WNYA

'WNYA' is the MyNetworkTV-affiliated television station for the Capital District of New York State and Western New England. Licensed to Pittsfield, the station broadcasts an analog signal on UHF channel 51 with no digital signal. WNYA's transmitter is located northwest of Pittsfield in the Berkshire Mountains near Berry Pond. The station is owned by Venture Technologies Group and is known on-air as '''"My TV 4 Albany"'''. The name is derived from WNYA's channel location on area cable systems.
The station operates a full-time Class A repeater 'WNYA-CA'. Licensed to Albany, the station broadcasts an analog signal on UHF channel 15 with no digital signal. WNYA-CA's transmitter is located at the tower farm in the Helderberg Mountains in New Scotland. The station serves as the Capital District relay of the main WNYA signal. WNYA-CA is operated out of WNYA's studios, which are located on Fern Avenue in Rotterdam. In the past, the area's PBS affiliate WMHT had been based out of this location.
Along with MyNetworkTV primetime and overnight Corner Store TV infomercials, syndicated programming on WNYA includes: ''My Wife and Kids'', ''Still Standing'', ''According to Jim'', and ''Becker''. There is no news or sports on this station.
WNYA and WCDC (a full-time satellite of WTEN) can be considered rimshot signals into the nearby Western Massachusetts (Springfield - Holyoke) market.

Contents

History

WNYA

WNYA-CA

WNYA and WNYA-CA as "UPN Capital Region"

WRGB Involvement

MyNetworkTV

Logos

External Links

History

WNYA

What today is WNYA can indirectly trace its history to 'WUVW', a unbuilt station on channel 51. It was licensed to Pittsfield and was given a permit in the mid-1950s (the permit was cancelled in the 1970s). The allocation that became WNYA was proposed in October of 1996 by Pappas Telecasting but went without an owner for several years until it was auctioned off in February of 2002. Venture Technologies ended up getting the winning bid for $1.3 million. The FCC granted the construction permit and the 'WNYA' calls to Venture a year later.

WNYA-CA

What today is WNYA-CA signed on in 1996 known as 'WVBX-LP'. The station was a repeater of WVBG-LP that was licensed to Easton in Washington County on channel 39. In September of 1997, WVBG became the area's UPN affiliate although the station could never get carriage on Time Warner Cable. Instead, the cable system offered WSBK-TV from Boston. The UPN affiliation ended at the start of 2000 when cable-only "WEDG-TV" (known later as "UPN 4") signed on. WVBX would then become an independent station before signing off in early-2002. While dark, WVBX was upgraded to Class A status and had its license moved to Albany. A new transmitter was built at the tower farm in the Helderberg Mountains in New Scotland. The station was given the current call letters 'WNYA-CA' and was announced as becoming a WNYA repeater. Of special note, it is unusual for a repeater station to sign on earlier that its parent station.

WNYA and WNYA-CA as "UPN Capital Region"

In April of 2003, WNYA's owner signed a joint sales agreement (JSA) with Freedom Communications who was the owner of the area's CBS affiliate WRGB. WNYA and WNYA-CA announced a sign-on date of September 1, 2003. WNYA signed on the air in mid-July for testing purposes (WNYA-CA did the same in late-August). The official launch of WNYA and WNYA-CA came at 6 AM on September 1 with the stations using the "UPN Capital Region" branding. WNYA became the first full-powered, over-the-air, UPN affiliate in the Capital District. Although WNYA and WNYA-CA did not sign-on broadcasting digital signals of their own, WNYA was offered on WRGB's DT2 digital subchannel. From its sign-on, WNYA took the cable channel position of WEDG-TV on Time Warner, Charter, and independent Mid-Hudson Cablevision (in Greene County). Adelphia cable systems would replace WSBK with WNYA at the start of 2004 with DirecTV and Dish Network adding the station later that year.
WNYA's original line-up included several new shows that had gone unclaimed in the market, shows not previously cleared, and various older shows. As another byproduct of the JSA, WNYA aired replays of WRGB's weekday Noon (at 1 PM) and 11 PM (at 11:30 PM) newscasts as well as WRGB's public affairs program known as ''Sunday Morning with Liz Bishop''. The practice ended in mid-2004.

WRGB Involvement

The JSA between WNYA and WRGB led to some common involvement between the two stations. It was first apparent a mere six hours after WNYA signed on when the station broadcasted CBS's coverage of the U.S. Open tennis tournament on Labor Day because of WRGB airing the ''Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon'' during that time. This arrangement continued in 2004, but due to a crop of syndication launches on Labor Day in 2005, it did not happen in that year. There was also some swapping of syndicated programs between the two stations. In late-2005, Freedom Communications signed an extension that was to have kept the JSA agreement in place until the end of 2008 (it had been set to expire on August 31, 2006).
On April 17, 2006, it was announced that WNYA would begin airing an hour-long extension of WRGB's weekday morning newscast at 7 AM. The newscast was known as ''CBS 6 First News on My TV 4 Albany''. This move could be seen as a pre-emptive move by WRGB to fend off a challenge by the area's FOX affiliate WXXA-TV which had announced their plans to launch a weekday morning newscast two weeks earlier. Rumors of WRGB producing a 10 PM newscast on WNYA had circulated as well, however the pickup of a second run of ''Dr. Phil'' to air at that hour killed the rumors.
On June 19, 2006, Freedom Communications announced the purchase of the area's WB affiliate WEWB from Tribune Broadcasting for $17 million. This purchase was finalized on December 6, 2006, giving the Capital District its first duopoly. As a result, WRGB began to control three stations in the market.
In February of 2007, the JSA with WRGB was terminated. As a result, the DT2 digital subchannel arrangement was supposedly terminated as well. However, current television listings continue to show that this arrangement still exists. [1] Also, WNYA's website still lists WRGB's street address for advertising information.

MyNetworkTV

Back on January 24, [2006, The WB and UPN announced that they would end broadcasting and merge. The newly combined network would be called 'The CW', the letters representing the first initial of its corporate parents: CBS (the parent company of UPN) and the Warner Bros. unit of Time Warner.
On February 22, 2006, FOX announced that they would start up another new broadcast television network called 'MyNetworkTV'. The new network, which would be a sister network to FOX, would be operated by FOX Television Stations and its syndication division Twentieth Television. MyNetworkTV was created to give UPN and WB stations, not mentioned as becoming CW affiliates, another option besides becoming independent. It was also created to compete against The CW.
It was announced that WEWB would become the market's CW after owner Tribune signed a 10 year affiliation deal with the new network on most of its WB stations. On March 9, 2006, it was announced that WNYA would become an affiliate of MyNetworkTV. WNYA would begin airing ads for the new network and put banner ads on their website in June.
On July 30, 2006, WNYA's web address became a promotional website for the new network. There was no information about the station and its programming. On August 2, a new website was shown with a new WNYA MyNetworkTV logo. With UPN affiliation, the station's logo did not include a channel number in it. The MyNetworkTV logo is based on cable-only WEDG-TV's channel 4 position on Time Warner cable systems. Ironically, nowhere in Berkshire County is WNYA currently on channel 4. In North Adams, channel 4 is the spot where Boston's CBS affiliate WBZ-TV is located.
Despite its MyNetworkTV affiliation (which took effect on-air on September 5, 2006), WNYA aired the last two weeks of UPN programming. However, it was aired in late nights from 1 to 3 AM from Tuesday to Saturday.
WEWB (now WCWN) began broadcasting The CW on September 18.

Logos

External Links

★ Station Website

★ MyNetworkTV Website

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