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| City | Carthage, New York |
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| WNYF-CD | |
| History | |
First air date | October 22, 1954 (70 years ago) (1954-10-22)[1] |
Former call signs | WCNY-TV (1954–1965) |
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Call sign meaning | Watertown, New York |
| Technical information[2] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 68851 |
| ERP | 50 kW |
| HAAT | 219 m (719 ft) |
| Transmitter coordinates | 43°57′15″N75°43′44″W / 43.95417°N 75.72889°W /43.95417; -75.72889 |
| Translator(s) | WWNY-CD 28.2Massena |
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Public license information | |
| Website | www |
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| WWNY-CD | |
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| History | |
First air date | 2001 (as separate station) |
Former call signs |
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Former channel number(s) | Analog: 28 (UHF, 1994–2010) |
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| Technical information[3] | |
| Facility ID | 16744 |
| Class | CD |
| ERP | 4 kW |
| HAAT | 244.2 m (801 ft) |
| Transmitter coordinates | 44°29′29″N74°51′26″W / 44.49139°N 74.85722°W /44.49139; -74.85722 (WWNY-CD) |
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Public license information | |
WWNY-TV (channel 7) is atelevision station licensed toCarthage, New York, United States,[a] serving as theCBS affiliate for theWatertown area. It is owned byGray Media alongsidelow-power,Class AFox affiliateWNYF-CD (channel 28). The two stations share studios on Arcade Street in downtown Watertown; WWNY-TV and WNYF-CD's transmitters are located on the same tower alongNY 126/State Street onChampion Hill.
WWNY-CD (channel 28) is a Class A station licensed toMassena, New York, which operates as atranslator of WWNY-TV. This station's transmitter is located atWNPI-DT's site southeast ofSouth Colton alongNY 56.
WCNY-TV was granted aspecial temporary authority (STA) to begin broadcasting on October 14, 1954.[6] It was locally owned by theWatertown Daily Times, which also owned WWNY radio (AM 790, nowWTNY) in Watertown.[7] The station carried programming from two networks at the time (CBS,ABC[8] then addedNBC by the program)[9] but has always been a primary CBS affiliate. During the late-1950s, WCNY was also briefly affiliated with theNTA Film Network.[10] By the mid-1960s, the station benefited from the ratings-dominant CBS programming lineup and established a large viewership base, including much of easternOntario, Canada. After the FCC allowed television and radio stations to share the same base call sign even when they were licensed to different cities, channel 7 changed call letters to WWNY-TV to match its radio sisters in July 1965. TheWCNY-TV calls now reside on aPBSmember station in nearbySyracuse.
The station was a major beneficiary of a quirk in the FCC's plan for allocating stations. In the early days of broadcast television, there were twelve VHF channels available and 69 UHF channels (later reduced to 55 in 1983). The VHF bands were more desirable because they carried longer distances. Since there were only twelve VHF channels available, there were limitations as to how closely the stations could be spaced.
After the FCC'sSixth Report and Order ended the license freeze and opened the UHF band in 1952, it devised a plan for allocating VHF licenses. Under this plan, almost all of the country would be able to receive two commercial VHF channels plus one noncommercial channel. Most of the rest of the country ("1/2") would be able to receive a third VHF channel. Other areas would be designated as "UHF islands" since they were too close to larger cities for VHF service. The "2" networks became CBS and NBC, "+1" representednon-commercial educational stations, and "1/2" became ABC (which was the weakest network usually winding up with the UHF allocation where no VHF was available).
However, Watertown was sandwiched between Syracuse (channels3,8, later 5, and9) to the south,Rochester (channels6, later 8,10, and13) to the west,Utica (channel 13, later 2) andAlbany (channel4, later 6, later joined by10 and13) to the southeast,Burlington–Plattsburgh (channels3 and5) to the east,Kingston (channel11) to the northwest,Ottawa (channels4 and9, later joined by13) to the north, andMontreal (channels2,6,10, and12) to the northeast. This created a large "doughnut" where there could only beone VHF license. WWNY was fortunate to gain that license, and as a result was the only television station based in the Watertown market until the early 1970s.
From 1958 until 1971, WCNY/WWNY also aired educational programming throughNational Educational Television (NET, becoming PBS in 1970) provided by the St. Lawrence Valley Educational Television Council. When the council established its own PBS member station, WNPE-TV (nowWPBS-TV) in 1971, WWNY donated its original studios to the new station as it had moved to its current location near theWatertown Daily Times offices on Arcade Street in Downtown Watertown in mid-February 1970. The Johnson family sold WWNY toUnited Communications Corporation in 1981 for $8.2 million after an unsuccessful struggle against the FCC andits directive for newspapers to divest themselves of television stations held within the same market.
Until WFYF (nowWWTI) signed-on in 1988 replacing a smallWUTR repeater on analog UHF channel 50 and taking the ABC affiliation, WWNY was Watertown's only commercial station. As a primary CBS affiliate, WWNY carried the network's full prime time schedule and news programs while cherry-picking the most popular ABC and NBC shows aired at other hours. The station also aired some Fox programming starting in 1987 while SundayFox SportsNational Football League games aired on WWTI. When cable arrived in the region in the 1970s, viewers could watch the full network schedules via NBC affiliate WSTM-TV and ABC affiliate WIXT (now WSYR-TV) in Syracuse or NBC affiliate WPTZ in Plattsburgh.
Channel 7 gradually phased out non-CBS programming in the 1980s. ABC completely disappeared from the schedule when WFYF signed-on. NBC programs (includingToday andThe Tonight Show) remained on WWNY into the 1980s with some prime time programming (which aireddelayed) lasting until 1995. After that, viewers received NBC programming from either WSTM or WPTZ, depending on location, until December 1, 2016, whenWVNC-LD signed on as Watertown's first full-time NBC affiliate.[11] Fox programs largely disappeared in the early-1990s with the exception ofMajor League Baseball games fromFox Sports which lasted until 1998.
On February 8, 2019,Gray Television announced it was purchasing the United stations, including WWNY-TV, WNYF-CD and WWNY-CD. In advance of the purchase, Gray assumed control of the stations via alocal marketing agreement (LMA) on March 1.[12] WWNY-TV, WNYF-CD and WWNY-CD would be Gray's first stations in New York State; the acquisition would make themsister stations to fellow CBS affiliate WCAX-TV in adjacent Burlington, Vermont, another station owned by a small independent operator (in WCAX's case, the Hasbrook-Martin family) before Gray bought the station in 2017.[13] The sale was completed on May 1.[14]
WWNY-CD was originally a repeater for ABC affiliate WWTI (channel 50) with the call sign W28BC.[15] During that time, WWTI and WWNY had secondary affiliations with Fox. WWNY's secondary affiliation was for NFL games during the years CBS did not have broadcasting rights of the league. When that network acquired the rights to theAFC, WWTI then airedNFC games from Fox, in addition toABC'sMonday Night Football (now on fellowDisney networkESPN).
In 2001, United Communications and WWNY entered into an agreement withSmith Broadcasting to make W28BC and sister station W25AB full-time Fox affiliates; Smith formerly owned WWTI, but did not include the translators in that station's sale toAckerley Group in 2000. W25AB then changed its call letters to WNYF-LP and eventually moved from channel 25 to channel 28; after the Watertown station upgraded to Class A status in October 2002 (becoming WNYF-CA, later WNYF-CD),[16] W28BC inherited theWNYF-LP call sign.[15] WNYF-LP's low-powered analog signal on UHF channel 28 aired from a transmitter onNY 420 in Massena.
On June 30, 2009, United Communications applied to the FCC for a digital version of WNYF-LP on UHF channel 18. This allocation was formerly used for WNPI-DT's analog signal. It wasapproved for construction on June 8, 2010.[17] Taking on theWNYF-LD call sign,[15] it is officially licensed as a translator of WWNY-TV. This helpsSt. Lawrence County viewers who had experienced difficulty receiving WWNY's digital signal after that station transitioned to digital-only broadcasts.
On May 15, 2013, WNYF-CD and WNYF-LD swapped call signs,[15][18] as the Massena station is licensed as a class A facility while the Watertown digital station, at that time, was not. On February 6, 2014, WNYF-CD changed its call letters to WWNY-CD;[15] on March 13, 2014, the class A status for the Watertown station was transferred from the analog channel 28 license to the digital channel 35 license, retaking the WNYF-CD call sign.[18][19]
On the same night it began airing in 1954, WWNY produced a five-minute local update at 11:15. For its entire existence, the station has held the number one spot in areaNielsen ratings by a wide margin. WWNY has traditionally been the dominant outlet in the North Country because it had the market to itself until WWTI signed-on in 1987. That station's two attempts at local newscasts—from 1987 to 1991 and from 1995 to 2004—never made any headway in the ratings, and WWNY remained the most-watched and highest-rated station. Since 2004, it has been the only station in the market with a functioning news department.
In 1981, this station's weekday morning show only consisted of two five-minute cut-ins. As late as 1998, it was broadcasting for thirty minutes. In 2004, the station began producing ninety minutes of news on weekday mornings.
On April 11, 2001, WWNY began airing a 35-minute weeknight prime time broadcast at 10 on WNYF called7 News Tonight on Fox. However, it was only seen by a handful of viewers able to receive that station's two low-power over-the-air signals because WNYF was not yet being offered on cable. An agreement withTime Warner Cable (nowCharter Spectrum) in fall 2001 placed the station on the system and the prime time news debuted for the rest of the area on October 4.
WNYF currently simulcasts the 6 a.m. hour of WWNY's weekday morning news. It then offers a second hour at 7 a.m. seen exclusively on the Fox affiliate while this station airsCBS Mornings. The simulcast and separate show is known on WNYF as7 News This Morning on Fox. There is no weekday morning or noonmeteorologist; news anchor Beth Hall presents a forecast fromAccuWeather during these segments. During the nightly evening weather forecasts, the station features a liveNational Weather Serviceweather radar based inMontague's Parkers section.
The stations' signals aremultiplexed:
| Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming | |
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| WWNY-TV | WWNY-CD | ||||
| 7.1 | 28.2 | 1080i | 16:9 | CBS | CBS |
| 7.2 | 28.1 | 720p | FOX | Fox (WNYF-CD) | |
| 7.3 | 28.3 | 480i | DEFY | Ion Plus | |
| 7.4 | 28.4 | OUTLAW | Outlaw | ||
| 7.5 | 28.5 | OXYGEN | Oxygen | ||
| 7.6 | 28.6 | MeTV | MeTV | ||
In May 2003, WWNY started broadcasting its digital signal on UHF channel 35 and began offering CBS programming in high definition. It then created a new second digital subchannel to offer a digital signal of WNYF as that station did not operate one of its own due toanalog-onlyClass A andlow-power signals.[citation needed]
WWNY has been digital-only since February 17, 2009.[23][24][25] Both broadcasts of WWNY and WWTI were set to become digital-only starting on February 17. However, the latter's plans were delayed to June 12 by the FCC.[26][27][28][29] WWNY-DT's previous digital facilities on channel 35 were eventually re-employed by sister station WNYF to offer Fox in high definition for the first time.