The WIVB-TV Tower is a guyed steel mast located at 8242 Center Street in Colden,

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

, United States. The tower site was first used in 1948 by the ''

Buffalo Evening News ''The Buffalo News'' is the daily newspaper of the Buffalo–Niagara Falls metropolitan area, located in downtown Buffalo, New York. It recently sold its headquarters to Uniland Development Corp. It was for decades the only paper fully owned by W ...

'' as the main broadcast tower for

WIVB-TV WIVB-TV (channel 4) is a television station in Buffalo, New York, United States, affiliated with CBS. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group alongside CW owned-and-operated station WNLO (channel 23). WIVB-TV and WNLO share studios on Elmwood Aven ...

(channel 4, the former WBEN-TV), now owned by

Nexstar Media Group Nexstar Media Group, Inc. is an American publicly traded media company with headquarter offices in Irving, Texas; Midtown Manhattan; and Chicago, Illinois. The company is the largest television station owner in the United States, owning 197 te ...

. At the time of its completion, it was the second-tallest structure in the world. The tower is located in a farm field and fenced off near the entrance from Center Street. There are two towers on the site: a newer tower, and the older original 1948 structure. WIVB temporarily left the tower site after 70 years in April 2018 when it entered into a channel-sharing agreement with sister station WNLO (channel 23) and sold its standalone digital channel allocation in the broadcast spectrum auction, transmitting for the next year from the

WNED-TV WNED-TV (channel 17) is a PBS member television station in Buffalo, New York, United States. It is owned by the Western New York Public Broadcasting Association (doing business as Buffalo Toronto Public Media) alongside NPR member WBFO (88.7 ...

(channel 17) tower in eastern Grand Island with WNLO while new tower construction took place to upgrade its television transmitter and antenna structure (WNLO transmitted from Grand Island since before the Western New York Public Broadcasting Association sold WNLO (then WNEQ) to WIVB's owners at the time,

LIN Media LIN Media was an American holding company founded in 1994 that operated 43 television stations. All except one were affiliates of the six major U.S. television networks. One of the remaining stations was a low powered weather station in Ind ...

, in 2001). It returned to the site in July 2019 after the two Nexstar stations both shifted to their new post-spectrum channel allocation, which also addressed the lack of signal range for

Southern Tier The Southern Tier is a geographic subregion of the broader Upstate New York region of New York State, consisting of counties west of the Catskill Mountains in Delaware County and geographically situated along or very near the northern border ...

viewers regarding both stations from Grand Island. In addition to its longstanding use for WIVB, its former sister station

WTSS WTSS (102.5 FM) is a commercial radio station in Buffalo, New York, branded as ''Star 102.5''. It airs a hot adult contemporary radio format, switching to Christmas music for much of November and December. It is owned and operated by Audacy, ...

(102.5, the former WBEN-FM) uses the site. WTSS is noted for being included in a

grandfather clause A grandfather clause, also known as grandfather policy, grandfathering, or grandfathered in, is a provision in which an old rule continues to apply to some existing situations while a new rule will apply to all future cases. Those exempt from t ...

allowing the station to transmit from the tower at 110,000 watts, more than double the otherwise allowable power for a station in the northeastern United States.

References

External links

WIVB-TV Tower at Skyscraperpage.com
{{coord, 42, 39, 33, N, 78, 37, 32, W, type:landmark_region:US, display=title Towers completed in 1948 Guyed masts Towers in New York (state) Radio masts and towers in the United States 1948 establishments in New York (state) Buildings and structures in Erie County, New York