WNYT, virtual channel 13 (VHF digital channel 12), is a CBS owned-and-operated television station licensed to Albany, New York, United States and serving New York's Capital District (Albany–Schenectady–Troy) as well as Berkshire County, Massachusetts. The station is owned by the CBS Television Stations division of CBS Corporation (itself owned by Viacom Networks) as part of a duopoly with Pittsfield, Massachusetts-licensed independent station WNYA (channel 51). The two stations share studios at the WNYT Broadcast Center on North Pearl Street (along NY 32) in Menands (with an Albany postal address); WNYT's transmitter is located on the Helderberg Escarpment west of New Salem, a hamlet of New Scotland.
History[]
The station began broadcasting on February 17, 1954, as CBS affiliate WTRI, licensed to Troy and broadcasting on UHF channel 35. The station was co-owned by Van Curler Broadcasting, a unit of the Stanley Warner Theaters chain, and Troy Broadcasting Company, owner of WTRY radio (AM 980, now WOFX). Van Curler operated the station. Its studio was located alongside its transmitter on Bald Mountain in the town of Brunswick, east of Troy. The station lost its CBS affiliation to Albany's WROW-TV (channel 41, now WTEN on channel 10) in January 1955. Logically, it should have taken over WROW-TV's ABC affiliation. However, ABC balked, forcing WTRI off the air. Van Curler purchased Troy Broadcasting's stake in WTRI and returned the station to the air in 1956 as an ABC affiliate.
In 1958, Van Curler sought Federal Communications Commission (FCC) permission to move the license to Albany, on channel 13. By this time, the market had expanded to cover not only east-central New York, but also large swaths of southwestern Vermont and western Massachusetts. Not only is this market one of the largest east of the Mississippi River, but much of it is very mountainous. UHF stations have never covered large areas or rugged terrain very well. Van Curler thus jumped at a chance to move to the stronger VHF band. The FCC granted the request, and in December, the station took new call letters, WAST (for Albany/Schenectady/Troy). As part of a dial realignment, WKTV in Utica moved from channel 13 to channel 2. Originally, the station had wanted to take the call sign WTAS (for Troy/Albany/Schenectady) but the similarity of the letters TAS to the news agency of the Soviet Union (known as TASS) led to the use of WAST.
Shortly after the upgrade, WAST moved to a converted warehouse on the Albany–Menands line on North Pearl Street, which previously housed Selective Service records. Channel 13 still operates from this location today.
Despite the increased transmitter power, WAST's signal was still significantly weaker in some portions of the Capital District market than its competitors, particularly in the southern portion. This was because as a condition of being allowed to move to the VHF band, it remained on its original transmitter on Bald Mountain (a legacy of the days when it was licensed to Troy) and used a somewhat directional signal to protect WNTA-TV (now WNET) in Newark, New Jersey, near New York City. The other stations in the market had their transmitters on the Helderberg Escarpment. This forced WAST to build several translators to expand its coverage. Combined with the fact it was affiliated with ABC, the smallest and weakest of the three major networks at the time (but, during the late 1970s, ABC's fortunes would improve considerably), channel 13 was not really on par with rivals–WTEN and then-General Electric-owned NBC affiliate WRGB (channel 6)–until cable television arrived in the Capital District in the early 1970s. In 1968 Van Curler sold WAST to Sonderling Broadcasting, a radio company based in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park, Illinois.[1]
On October 23, 1977, the station switched affiliations with WTEN and became the Capital District's CBS affiliate, returning the station to its original affiliation after 22 years. In 1978, the original iteration of Viacom announced its purchase of Sonderling Broadcasting's holdings and made WAST the company's second television station (after WVIT in New Britain, Connecticut) when the sale was finalized two years later, in March 1980.[2] On September 28, 1981 WAST swapped affiliations again, this time with WRGB and became the area's NBC affiliate. Seeking a fresh start and a new identity, Viacom decided to mark the affiliation change with the current call sign of WNYT. It is one of the few stations in the United States to have been a primary affiliate of all of the big three networks.
In 1994, after Viacom bought Paramount Pictures, Viacom transferred all of its television stations (WNYT; WVIT; WHEC-TV in Rochester; KMOV in St. Louis; and KSLA-TV in Shreveport, Louisiana) to Paramount's broadcasting arm, the Paramount Stations Group.[3][4] Not long after that, Paramount announced the formation of the United Paramount Network (UPN), which started operating in January 1995. It also announced it would sell off all of its non-UPN stations.[5] In June 1996, Viacom/Paramount agreed to trade WNYT and WHEC-TV to Hubbard Broadcasting in return for UPN affiliate WTOG in St. Petersburg, Florida.
In September 2000, General Electric (then-owner of NBC) acquired CBS affiliate WRGB. On January 5, 2001, WRGB returned to NBC, while WNYT returned to CBS, reversing the previous 1981 affiliation swap, and reuniting the former with its original owner, General Electric. in 18 years.
WNYT signed-on its digital signal in October 2003 on VHF channel 12. Unlike the station's analog signal, WNYT's digital transmitter was located in the Helderberg tower farm with the market's other stations.