WTVH
FCC | |
Facility ID | 74151 |
---|---|
ERP | 109 kW |
HAAT | 392.6 m (1,288 ft) |
Transmitter coordinates | 42°56′41.8″N 76°7′6.2″W / 42.944944°N 76.118389°W |
Links | |
Public license information | |
Website | cnycentral |
WTVH (channel 5) is a
History
Syracuse's first television station, what is known today as WTVH debuted on December 1, 1948, as WHEN-TV airing an analog signal on
The station became a primary CBS affiliate on January 1, 1949,[6] and also carried secondary affiliations with NBC, ABC, and DuMont. When the original WSYR-TV (now WSTM-TV) signed-on in 1950 and took the NBC affiliation, WHEN-TV shared ABC with that channel until WNYS-TV (channel 9, later WIXT-TV and now the present WSYR-TV) signed-on in 1962 and took the ABC affiliation. The affiliation with DuMont ended in 1956 when that network ceased operations. It is the oldest continuing affiliate of the CBS Television Network among stations not owned by the network itself.
In July 1961, WHEN-TV moved to channel 5, swapping channel locations with WROC-TV in Rochester as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) revised its Upstate New York allocation table to provide more VHF service in the two cities.[7] In 1963, the WHEN stations moved from their original Court Street studios into a new state-of-the-art facility on James Street near WSYR (AM)-FM-TV's studios. Popular national radio and television personality Arthur Godfrey originated his late-morning CBS network radio show from the new WHEN studios on the day the facility opened to help Meredith celebrate.
In 1976, Meredith sold WHEN radio to
Granite soon increased its
In April 2008, Matthew Rosenfeld was appointed to the position of president and general manager of WTVH and its Binghamton sister stations (WBNG and "WBXI"). On April 6, 2008,
On March 2, 2009, as a result of continual low ratings, slow advertising sales, and the loss of the Ithaca area to WENY-DT2, it was announced that WTVH would enter into a local marketing agreement with rivals WSTM-TV and WSTQ-LP.[9][10][11] Initially, WTVH continued to operate out of its own facilities on James Street but eventually moved into WSTM-TV's studios a block away.[12] WTVH's studios were put up for lease in Summer 2009 and were eventually sold after several years of vacancy to developer Lou Santaro in October 2016, who plans to convert the old studios into office space.[13]
On September 6, 2009, its transmitter was damaged after a
On February 28, 2013, Barrington Broadcasting announced the sale of its entire group, including WSTM-TV and WSTQ-LP, to Sinclair Broadcast Group.[16] The existing LMA for WTVH was included in the deal; however, Granite retained ownership of WTVH's license assets. WSTM-TV planned to continue to operate the station until March 2016 (the agreement was earlier expected to last until March 2017 but the FCC later voted to outlaw all existing joint sales agreements by 2016). However, Sinclair continues to operate WTVH as of April 2016 pending legal action on the JSA regulations. The group deal also resulted in Sinclair selling its existing Syracuse market station (Fox affiliate WSYT, channel 68) and the LMA and purchase option for MyNetworkTV affiliate WNYS-TV (channel 43) to its sidecar company, Cunningham Broadcasting.
However, in an updated filing that August, Sinclair would instead sell WSYT and the LMA for WNYS-TV to Bristlecone Broadcasting, a company owned by
Other markets
From 1956, when CBS ended a secondary affiliation with
WTVH's schedule was carried in full on cable in
NFL/Buffalo Bills coverage issues
In
News operation
For most of its first 40 years on-air, WHEN-TV/WTVH was the dominant station in Central New York. However, it fell into gradual decline beginning in the 1980s which accelerated under subsequent owners, as the Meredith Corporation's other stations were in growth markets such as
In 2000, WSTM-TV declined to renew its news share agreement with WSYT that featured a nightly, half-hour prime time newscast on the latter. As a result, WSYT partnered with WTVH to continue the broadcasts. Now known as Fox 68 Eyewitness News at 10, this effort was eventually joined by an hour-long weekday morning show called Fox 68 Eyewitness News at 7. Both of the programs featured the same branding as WTVH's newscasts did at the time. Meanwhile, in 2003, WSTM-TV brought back a nightly prime time show at 10 for its newly acquired sister station WSTQ-LP.
In April 2006, WTVH ceased producing all local news programming for WSYT to focus on its own newscasts that were cemented in third place by this point. Ironically, the nightly 10 o'clock broadcasts were WTVH's most successful having soundly beat WSTM-TV's effort on WSTQ-LP. WSYT is one of a few
On December 22, 2006, one of the area's most popular long-time journalists, Nancy Duffy, died after a long illness. Duffy began her television career at channel 5. Throughout her career, Duffy led the way for women in journalism. She became the first female police reporter in Central New York after joining the Syracuse Herald-Journal in 1966. She was Syracuse's first female television reporter when she moved to channel 5 in 1967. She became the first woman to join the Syracuse Press Club and later served as its president. In 1970, Duffy served as press secretary at Syracuse City Hall for then-mayor Lee Alexander. She returned to the station after a year and moved to what was then WNYS-TV as a reporter and weekday morning news anchor in 1977.
In 2007, the station fired Ron Curtis' longtime anchor desk partner, Maureen Green, a 22-year veteran of the station.
As a result of the LMA with WSTM, WTVH's news department was shut down and merged with the NBC outlet. This resulted in the elimination of 40 jobs at this station. Only Michael Benny was retained to solo-anchor the weeknight newscasts on WTVH from its separate studios (less than a block away on James Street from WSTM-TV's facility) using other personalities from WSTM-TV for all other content.[22] The system set up by this CBS affiliate to use all videotaped footage (including interviews) shot by WSTM-TV was filled with problems with staffers from WSTM-TV actually walking to WTVH's old studios to deliver raw video to be edited for its weeknight news programs. Neither station attempted to offer newscasts outside traditional time slots to compete with WSYR-TV (such as weekdays at 11 am, 12:30 pm, or weeknights at 4 and 7) despite a plan originally announced.[12][23] WSYR-TV eventually expanded WSTQ-LP's weeknight prime time newscast to an hour on August 30, 2010.
In October 2009, Barrington Broadcasting began to produce separate weeknight newscasts on WTVH from a new secondary set at WSTM-TV's facility. Otherwise, at that time, the CBS and NBC stations would simulcast each other on weekday mornings (except the first hour at 4 a.m. on WSTM-TV), weekdays at noon, and weekend evenings. Although WTVH retained unique branding, music, and graphic aspects of the separately-produced news broadcasts on weeknights, coverage was essentially the same with re-purposed and packaged stories from the NBC affiliate airing on this CBS station. WSTM-TV usually featured more live reports from the field during a breaking news event.[24]
In mid-December 2010, WSTM-TV became the first in the market to upgrade local news production to
On April 13, 2015, WTVH reintroduced separately-produced local newscasts airing weekday mornings (from 5 to 7 am) and weekdays at noon (seen for a half-hour) with a dedicated anchor and meteorologist that do not appear on WSTM-TV. At the same time, this station also began to feature its own meteorologist for the weeknight newscasts rather than sharing an on-air personality with WSTM-TV. WTVH already has a separate news anchor seen weeknights exclusively on the station. WTVH continues to simulcast local news with WSTM-TV on weekend evenings. These broadcasts use the two station's shared branding, CNY Central. There can be a preemption or delay on one channel due to network obligations (most notably sports programming).[25][26]
Notable former on-air staff
- Lee Goldberg – weather anchor (1993–1996, now chief weather anchor at WABC-TV in New York City)
- Dan Hoard – sports director (late 1980s–1995, now the radio voice of the Cincinnati Bengals, as well as University of Cincinnati Bearcats football and men's basketball games)
- voice over announcer/pioneering newscaster (1948–1949)
- David Muir – news anchor (mid–late 1990s, now anchor of ABC World News Tonight)
- Al Roker – weekend weather anchor (1974–1976, now weather and feature reporter for Today)
- Mike Tirico – sports director (late 1980s–early 1990s, later ESPN's Monday Night Football play-by-play announcer, now at NBC Sports)
- Adam Zucker – sports anchor and reporter (1998–1999, now a studio host for CBS Sports)
Technical information
Subchannels
The station's signal is
Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming |
---|---|---|---|---|
5.1 | 1080i | 16:9 |
WTVHCBS | CBS |
5.2 | 480i | Charge! | Charge! | |
5.3 | TBD | TBD | ||
3.1 | 1080i | 16:9 | WSTMNBC | NBC (WSTM-TV) |
3.3 | 480i | Comet | Comet (WSTM-DT3) |
Analog-to-digital conversion
WTVH shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 5, on June 12, 2009, the official date on which full-power television in the United States
In January 2015, WTVH's second digital subchannel began carrying the Grit network. On February 13, 2017, WTVH's third digital subchannel began carrying Sinclair's TBD network. Grit was removed from WTVH-DT2 on February 28, 2017, and replaced by Charge!, another Sinclair-owned network.
References
- ^ Jim Ellwanger. "TV Guide: Lake Ontario Edition". Ellwanger.tv. Retrieved February 9, 2012.
- ^ "Democrat and Chronicle Rochester, NY May 8, 1967 p. 8". Democrat and Chronicle. May 8, 1967. p. 8.
- ^ "Facility Technical Data for WTVH". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission.
- ^ "WTVH TV Station Information". Retrieved September 12, 2023.
- ^ "Syracuse affiliates switch." Broadcasting - Telecasting, March 12, 1956, pg. 84. [1] [permanent dead link]
- Broadcasting - Telecasting, January 10, 1949, pg. 35. [2] [permanent dead link]
- ^ "Final orders add vhf to three markets." Broadcasting - Telecasting, August 7, 1961, pg. 55. [3] [permanent dead link]
- ^ "Media briefs: New call for pioneer." Broadcasting, August 23, 1976, pg. 64. [4] [permanent dead link]
- ^ Fybush, Scott. A Great Voice is Stilled. NorthEast Radio Watch. March 2, 2009.
- ^ [Syracuse's Channel 5 cuts at least 40 workers, guts news division] [5]
- ^ [Central New York television stations join forces] "Central New York television stations join forces | WTVH-TV CBS 5 Syracuse, NY". Archived from the original on March 6, 2009. Retrieved March 7, 2009.
- ^ a b Michelle Breidenbach / The Post-Standard (March 3, 2009). "Syracuse's Channel 5 shuts down its newsroom". syracuse.com. Retrieved February 9, 2012.
- ^ Moriarty, Rick (November 21, 2016). "WTVH-TV's former studio in Syracuse to be turned into offices". The Post-Standard. Retrieved November 21, 2016.
- ^ "Latest local news, weather and sports for Syracuse and Central New York". Cnycentral.com. Archived from the original on February 22, 2012. Retrieved February 9, 2012.
- ^ "WTVH's broadcast signal has been restored : Entertainment". CNYcentral.com. Archived from the original on February 22, 2012. Retrieved February 9, 2012.
- ^ Malone, Michael (February 28, 2013). "Sinclair's Chesapeake TV Acquires Barrington Stations". Broadcasting & Cable. Retrieved March 1, 2013.
- ^ "SINCLAIR BROADCAST GROUP CLOSES ON ACQUISITION OF BARRINGTON STATIONS" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on December 3, 2013. Retrieved November 25, 2013.
- ^ "WKTV bringing CBS affiliation to Utica". Archived from the original on October 27, 2015. Retrieved October 27, 2015.
- ^ Carroll, Doug (February 2, 1983). "Third local TV station still needs a network" (PDF). The Daily Press. p. 1. Retrieved August 19, 2015.
- ^ FCC coverage maps for Syracuse-market station audiences impacted by DTV transition, Dec 2008
- ^ "In the Matter of United Communications Corporation [and] WWNY-TV, Carthage, New York" (PDF). Federal Communications Commission.
- ^ "WTVH Move to WSTM Studios Final on Monday". Archived from the original on April 12, 2015. Retrieved April 12, 2015.
- ^ "Central New York television stations join forces : News". CNYcentral.com. March 2, 2009. Retrieved February 9, 2012.
- ^ http://radiodiscussions.com/smf/index.php?topic=171703.0;wap2 [permanent dead link]
- ^ "CBS5 News expands with brand new morning and noon news". Archived from the original on March 5, 2017. Retrieved September 12, 2023.
- ^ "CBS5 welcomes veteran meteorologist to evening newscasts". Archived from the original on March 5, 2017. Retrieved September 12, 2023.
- ^ RabbitEars TV Query for WTVH
- ^ "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.