WNLO (TV)
FCC | |
Facility ID | 71905 |
---|---|
ERP | 800 kW |
HAAT | 415 m (1,362 ft) |
Transmitter coordinates | 42°39′33″N 78°37′32″W / 42.65917°N 78.62556°W |
Links | |
Public license information | |
Website | www |
WNLO (channel 23) is a
History
As a PBS member station (1987–2001)
The station signed on the air as WNEQ-TV on May 13, 1987, and was the second
WNEQ-TV's broadcast day began daily at 4 p.m. and it usually aired between six and seven hours of programming per day. In 1992, many cable providers in Hamilton and Niagara began carrying WNEQ-TV, displacing long-standing WQLN from Erie, Pennsylvania, in the process. In fall 1998, most of the cable providers in those regions started to remove WNEQ as they were struggling with limited channel capacity and because it had a limited daily program schedule. One year later, Rogers Cable began carrying WNEQ on its digital tier for customers in the Greater Toronto Area.
The Buffalo market was unable to support two public stations, and both WNEQ-TV and WNED-TV struggled financially. As a result, the educational foundation put WNEQ-TV up for sale.
In 2000, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) agreed to reassign channel 23 to a commercial license and assigned channel 17 an educational license. Consequently, the Buffalo market retained an educational-licensed station and LIN TV was permitted to purchase the converted-to-commercial WNEQ-TV.
As a commercial station (2001–present)
In March 2001, LIN closed on its purchase of WNEQ-TV and converted it to a general entertainment independent station under the call sign WNLO, though it would not merge its transmitter facilities with new sister station WIVB until 2019, instead continuing to transmit from the WNED tower. In 2003, WNLO secured the UPN affiliation for the Buffalo market when the network's affiliation agreement with the weaker-rated WNGS (channel 67, now WBBZ-TV) expired. On cable in Toronto, WNLO was replaced with WTVS from Detroit in January 2001 when it relaunched as a commercial station. In 2005, Rogers submitted a successful request to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to allow carriage of WNLO in Ontario. The station would not compete on advertising revenue from the Toronto area (as Rogers suggested with another Buffalo station it carried, WNYO-TV) and the signal was also available over-the-air in a good portion of the Golden Horseshoe of Southern Ontario.
On January 24, 2006,
On November 2 of that year, WNLO began broadcasting CW network programming in high definition on its digital signal. Until this point, it was rebroadcasting WIVB-TV's high definition feed, because UPN had little to no HD programming to broadcast. On May 18, 2007, LIN TV announced the company was exploring strategic alternatives that could have resulted in its sale. In early July 2007, WNLO launched its own website; previously, the station's web page was merely a separate section within WIVB-TV's website.
On March 10, 2010, the station acquired a universal cable channel slot on Time Warner Cable systems throughout
On March 21, 2014, it was announced that Media General would acquire LIN.[10] The merger was completed on December 19, bringing WIVB-TV and WNLO under common ownership with ABC affiliate WTEN and under the same management as Fox affiliate WXXA-TV, both in Albany.[11]
On January 27, 2016, Media General announced that it had entered into a definite agreement to be acquired by
Programming
WNLO can be considered an alternate CBS affiliate as it simulcasts the
In 2015, WNLO acquired Raycom Sports's ACC Network package of college football and men's basketball broadcasts from the Atlantic Coast Conference. The ACC package had previously aired on WBBZ-TV for the previous two seasons.
In April 2019, WNLO announced the acquisition of a package of Buffalo Bisons Minor League Baseball games, mostly on Saturday nights, once approximately every two weeks.[14]
Newscasts
After WIVB-TV took over operations of WNLO in March 2001, the CBS affiliate began producing a nightly half-hour prime time newscast on channel 23. Known as The 10 O'Clock News, it competed with another newscast in the timeslot on Pax affiliate WPXJ-TV that was produced by NBC affiliate WGRZ (channel 2; it was eventually dropped in 2003). On April 20, 2006, WGRZ started producing a half-hour prime time newscast for The WB (now MyNetworkTV) affiliate WNYO-TV (WNYO-TV briefly had its own News Central-based newscast from 2005 to 2006). In order to gain more viewers than WNLO, the second WGRZ 10 p.m. newscast originally featured ten minutes of news and weather, with the rest of the half-hour dedicated to sports. However, due to low ratings, the sports segment was reduced to a traditional segment seen after weather.
WNLO consistently led WNYO-TV in the ratings, for a number of reasons. By May 2011, it was the highest-rated late newscast (10 or 11 p.m.) in all of Western New York among viewers 18 to 54, beating all of the market's 11 p.m. newscasts; among total viewers, it trails WGRZ and sister station WIVB-TV.[15] On February 2, 2009, WNLO began airing a two-hour extension of WIVB-TV's weekday morning newscast. Known as Wake Up! on CW 23, it aired from 7 to 9 a.m., and competed against WIVB-TV's broadcast of The Early Show. The station aired its own locally produced morning talk show, Winging It! Buffalo Style during the 8 a.m. hour, which upon its debut, reduced WNLO's Wake Up! newscast to one hour. The station also rebroadcasts WIVB-TV's hour-long weekend morning newscast, Weekend Wake Up!, from noon to 1 p.m., and simulcasts that station's hour-long 6 p.m. newscast on Sunday nights.
On February 1, 2012, WIVB-TV became the third and last television station in the Buffalo market to begin broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition; the newscasts that WIVB-TV produces for WNLO were included in the upgrade. On January 6, 2014, WIVB-TV expanded the 10 p.m. weeknight newscast on WNLO to one hour (the move was originally planned to maintain a lead-in for The Arsenio Hall Show, which the station had planned to air at 10:30 but could not get the syndicator to distribute until 11 p.m.; that show would be canceled in May, while the newscast remains at its full length). The newscast remains a half-hour on weekends. In either 2013 or 2014, the WNLO portion of Wake-Up! expanded to 2 hours, once again from 7 to 9 a.m., moving Winging It! Buffalo Style to 9 a.m.; Winging It! was canceled effective January 2015.[16]
In December 2017, WIVB announced that it would begin producing a half-hour early evening newscast at 6:30 p.m. for WNLO which premiered on January 15, 2018, serving as a local alternative to the national network evening news programs seen on WGRZ, WKBW-TV and WIVB.[17]
Technical information
Subchannels
The station's signal is
Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming |
---|---|---|---|---|
23.1 | 1080i | 16:9 |
WNLO-HD | Main WNLO programming / The CW |
23.2 | 480i | Rewind | Rewind TV[19] |
In June 2013, WNLO announced it would begin carrying Bounce TV, an African American-oriented television network, on its second digital subchannel; the network began to be carried on channel 23.2 on July 1.[20]
Analog-to-digital conversion
WNLO discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over
WIVB began to share WNLO's physical channel in summer 2018 after Nexstar sold WIVB's existing spectrum in the FCC transition auction, moving to the WNLO/WNED tower temporarily. In the summer of 2019, WNLO/WIVB shifted to its post-transition channel, and began to transmit from the WIVB-TV Tower in Colden, and merged the two stations' operations fully together, including physical transmitter.
Carriage disputes
In October 2008, LIN TV broke off all retransmission deals with Time Warner Cable. LIN TV was demanding a fee of 25 cents per month per subscriber to carry each of its stations as it is entitled to under federal
WNLO is not available in portions of
References
- ^ WNLO Petition for Rulemaking Channel 36 – 10.26.2018
- ^ WUTV Petition for Rulemaking
- ^ "Facility Technical Data for WNLO". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission.
- ^ CBS Corporation and Warner Bros. Entertainment Form New 5th Broadcast Network, CBS / Time Warner joint press release, January 24, 2006
- CNNMoney.com, January 24, 2006.
- ^ UPN and WB to Combine, Forming New TV Network, The New York Times, January 24, 2006.
- ^ "News Corp. to launch new mini-network for UPN stations". USA Today. February 22, 2006. Retrieved January 21, 2013.
- ^ News Corp. Unveils MyNetworkTV, Broadcasting & Cable, February 22, 2006.
- ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on June 6, 2011. Retrieved March 10, 2010.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - ^ Sruthi Ramakrishnan (March 21, 2014). "Media General to buy LIN Media for $1.6 billion". Reuters. Retrieved March 21, 2014.
- ^ Media General Completes Merger With LIN Media Archived December 19, 2014, at the Wayback Machine, Press Release, Media General, Retrieved December 19, 2014
- ^ "Nexstar-Media General: It's A Done Deal". TVNewsCheck. Retrieved January 27, 2016.
- ^ Picker, Leslie (January 27, 2016). "Nexstar Clinches Deal to Acquire Media General". The New York Times. Retrieved January 27, 2016.
- ^ "Bisons and Nexstar Broadcasting partner to air 10-game schedule on The CW-23". WNLO. April 22, 2019. Retrieved April 22, 2019.
- ^ Pergament, Alan (June 22, 2011). Local viewership patterns are changing. Still Talkin' TV. Retrieved June 22, 2011.
- ^ ""Winging It!" on last legs; Ch.2's Beard imitates Johnny Carson - Talkin' TV". Archived from the original on December 13, 2014. Retrieved December 12, 2014.
- ^ Ch.4's new 6:30 p.m. newscast is an early flop on WNLO-TV. The Buffalo News. Retrieved January 17, 2018.
- ^ RabbitEars TV Query for WNLO
- ^ "RabbitEars.Info".
- ^ Pergament, Alan (June 25, 2013). New TV channel heading to Buffalo. The Buffalo News. Retrieved June 25, 2013.
- ^ "DTV Tentative Channel Designations for the First and Second Rounds" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on August 29, 2013. Retrieved March 24, 2012.