WTVH
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| WTVH | |
|---|---|
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| Syracuse / Utica / Ithaca, New York | |
| Branding | CBS 5 |
| Slogan | News that matters most. |
| Channels | Analog: 5 (VHF) Digital: 47 (UHF) |
| Subchannels | 5.1 CBS |
| Affiliations | CBS Television Network |
| Owner | Granite Broadcasting Corporation Operated by Barrington Broadcasting (WTVH License, Inc.) |
| First air date | December 1, 1948 |
| Callsign meaning | TeleVision H (from its time as WHEN-TV) |
| Former callsigns | WHEN-TV (1948-1976) |
| Former channels | 8 (1948-1961) |
| Former affiliations | All secondary: NBC (1948-1950) ABC (1948-1962) DuMont (1948-1955)[3] |
| Effective power | 83.2 kW (analog) 500 kW (digital) |
| Height | 290 m (analog) 290.1 m (digital) |
| Facility ID | 74151 |
| Antenna coordinates | |
| Website | www.wtvh.com |
WTVH is the CBS network affiliate in Syracuse, New York. It also serves the Utica/Rome area. Its transmitter is located in La Fayette, New York.
This station broadcasts on VHF channel 5 and in high definition on UHF channel 47 as authorized by the Federal Communications Commission, and is owned by Granite Broadcasting Corporation and operated by Barrington Broadcasting. WTVH had a news department until Monday, March 2, 2009. WTVH broadcasts will be digital-only, effective June 12, 2009.[1]
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[edit] History
WTVH debuted on December 1, 1948 as WHEN-TV on channel 8. It went on the air as Syracuse's first television station and the first station ever owned and operated by Meredith Corporation. Meredith had entered broadcasting only two years before after buying WAGE (620 AM) and changing the calls to WHEN. It has always been a CBS affiliate, though at first it also carried secondary affiliations with ABC and DuMont. When WSYR-TV (now WSTM-TV) signed on in 1950, WHEN only had ABC as a secondary until WNYS-TV (later WIXT and now WSYR-TV) signed on in 1962. WHEN's affiliation with DuMont ended in 1956, when that network ceased operations. In July 1961, WHEN moved to channel 5, swapping channel locations with WROC-TV in Rochester.
In 1976, Meredith sold WHEN-AM-FM to Park Communications, but kept WHEN-TV. Since the radio stations kept the WHEN calls, Meredith had to change channel 5's calls. It originally wanted the new call letters WTVF (for TV Five, the station's on-air identity), but those went to the former WLAC-TV in Nashville, Tennessee At this point, Meredith chose WTVH as the new calls, the H being a link to its WHEN heritage.
In June 1993, Meredith announced the sale of WTVH and sister station KSEE-TV in Fresno, California to Granite Broadcasting with the sale closing on December 23 of that year. With that deal, WTVH became Granite's oldest television station, based on the date and time the station began its broadcasting operation. Granite would soon increase its northeast holdings with their purchase of WKBW-TV in Buffalo in 1995 and WBNG-TV in Binghamton in July 2006.
As part of the WBNG purchase, Les Vann (formerly President & General Manager) was promoted to Executive Vice President of Central & Southern NY Operations with regional responsibilities over both WBNG and WTVH. At the same time Matthew Rosenfeld was promoted to Vice President/Station Manager after holding the General Sales Manager position since 2004.
WTVH was featured in the film Bruce Almighty in 2003. WTVH is portrayed as the rival station of WKBW-TV in Buffalo, mainly because the common ownership of both stations made gaining rights to use both stations easier. It is also said that WKBW's real-life rival, WIVB-TV, refused to allow their branding to be used in the film, resulting in WTVH being substituted.
In April 2008, Matthew A. Rosenfeld was appointed to the position of President & General Manager of WTVH, and its Binghamton sister stations, WBNG-CBS12 and WBXI-CW11.
Since the 1980s, WTVH's newscasts have struggled in the Nielsen Ratings, running a distant third behind WIXT/WSYR-TV and WSTM. This precipitous decline in the station's newscast viewership ratings contributed to Meredith's decision to sell off the station in 1993. Even the strength of CBS's prime-time network programming has failed to lift WTVH out of the ratings basement before the cancellation of its newscasts.
On December 22, 2006, Nancy Duffy, a General Assignment Reporter for WSYR-TV died. The reporter had been away from work since August. Throughout her career, Nancy led the way for women in journalism. She became the first woman police reporter in Central New York after joining the Syracuse Herald-Journal in 1966. She was Syracuse’s first TV female reporter when she moved to WHEN-TV (now WTVH-TV) in 1967. She became the first woman to join the Syracuse Press Club, and later served as its president. In 1970, Nancy served as press secretary at Syracuse City Hall. She returned to Channel 5 after a year, and moved to NewsChannel 9 as a reporter and morning anchor in 1977.
On April 6, 2008, Jean Daugherty died at age 84. Daugherty was known to many Baby Boomer children as The Play Lady on the station's locally produced children's program, "The Magic Toy Shop", from 1955 to 1982. She wrote more than 6,000 episodes of the program, which, when it ended its run, was the longest running local children's show in the country.
In March 2009, it was announced that WTVH was eliminating its news division and entering into a local marketing agreement with rival WSTM-TV.[2] [3] [4]This resulted in the elimination of 40 jobs at WTVH, and a complete gutting of the news department. Only one person was left to solo-anchor the news while WSTM personalities are responsible for all other content. Current plans have it that WTVH will retain the branding and graphic aspects of its newscasts, but have WSTM personalities. Currently, the plan is for WTVH to move out of its studios and to WSTM's studios, a block away.
[edit] Utica Market
Since its inception, WHEN-TV/WTVH has also served as the CBS affiliate for the majority of the Utica television market (namely Herkimer and that market's portion of Oneida counties; Otsego County has WBNG as its default). In past years, WTVH was extremely protective of this status having barred WUTR from affiliating with CBS on at least one occasion. Under Granite's ownership, this status has not necessarily been taken advantage of in terms of advertising and targeting the station towards the Utica market as well.
Portions of the Utica market are expected to lose access to WTVH broadcasts over-the-air as a result of the 2009 digital TV transition.[5]
[edit] Logos
 Logo used 1996-2002; "Eyewitness News 5" Branding |
 Logo used 2002-2005; "5 On Your Side" Branding |
Logo used 2005-present; "CBS 5" Branding |
[edit] NFL controversy
In 1997, CBS gained the rights to the American Football Conference of the NFL. The league determined that portions of Yates County, New York, a fairly narrow county only a few miles wide at certain points, was within 75 miles (121 km) of Ralph Wilson Stadium, home of the Buffalo Bills. Yates County is on the far western fringe of the Syracuse television market (it has bounced between the Syracuse and Rochester markets a couple of times). Therefore, WTVH is forced to black out Bills games if they do not sell out. With WTVH's control over the Utica market, unless the Bills are hosting an NFC team or the game is a Sunday or Monday night game, the game would be blacked out there as well.
This was not the case when NBC held the rights to AFC games; WSTM was allowed to broadcast Bills games even when they didn't sell out. However, the NFL and Bills apparently had not checked the regional television market boundaries for a number of years before the switch from NBC to CBS.
Bills games at the Rogers Centre in Toronto would not be subject to blackout in Syracuse, as no part of the market is within 75 miles (121 km) of Toronto.
[edit] Former Personalities
[edit] The Final WTVH-TV Team
As of March 2, 2009, before the elimination of the news department:
Anchors
- Donna Adamo (5, 6, and 11 PM anchor)
- Michael Benny (5:30 and 6 PM anchor & Executive Producer)
- Keith Kobland (This Morning 5-7 AM and Noon anchor)
- Chuck Plumpton (Weekend 6 and 11 PM anchor and Weekday Reporter)
Reporters
- Jon Dougherty (Multi-Media Journalist)
- Haley Hinds (Multi-Media Journalist)
- Angelique Piccolo (Multi-Media Journalist)
- Joe Roetz (Multi-Media Journalist)
- Catherine Hawley (Multi-Media Journalist)
- Megan Eaton (Multi-Media Journalist)
- Jason Douglas (Multi- Media Journalist)
Weather
- John DiPasquale (Meteorologist; This Morning 5-7 AM and Noon)
- Thomas Esterguard (Meteorologist; fill-in)
- John Gerard (Weather Anchor; Weekend 6 and 11 and Weekday Multi-Media Journalist)
- Tom Hauf (Chief Meteorologist; 5, 5:30, 6, 11 PM)
Sports
- Rishi Barran (Sports Reporter; Weekend 6 and 11 PM)
- Kevin Maher (Sports Director; 6, 11 PM)
[edit] Previous Personalities
- Liz Ayers, now of WCNY-TV (1986-2006)
- Joe Bartosik, now of WeatherBug (2001-2005)
- Mark Cooper (?-?)
- Ron Curtis, deceased 2001 (1959-1999)
- Susan Davies, now of KOAA-TV
- Tracy Davidson, now of WCAU-TV (?-1996)
- Kristin Donnelly, now of WGRZ-TV (2004-2007)
- John Eves, now owner of WXHC radio (?-?)
- John Fisher (?-?)
- Steve Flamisch, now of WRGB-TV (2006-2008)
- Maureen Green (1983-2007)
- Jamie Guirola, now of WKMG-TV (2002-2004)
- Bob Kirk works for Entercom radio stations in Rochester, NY doing morning newsbreaks
- Frank Kracher, left station due to TBI (2005-2007)
- Carrie Lazarus, now of WSYR-TV
- Lyra Manning, now of WBTW-TV (?-?)
- Matt Mulcahy, now of WSTM-TV/WSTQ-LP (1997-2005)
- Kathy Orr, now of KYW-TV (?-1998)
- Janelle Reichert, now of KREM-TV (2005-2007)
- Larry Sparano, now of WICZ-TV (?-?)
[edit] Notable Alumni
- Al Roker, weather and feature reporter for NBC's The Today Show, was weekend weatherman at the station from 1974-1976, while attending the State University of New York at Oswego.
- Mike Tirico, ESPN and ABC Sports play-by-play announcer; ESPN Monday Night Football play-by-play announcer starting in 2006. Was the sports director at WTVH in the late 1980s.
- David Muir, now of ABC News, anchored at the station in the mid-late 1990s.
- Steve Cyphers, reporter with ESPN, was Sports Director in the late 1980s.
[edit] News Music Packages
- Part of Your Life
- You've Got A Friend
- Turn To News
- WTVH News
- Symphony
- Signature
- Total News
- KHNL News
- Counterpoint
- News Edge
- In Sink
[edit] References
- ^ http://www.wtvh.com/news/local/39388382.html
- ^ Fybush, Scott. A Great Voice is Stilled. NorthEast Radio Watch. 2 March 2009.
- ^ [Syracuse's Channel 5 cuts at least 40 workers, guts news division] [1]
- ^ [Central New York television stations join forces] [2]
- ^ FCC coverage maps for Syracuse-market station audiences impacted by DTV transition, Dec 2008
[edit] External links
- WTVH-TV CBS 5 Syracuse, NY
- Query the FCC's TV station database for WTVH
- BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on WTVH-TV
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