WENY-TV

Infobox_Broadcast
call_letters = WENY-TV
city =
station_
station_slogan = Local, Accurate, Complete
station_branding = NewsChannel 36
analog = 36 (UHF)
digital = 36 (UHF)
(not yet on air)
other_chs =
affiliations = ABC
CW (DT2, not yet on-air)
network =
founded =
airdate = November 19, 1969
location = Elmira, New York
callsign_meaning = Elmira, New York
former_callsigns =
former_channel_numbers =
owner = Lilly Broadcasting, LLC
licensee =
sister_stations =
former_affiliations =
effective_radiated_power = 468 kW (analog)
44 kW (digital)
HAAT = 320 m (both)
class =
facility_id = 71508
coordinates = coord|42|6|23|N|76|52|16.5|W|type:landmark_scale:2000
homepage = [http://www.weny.com/ www.weny.com]

WENY-TV is the ABC affiliate for the Elmira, New York television market. The station, owned by Lilly Broadcasting, LLC, operates on analog UHF channel 36.

WENY does not currently have a digital signal broadcasting in the market; when their digital service begins, it will directly replace the existing analog signal on UHF channel 36.

History

The station began in 1969 when Howard Green, owner of Elmira radio stations WENY-AM-FM, as well as WCMC-TV in Wildwood, New Jersey (now WMGM-TV), was awarded channel 36 by the FCC after another area broadcaster, Frank Saia, surrendered the construction permit (he had planned to construct what would have been WEHH-TV). Green purchased the equipment of WNYP-TV (channel 26), a defunct station in Jamestown, New York, and hired Larry Taylor, that station’s engineer, to move and install the equipment into a space on the ground floor of the Mark Twain Hotel in downtown Elmira. The station’s transmitter was placed on Hawley Hill, in a newly constructed addition to the building that then housed WSYE (now WETM-TV). The station began operations on November 19, 1969 out of a mixed color/black and white facility. At first, the station aired only a 6:00 and 11:00pm newscast, the original anchor team featured news director Bill Miller, sports with Dick Ireland, and long-time WENY disc jockey Steve Christy with weather. Afterward came a small amount of other locally produced programming, including an Elmira edition of Claster Television's long-running children's program "Romper Room". In 1973, they broadcast a very short-lived Saturday night horror film program, hosted by then-WENY-AM evening disc jockey Paul Leigh as the ghoulish "Undertaker".

After the disastrous flooding caused by Hurricane Agnes in 1972, Green obtained a building on Old Ithaca Road in Horseheads that had been previously used by the Army Corps of Engineers. The station was then moved from the hotel to the garage of this property, where it remains to this day.

Current owner Lilly was granted the local CW affiliation in the spring of 2006. The network's programming is aired on Twin Tiers CW (the former WBE, the WB 100+ station in Elmira) in September 2006. Twin Tiers CW is seen on Time Warner Cable Channel 2 in Elmira, Corning, Watkins Glen, and other smaller communities in the Elmira market.

News team

AnchorsScott Cook,Renata Stiehl,Julie Browers

ReportersTed Fioraliso,Laura Hutchinson,Emma Wright,Sarah Sheridan

SportsToby Motyka

WeatherSteve Christy,Joe Veres

Digital (flash-cut) transition

According to FCC records, "Lilly Broadcasting, LLC, licensee of WENY-TV, channel 36, and permittee of unbuilt WENY-DT, channel 55, requested flash cut permission for WENY, an ABC affiliate. With the grant of this flash cut request, WENY will vacate channel 55. QUALCOMM Incorporated holds licenses for Channel 55 spectrum. Approval of this request to flash cut will allow QUALCOMM's wholly-owned subsidiary, MediaFLO USA, Inc., to expand its “mediacast” service coverage in the New York market without (loss of) broadcast service to the public because this station has not built its digital facility on out-of-core channel 55." [ [http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-07-1847A1.txt FCC permission for WENY-TV digital flash-cut on UHF 36] ]

ee also

*WENY (AM)
*WENY-FM

External links

* [http://www.weny.com/ WENY Official Site]
*TVQ|WENY
*BIA|WENY|TV|TV