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| ATSC 3.0 station | |
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| Channels | |
| Branding | Fox Rochester;13 WHAM News on Fox Rochester |
| Programming | |
| Affiliations |
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| Ownership | |
| Owner |
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| WHAM-TV | |
| History | |
First air date | January 27, 1980 (45 years ago) (1980-01-27) |
Former call signs |
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Former channel number(s) |
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Call sign meaning | Ultra High Frequency |
| Technical information[1] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 413 |
| ERP | 320kW |
| HAAT | 161 m (528 ft) |
| Transmitter coordinates | 43°8′5.5″N77°35′5.7″W / 43.134861°N 77.584917°W /43.134861; -77.584917 |
| Links | |
Public license information | |
| Website | foxrochester |
WUHF (channel 31) is a television station inRochester, New York, United States, affiliated with theFox network. It is owned bySinclair Broadcast Group, which provides certain services to dualABC/CW affiliateWHAM-TV (channel 13) under alocal marketing agreement (LMA) withDeerfield Media. The two stations share studios on West Henrietta Road (NY 15) inHenrietta (with a Rochestermailing address); WUHF's transmitter is located on Pinnacle Hill on the border between Rochester andBrighton.
WUHF began operations on January 27, 1980, as a general entertainmentindependent station runningcartoons, sitcoms (classic and recent),movies, drama series, andreligious programs. It was, at the time, the only independent station in the Rochester market.
The station was owned by Malrite and the General Manager was Jerry Carr who was the formerThe Weather Outside personality. Apparently, by sheer coincidence, the station re-used acall sign which was previously used by a different and unrelated station which operated on the same channel 31, albeit in New York City. The latter station had only used the WUHF calls for its first year of experimental operation (1961–62); it is nowIon Televisionowned-and-operated stationWPXN-TV.
In 1983, former undergroundcartoonistBrian Bram produced and hostedAll Night Live, a program aired live from midnight to 7 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. Bram's show was a showcase for regional bands including Personal Effects, Cousin Al and the Relatives, andThe Degrads. On October 9, 1986, WUHF became a charter affiliate of Fox for Rochester and was branded as "Fox 31". Most of the religious shows were gone by then. However, WUHF was initially still programmed as an independent station since Fox would only air one program,The Late Show StarringJoan Rivers until April 1987, and even then, would not present an entire week's worth of programming until 1993. In 1989,Act III Broadcasting bought the station from Malrite Communications Group.
Later that year, Act III Broadcasting bought outWUTV in nearbyBuffalo. Because of a city-grade signal overlap (Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules normally prohibit one company from owning two stations with overlapping coverage, and the agency would not even consider a waiver until 2000), Act III applied for a cross-ownership waiver seeking that the two stations were to be co-owned.[2] Act III tried to sell WUHF to a different company after only one year, but no buyer was found.[3] In a group deal, Abry would become the owner in 1995, through Sullivan Broadcasting.[4]
By 1998, it was controlled by Sinclair and was eventually sold to that company, as part of a group deal to purchase Sullivan.[5] In the 1990s, classic sitcoms, movies, and drama shows made way for talk, reality, andcourt shows. The station ended weekday airings of cartoons at the end of 2001 when Fox canceled its weekday kids block nationwide. In 1999, the station changed its branding to "Fox Rochester" although it adopted a "Fox 31" logo from 1999 to 2005. Its digital signal signed on-the-air in 2004 under aspecial temporary authority from the FCC.
In August 2005, the Sinclair Broadcast Group entered into a shared services agreement withNexstar Broadcasting Group, owner ofCBS affiliateWROC-TV (channel 8). Sinclair agreed to be the subordinate entity allowing Nexstar to control programming for WUHF. The station then moved from its studios on East Avenue (NY 96) in Rochester to WROC-TV's facilities.[6]
On May 15, 2012, Sinclair and Fox agreed to a five-year extension to the network's affiliation agreement with Sinclair's 19 Fox stations, including WUHF, allowing them to continue carrying the network's programming through 2017.[7]
On December 3, 2012, Sinclair announced it would acquire the non-FCC assets ofABC affiliateWHAM-TV fromNewport Television, with the license and other FCC assets being transferred to Sinclair-affiliatedDeerfield Media. At the end of 2013, WUHF terminated its SSA with Nexstar and re-located its operations to WHAM-TV's facilities inHenrietta.[8]
On November 30, 1997, WUHF established its own news department and aired a nightly prime time newscast (originallyFox News First; later renamed asThe Ten O'Clock News) along with a Sunday night sports highlight show. In 2003, the station adopted Sinclair's centralizedNews Central format, which featured locally produced segments, and national segments andconservative commentaries produced from Sinclair's studios inHunt Valley, Maryland.
After WUHF's operations were taken over by Nexstar, WUHF replacedNews Central with the WROC-producedFox First at 10 on September 1, 2005. The newscast initially aired for a half-hour; it was later expanded to 45 minutes, with the rest of the hour filled by the sports news segmentSports Extra.
On September 4, 2012, WROC-TV became the second Rochester area station to begin broadcasting its local newscasts inhigh definition. The 10 p.m. newscast on WUHF was included in the upgrade.
On January 1, 2014, WUHF's 10 p.m. newscast was taken over by new sister WHAM-TV. WUHF also began to air a morning newscast,Good Day Rochester, from 7 to 9 a.m.[8]
The station's ATSC 1.0 channels are carried on themultiplexed signals of other Rochester television stations:
| Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming | ATSC 1.0 host |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 31.1 | 720p | 16:9 | WUHF-DT | Fox | WROC-TV |
| 31.2 | 480i | 4:3 | Antenna | Antenna TV | WHAM-TV |
| 31.3 | Comet-T | Comet | |||
| 31.4 | 16:9 | TBD | TBD | WXXI-TV |
In 2006, WUHF addedThe Tube digital music video channel on a new second digital subchannel; the channel was removed when the network went out of business in 2007.
WUHF discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, overUHF channel 31, on February 17, 2009, the original target date on which full-power television in the United States were totransition from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate (like most Sinclair stations and was replaced by a "nightlight" loop that ran until March 3). The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 28,[10] usingvirtual channel 31.
| Channel | Res. | Short name | Programming |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8.1 | 1080p | WROC | CBS (WROC-TV) |
| 13.1 | 720p | WHAM | ABC (WHAM-TV) |
| 21.1 | 1080p | WXXI | PBS (WXXI-TV) |
| 31.1 | 720p | WUHF | Fox |
| 31.10 | 1080p | T2 | T2 (from Tennis Channel) |
| 31.11 | PBTV | Pickleballtv |
In 1994, several cable systems in Canada started carrying WUHF via theCancom communications satellite in out-of-market areas where Fox was not otherwise available. However, it had been carried on cable inBelleville, Ontario and other communities on the north shore ofLake Ontario since the 1980s. It was formerly carried byEastlink (in SD only) and onBell AliantFibreOP TV (in both SD and HD) for viewers inAtlantic Canada until late 2012 (January 30, 2013, in Eastlink's case), when it was replaced withWFXT inBoston, a former Fox O&O (now owned byCox Media Group). The station is also carried in theThousand Islands region of theNorth Country in the town ofHammond (via Citizens Cable TV) as well as in the provinces ofManitoba andNewfoundland and Labrador. WUHF has been carried on satellite systems since 1996 and it is currently the only Rochester-based television station seen in Canada on theShaw Direct satellite provider.[13]
CF Cable in the western suburbs ofMontreal used to carry the station in 1995 but replaced it with sister station WUTV from Buffalo the following year. That station was carried onVidéotron for cable systems outside theWest Island. It was also the first Fox station carried on Montreal cable. However, the northern suburbs of that city (particularlySaint-Jérôme) still carry the station, even though inMont-Tremblant,WFFF-TV along with otherBurlington, Vermont–Plattsburgh, New York stations are seen there instead.
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