The Channel 5/Channel 8 Rochester/Syracuse Switch

[Gregg]

I have an old 1960 TV Guide, NY State edition. It covers Albany, Binghamton, Rochester, Syracuse & Utica.

Among the oddities, it has WROC Rochester on Channel 5 and WHEN Syracuse on Channel 8. Sometime after 1960, the two stations switched channels. That allowed Syracuse to get ABC Channel 9 which it didn't have in this TV Guide... only 3 (NBC, ABC) and 8 (CBS, ABC) were available. And I suppose it also reduced interferance between WROC and CBLT Toronto, both of which used Channel 5, with only Lake Ontario between them. Does anyone know how this switch came about?

Actually Albany was the only market with three TV stations in this TV Guide. Rochester didn't have Channel 13 then, so WROC was both an NBC and ABC affiliate and WHEC 10 carried both CBS and ABC shows. WKTV 2 in Utica was affiliated with all three networks, WCNY 7 Watertown (now WWNY) was affiliated with CBS and ABC but not NBC. Same for WNBF 12 in Binghamton. There were no educational (later PBS) stations listed. And the only UHF stations were a few translators.

CBC affiliate CKWS 11 Kingston didn't sign on weekdays until 4:30pm. And NBC affiliate WRGB 6 Schenectady-Albany, owned by G.E., for some reason didn't carry The Tonight Show with Jack Paar. It ran a movie after the 15 minute 11pm news, so CBS affiliate WTEN 10 picked up Paar. I wonder why they didn't call themselves WGY-TV, since G.E. also owned that 50,000 watt, clear channel radio station, also in Schenectady, where G.E. still has a large plant off the NY State Thruway with a giant G.E. sign illuminating the night.

WUTV 2 Utica ran a movie at 5pm, then broke away at 5:55 for weather. Then back to the movie at 6, then 15 minutes of local news and sports at 6:30. That was followed by Huckleberry Hound cartoons at 6:45, then NBC News with Huntley & Brinkley at 7:15. I guess it didn't occur to them to put the local news, weather and NBC News together.



Gregg
[email protected]

 

[fybush]

It was part of a larger realignment of allocations across upstate in the early 60s that allowed ABC to get full-time affiliates in Syracuse and Rochester. WHEN-TV's move to 5 allowed 9 to be allocated to Syracuse, and WNYS-TV signed on there in September 1962. WKTV's move from 13 to 2 allowed for new channel 13s in Rochester (WOKR, also in Sept. 1962) and Albany (where the former WTRI-TV 35 moved to 13 as WAST). The never-filled channel 9 allocation in Elmira went away, as did 24 Elmira (formerly used by WTVE), with both channels being moved to Syracuse and Elmira being allocated 30 and 36 instead. It was also around this time that WROW-TV/WCDA Albany was moving from 41 to 10.

 

[pqgeorge]

When WROW-TV/WCDA (Channel 41) was on the air, WTEN (Channel 10) did not immediately supplant it. For several years, the WTEN stations simulcast on three channels, WTEN/10, WCDA/41 and WCDC/19. Channel 29 (WCDB in Hagamon, NY) was shutdown pretty quickly upon the airdate of WTEN/10. It was pretty much found to be redundant to the other WTEN signals. Eventually once WTEN/10 got a power increase and was able to move its' transmitter site closer to Albany, WCDA/41 was decommissioned accordingly. Today, only WCDC/19 (now DTV on Channel 36) is the only survivor of the original WCDA/WCDB and WCDC trimulcast.

As for the reason of no "WGY-TV" ever existing, General Electric was the pioneer of television as far back as 1928 operating experimentally until 1941 when the GE station got a commercial license and thus had the WRGB call-letters assigned. The WRGB call-letters were a tribute to Mr. W.R.G. Baker, a pioneer broadcast engineer who made many contributions to make television possible. WRGB-TV originally operated on VHF Channel 4. Eventually, in order to prevent any co-channel interference with WNBT/Channel 4 in New York and WBZ-TV/Channel 4 in Boston, WRGB made to the move to Channel 6 in the 1950's.

 

[dustintv]

As for the reason of no "WGY-TV" ever existing, General Electric was the pioneer of television as far back as 1928 operating experimentally until 1941 when the GE station got a commercial license and thus had the WRGB call-letters assigned. The WRGB call-letters were a tribute to Mr. W.R.G. Baker, a pioneer broadcast engineer who made many contributions to make television possible. WRGB-TV originally operated on VHF Channel 4. Eventually, in order to prevent any co-channel interference with WNBT/Channel 4 in New York and WBZ-TV/Channel 4 in Boston, WRGB made to the move to Channel 6 in the 1950's.

When Clear Channel changed WOKR's callsign in Rochester to WHAM and WIXT's callsign in Syracuse to WSYR to match up with their sister AM stations I was halfway expecting for CC to do the same with WXXA in Albany to flip it to WGY.

 

[azumanga]

Among the oddities, it has WROC Rochester on Channel 5 and WHEN Syracuse on Channel 8. Sometime after 1960, the two stations switched channels. That allowed Syracuse to get ABC Channel 9 which it didn't have in this TV Guide... only 3 (NBC, ABC) and 8 (CBS, ABC) were available. And I suppose it also reduced interferance between WROC and CBLT Toronto, both of which used Channel 5, with only Lake Ontario between them.

Actually at the time of the switch, CBLT was on channel 6 -- it moved to channel 5 in 1972.

 

[oldschooler1]

It was part of a larger realignment of allocations across upstate in the early 60s that allowed ABC to get full-time affiliates in Syracuse and Rochester. WHEN-TV's move to 5 allowed 9 to be allocated to Syracuse, and WNYS-TV signed on there in September 1962. WKTV's move from 13 to 2 allowed for new channel 13s in Rochester (WOKR, also in Sept. 1962) and Albany (where the former WTRI-TV 35 moved to 13 as WAST). The never-filled channel 9 allocation in Elmira went away, as did 24 Elmira (formerly used by WTVE), with both channels being moved to Syracuse and Elmira being allocated 30 and 36 instead. It was also around this time that WROW-TV/WCDA Albany was moving from 41 to 10.

Scott, what do you know of the history of WTVE? I've seen only a fleeting mention of it in an Elmira local history book, and it went on the air in 1953. That book never stated what became of it. There was also WNYE (I think those were the calls) on ch. 14 in Elmira, who's tower was blown down in a hurricane a few months after it went on the air in 1954, and they never recovered. I wonder what their network affiliations were...

I've also heard that Cornell was offered (or, had the opportunity to) the use of ch. 9, but it would have to be an ABC affiliate --- and WHCU AM being a long-time CBS affiliate, the staid Big Red did not want to change affiliations...

And Elmira was allocated ch. 30? Hmm...Never was a channel 30 on the air there. I can't even think of a ch. 30 nearby. Do you mean 18?

And Gregg writes:
WUTV 2 Utica ran a movie at 5pm, then broke away at 5:55 for weather. Then back to the movie at 6, then 15 minutes of local news and sports at 6:30. That was followed by Huckleberry Hound cartoons at 6:45, then NBC News with Huntley & Brinkley at 7:15. I guess it didn't occur to them to put the local news, weather and NBC News together.
Was Huntley-Brinkley even offered at 6:45 at this time? Or were the nets still in the old habit of running their news in early prime (like John Cameron Swayze at 745)?

 

[fybush]

Scott, what do you know of the history of WTVE? I've seen only a fleeting mention of it in an Elmira local history book, and it went on the air in 1953. That book never stated what became of it. There was also WNYE (I think those were the calls) on ch. 14 in Elmira, who's tower was blown down in a hurricane a few months after it went on the air in 1954, and they never recovered. I wonder what their network affiliations were...

There was never a 14 in Elmira. 14 was allocated to Ithaca as a noncomm, and while there was a construction permit issued to the SUNY system for WIET on that channel, it was never built. (SUNY took out CPs all over the state - 23 Buffalo, 21 Rochester, 43 and later 24 Syracuse, 14 Ithaca, 46 Binghamton, 29 Albany, 25 NYC, etc. - and eventually handed many of them over to local educational broadcast groups to build.)

It was WTVE on channel 24 that lost its tower in the hurricane on October 15, 1954. The fall-winter 1956 Television Factbook claims that WTVE resumed operation in the fall of 1956, but I think that was just a burst of optimism that never came to pass. WTVE was listed as an ABC/NBC affiliate.

I believe WTVE at one time tried to move to channel 9, before the channel was allocated to Syracuse instead. If it had pulled that off, it might have prevented WSYE channel 18 from coming on the air and dominating the market beginning in 1956.

I've also heard that Cornell was offered (or, had the opportunity to) the use of ch. 9, but it would have to be an ABC affiliate --- and WHCU AM being a long-time CBS affiliate, the staid Big Red did not want to change affiliations...

I don't believe they ever had a shot at channel 9. They did have a CP through much of the fifties for WHCU-TV 20, which was never built.

And Elmira was allocated ch. 30? Hmm...Never was a channel 30 on the air there. I can't even think of a ch. 30 nearby. Do you mean 18?

No, I mean 30, which was added as a noncommercial allocation later on. WSKG held a CP to build it, and while they didn't do so in the analog era, they did put it on as the first DTV-only station in the state. I believe WSKA came on the air around 2007.

 

[DToTheJ]

I have an old 1960 TV Guide, NY State edition. It covers Albany, Binghamton, Rochester, Syracuse & Utica... WKTV 2 in Utica was affiliated with all three networks... WUTV 2 Utica ran a movie at 5pm, then broke away at 5:55 for weather. Then back to the movie at 6, then 15 minutes of local news and sports at 6:30. That was followed by Huckleberry Hound cartoons at 6:45, then NBC News with Huntley & Brinkley at 7:15. I guess it didn't occur to them to put the local news, weather and NBC News together...

You mean "WKTV 2 Utica," again, no? Or perhaps "WUTV 20"?

 

[fybush]

WUTR 20 didn't come along for another decade. I'm pretty sure that's meant to be WKTV 2 again.

 

[Bob1370]

The VHF channel shuffle of the 1959-62 period in upstate NY affected nearly every market in the region except Binghamton ..Buffalo started it all rolling in the fall of 1958 when WKBW-TV signed on the air as Buffalo's third and last full power VHF station after years of battles over the Channel 7 allocation which had been assigned to Buffalo orignally as early as 1947 and survived the 1948 freeze. Its major effect was to kill UHF commercially in western NY for over a decade, as NBC-owned WBUF (channel 17) packed it in after two years of money losses, convinced that one more VHF, even if it didn't get a network (WKBW got ABC), would kill it.

Next came WKTV's departure from Channel 13 for Channel 2 in Utica, which cleared the way for WTRI in Albany to drop from Channel 45 to Channel 13 (changing callsign to WAST) and for an eventual third station in Rochester. The Albany flip happened almost immediately but the Rochester situation, which could fill a book in itself, took three years for the FCC to settle before WOKR signed on September 15 of 1962 to give the city its first fulltime ABC affiliate.

Finally came the shuffle in Rochester which caused WROC-TV to move its channel a second time in eight years. It had moved from Channel 6 to Channel 5 in 1954 as part of the re-drawing of the VHF band nationwide. It had to move again in order to make room for WHEN-TV to move off Channel 8 and make room for the new Syracuse ABC station on Channel 9. The shift in Rochester and Syracuse happened over the summer of 1962 and was complete in time for WNYS-TV to sign on for the first time on Channel 9 on, rather appropriately, 9/9 of that year. Why the FCC didn't simply have WHEN-TV retune its Channel 8 transmitter up to Channel 9, which was practical, and ask the new station to open on Channel 5 once WROC got out of the way, is lost to history. Some old timers at WHEN, where I'd come to work a decade later on the radio side, told me they could never figure the FCC's decision out themselves. They told me they expected to be the occupant of Channel 9 instead of the new station, for economic and logistical reasons. Jumping up one channel and keeping the old antenna and transmitter in service after an overnight retune would have been a lot easier for WHEN-TV than the total rebuild on Channel 5 they had to do at the Sentinel Heights plant instead--and WNYS, which had to build a new facility anyway, could have just as easily built it on Channel 5 as Channel 9.

 

[fybush]

And of course there was a previous realignment, too - the 1952-era repair of the original 1947 allotments that created lots of short-spacing on the VHF dial.

That was the realignment that took WRGB from 4 to 6 (fixing the short-spacing to NYC and Boston), WSYR-TV from 5 to 3 and WHAM-TV from 6 to 5.

It also shifted lots of other stations outside upstate NY: WNHC-TV New Haven from 6 to 8 (clearing the way for WRGB's move), WGAL-TV Lancaster from 4 to 8 (alleviating more short-spacing between NYC and DC), WDEL-TV Wilmington DE from 7 to 12 (more shorts to NYC and DC), WNBK and WXEL Cleveland from 4 and 9 to 3 and 8 (alleviating shorts to Detroit), WLWC Columbus from 3 to 4, and a slew of shifts in Cincinnati and Louisville, not to mention Milwaukee, Grand Rapids, and several other areas where the FCC failed to anticipate interference issues.

 

[therealjm12]

From Bob 1370: Why the FCC didn't simply have WHEN-TV retune its Channel 8 transmitter up to Channel 9, which was practical, and ask the new station to open on Channel 5 once WROC got out of the way, is lost to history.

I think the reason may have been more commercial than technical. Somehow Meredith and WHEN (WTVH) blocked CBS affiliation in Utica. I grew up in New Hartford next to Utica. I remember WHEN-TV Ch 8 came in a little snowy. After the switch WHEN-TV Ch 5 came in crystal clear boosting their claim that they served the Utica market. My friends in the Utica area tell me now the WTVH digital signal is nonexistent.

 

[oldschooler1]

From Bob 1370: Why the FCC didn't simply have WHEN-TV retune its Channel 8 transmitter up to Channel 9, which was practical, and ask the new station to open on Channel 5 once WROC got out of the way, is lost to history.

I think the reason may have been more commercial than technical. Somehow Meredith and WHEN (WTVH) blocked CBS affiliation in Utica. I grew up in New Hartford next to Utica. I remember WHEN-TV Ch 8 came in a little snowy. After the switch WHEN-TV Ch 5 came in crystal clear boosting their claim that they served the Utica market. My friends in the Utica area tell me now the WTVH digital signal is nonexistent.

So is their station staff... :'(

 

[Gregg]

Interesting how those two small upstate markets, Utica and Watertown, never signed on a UHF station for their missing network. Utica got a UHF for ABC, I believe in the late 70s. But even today, they rely on Syracuse for CBS and as stated above, WTVH's digital signal is a tough catch in Utica. Does Merideth Corp. have the power to tell CBS not to get a Utica affiliate? Was there no UHF allocation that could have been shoe-horned into Utica?

And Watertown never got an NBC affiliate. An ABC affiliate signed on in the 90s I believe. But in the North Country, you could either try to pull in WSYR Syracuse, WKTV Utica or WPTZ Plattsburgh... or you hope that CTV 6 in Deseronto or CTV 8 in Cornwall might be carrying Law & Order or Deal or No Deal. One North Country cable system used to carry WNBC New York for its NBC programming. Maybe they still do. I guess they pulled it off a satellite.

 

[therealjm12]

Does Merideth Corp. have the power to tell CBS not to get a Utica affiliate? Was there no UHF allocation that could have been shoe-horned into Utica?


Sadly Merrideth sold WTVH several years ago. The Syracuse market has gone downhill since.
As it turned out Utica did have another VHF allocation on Channel 4, but no one ever applied for it. I guess no one even knew it was there. I can't believe Roy Park knew it was there or he would have grabbed it instead of Channel 20 back in 1970. Park did try to get CBS for WUTR but was turned by the network. Everyone knew it was because of the pressure from WHEN-TV (WTVH). However, Roy Park did own five CBS stations at the time and one was UHF.