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WTVH
WTVH (channel 5) is a television station in Syracuse, New York, United States, affiliated with CBS. It is the only station whose broadcast license continues to be owned by Granite Broadcasting, a moribund company (controlled by Greenwich, Connecticut–based hedge fund Silver Point Capital) that sold most of its remaining assets in 2014 and 2018. Certain services are provided under a local marketing agreement (LMA) by Sinclair Broadcast Group, owner of WSTM-TV (channel 3), a dual affiliate of NBC and The CW. The two stations share studios on James Street/NY 290 in the Near Northeast section of Syracuse; WTVH's transmitter is located in the town of Onondaga.
Syracuse's first television station debuted on December 1, 1948, as WHEN-TV, airing an analog signal on VHF channel 8. The station was the first to be built and signed-on by the Des Moines, Iowa–based Meredith Corporation, and was the 47th station to launch in the United States. Meredith simultaneously entered the television field in several Midwestern cities including Omaha and Kansas City. In 1954, it purchased WAGE radio (620 AM) and changed that station's call letters to WHEN; it also switched the station's network affiliation to CBS Radio in 1956 matching it with other Meredith-owned outlets.
The station became a primary CBS affiliate on January 1, 1949, 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. 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 Park Communications but retained WHEN-TV. Since the radio station kept the WHEN call letters, Meredith had to change channel 5's call sign. It originally wanted the new call letters WTVF ("Television Five", referring to the station's on-air identity) but those had already been claimed by a fellow CBS affiliate in Nashville, Tennessee. At this point, Meredith chose WTVH as the new calls with "H" being a link to its WHEN-TV 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.
Granite soon increased its Northeastern holdings with the purchase of WKBW-TV in Buffalo in 1995 and WBNG-TV in Binghamton in July 2006. As part of the WBNG-TV purchase, Les Vann (formerly president and general manager of WTVH) was promoted to executive vice president of Central and Southern New York operations with regional responsibilities at both WBNG-TV and WTVH. At the same time, Matthew Rosenfeld was promoted to vice president and station manager of WTVH after holding the general sales manager position since 2004.
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, Jean Daugherty died at age 84. She was known to many baby boomer children as "The Play Lady" on this station's locally produced children's program, The Magic Toy Shop, from 1955 until 1982. Daugherty wrote more than 6,000 episodes of the program, which after ending its run, was the longest-running local children's show in the country.
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. Initially, WTVH continued to operate out of its own facilities on James Street but eventually moved into WSTM-TV's studios a block away. 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.
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WTVH
WTVH (channel 5) is a television station in Syracuse, New York, United States, affiliated with CBS. It is the only station whose broadcast license continues to be owned by Granite Broadcasting, a moribund company (controlled by Greenwich, Connecticut–based hedge fund Silver Point Capital) that sold most of its remaining assets in 2014 and 2018. Certain services are provided under a local marketing agreement (LMA) by Sinclair Broadcast Group, owner of WSTM-TV (channel 3), a dual affiliate of NBC and The CW. The two stations share studios on James Street/NY 290 in the Near Northeast section of Syracuse; WTVH's transmitter is located in the town of Onondaga.
Syracuse's first television station debuted on December 1, 1948, as WHEN-TV, airing an analog signal on VHF channel 8. The station was the first to be built and signed-on by the Des Moines, Iowa–based Meredith Corporation, and was the 47th station to launch in the United States. Meredith simultaneously entered the television field in several Midwestern cities including Omaha and Kansas City. In 1954, it purchased WAGE radio (620 AM) and changed that station's call letters to WHEN; it also switched the station's network affiliation to CBS Radio in 1956 matching it with other Meredith-owned outlets.
The station became a primary CBS affiliate on January 1, 1949, 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. 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 Park Communications but retained WHEN-TV. Since the radio station kept the WHEN call letters, Meredith had to change channel 5's call sign. It originally wanted the new call letters WTVF ("Television Five", referring to the station's on-air identity) but those had already been claimed by a fellow CBS affiliate in Nashville, Tennessee. At this point, Meredith chose WTVH as the new calls with "H" being a link to its WHEN-TV 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.
Granite soon increased its Northeastern holdings with the purchase of WKBW-TV in Buffalo in 1995 and WBNG-TV in Binghamton in July 2006. As part of the WBNG-TV purchase, Les Vann (formerly president and general manager of WTVH) was promoted to executive vice president of Central and Southern New York operations with regional responsibilities at both WBNG-TV and WTVH. At the same time, Matthew Rosenfeld was promoted to vice president and station manager of WTVH after holding the general sales manager position since 2004.
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, Jean Daugherty died at age 84. She was known to many baby boomer children as "The Play Lady" on this station's locally produced children's program, The Magic Toy Shop, from 1955 until 1982. Daugherty wrote more than 6,000 episodes of the program, which after ending its run, was the longest-running local children's show in the country.
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. Initially, WTVH continued to operate out of its own facilities on James Street but eventually moved into WSTM-TV's studios a block away. 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.