WWNY-TV (channel 7) is a
television station
A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the earth's s ...
licensed to
Carthage, New York
Carthage is a village (New York), village in the town of Wilna, New York, Wilna in Jefferson County, New York, Jefferson County, New York (state), New York, United States. The population was 3,236 at the 2020 census.
The village of Carthage is alo ...
, United States, serving as the
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS (an abbreviation of its original name, Columbia Broadcasting System), is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...
affiliate for the
Watertown area. It is owned by
Gray Media
Gray Media, Inc., doing business as Gray Television, is an American publicly traded television broadcasting company based in Atlanta. Founded in 1946 by James Harrison Gray as Gray Communications Systems, the company owns or operates 180 statio ...
alongside
low-power,
Class A Fox
Foxes are small-to-medium-sized omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull; upright, triangular ears; a pointed, slightly upturned snout; and a long, bushy tail ("brush").
Twelve species ...
affiliate
WNYF-CD
WNYF-CD (channel 28) is a low power broadcasting#Television, low-power, Class A television station in Watertown, New York, United States, affiliated with the Fox Broadcasting Company, Fox network. It is owned by Gray Media alongside Carthage, ...
(channel 28). The two stations share studios on Arcade Street in downtown Watertown; WWNY-TV and WNYF-CD's transmitters are located on the same tower along
NY 126
New York State Route 126 (NY 126) is a state highway in the North Country of New York in the United States. It proceeds in a roughly northwest to southeast direction between NY 12 at the eastern city line of Watertown in centr ...
/State Street on
Champion Hill
Champion Hill is a association football, football stadium in East Dulwich in the London Borough of Southwark. It is the home ground of Dulwich Hamlet F.C., Dulwich Hamlet.
History
Dulwich Hamlet began playing at the ground in 1912. 'The Hill' ...
.
WWNY-CD (channel 28) is a Class A station licensed to
Massena, New York
Massena is a town in St. Lawrence County, New York, United States. Massena is along the county's northern border, just south of the St. Lawrence River and the Three Nations Crossing of the Canada–United States border. The population was 12 ...
, which operates as a
translator
Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''trans ...
of WWNY-TV. This station's transmitter is located at
WNPI-DT's site southeast of
South Colton along
NY 56.
History
WCNY-TV was granted a
special temporary authority
Special Temporary Authority (STA) in U.S. broadcast law is a type of broadcast license which temporarily allows a broadcast station to operate outside of its normal technical or legal parameters. In the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) st ...
(STA) to begin broadcasting on October 14, 1954. It was locally owned by the ''
Watertown Daily Times
The ''Watertown Daily Times'' is a newspaper published six days a week, Monday through Saturday, in Watertown, New York. It provides coverage of Jefferson County, Lewis County, St. Lawrence County and Oswego County. It was founded in 1861 a ...
'', which also owned WWNY radio (AM 790, now
WTNY
WTNY (790 kHz) is a commercial AM radio station in Watertown, New York. The station airs a talk radio format and is owned by the Stephens Media Group. The studios and offices are on Mullin Street.
WTNY broadcasts at 1,000 watts. By day it u ...
) in Watertown. The station carried programming from two networks at the time (CBS,
ABC
ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script.
ABC or abc may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media Broadcasting
* Aliw Broadcasting Corporation, Philippine broadcast company
* American Broadcasting Company, a commercial American ...
then added
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...
by the program) but has always been a primary CBS affiliate. During the late-1950s, WCNY was also briefly affiliated with the
NTA Film Network
The NTA Film Network was an early American television network founded by Ely Landau in 1956 that operated on a part-time basis, broadcasting films and several first-run television programs from major Hollywood studios. Despite attracting more ...
.
By the mid-1960s, the station benefited from the ratings-dominant CBS programming lineup and established a large viewership base, including much of eastern
Ontario
Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...
, Canada. After the FCC allowed television and radio stations to share the same base call sign even when they were licensed to different cities, channel 7 changed call letters to WWNY-TV to match its radio sisters in July 1965. The
WCNY-TV
WCNY-TV (channel 24) is a PBS member television station in Syracuse, New York, United States. Owned by The Public Broadcasting Council of Central New York, Inc., it is sister to classical music radio station WCNY-FM (91.3). The two stations sha ...
calls now reside on a
PBS
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...
member station in nearby
Syracuse
Syracuse most commonly refers to:
* Syracuse, Sicily, Italy; in the province of Syracuse
* Syracuse, New York, USA; in the Syracuse metropolitan area
Syracuse may also refer to:
Places
* Syracuse railway station (disambiguation)
Italy
* Provi ...
.
The station was a major beneficiary of a quirk in the FCC's plan for allocating stations. In the early days of broadcast television, there were twelve VHF channels available and 69 UHF channels (later reduced to 55 in 1983). The VHF bands were more desirable because they carried longer distances. Since there were only twelve VHF channels available, there were limitations as to how closely the stations could be spaced.
After the FCC's ''Sixth Report and Order'' ended the license freeze and opened the UHF band in 1952, it devised a plan for allocating VHF licenses. Under this plan, almost all of the country would be able to receive two commercial VHF channels plus one noncommercial channel. Most of the rest of the country ("1/2") would be able to receive a third VHF channel. Other areas would be designated as "UHF islands" since they were too close to larger cities for VHF service. The "2" networks became CBS and NBC, "+1" represented
non-commercial educational
A non-commercial educational station (NCE station) is a radio station or television station that does not accept on-air advertisements (television advertisement, TV ads or radio advertisement, radio ads), as defined in the United States by the Fed ...
stations, and "1/2" became ABC (which was the weakest network usually winding up with the UHF allocation where no VHF was available).
However, Watertown was sandwiched between Syracuse (channels
3,
8, later 5, and
9) to the south,
Rochester (channels
6, later 8,
10, and
13) to the west,
Utica (
channel 13, later 2) and
Albany (channel
4, later 6, later joined by
10 and
13) to the southeast,
Burlington–
Plattsburgh
Plattsburgh is a city in and the county seat of Clinton County, New York, United States, situated on the north-western shore of Lake Champlain. The population was 19,841 at the 2020 census. The population of the surrounding (and separately in ...
(channels
3 and
5) to the east,
Kingston
Kingston may refer to:
Places
* List of places called Kingston, including the six most populated:
** Kingston, Jamaica
** Kingston upon Hull, England
** City of Kingston, Victoria, Australia
** Kingston, Ontario, Canada
** Kingston upon Thames, ...
(channel
11) to the northwest,
Ottawa
Ottawa is the capital city of Canada. It is located in the southern Ontario, southern portion of the province of Ontario, at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the cor ...
(channels
4 and
9, later joined by
13) to the north, and
Montreal
Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...
(channels
2,
6,
10, and
12) to the northeast. This created a large "doughnut" where there could only be ''one'' VHF license. WWNY was fortunate to gain that license, and as a result was the only television station based in the Watertown market until the early 1970s.
From 1958 until 1971, WCNY/WWNY also aired educational programming through
National Educational Television
National Educational Television (NET) was an American non-commercial educational, educational terrestrial television, broadcast television network owned by the Ford Foundation and later co-owned by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. It op ...
(NET, becoming PBS in 1970) provided by the St. Lawrence Valley Educational Television Council. When the council established its own PBS member station, WNPE-TV (now
WPBS-TV
WPBS-TV (channel 16) and WNPI-DT (channel 18) are PBS member television stations licensed respectively to Watertown and Norwood, New York, United States. Owned by the St. Lawrence Valley Educational TV Council, the stations maintain studios on ...
) in 1971, WWNY donated its original studios to the new station as it had moved to its current location near the ''Watertown Daily Times'' offices on Arcade Street in Downtown Watertown in mid-February 1970. The Johnson family sold WWNY to
United Communications Corporation
United Communications Corporation (UCC) was a privately owned operator of three television stations in the U.S. states of Minnesota and New York. The company was the publisher of the ''Kenosha News'' of Kenosha, Wisconsin and two other daily new ...
in 1981 for $8.2 million after an unsuccessful struggle against the FCC and
its directive for newspapers to divest themselves of television stations held within the same market.
Until WFYF (now
WWTI
WWTI (channel 50) is a television station in Watertown, New York, United States, affiliated with American Broadcasting Company, ABC. Its second digital subchannel serves as an owned-and-operated station of The CW (via The CW Plus). Owned by Nexs ...
) signed-on in 1988 replacing a small
WUTR
WUTR (channel 20) is a television station in Utica, New York, United States, serving as the ABC affiliate for the Mohawk Valley. It is owned by Mission Broadcasting, which maintains joint sales and shared services agreements (JSA/SSA) with Nex ...
repeater on analog UHF channel 50 and taking the ABC affiliation, WWNY was Watertown's only commercial station. As a primary CBS affiliate, WWNY carried the network's full prime time schedule and news programs while cherry-picking the most popular ABC and NBC shows aired at other hours. The station also aired some Fox programming starting in 1987 while Sunday
Fox Sports
Fox Sports is the brand name for a number of sports channels, broadcast divisions, programming, and other media around the world. The name originates from Fox Broadcasting Company in the United States, which in turn derives its name from Fox Fi ...
National Football League
The National Football League (NFL) is a Professional gridiron football, professional American football league in the United States. Composed of 32 teams, it is divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National ...
games aired on WWTI. When cable arrived in the region in the 1970s, viewers could watch the full network schedules via NBC affiliate WSTM-TV and ABC affiliate WIXT (now WSYR-TV) in Syracuse or NBC affiliate WPTZ in Plattsburgh.
Channel 7 gradually phased out non-CBS programming in the 1980s. ABC completely disappeared from the schedule when WFYF signed-on. NBC programs (including ''
Today
Today (archaically to-day) may refer to:
* The current day and calendar date
** Today is between and , subject to the local time zone
* Now, the time that is perceived directly, present
* The current, present era
Arts, entertainment and m ...
'' and ''
The Tonight Show
''The Tonight Show'' is an American late-night talk show that has been broadcast on NBC since 1954. The program has been hosted by six comedians: Steve Allen (1954–1957), Jack Paar (1957–1962), Johnny Carson (1962–1992), Jay Leno (1992–2 ...
'') remained on WWNY into the 1980s with some prime time programming (which aired
delayed) lasting until 1995. After that, viewers received NBC programming from either WSTM or WPTZ, depending on location, until December 1, 2016, when
WVNC-LD
WVNC-LD (channel 45) is a low-power television station in Watertown, New York, United States, affiliated with NBC. Owned by SagamoreHill Broadcasting, the station maintains studios at Public Square (Watertown, New York), Public Square in downtown ...
signed on as Watertown's first full-time NBC affiliate.
[NBC to launch affiliate in Watertown](_blank)
''Watertown Daily Times
The ''Watertown Daily Times'' is a newspaper published six days a week, Monday through Saturday, in Watertown, New York. It provides coverage of Jefferson County, Lewis County, St. Lawrence County and Oswego County. It was founded in 1861 a ...
'', November 3, 2016 Fox programs largely disappeared in the early-1990s with the exception of
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (baseball), National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB i ...
games from
Fox Sports
Fox Sports is the brand name for a number of sports channels, broadcast divisions, programming, and other media around the world. The name originates from Fox Broadcasting Company in the United States, which in turn derives its name from Fox Fi ...
which lasted until 1998.
On February 8, 2019,
Gray Television
Gray Media, Inc., doing business as Gray Television, is an American publicly traded television broadcasting company based in Atlanta. Founded in 1946 by James Harrison Gray as Gray Communications Systems, the company owns or operates 180 statio ...
announced it was purchasing the United stations, including WWNY-TV, WNYF-CD and WWNY-CD. In advance of the purchase, Gray assumed control of the stations via a
local marketing agreement
In North American broadcasting, a local marketing agreement (LMA), or local management agreement, is a contract in which one corporation, company agrees to operate a radio station, radio or television station owned by another party. In essence, it ...
(LMA) on March 1. WWNY-TV, WNYF-CD and WWNY-CD would be Gray's first stations in New York State; the acquisition would make them
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 ...
s to fellow CBS affiliate WCAX-TV in adjacent Burlington, Vermont, another station owned by a small independent operator (in WCAX's case, the Hasbrook-Martin family) before Gray bought the station in 2017.
The sale was completed on May 1.
Translator history
WWNY-CD was originally a repeater for ABC affiliate WWTI (channel 50) with the call sign W28BC.
During that time, WWTI and WWNY had secondary affiliations with Fox. WWNY's secondary affiliation was for NFL games during the years CBS did not have broadcasting rights of the league. When that network acquired the rights to the
AFC, WWTI then aired
NFC
NFC usually refers to:
* Near-field communication, a set of communication protocols for electronic devices
* National Football Conference, part of US National Football League
NFC may also refer to:
Psychology
* Need for cognition, in psychol ...
games from Fox, in addition to
ABC
ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script.
ABC or abc may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media Broadcasting
* Aliw Broadcasting Corporation, Philippine broadcast company
* American Broadcasting Company, a commercial American ...
's ''
Monday Night Football
''Monday Night Football'' (often abbreviated as ''MNF'') is the branding used for broadcasts of National Football League (NFL) games that air on Monday nights. It originally ran on American Broadcasting Company, ABC from 1970 NFL season, 1970 t ...
'' (now on fellow
Disney
The Walt Disney Company, commonly referred to as simply Disney, is an American multinational mass media and entertainment industry, entertainment conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios (Burbank), Walt Di ...
network
ESPN
ESPN (an initialism of their original name, which was the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by the Walt Disney Company (80% and operational control) and Hearst Commu ...
).
In 2001, United Communications and WWNY entered into an agreement with
Smith Broadcasting to make W28BC and sister station W25AB full-time Fox affiliates; Smith formerly owned WWTI, but did not include the translators in that station's sale to
Ackerley Group
The Ackerley Group was an American media company founded by businessman Barry Ackerley that owned and operated several radio stations in Seattle, Seattle, Washington, as well as television stations across the United States (primarily in New York ...
in 2000. W25AB then changed its call letters to WNYF-LP and eventually moved from channel 25 to channel 28; after the Watertown station upgraded to Class A status in October 2002 (becoming WNYF-CA, later WNYF-CD),
W28BC inherited the WNYF-LP call sign.
[ WNYF-LP's low-powered analog signal on UHF channel 28 aired from a transmitter on ]NY 420
New York State Route 420 (NY 420) is a north–south state highway in St. Lawrence County, New York, in the United States. The southern terminus of the route is at an intersection with U.S. Route 11 (US 11) in the town of S ...
in Massena.
On June 30, 2009, United Communications applied to the FCC for a digital version of WNYF-LP on UHF channel 18. This allocation was formerly used for WNPI-DT's analog signal. It was approved for construction on June 8, 2010. Taking on the WNYF-LD call sign,[ it is officially licensed as a translator of WWNY-TV. This helps St. Lawrence County viewers who had experienced difficulty receiving WWNY's digital signal after that station transitioned to digital-only broadcasts.
On May 15, 2013, WNYF-CD and WNYF-LD swapped call signs,] as the Massena station is licensed as a class A facility while the Watertown digital station, at that time, was not. On February 6, 2014, WNYF-CD changed its call letters to WWNY-CD;[ on March 13, 2014, the class A status for the Watertown station was transferred from the analog channel 28 license to the digital channel 35 license, retaking the WNYF-CD call sign.]
News operation
On the same night it began airing in 1954, WWNY produced a five-minute local update at 11:15. For its entire existence, the station has held the number one spot in area Nielsen ratings
Nielsen Media Research (NMR) is an American firm that measures media audiences, including television, radio, theatre, films (via the AMC Theatres MAP program), and newspapers. Headquartered in New York City, it is best known for the Nielsen rat ...
by a wide margin. WWNY has traditionally been the dominant outlet in the North Country because it had the market to itself until WWTI signed-on in 1987. That station's two attempts at local newscasts—from 1987 to 1991 and from 1995 to 2004—never made any headway in the ratings, and WWNY remained the most-watched and highest-rated station. Since 2004, it has been the only station in the market with a functioning news department.
In 1981, this station's weekday morning show only consisted of two five-minute cut-ins. As late as 1998, it was broadcasting for thirty minutes. In 2004, the station began producing ninety minutes of news on weekday mornings.
On April 11, 2001, WWNY began airing a 35-minute weeknight prime time broadcast at 10 on WNYF called ''7 News Tonight on Fox''. However, it was only seen by a handful of viewers able to receive that station's two low-power over-the-air signals because WNYF was not yet being offered on cable. An agreement with Time Warner Cable
Time Warner Cable Enterprises LLC was an American cable television company. Before it was acquired by Charter Communications on May 18, 2016, it was ranked the second largest cable company in the United States by revenue behind only Comcast, o ...
(now Charter Spectrum
Spectrum is the trade name of Charter Communications. The name is widely used by both market consumers and commercial businesses. Services that Spectrum offers include cable television, internet access, internet security, managed services, mo ...
) in fall 2001 placed the station on the system and the prime time news debuted for the rest of the area on October 4.
WNYF currently simulcasts the 6 a.m. hour of WWNY's weekday morning news. It then offers a second hour at 7 a.m. seen exclusively on the Fox affiliate while this station airs ''CBS Mornings
''CBS Mornings'' is an American morning television program which is broadcast on CBS. The program debuted on September 7, 2021, and airs live every weekday from 7:00a.m. to 9:00a.m., EST. It is hosted by Gayle King, Tony Dokoupil, Nate Burleson, ...
''. The simulcast and separate show is known on WNYF as ''7 News This Morning on Fox''. There is no weekday morning or noon meteorologist
A meteorologist is a scientist who studies and works in the field of meteorology aiming to understand or predict Earth's atmosphere of Earth, atmospheric phenomena including the weather. Those who study meteorological phenomena are meteorologists ...
; news anchor Beth Hall presents a forecast from AccuWeather
AccuWeather, Inc. is a private-sector American media company that provides commercial weather forecasting services. AccuWeather was founded in 1962 by Joel N. Myers. The company adopted the name 'AccuWeather' in 1971.
AccuWeather is headquar ...
during these segments. During the nightly evening weather forecasts, the station features a live National Weather Service
The National Weather Service (NWS) is an Government agency, agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that is tasked with providing weather forecasts, warnings of hazardous weather, and other weathe ...
weather radar
A weather radar, also called weather surveillance radar (WSR) and Doppler weather radar, is a type of radar used to locate precipitation (meteorology), precipitation, calculate its motion, and estimate its type (rain, snow, hail etc.). Modern w ...
based in Montague's Parkers section.
Technical information
Subchannels
The stations' signals are multiplexed
In telecommunications and computer networking, multiplexing (sometimes contracted to muxing) is a method by which multiple analog or digital signals are combined into one signal over a shared medium. The aim is to share a scarce resource— ...
:
Analog-to-digital transition
In May 2003, WWNY started broadcasting its digital signal on UHF channel 35 and began offering CBS programming in high definition. It then created a new second digital subchannel to offer a digital signal of WNYF as that station did not operate one of its own due to analog
Analog or analogue may refer to:
Computing and electronics
* Analog signal, in which information is encoded in a continuous variable
** Analog device, an apparatus that operates on analog signals
*** Analog electronics, circuits which use analog ...
-only Class A and low-power signals.
WWNY has been digital-only since February 17, 2009. Both broadcasts of WWNY and WWTI were set to become digital-only starting on February 17. However, the latter's plans were delayed to June 12 by the FCC.It's Definite...WWNY Will Transition to All DTV Broadcasts 2/17/09
WWNY-TV 7News, February 16, 2009 WWNY-DT's previous digital facilities on channel 35 were eventually re-employed by sister station WNYF to offer Fox in high definition for the first time.
Notes
References
External links
*
{{Gray TV
1954 establishments in New York (state)
CBS affiliates
Fox Broadcasting Company affiliates
Gray Media
Ion Plus affiliates
MeTV affiliates
Television channels and stations established in 1954
WNY-TV