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WUTR
CityUtica, New York
Channels
BrandingWUTR ABC; My WPNY TV; Eyewitness News
Programming
Affiliations
Ownership
OwnerMission Broadcasting, Inc.
OperatorNexstar Media Group
WFXV, WPNY-LD
History
First air date
February 28, 1970
(54 years ago) (1970-02-28)
Former channel number(s)
  • Analog: 20 (UHF, 1970–2009)
Call sign meaning
Utica/Rome
Technical information[1]
Licensing authority
FCC
Facility ID57837
ERP50 kW
HAAT227 m (745 ft)
Transmitter coordinates43°8′43″N 75°10′34″W / 43.14528°N 75.17611°W / 43.14528; -75.17611
Links
Public license information
Websitewww.cnyhomepage.com

WUTR (channel 20) is a television station in Utica, New York, United States, serving as the ABC affiliate for the Mohawk Valley. It is owned by Mission Broadcasting, which maintains joint sales and shared services agreements (JSA/SSA) with Nexstar Media Group, owner of Fox affiliate/CW+ owned-and-operated station WFXV (channel 33) and low-power MyNetworkTV affiliate WPNY-LD (channel 11), for the provision of certain services. The three stations share studios on Smith Hill Road in Deerfield (with a Utica mailing address), where WUTR's transmitter is also located.

History

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WUTR signed on for the first time on February 28, 1970, as the second television station in the market, owned by Roy H. Park Communications. Park originally sought an affiliation with CBS, but the network turned the offer down due to objections from WHEN-TV (channel 5, now WTVH) in Syracuse. WHEN-TV claimed it would have faced substantial revenue losses had WUTR aligned with CBS; WHEN-TV had long claimed Utica–Rome as part of its market coverage area. However, a rivalry between the Syracuse-based Park and then-WHEN owner Meredith Corporation may also have been a factor. As a result, WUTR joined ABC (taking that affiliation from NBC affiliate WKTV, channel 2) and was the only affiliate with the network owned by Park at that time. WUTR was also the only Park TV station located outside Park's native Southern U.S. (although Park maintained his operations in Ithaca, New York, in the state's Southern Tier region).

Until the 1980s, WUTR was the default ABC affiliate for much of the Watertown market. It operated translators in Watertown and in Massena. The translators were shut down after WFYF (now WWTI, which later spent several years as a sister station to WUTR) began operations in 1988 on the Watertown translator allotment.

After Roy Park died in 1993, the future of the group was put into doubt as his estate sold much of the group to corporate investor Gary Knapp. Knapp sold the remnants of the Park group to Media General in 1996. With WUTR being one of the smallest of Park's stations and the sole station the group had in the Northeast, Media General spun it off in mid-1997 to the Ackerley Group (then-owner of ABC affiliate WIXT, now WSYR-TV, in Syracuse). With the purchase, Ackerley began to build a regional strategy called the "Central New York Station Group" (CNYSG) which eventually covered most of Upstate New York.

In October 2001, Clear Channel Communications (now iHeartMedia) announced its buyout of Ackerley closing on its purchase in 2002. Though initially no changes took place, market concentration concerns with Clear Channel's radio cluster in the Utica market put WUTR's future under the company in doubt. Given the option between potentially selling WUTR or the four-station "Sports Stars" sports radio simulcast, Clear Channel reduced budgets and redistributed resources to other stations in the CNYSG. In December 2003, Clear Channel announced it would sell WUTR to Nexstar Broadcasting Group subsidiary Mission Broadcasting; the sale was completed on April 1, 2004. At that time, Nexstar (owner of WFXV and WPNY) took over operations of WUTR under local marketing and joint sales agreements, and the three stations were eventually consolidated into WUTR's studios in Deerfield. The station's broadcasts became digital-only, effective March 16, 2009.[2][3][4][5]

For a time in December 2010, WUTR was available in the Burlington, Vermont–Plattsburgh, New York area on Time Warner Cable systems. Due to an ongoing retransmission dispute, the provider dropped that market's ABC affiliate WVNY and added WUTR in its place. Rival WKTV, which at the time was co-owned with WVNY, was replaced with Nexstar-owned WBRE-TV from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania on Time Warner Cable's systems in Utica for the same reason.[6] Eventually, the dispute was resolved and both stations were returned to the cable system. (In November 2012, Mission would acquire WVNY from Smith, placing that station in the same family as WUTR.[7])

On June 15, 2016, Nexstar announced that it has entered into an affiliation agreement with Katz Broadcasting for the Escape, Laff, Grit, and Bounce TV networks (the last one of which is owned by Bounce Media LLC, whose COO Jonathan Katz is president/CEO of Katz Broadcasting), bringing the four networks to 81 stations owned and/or operated by Nexstar, including WUTR and WFXV.[8]

News operation

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At various times in its history, WUTR has sought to compete with WKTV for local news viewers, with varying degrees of success. Its highest ratings to date, perhaps, occurred during two periods: the late 1980s and the mid-1990s.

After Clear Channel reduced funding for local news gathering, WUTR became more reliant on content originating from its sister stations in Upstate New York (particularly flagship WIXT (now WSYR-TV) in Syracuse), ending weekday morning and weekend newscasts in June 2002. Weeknight newscasts were discontinued and remaining news staff members were terminated in August 2003. For the rest of Clear Channel's ownership, the station simulcast news programs from WIXT, which provided some limited coverage of the Utica and Rome area.[9][10] After Nexstar/Mission assumed ownership of WUTR, the simulcasts of WIXT's newscasts were replaced with syndicated programming.

After WUTR's sale to Mission Broadcasting, insiders speculated that Nexstar would establish a combined news department for WUTR and its sister stations, WFXV and WPNY. In March 2011, the company announced it would launch a news operation for the three stations by mid-September, and said it would invest $1 million for staff and equipment. WUTR's Eyewitness News operation began on September 12, 2011, and broadcast in true high definition, making it the first station in the Utica–Rome market to air full high-definition news broadcasts. (WFXV would become the second such station four hours later, when its 10 p.m. newscast launched.)[11] Late-evening newscasts are broadcast at 10 p.m. on WFXV and at 11 p.m. on WUTR. [12][13][14][15][16] As of July 6, 2015, the audio of WUTR's 6 p.m. newscast also simulcasts on Townsquare Media-owned radio station WIBX.[17] On April 3, 2023, WUTR added a simulcast of the 5 and 6 a.m. hours of WSYR-TV's morning newscast; WSYR-TV had been reunited with WUTR in 2012 when Nexstar purchased the station from Newport Television.[18]

WUTR has announced no plans for noon, afternoon (4, 5 or 5:30 p.m.), or weekend newscasts. As a result, the station offers the fewest weekly hours of local news of any ABC affiliate in the state of New York.

Notable former on-air staff

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Subchannels

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The station's signal is multiplexed:

Subchannels of WUTR[22]
Channel Res. Aspect Short name Programming
20.1 720p 16:9 WUTR-DT ABC
20.2 480i 4:3 WPNY-LP MyNetworkTV (WPNY-LD)
20.3 Grit Grit
20.4 Bounce Bounce TV
  Simulcast of subchannels of another station

References

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  1. ^ "Facility Technical Data for WUTR". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission.
  2. ^ WUTR, WFXV will switch to digital March 16, Observer-Dispatch, February 6, 2009
  3. ^ Local stations begin transition to digital, MONTANETTE MURPHY, Observer-Dispatch, February 17, 2009
  4. ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). hraunfoss.fcc.gov. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 29, 2013. Retrieved June 30, 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  5. ^ "CDBS Print". fcc.gov.
  6. ^ Jessell, Harry A. (December 16, 2010). "Denied Locals, TWC Importing Distant Signals". tvnewscheck.com.
  7. ^ "Nexstar Adding Stations In CA, VT". TVNewsCheck. November 5, 2012. Retrieved November 5, 2012.
  8. ^ "Bounce TV, Grit, Escape, Laff Multicast Deal Covers 81 Stations, 54 Markets". Broadcasting & Cable. June 15, 2016. Retrieved June 16, 2016.
  9. ^ Fybush, Scott (July 15, 2002). "Clear Channel Faces Hearings on Augusta Purchase". North East RadioWatch. Retrieved April 1, 2011.
  10. ^ Fybush, Scott (August 4, 2003). "WUTR Pulls Plug on Local News". NorthEast Radio Watch. Retrieved April 1, 2011.
  11. ^ WUTR AND WFXV TO LAUNCH HIGH DEFINITION EYEWITNESS NEWS ON SEPTEMBER 12 Archived October 5, 2011, at the Wayback Machine. News release (August 15, 2011). Retrieved August 15, 2011.
  12. ^ "More News is Good News: Starting from Scratch". Archived from the original on July 16, 2011. Retrieved June 6, 2011.
  13. ^ "Utica's WUTR to Revive Local News Operation". CNYRadio.com / CNYTVNews.com.
  14. ^ "Utica Daily News - Local and national news for Utica, the Mohawk Valley and Central New York. - Company has not had news since 2003". Archived from the original on June 20, 2010. Retrieved April 5, 2011.
  15. ^ Miner, Dan. "Local news coming to ABC and FOX in Utica and Rome". Uticaod. Archived from the original on January 5, 2013.
  16. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on August 10, 2011. Retrieved April 5, 2011.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  17. ^ Rivera, Ana. "WUTR/WFXV and WIBX Announce Partnership". CNYHOMEPAGE. Archived from the original on July 10, 2015. Retrieved July 9, 2015.
  18. ^ Newport Sells 22 Stations For $1 Billion, TVNewsCheck, July 19, 2012.
  19. ^ "Jim Axelrod bio". CBS News. October 8, 2002. Archived from the original on January 4, 2003. Retrieved March 13, 2013.
  20. ^ "Jeff Rossen bio". NBC News. February 19, 2011. Retrieved March 10, 2013.
  21. ^ "Bob Van Dillen Bio". Fox Weather. Retrieved June 27, 2024.
  22. ^ "RabbitEars TV Query for WUTR". RabbitEars.info. Retrieved August 4, 2024.
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