WPXN-TV

WPXN-TV (channel 31) is a television station in New York City, serving as the local Ion Television outlet. Owned and operated by the Ion Media subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company, the station maintains offices on Seventh Avenue in Midtown Manhattan and transmits from atop One World Trade Center.

The City of New York, which was one of the first municipalities in the United States to enter into broadcasting with the 1924 sign-on of WNYC radio, was granted a construction permit to build a new commercial television station in 1954. Seven years later, on November 5, 1961, WUHF took to the air for the first time. Through the Municipal Broadcasting System, which held the channel 31 license, the city (led by then-mayor Robert F. Wagner Jr.) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) used WUHF as an experiment to determine the viability of UHF broadcasts within an urban environment. Some of the early programming on WUHF included simulcasts of New York's existing commercial VHF stations; educational films produced by WNYC's Television Film Unit, established in 1949; college-level distance education telecourses; and, reportedly, a nightly rundown of the New York City Police Department's "wanted" criminals list. The experiment was carried out through the installation of UHF receivers in several hundred test homes, public schools and businesses, with reception monitored by FCC and City engineers.

After a year of test broadcasting was deemed successful, full control of WUHF was then transferred to the city. The station became a full-time operation on November 5, 1962, with new call letters WNYC-TV to match its sister radio stations WNYC (then at 830 AM, now at 820 AM) and WNYC-FM (93.9). Though the channel 31 license was classified as commercial, WNYC-TV was operated as a non-commercial educational station. Some of the programming from the experimental period continued, and now included live broadcasts of the United Nations General Assembly meetings. As a municipally owned station, WNYC-TV also devoted airtime to shows focused on civic affairs, along with other public-interest programs. The station also carried some programming from National Educational Television (NET) and its successor, the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), but later increasingly ran more independent educational television programs. For many years, WNYC-TV ran a 15-minute newscast on weekdays, called News from City Hall (later called News City and expanded to 30 minutes), highlighting the day's events in municipal government.

In 1979, Mayor Ed Koch considered selling the WNYC stations to other interests due to a municipal fiscal crisis. Instead, the WNYC Foundation was established as an outlet to raise operating capital for the stations. Though there were twice-yearly fundraising appeals made by the WNYC stations, WNYC-TV did not run on-air pledge drives in a manner similar to other PBS stations, mostly because it was a commercial licensee. It would not, however, have faced any problems had it done so, as WNED-TV in Buffalo, New York, operated for decades as a non-commercial broadcaster under a commercial license.

Channel 31 also leased blocks of airtime to foreign-language broadcasters. In the 1980s, among the largest providers of foreign programming were Japan's Fujisankei Communications Group, which aired a morning show on weekdays, and RAI, the Italian public broadcaster which programmed two hours on weeknights, and five hours on Sunday mornings, a period which included airings of Italian soccer games.

Also during this era, WNYC-TV joined the music video phenomenon – and in the process contributed to the growth of hip hop culture and rap music. In the summer of 1983, channel 31 premiered the hour-long Video Music Box, created by station employee Ralph McDaniels. The program started off with an eclectic selection of videos from pop, rock, and rhythm-and-blues artists. Rap music was also included, but eventually the program became exclusive to the rap and R&B genres. Video Music Box served as a launching pad for many rap music artists, and was said to have been the basis behind MTV creating Yo! MTV Raps several years later. Video Music Box would remain prominently on WNYC-TV's schedule for the next decade (the show now airs on WNYE-TV, channel 25).

Shortly after becoming mayor in 1994, Rudy Giuliani said that he was considering selling the WNYC stations. Giuliani said that broadcasting was no longer essential as a municipal entity, and that any financial compensation would be used to help the City cover budget shortfalls. The final decision was made in March 1995: the WNYC radio stations would be sold to the WNYC Foundation, while the city opted to solicit separate bids for WNYC-TV through a blind auction.

In August 1995, a partnership of Dow Jones and Company and ITT Corporation (licensed as ITT-Dow Jones Television LLC) was declared the winner of the WNYC-TV auction with a bid of $207 million, which at the time was the largest price ever paid for a UHF television station. The sale of channel 31 to commercial interests had many detractors. Foreign broadcasters complained, as they now found themselves without an outlet for their programming, and individual financial contributors criticized the Giuliani administration for selling the station to the highest commercial bidder, rather than to the WNYC Foundation. The foreign producers found new outlets through WNYE-TV, Newton, New Jersey–based WMBC-TV, and the City-owned Crosswalks cable TV network (now NYC Media), and eventually dispersed among the many low power television stations launched in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and currently through various digital subchannels both on full and low-power stations in the Tri-State.