WWNY-TV

Infobox_Broadcast
call_letters = WWNY-TV
city =
station_
station_slogan =
station_branding = TV 7
7 News
analog = 7 (VHF)
digital = 35 (UHF)
post-2009: 7 (VHF)
other_chs =
subchannels = 7.1 CBS 7.2 Fox| network = CBS
founded =
airdate = October 22, 1954
location = Carthage / Watertown, New York
callsign_meaning = Welcome to Watertown,
New York
former_callsigns = WCNY-TV (1954-1965)
former_channel_numbers =
owner = United Communications Corporation
licensee =
sister_stations = WNYF-CA
former_affiliations = ABC (1954-1987)
NBC (1954-1995)
NET (1958-1970)
PBS (1970-1971)
Fox (1987-1998)
DuMont (1954-1955)
all secondary
effective_radiated_power = 316 kW (analog)
750 kW (digital)
HAAT = 219 m (analog)
203 m (digital)
class =
facility_id = 68851
coordinates = coord|43|57|14.8|N|75|43|43.4|W|type:landmark_scale:2000
homepage = [http://www.wwnytv.net/ wwnytv.net]

WWNY-TV, channel 7, is a CBS-affiliated television station in Watertown, New York, although it is actually licensed to nearby Carthage. Its transmitter is located east of Rutland Center. Owned by United Communications Corporation, the station is sister to Fox affiliate WNYF. The two stations share studios on Arcade Street in downtown Watertown. Syndicated programming on WWNY includes: "Jeopardy!", "Wheel of Fortune", "Everybody Loves Raymond", and "Two and a Half Men".

History

The station began broadcasting at 8 P.M. on October 22, 1954 using the call letters WCNY-TV (CNY as in "Carthage, New York") with studios located on Champion Hill. On that same day at 11:15 P.M., the station produced its first 5-minute newscast. WCNY was locally owned by the Johnson family along with the "Watertown Daily Times" and WCNY radio (AM 790, now WTNY; and FM 100.5, now silent). By the mid-1960s, WCNY benefitted from the ratings-dominant CBS programming lineup, and established a large viewership base that included nearby Canadian cities. In 1965, the station changed its call letters to the current WWNY-TV to match its radio sisters. The WCNY-FM / WCNY-TV call signs now reside on the Central New York NPR / PBS member station serving Syracuse.

From 1958 to 1971, the station also broadcasted educational programming produced by the St. Lawrence Valley Educational Television Council. When the council signed on WNPE-TV (now WPBS-TV) in 1971, WWNY donated its Carthage studio to the new station and moved to its current location near the "Watertown Daily Times" downtown offices on Arcade Street in Watertown in mid-February of 1970. The Johnson family sold WWNY to its current owner, United Communications Corporation, in 1981 for $8.2 million dollars. Until WFYF-TV (now WWTI) signed on in 1987 replacing a small WUTR repeater on channel 50 and taking the ABC affiliation, WWNY was the only Watertown commercial station. As such, it was permitted to carry affiliations with all three networks. As a basic CBS affiliate, WWNY carried CBS' full prime time schedule and news programs, with a selection of the most popular ABC and NBC shows aired at other hours.

WWNY also aired some Fox programming starting in 1987. Fox Sports Sunday NFL games aired on WWTI. Viewers in the area could watch other network affiliates on cable such as NBC affiliate WSTM-TV and ABC affiliate WIXT (now WSYR-TV) in Syracuse or NBC affiliate WPTZ in Plattsburgh. Programming from networks other than CBS was largely phased out during the 1980s. ABC completely disappeared from the schedule when WFYF signed on. NBC programs including "The Today Show" and "The Tonight Show" remained on WWNY into the 1980s with some prime time programming (which aired on delay) lasting until 1995. Since then, WSTM in Syracuse has served as the NBC affiliate for most of the market while WPTZ is seen on cable in St. Lawrence County.

Fox programs largely disappeared in the early-1990s with the exception of Major League Baseball games which lasted until 1998. In 2001, United Communications Corporation entered into an agreement with Smith Broadcasting to operate a Fox affiliate, WNYF, with transmitters in Watertown and Massena. After a year of joint operation, United Communications Corporation took complete ownership of WNYF. In May of 2003, WWNY started broadcasting its digital signal on UHF channel 35 which began to offer CBS programming in high definition. The station created a second digital subchannel to offer a digital signal of WNYF as that station did not operate one of its own. WNYF-DT can also be seen on Time Warner digital cable channel 878.

Coverage area

The station's coverage area includes Jefferson, Lewis and St. Lawrence Counties in Northern New York State as well as southeastern Ontario in Canada. In that area, the station can be seen in Kingston and Brockville. The most distant analog reception for the station currently falls just short of Ottawa approximately a hundred miles distant. In the U.S., the outer limit of WWNY coverage falls near Massena and Tupper Lake to the east.

WWNY was distributed by cable systems in Ottawa from the late-1960s to the early-1980s, but signal strength was poor and the station was dropped after Ottawa area television stations complained that WWNY was broadcasting Ottawa commercials and competing with them for revenue. At the time, WWNY had a sales office in Canada and was able to convince advertisers in Ontario to buy ads on channel 7. The Ottawa cable companies eventually dropped WWNY and set up a series of microwave relay towers to capture and transmit the local stations from Rochester. These were later replaced by satellite feeds from Detroit. The Rochester and Detroit stations served larger population centers and had no interest in Canadian advertising. While WWNY's digital UHF signal is not currently sufficiently powerful to reach Ottawa, [ [http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=80&q=call%3dWWNY-DT%26type%3dD TV Fool coverage map, WWNY-DT] ] the station has stated that it expects coverage to improve after WWNY-DT returns to its original analogue position on channel 7 and coverage area in 2009. [ [http://www.wwnytv.net/index.php/2008/06/23/dtv-update/ WWNY DTV update, June 23, 2008] ] For many years, WWNY's largest viewership was in Kingston since for nearly 20 years it was one of only two stations routinely available over-the-air, the other being local CBC affiliate CKWS-TV. Prior to 2005, WWNY was also available on cable in Belleville, Ontario.

News operation

Since its sign-on, WWNY has been the number one station in the market. When WWTI signed on, its news department could not compete very well with that of WWNY. In 1981, WWNY's weekday morning newscast consisted of two five minute segments. As late as 1998, it was broadcasting for 30 minutes. In 2004, the station began to produce two hours of news on weekday mornings and a total of more than four hours a day. On April 11, 2001, WWNY began broadcasting a weeknight 10 o'clock newscast for WNYF. However, it was only seen by a handful of viewers that could receive WNYF's two low power over-the-air signals. The station was not yet being offered on cable. An agreement with Time Warner in the Fall of 2001 placed the station on cable channel 2. The 10 P.M. newscast debuted for most of the area on October 4. Unlike most CBS affiliates, WWNY does not air local news during the week during the 5 P.M. hour.

News team

Anchors
*Jeff Cole - weekday mornings
*Beth Hall - weekday mornings
*Diane Rutherford - weekdays at Noon
**reporter
*Anne Richter - weeknights at 6
**reporter
*Brian Ashley - weeknights at 6 and 11
*Chris Onorato - weeknights at 10 and 11
*Andrea Friedman - weekends
**reporter

Meteorologists
*Rick DeFranco - weeknights
*TBD - weekday mornings and Noon
*John Kubis - weekends

Sports
*Mel Busler - weeknights
*Rob Krone - weekends
**sports reporter

References

External links

* [http://www.wwnytv.net/ WWNY-TV/DT]
* [http://www.cbs.com/ CBS]
*TVQ|WWNY-TV