WTBY-TV (channel 54) is a

religious television station Religious broadcasting, sometimes referred to as faith-based broadcasts, is the dissemination of television and/or radio content that intentionally has religious ideas, religious experience, or religious practice as its core focus. In some coun ...

licensed to

Jersey City, New Jersey Jersey City is the List of municipalities in New Jersey, second-most populous

, United States, serving the

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

area as an

owned-and-operated station In the broadcasting industry, an owned-and-operated station (frequently abbreviated as an O&O) usually refers to a television or radio station owned by the network with which it is associated. This distinguishes such a station from an network af ...

of the

Trinity Broadcasting Network The Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN; legally Trinity Broadcasting of Texas, Inc.) is an international Christian-based broadcast television network and the world's largest religious television network. TBN solicits donations on its Web site, a ...

(TBN). It is a

sister station In broadcasting, sister stations or sister channels are radio or television stations operated by the same company, either by direct ownership or through a management agreement. Radio sister stations will often have different formats, and somet ...

Edison, New Jersey Edison is a Township (New Jersey), township located in Middlesex County, New Jersey, Middlesex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Situated in Central Jersey, Central New Jersey within the core of the state's Raritan River, Raritan Valley r ...

–licensed Class A

TBN Inspire TBN Inspire is an American Christian broadcast television network owned by the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN). It is carried on the digital subchannels of TBN's stations. The network originally launched as The Church Channel, which focused ...

outlet WDVB-CD (channel 23). The two stations share studios on East 15th Street in the Union Square neighborhood in

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

and transmitter facilities at the

Empire State Building The Empire State Building is a 102-story, Art Deco-style supertall skyscraper in the Midtown South neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, United States. The building was designed by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon and built from 1930 to 1931. Its n ...

History

WTBY signed on April 6, 1981, as WFTI-TV, originally licensed to the city of

Poughkeepsie, New York Poughkeepsie ( ) is a city within the Poughkeepsie (town), New York, Town of Poughkeepsie, New York (state), New York. It is the county seat of Dutchess County, New York, Dutchess County, with a 2020 census population of 31,577. Poughkeepsie i ...

, in the

Hudson Valley The Hudson Valley or Hudson River Valley comprises the valley of the Hudson River and its adjacent communities in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. The region stretches from the Capital District (New York), Capital District includi ...

region. The station was initially owned by Family Television, Inc., founded by Keith Houser in 1979, and headquartered in the Poughkeepsie Plaza Mall on

US 9 U.S. Route 9 (US 9) is a north–south United States Numbered Highway in the states of Delaware, New Jersey, and New York in the Northeastern United States. It is one of only two U.S. Highways with a ferry connection (the Cape May–Le ...

in Poughkeepsie. WFTI's early programming included reruns of ''

The Lone Ranger The Lone Ranger is a fictional masked former Texas Ranger who fought outlaws in the American Old West with his Native American friend Tonto. The character has been called an enduring icon of American culture. He first appeared in 1933 in a ...

'' and ''

The Cisco Kid The Cisco Kid is a fictional character found in numerous film, radio, television and comic book series based on the fictional Western character created by O. Henry in his 1907 short story "The Caballero's Way", published in ''Everybody's Maga ...

'', and the station originated coverage of Army Cadets sports (except the Army–Navy

college football College football is gridiron football that is played by teams of amateur Student athlete, student-athletes at universities and colleges. It was through collegiate competition that gridiron football American football in the United States, firs ...

game); Family TV also produced ''Valley Magazine'', a nightly 30-minute program with interviews of local celebrities, such as

James Cagney James Francis Cagney Jr. (; July 17, 1899March 30, 1986) was an American actor and dancer. On stage and in film, he was known for his consistently energetic performances, distinctive vocal style, and deadpan comic timing. He won acclaim and maj ...

. After Irving Trust, the station's sole banking source, experienced financial problems and prematurely called the station's loan in 1982 (Irving Trust was ultimately shut down by the

Federal Reserve The Federal Reserve System (often shortened to the Federal Reserve, or simply the Fed) is the central banking system of the United States. It was created on December 23, 1913, with the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act, after a series of ...

), Family Television sold the station to the Trinity Broadcasting Network in June 1982, though the sale would not be completed until over a year later, in July 1983. TBN then changed the station's call letters on October 4, 1983, to the present WTBY-TV and moved the station's operations to studios in the

village A village is a human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand. Although villages are often located in rural areas, the term urban v ...

of Fishkill. Not long after taking control of the station, TBN co-founders

Paul Paul may refer to: People * Paul (given name), a given name, including a list of people * Paul (surname), a list of people * Paul the Apostle, an apostle who wrote many of the books of the New Testament * Ray Hildebrand, half of the singing duo ...

and

Jan Crouch Janice Wendell Crouch () (née Bethany; May 14, 1938 – May 31, 2016) was an American religious broadcaster. Crouch and her husband, Paul, founded the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) in 1973. Early life and ministry Crouch was the daught ...

helped sign WTBY on the air under TBN ownership with a special edition of the network's flagship program '' Praise the Lord'', broadcast from the new Fishkill studios. While Poughkeepsie is part of the New York City television market, WTBY's over-the-air signal could only be seen clearly in the northern fringes of the area. Most of the core of the New York area, including the Five Boroughs, got only a

rimshot A rimshot is a percussion technique used to produce an Accent (music), accented snare drum backbeat. The sound is produced by simultaneously hitting the Drum hardware#Rim, rim and Drumhead, head of the drum with a drum stick. The sound and var ...

signal even in digital, and it completely missed most of

Long Island Long Island is a densely populated continental island in southeastern New York (state), New York state, extending into the Atlantic Ocean. It constitutes a significant share of the New York metropolitan area in both population and land are ...

. For most of its first quarter-century as a TBN-owned station, the bulk of its viewership was in the Albany–

Schenectady Schenectady ( ) is a City (New York), city in Schenectady County, New York, United States, of which it is the county seat. As of the United States Census 2020, 2020 census, the city's population of 67,047 made it the state's ninth-most populo ...

–

Troy Troy (/; ; ) or Ilion (; ) was an ancient city located in present-day Hisarlik, Turkey. It is best known as the setting for the Greek mythology, Greek myth of the Trojan War. The archaeological site is open to the public as a tourist destina ...

market. Until 2010, WTBY operated two translators in that market—W52DF channel 52 to reach Albany and the

Capital District A capital district, capital region, or capital territory is normally a specially designated administrative division where a country's seat of government is located. As such, in a federal model of government, no state or territory has any politic ...

, and W47CM on channel 47 to reach

Glens Falls Glens Falls is a city in Warren County, New York, United States and is the central city of the Glens Falls Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 14,830 at the 2020 census. The name was given by Colonel Johannes Glen, the falls ref ...

and the

Adirondacks The Adirondack Mountains ( ) are a massif of mountains in Northeastern New York (state), New York which form a circular dome approximately wide and covering about . The region contains more than 100 peaks, including Mount Marcy, which is the hi ...

. Both stations ceased broadcasting due to declining support, which has been attributed to the

digital transition Digital transition refers to the process of moving an existing analog system to a digital format. Used without further qualifiers, the term normally refers to the move from analog television to digital television, the digital television transition. ...

, with W52DF shutting down on March 13 and W47CM shutting down one month later. W52DF's license, along with 43 other silent TBN repeaters, was canceled on December 1, 2011, for remaining silent over a year. Until 2007, WTBY was not carried on the two main cable systems in New York City itself ( Optimum TV ormerly Cablevisionand

Spectrum A spectrum (: spectra or spectrums) is a set of related ideas, objects, or properties whose features overlap such that they blend to form a continuum. The word ''spectrum'' was first used scientifically in optics to describe the rainbow of co ...

ormerly Time Warner Cable">Time_Warner_Cable.html" ;"title="ormerly Time Warner Cable">ormerly Time Warner Cable, and its cable penetration is still spotty at best on the New Jersey and Connecticut sides of the market. It is not available on DirecTV or Dish Network's New York City local feeds; only the national version is available, as is the case with all TBN-owned stations. Despite its modest cable penetration in the area, TBN has poured significant resources into WTBY in recent years. In 2007, when TBN opened a new studio in the former Century Center for the Performing Arts near Union Square in Manhattan, WTBY's studio/office operations were moved to that location. WTBY-TV elected to keep RF channel 27 permanently for digital operation during the first round of

digital channel election A digital channel election was the process by which television stations in the United States chose which physical radio-frequency TV channel they would permanently use after the analog shutdown in 2009. The process was managed and mandated by ...

s in February 2005. The station discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over

UHF Ultra high frequency (UHF) is the ITU designation for radio frequencies in the range between 300 megahertz (MHz) and 3 gigahertz (GHz), also known as the decimetre band as the wavelengths range from one meter to one tenth of a meter ...

channel 54, on October 1, 2008. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 27, using

virtual channel In most telecommunications organizations, a virtual channel is a method of remapping the ''program number'' as used in H.222 Program Association Tables and Program Mapping Tables to a channel number that can be entered as digits on a receiver's ...

54. The shutdown initially caused the station to be dropped from

Service Electric Service Electric is a group of affiliated cable television companies serving eastern Pennsylvania and western New Jersey, United States. The company is headquartered in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in the Lehigh Valley. Service Electric also offers br ...

's systems in New Jersey due to difficulty in receiving the signal at the cable headend. Service Electric replaced it with the national TBN service. Trinity Broadcasting entered WTBY-TV's broadcast frequency into the FCC's

spectrum auction A spectrum auction is a process whereby a government uses an auction system to sell the rights to transmit signals over specific bands of the electromagnetic spectrum and to assign scarce spectrum resources. Depending on the specific auction for ...

, the results of which were released in April 2017. TBN received $162,402,181 for WTBY-TV's spectrum and as a result, the station relinquished its RF channel 27 frequency and moved to channel 23, where it entered into a channel-sharing arrangement with Class A station WDVB-CD, licensed to

. WDVB-CD's transmitter is located atop the

, and moving WTBY's transmitter there gave it a clear over-the-air signal to New York City for the first time ever. TBN additionally requested to have WTBY's

community of license In U.S., Canadian, and Mexican broadcasting, a city of license or community of license is the community that a radio station or television station is officially licensed to serve by that country's broadcast regulator. In North American broadcast ...

moved from Poughkeepsie to

Jersey City, New Jersey Jersey City is the List of municipalities in New Jersey, second-most populous

, as WDVB's transmitter location at the Empire State Building would leave WTBY unable to service Poughkeepsie with a viewable over-the-air signal. The FCC approved the license move from Poughkeepsie to Jersey City on September 21, 2017. In late January 2018, TBN began the process of purchasing WDVB-CD from their owners, allowing full control of the entire channel space.

Local programming

Locally produced programs included versions of ''Praise the Lord'' and ''Joy in Our Town'', a public affairs program. WTBY also carried programs produced by local pastors, notably A. R. Bernard of

Christian Cultural Center The Christian Cultural Center (CCC) is a non-denominational Christian megachurch located in the Starrett City section of Brooklyn, New York City, with a satellite campus in Smithtown on Long Island. It is the largest Evangelical Evangeli ...

, and

Floyd H. Flake Floyd Harold Flake (born January 30, 1945) is an American businessman, minister, and former politician who was the senior pastor of the 23,000-member Greater Allen African Methodist Episcopal Cathedral in Jamaica, Queens, New York, and the 18th ...

of the

Greater Allen A. M. E. Cathedral of New York The Greater Allen Cathedral of New York is an African Methodist Episcopal church located in Jamaica, Queens, New York. The congregation currently has over 24,500 members, making it one of the largest churches in the United States. Its annual bu ...

. As of 2017, this programming was canceled.

Subchannels

Notes

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Wtby-Tv 1981 establishments in New York (state) Merit TV affiliates Television channels and stations established in 1981 TBY-TV TBY-TV Trinity Broadcasting Network stations