WWAY (channel 3) is a television station in Wilmington, North Carolina, United States, affiliated with ABC, CBS, and The CW Plus.

Owned by Morris Multimedia, the station has studios on Magnolia Village Way in Leland, and its transmitter is located west of Winnabow in Town Creek Township.

For most of its first 20 years in television, ABC, as the smallest and weakest of the Big Three networks, was relegated to secondary status on existing stations in most two-station markets.

In 2004, WWAY, following the lead of then-owner Liberty's ABC-affiliated stations, preempted a showing of the 1998 movie Saving Private Ryan.

As a result, Raycom opted to keep the longer-established and higher-rated WECT and spun off WWAY to current owner Morris Multimedia in 2006.

[14] On April 29, 2018, WWAY began on-air programming from the Leland facilities at 1224 Magnolia Village Way, completing the move from the 615 North Front Street studios in Downtown Wilmington that the station had occupied since 1969.

[15] Rival WECT has been the longtime market leader in terms of attaining consistent viewership and higher Nielsen ratings.

However, that outlet does simulcast some newscasts from WRAL-TV in Raleigh with Wilmington-specific weather inserts (that are taped in advance), but there is no news coverage of the Cape Fear region.

In order to provide WILM with more localized coverage, a news share agreement was established with WWAY allowing this ABC outlet to produce a live newscast on weeknights at 7 p.m.

Although it would eventually bring back a Sunday night show at 11 p.m. on October 3, 2010, WECT retained its ratings and viewership dominance throughout all dayparts.

On January 6, 2014, WWAY launched a thirty-minute weeknight newscast on WWAY-DT2 under the title Cape Fear CW Primetime News at 10.