Vermont's News Leader
WCAX (wcax.com) scores 86 out of 100 on Brand Analyzer, placing it in the Strong Brand tier among Media & Entertainment brands, in the 89th percentile of 19744 Media & Entertainment brands.
WCAX is a CBS-affiliated television station based in Burlington, Vermont, owned by Gray Media. Founded in 1954, it provides local news, weather, and sports coverage to Vermont and the surrounding tri-state area. The station emphasizes timely, accurate reporting and positions itself as a leading source of local information for its region, serving residents who seek community-focused news updates.
| Brand Name | WCAX |
|---|---|
| Domain | wcax.com |
| Industry | Media & Entertainment |
| Founded | 1954 |
| Headquarters | Burlington |
| Parent Company / Owner | Gray Media |
| Main Competitors | WPTZ (78/100), WVNY, WFFF-TV (My Champlain Valley) (65/100), Vermont Public (80/100), VTDigger (84/100) |
Moz Domain Authority 72/100 vs category average 53 / leader 100 - a strong backlink profile, so AI systems frequently encounter mentions of the brand.
Ranked #39,164 on the Tranco list of most-visited sites - strong traffic reinforces the brand's prominence to AI models.
No Wikipedia presence was found - a major gap, since Wikipedia is among the most heavily weighted sources in AI training data.
The homepage meta description reads "The latest news, weather and sports from WCAX." (Meta description: 8 words. OG description present and descriptive) - this is the summary AI engines are most likely to quote.
Structured data on the homepage: 2 JSON-LD block(s), Breadcrumb/Website schema, og:title, og:description, og:image, og:type, Twitter cards, canonical. Adding Organization and FAQ schema would further help AI crawlers parse the brand's identity.
AI-crawler access: robots.txt mentions GPTBot, ChatGPT-User, ClaudeBot, Google-Extended, PerplexityBot - all allowed - robots.txt controls whether engines like GPTBot and ClaudeBot can read the site at all.
Social footprint: verified profiles on Facebook, X (Twitter), Instagram, YouTube; no detected presence on LinkedIn, GitHub - consistent profiles reinforce the brand's identity across the web.
0 Reddit mentions - community discussion signals real-world reputation to AI models.
Live results from asking a general-purpose AI assistant about the brand, checked October 2026.
When asked "What is WCAX?", Claude could identify the brand as of October 2026. WCAX is a CBS-affiliated television station based in Burlington, Vermont, serving the Burlington-Plattsburgh media market with local news, weather, and sports coverage. Best known for being Vermont's longtime leading local news and CBS affiliate station.
When asked "Best brands similar to WCAX?", Claude would recommend WCAX as of October 2026. It's a well-established, dominant local news source in its region, making it a natural mention for Vermont-area broadcast media.
Common questions people ask in Google, ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and other AI search engines.
WCAX's main competitors in Media & Entertainment: WPTZ (78/100), WFFF-TV (My Champlain Valley) (65/100), Vermont Public (80/100), VTDigger (84/100).
Sources: Brand Analyzer scan
WCAX is a CBS television affiliate station located in Burlington, Vermont, United States. It has been broadcasting since 1954 and is currently owned by Gray Media.
Sources: WCAX official site
WCAX has limited AI-search visibility, scoring 43/100 on Brand Analyzer's AI visibility composite (visibility 25, trust 60, recommendation 55). This estimates how likely AI engines like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity are to know, trust, and recommend the brand.
Sources: WCAX official site
WCAX was founded in 1954. WCAX operates in the Media & Entertainment category. It is analyzed by Brand Analyzer across seven brand dimensions and AI-search visibility.
Sources: Wikidata
WCAX is headquartered in Burlington. WCAX operates in the Media & Entertainment category.
Sources: Wikidata
WCAX offers local news reporting, weather forecasting, and sports coverage. As a CBS affiliate, it also broadcasts national CBS network programming alongside its locally produced content for Vermont and tri-state area audiences.
Sources: WCAX official site
WCAX delivers local news, weather, and sports coverage to viewers in Vermont and the surrounding tri-state area. As a CBS affiliate, it broadcasts network programming alongside locally produced news content, providing real-time updates and in-depth reporting on regional events.
Sources: WCAX official site
WCAX scores 55/100 on Brand Analyzer's AI recommendation signal, indicating it is reasonably likely to be surfaced when AI assistants like ChatGPT suggest Media & Entertainment options. Recommendation depends on crawlability, structured data, and category authority.
Sources: WCAX official site
WCAX can improve AI discoverability by strengthening structured data (Organization and FAQ schema), maintaining an accurate Wikipedia/Wikidata entity, earning authoritative citations, and keeping content crawlable for AI bots. Brand Analyzer measures these as visibility, trust, and recommendation signals.
Sources: WCAX official site
WCAX is owned by or part of Gray Media. WCAX operates in the Media & Entertainment category.
Sources: Wikidata
WCAX's audience consists of residents of Vermont and the surrounding tri-state area who seek local news, weather updates, and sports coverage relevant to their communities.
Sources: WCAX official site
WCAX is known for being a long-standing local news source in Vermont, having operated since 1954. It is recognized for its comprehensive coverage of breaking news, weather, and sports tailored specifically to the Vermont and tri-state region.
Sources: WCAX official site
WCAX scores 43/100 for AI visibility - how well ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews can discover, identify and cite the brand.
WCAX has a limited AI-visibility profile at 43/100 - a proxy for how readily ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews can recognise and cite it. Its strongest area is trust (60/100) and its weakest is visibility (25/100). It benefits from a Wikidata knowledge-graph entry, a global traffic rank of #39,164 (Tranco) and a Moz Domain Authority of 72/100. The main gaps holding it back: no clear Wikipedia entity to anchor it in LLM training data, thin schema.org structured data and no llms.txt to steer AI to its best pages. In a live check, Claude could already identify WCAX from memory (October 2026) - a sign these signals are paying off.
The score combines seven dimensions - name quality, digital presence, visual identity, messaging clarity, trust foundation, AI discoverability, and brand authority - into a single objective benchmark.
Ranked closest to WCAX: Wave.video (86/100), Waterstones (86/100), We Are Social (86/100), Westfield (86/100).
A step up - brands to learn from: Yr (91/100), Xsolla (91/100).
Category leader: Change.org (97/100).
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