WBES-TV was an earlyUHF television station inBuffalo, New York.

The station operated on UHF channel 59 from studios in theHotel Lafayette in Buffalo. WBES-TV, the second UHF station (and third TV station overall) in Western New York, was very short-lived, signing on September 29, 1953 and shutting down for the last time on December 19 of the same year. Anindependent station for its entire existence, WBES-TV was plagued by technical and financial problems, the primary factor in the station's failure. Channel 59 was never reissued in Buffalo.

Tom Jolls, at the time a radio personality atLockport'sWUSJ, was one of the station's personalities. He would eventually return to television a decade later, first with WBEN-TV (channel 4, nowWIVB-TV, then more permanently withWKBW-TV (channel 7), where he spent 24 years as a weatherman.^[1]

After WBES-TV was shut down, Buffalo was left with two stations, market leader WBEN-TV and fellow UHF upstartWBUF-TV (channel 17);WGR-TV (channel 2) signed on for the very first time on August 14, 1954, using WBES-TV's broadcast tower.

• History of UHF Television in Buffalo
• History of Television in Buffalo

• Television stations in Buffalo, New York
• Television channels and stations established in 1953
• 1953 disestablishments in New York (state)
• Defunct television stations in the United States
• 1953 establishments in New York (state)
• Television channels and stations disestablished in 1953
• Defunct mass media in New York (state)

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use mdy dates from October 2019