WVNY

Infobox_Broadcast
call_letters = WVNY
city =
station_
station_slogan = Start Here
station_branding = ABC 22
analog = 22 (UHF)
digital = 13 (VHF)
other_chs = W09BB Schroon Lake, NY
W55AI Lake Placid, NY
W63AD Rutland
affiliations = ABC
network =
founded =
airdate = August 19, 1968
location = Burlington, Vermont /
Plattsburgh, New York
callsign_meaning = Vermont / New York
former_callsigns = WVNY-TV (1968-1971)
WEZF-TV (1971-1982)
former_channel_numbers =
owner = Lambert Broadcasting of Burlington
(operated under LMA by Smith Media)
licensee =
sister_stations = WFFF-TV
former_affiliations =
effective_radiated_power = 1,000 kW (analog)
10 kW (digital)
HAAT = 837 m (analog)
831 m (digital)
class =
facility_id = 11259
coordinates = coord|44|31|40|N|72|48|57.4|W|type:landmark_scale:2000
homepage = [http://www.abc22.com/ abc22.com]

WVNY, channel 22, is the ABC-affiliated television station for the state of Vermont (except Bennington Couty) and Upstate New York that is licensed to Burlington. Its transmitter is located on Mount Mansfield, Vermont's highest elevation. The station is owned by Lambert Broadcasting of Burlington but operated by Smith Media under a local marketing agreement (LMA). This makes it a sister to Fox affiliate WFFF-TV.

The two stations share studios on Mountain View Drive in Colchester. Syndicated programming on WVNY includes: "Family Feud", "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?", "Deal or No Deal", and "Everybody Loves Raymond". On cable, the station can be seen on channel 4 on Comcast systems in Vermont and Charter systems in Upstate New York. On Vidéotron systems in Montreal, it can be seen on channel 22. It can also be seen in that city on Illico digital cable channels 51 and 651 (HDTV).

Repeaters

In addition to its main signals, WVNY operates three repeaters.

History

WVNY began broadcasting on August 19, 1968 as the first station in the Burlington-Plattsburgh area to provide local live color broadcasts. In 1971, it switched call letters to WEZF-TV to match its sister FM radio station. In 1982, the calls switched back to WVNY. The station maintained studios on Shelburne Road (a.k.a. U.S. 7) in South Burlington. WVNY was the host station for the 1980 Winter Olympics and the famous Miracle on Ice between the United States and the Soviet Union ice hockey teams. During the 1980s and early-1990s, WVNY dropped ABC's "General Hospital" in favor of cartoons and aired Boston Red Sox baseball games on Friday nights. Viewers could still see "General Hospital" on CFCF in Montreal.

For a time, WVNY even aired CFL football games. During the 1990s, the station frequently dropped network programming in favor of infomercials. As a result, several ABC shows were never seen in Montreal. Before WVNY was purchased by Lambert Broadcasting, it would pre-empt "Jimmy Kimmel Live" for the same purpose (at first only the last half hour of the show but later the whole hour). Since the Canadian rights to the show were owned by CHUM Limited, which owned no television stations in Montreal, the show was not viewable there without digital cable or satellite. In 2004, WVNY became a sister station to WFFF after Lambert Broadcasting acquired WVNY and entered into a local media agreement (LMA) with the owner of WFFF, Smith Media, LLC. Smith Media then moved WVNY into WFFF's Colchester facility.

News operation

WVNY's last and best attempt at operating a news department was begun in 1999. However, due to financial troubles, news production was shut down on September 12, 2003. This resulted in the termination of 25 newscast related personnel. From that point, WCAX and WPTZ operated well established local news operations. In 2005, after WVNY moved into WFFF's studios, Smith Media made an announcement that it was planning to start a news department for the two stations. After the creation of The CW and WFFF airing that network's programming at 10 P.M., there was some doubt as to the status of the WFFF and WVNY news department launch.

In mid-July 2007, planning for a nightly 10 o'clock newscast on WFFF started with the posting of news department related jobs. This development related to the fact that The CW moved to WFFF-DT2 instead of airing at 10 o'clock (in a delayed manner) on the main channel. On November 26, advertisements started appearing on WFFF and WVNY for the launch of the 10 o'clock news which happened on December 3. This newscast runs nightly for 30 minutes. There is a possibility of it expanding to an hour long broadcast in the future. WFFF's news set uses remote controlled high definition cameras. This means that the station is the first one in the market to offer local news in high definition. CBS affiliate WCAX-TV broadcasts its local newscasts in 16x9 standard definition.

That is not full high definition. WFFF's 10 o'clock production is not the first in the market. Back on July 16, WCAX began producing 10 o'clock news on the weeknights. It can be seen on the station's digital 24-hour local weather channel. During weather segments, WFFF uses live NOAA National Weather Service radar data from three regional sites. It is presented on-screen in weather segments as "Sky Tracker Triple Doppler Radar". WFFF's news music package is the Fox owned-and-operated theme used by stations that are owned by the network. On March 3, 2008, WFFF began to produce a weeknight and Saturday 7 o'clock newscast on WVNY.

It is the first station in the market to offer news at that time. The move to launch this production was due in part to the tough competition of local news at 6 o'clock on WCAX and WPTZ. It remains to be seen how this broadcast will affect or even make a dent into the ratings. As is the case on WFFF, the WVNY news is broadcasted in high definition. The newscast airs on Sunday nights at 6:30 to accommodate ABC network programming. The WVNY broadcasts mark the return of local news on that station since it shut down its own news department. The only "ABC 22" identification on the news is in the intro package and the "bug" in the bottom left hand corner of the screen.

News team

"Fox 44 Local News on ABC"
"Weeknights (7 to 7:30 P.M.)"
*Anchors:
**Greg Navarro
**Lauren Maloney
*Weather:
**Jason Caterina
*Sports:
**Kristian Read

"Saturdays (7 to 7:30 P.M.) and Sundays (6:30 to 7 P.M.)"
*Anchor:
**Elissa Burnell
*Weather:
**Kerrin Jeromin
*Sports:
**Whitney Brown

"WVNY uses additional news personnel from WFFF. See that article for a complete listing."

Past personnel

Anchors
*Eric Greene - weeknights at 6 and 11
**Executive Producer and News Director
**now morning anchor and talk host at News 12 Connecticut
*Meredith Allan - weekday mornings
**health and feature reporter
*Carrie Blake - weekends and reporter
*Nicole L'Huillier - weekends and reporter
*Lara Yamada - weekends and reporter
**now weeknight anchor at KCPQ in Seattle, Washington

Meteorologists
*Randy Mann - Chief
**now weekend meteorologist at KREM-TV in Spokane, Washington
*Dan Skeldon - Chief and weather reporter
**now Chief at WMGM-TV in Atlantic City, New Jersey
*Chris Silveri - weekday mornings and videojournalist
**now at WXXA-TV in Albany, New York
*Rich Hoffman - weekends
**now seen on weekday mornings and Noon at News 12 Long Island

Sports
*Andrew Catalon - Director
**now anchor and reporter at WNYT in Albany, New York
*Leo Doyle - Director
*Jason Barr - weekends
**now weekday morning news anchor at WMBF-TV in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
*Bill Voth - weekend anchor and weekday reporter
**now in same position at WSOC-TV in Charlotte, North Carolina

Reporters
*Keith Baldi - now at WMTW-TV in Portland, Maine
*Ruth Dwyer - "A Hard Look" segment producer
*Anya Huneke - now reporter with NECN
*Carl Leimer - now reporter at WVEC in Norfolk, Virginia
*Brendan McDonough - reporter and photogragher
*Ron Mott - fill-in anchor
**now NBC News correspondent based in Atlanta
*Kelly Reardon - went to Boston College Law School
*Eszter Vajda - now at UNC-TV in Chapel Hill, North Carolina
*Jenny Rizzo - now at WKBW-TV in Buffalo, New York

Other Personnel
*Travis Altman - producer
*Bill Colley - News Director
*Barrie Dunsmore - "Views From Vermont" segment commentator
**retired ABC News correspondent
*Dan Ferrigan - photographer
**now filmmaker at Dungby Productions in Boston
*Ken Schreiner - first News Director
**now independent filmmaker based in Utah
*Peter Speciale - final News Director
**now producer at Bloomberg Television

Previous logos

External links

* [http://www.abc22.com/ WVNY "ABC 22"]
* [http://www.fox44.net/ WFFF-TV/DT "Fox 44"]
*TVQ|WVNY
*TVQ|W09BB
*TVQ|W55AI
*TVQ|W63AD