ice storm. The live stream on their app started buffering heavily around 6 PM because a large portion of the viewing area was also streaming simultaneously. I found that switching to the audio-only option or checking their Facebook page for updates worked better in that situation. Their emergency broadcast protocol sometimes causes CDN overload, which is not unique to them but something to keep in mind during serious storms. The broadcast schedule itself runs on a fairly standard local station model. Morning news from 4 to 7 AM, a midday slot, then the evening newscasts at 5, 5:30, and 6 PM, followed by the late night at 11. The 5 PM newscast tends to be the most comprehensive because it is built around the network feed and expanded local segments. The 11 PM show is shorter and usually recaps the day rather than breaking new ground.
If you want headlines delivered without opening anything, they do offer email newsletters. These are typically sent once per morning and summarize the top three to five local stories. Not flashy. Just the facts. I have subscribed to this for years and it is the most reliable way to stay current without doomscrolling. One limitation worth noting upfront. Their digital archive is not as extensive as some larger market stations. If you are looking for a news story from three years ago, you might find it buried on their site, or you might not. The app does not have a robust search function for older videos. For recent coverage, usually anything within the last few weeks, you are fine. For historical context, you would be better off checking with the Bangor Daily News. Another thing to be aware of. The push notifications can be aggressive if you do not adjust your settings after installing the app. By default, you will get alerts for any breaking news in the entire state. That is not helpful if you live in Machias and only care about events in your county. Go into the app settings immediately and set your location radius. It takes two minutes and will save your battery and your patience.
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The station also maintains active social media accounts on X and Facebook where they post real-time updates that may not make it into the formal newscasts. Weather detours, road closures, and emergency announcements often appear there first. I check those pages directly when the app notifications are too broad for my needs. Bottom line, this is a solid regional news source for Maine. It is not going to replace national outlets or investigative journalism from larger markets, but for day-to-day information about your part of the state, it is one of the best options available. Download the app, set your filters, and turn off the breaking news blast radius unless you actually want to know about something happening sixty miles away.
