WNYT (TV)

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This article is about the television station. For the former FM and current internet radio station, see WNYT (internet radio). "WAST-TV" redirects here. For the low-power television station in Ashland, Wisconsin, see WAST-LP.
WNYT
kW
  • 970 kW (CP)[1]
    • HAAT
    • 412 m (1,352 ft)
    • 414 m (1,358 ft) (CP)[1]
    Transmitter coordinates42°37′31.3″N 74°0′36.7″W / 42.625361°N 74.010194°W / 42.625361; -74.010194 (WNYT)
    Translator(s)see § Translators
    Links
    Public license information
    Websitewnyt.com

    WNYT (channel 13) is a

    Menands (with an Albany postal address); WNYT's transmitter is located on the Helderberg Escarpment west of New Salem
    .

    History

    Its former analog transmitter and current Doppler weather radar on Bald Mountain outside of Troy.

    The station began broadcasting on February 17, 1954, as

    UHF channel 35. The station was co-owned by Van Curler Broadcasting, a unit of the Stanley Warner Theaters chain, and Troy Broadcasting Company, owner of WTRY radio (AM 980, now WOFX). Van Curler operated the station. Its studio was located alongside its transmitter on Bald Mountain in the town of Brunswick, east of Troy. The station lost its CBS affiliation to Albany's WROW-TV (channel 41, now WTEN on channel 10) in January 1955. Logically, it should have taken over WROW-TV's ABC
    affiliation. However, ABC balked, forcing WTRI off the air. Van Curler purchased Troy Broadcasting's stake in WTRI and returned the station to the air in 1956 as an ABC affiliate.

    In 1958, Van Curler sought

    Schenectady, and Troy). Originally, the station had wanted to take the call sign WTAS (for Troy, Albany, and Schenectady) but the similarity of the letters TAS to the news agency of the Soviet Union (known as TASS) led to the use of WAST. As part of a dial realignment, WKTV in Utica
    moved from channel 13 to channel 2.

    Shortly after the upgrade, WAST moved to a converted warehouse on the Albany–Menands line on North Pearl Street, which previously housed

    Selective Service
    records. Channel 13 still operates from this location today.

    Despite the increased transmitter power, WAST's signal was still significantly weaker in some portions of the Capital District market than its competitors, particularly in the southern portion. This was because as a condition of being allowed to move to the VHF band, it remained on its original transmitter on Bald Mountain (a legacy of the days when it was licensed to Troy) and used a somewhat directional signal to protect WNTA-TV (now WNET) in Newark, near New York City. The other stations in the market had their transmitters on the Helderberg Escarpment. This forced WAST to build several translators to expand its coverage. Combined with the fact it was affiliated with ABC, the smallest and weakest of the three major networks at the time (but, during the late 1970s, ABC's fortunes would improve considerably), channel 13 was not really on par with rivals–WTEN and then-General Electric-owned NBC affiliate WRGB (channel 6)–until cable television arrived in the Capital District in the early 1970s. In 1968 Van Curler sold WAST to Sonderling Broadcasting, a radio company based in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park, Illinois.[4]

    On October 23, 1977, the station switched affiliations with WTEN and became the Capital District's CBS affiliate, returning the station to its original affiliation after 22 years. In 1978,

    big three
    networks.

    Viacom's 1994 acquisition of

    KSLA-TV in Shreveport, Louisiana) under common ownership with Paramount's broadcasting arm, the Paramount Stations Group;[6][7] the two groups were formally consolidated in December 1995.[8] Prior to the merger, Paramount announced the formation of the United Paramount Network (UPN), which started operating in January 1995; as early as 1994, Viacom was considering selling off its non-UPN stations.[9] In June 1996, Viacom/Paramount agreed to trade WNYT and WHEC-TV to Hubbard Broadcasting in return for UPN affiliate WTOG in St. Petersburg, Florida.[10][11]

    WNYT signed-on its digital signal in October 2003 on VHF channel 12. Unlike the station's analog signal, WNYT's digital transmitter was located in the Helderberg tower farm with the market's other stations.

    On February 25, 2013, Hubbard announced that it would purchase WNYA from Venture Technologies to form a duopoly with WNYT, for $2.3 million, pending FCC approval. Hubbard sought a failed station waiver to acquire the station;[12][13] Venture had put WNYA up for sale in 2009, but no other potential buyers came forward.[14] The sale did not include Class A repeater WNYA-CA which will remain with Venture Technologies.[15] Under a clause of the sale of WNYA that required WNYA-CA to use a new call sign that does not feature the letters "N" or "Y,"[13] that station became WEPT-CA on March 8, 2013. On May 29, 2013, the FCC approved the sale of WNYA to Hubbard, with Venture retaining ownership of WEPT-CA.[16]

    News operation

    For many years, channel 13 ran a distant third in the area's

    Nielsen ratings
    behind WRGB and WTEN. This was not only because it was the youngest station in the market, but also because of its signal reception issues. Under Viacom ownership, the station expanded and modernized its studios (newsroom, offices, etc., including the market's first modern computers), becoming a factor in the Capital District ratings race for the first time. The company also made a significant investment in electronic equipment, including a satellite news truck. Investment in talent increased with the building of its own talent and by acquiring key personalities from other stations in the area. The station also benefited from the switch to NBC, giving its resurgent news operation a powerful lead-in as NBC rose to become the ratings leader for most of the second half of the 1980s.

    WNYT overtook WTEN for the runner-up spot by the late-1980s, and in 1992, scored its first late news victory over longtime leader WRGB. Gradually, the station overtook WRGB, which had lost considerable momentum due to the retirement of longtime anchor Ernie Tetrault, in other time slots. In Viacom's last

    Emmy Award
    for best newscast in New York State. With the re-branding of the station's newscasts from News 13 to NewsChannel 13 in 1991, WNYT became the first station to use the "Live. Local. Late Breaking." tag line slogan which is now commonplace throughout the country.

    In the mid-1990s, the station began an alliance with

    joint sales agreement (JSA) with Pax affiliate WYPX-TV
    (channel 55) that included rebroadcasts of newscasts and other local non-news programming.

    In 2001, WNYT opened the

    2008 recession, though the station still covers Berkshire County. WCDC (a dark full-time satellite of rival WTEN), had never established any sort of physical presence in the Berkshires despite being licensed in the region before it shut down in 2017 (specifically, Adams). With the acquisition of WNYA, Hubbard has indicated that it would produce newscasts on WNYA with an increased emphasis on news from Berkshire County. It remains to be seen whether this will include any new physical presence (i.e. a news bureau or a full studio) of WNYA and WNYT in the local area.[14][18]

    A newscast airing on WNYA finally premiered September 16, 2013, and is known on-air as NewsChannel 13 Live at 10 on My 4 Albany. The show airs weeknights for a half-hour in a fast-paced format and includes a "Berkshire Moment" segment featuring western Massachusetts headlines powered by The Berkshire Eagle. It competes with the firmly established sixty-minute broadcast seen every night on Fox affiliate WXXA-TV (produced by WTEN) and another thirty-minute news show on WCWN (a weeknight-only production by WRGB).[19][non-primary source needed]

    After forging an alliance with the

    Doppler weather radar
    , known on-air as "NewsChannel 13 First Warning Live Doppler" at its former analog transmitter site on Bald Mountain.

    Notable former on-air staff

    • NBC's Olympics coverage
      .
    • City of Poughkeepsie
      .
    • Todd Gross – Chief meteorologist, 1980–1983.
    • Chris Kapostasy (Jansing) – 1981–1998, was an anchor from 1987 to 1998, now correspondent and anchor for NBC and MSNBC.
    • Kari Lake – anchor, 1998–1999, later at KSAZ-TV in Phoenix.[20]
    • Miles O'Brien – Weekend anchor, mid-1980s; Later spent 16 years at CNN.
    • Randy Salerno – Weekend anchor, 1988–1993; later went to WGN-TV and then to WBBM-TV in Chicago; killed in snowmobile accident in 2008.
    • Norm Sebastian – Former weekend, then weekday morning/noon meteorologist); deceased.
    • Don Weeks – Weatherman during the late 1960s under the name of "Wally Weather"; was the morning show host at WGY from 1980 until his retirement in December 2010 (deceased).

    Technical information

    Subchannels

    The station's signal is

    multiplexed
    :

    Subchannels of WNYT[21]
    Channel Res. Aspect Short name Programming
    13.1 1080i
    16:9
    		 WNYT-HD Main WNYT programming / NBC
    13.2 480i MeTV MeTV
    13.3 startTV Start TV
    13.4
    4:3
    getTV

    Analog-to-digital conversion

    WNYT shut down its analog signal, over

    VHF channel 13, on June 12, 2009, the official date on which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition VHF channel 12,[22] using virtual channel
    13. With the 2019 digital television repack, WNYT remained on its current VHF channel 12.

    Translators

    WNYT operates five additional repeaters. Until the early 1990s, it maintained a translator in Kingston (in the New York City market). This was first located on channel 63 but moved to channel 36 after the launch of WTZA in 1985. The translators were all built because WNYT's analog signal was not as strong as the other major television stations in the Capital District (see above). The Adams, Gloversville and Pittsfield translators have since been converted from analog to digital. The Glens Falls and Troy repeaters are licensed under the WNYT call sign but designated as low-power digital replacement translators.

    Former translators

    References

    1. ^ a b c "Channel Substitution/Community of License Change". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission. August 9, 2021. Retrieved August 9, 2021.
    2. ^ "Report & Order", Media Bureau, Federal Communications Commission, April 4, 2022. Retrieved April 10, 2022.
    3. ^ "Facility Technical Data for WNYT". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission.
    4. ^ "Sonderling increases TV holdings" (PDF). Broadcasting. November 11, 1968. p. 45. Retrieved January 8, 2019.
    5. ^ "Viacom, Sonderling propose marriage." Broadcasting, March 20, 1978, pp. 33-34. Retrieved January 8, 2019. [1] [2]
    6. ^ Foisie, Geoffrey, and Christopher Stern. "Viacom, Paramount say 'I do.'" Broadcasting and Cable, September 20, 1993, pp. 14-16. Retrieved January 8, 2019. [3] [4] [5]
    7. ^ Foisie, Geoffrey. "At long last: Viacom Paramount." Broadcasting and Cable, February 21, 1994, pp. 7, 10, 14. Retrieved January 8, 2019. [6] [7] [8]
    8. ^ Flint, Joe (December 18, 1995). "Viacom Group Merged Under Par's Cassara". Variety. Retrieved March 5, 2023.
    9. ^ Zier, Julie A., and Steve McClellan. "Minority-led group eyes Viacom stations." Broadcasting and Cable, November 7, 1994, pp. 6. Retrieved January 8, 2019. [9]
    10. ^ Rathburn, Elizabeth A. (June 17, 1996). "Station swaps highlight week in trading" (PDF). Broadcasting and Cable. p. 13. Retrieved January 12, 2019.
    11. ^ Rathburn, Elizabeth A. (August 19, 1996). "Changing hands: Viacom, Hubbard agree to swap" (PDF). Broadcasting and Cable. p. 38. Retrieved January 12, 2019.
    12. ^ "WNYT Albany to Purchase MyNet WNYA". Broadcasting & Cable. Retrieved February 25, 2013.
    13. ^ a b Application for Consent to Assignment of Broadcast Station Construction Permit or License Federal Communications Commission, March 8, 2013
    14. ^ a b Dobrowolski, Tony (May 2, 2013). "Albany NBC-TV affiliate buys station; will sharpen focus on Berkshire news". The Berkshire Eagle. Pittsfield, MA. Retrieved May 18, 2013.
    15. ^ Seyler, Dave (March 8, 2013). "Hubbard believes failure will allow it to double in Albany". Television Business Report. Retrieved March 27, 2013.
    16. ^ Rooney, Chris (May 29, 2013). "FCC approves sale of WNYA to WNYT". Albany, NY. WNYT NewsChannel 13. Retrieved May 29, 2013.
    17. ^ Fanto, Clarence (February 22, 2009). "Clouds gather over TV landscape". The Berkshire Eagle. Retrieved May 18, 2013.
    18. ^ Dobrowolski, Tony (May 2, 2013). "Albany NBC-TV affiliate buys station; will sharpen focus on Berkshire news". The Berkshire Eagle. Retrieved May 18, 2013.
    19. ^ "WNYT NewsChannel 13's". Archived from the original on October 8, 2013. Retrieved September 25, 2021 – via Facebook.
    20. ^ "Former Upstate NY news anchor running for Arizona governor; endorsed by Trump, Mike Lindell". November 8, 2021. Retrieved November 10, 2022.
    21. ^ RabbitEars TV Query for WNYT
    22. ^ "DTV Tentative Channel Designations for the First and the Second Rounds" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on August 29, 2013. Retrieved March 24, 2012.

    External links

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