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WNYW

:''For the former shortwave radio station WNYW, see WNYW (shortwave); For its replacement, see WYFR''
WNYW channel 5 is the Flagship (television)|flagship television station of the News Corporation-owned Fox Broadcasting Company, located in New York City. The station's transmitter is atop the Empire State Building and its studio facilities are in the Yorkville, Manhattan|Yorkville section of Manhattan. WNYW is a sister station to Secaucus, New Jersey-based WWOR-TV (channel 9), the New York area's MyNetworkTV flagship station. In the few areas of the eastern United States where viewers cannot receive Fox network programs over-the-air, WNYW is available on satellite via DirecTV, which also provides coverage of the station to Latin American countries and on JetBlue's LiveTV inflight entertainment system. WNYW is also available on cable in the Caribbean.

History

The station traces its history to 1938, when television set and equipment manufacturer Allen B. DuMont founded '''W2XVT''' (re-named as '''W2XWV''' in 1944), an experimental station. On May 2, 1944, the station received its commercial license — the third in New York City — as '''WABD''' Channel 4, after DuMont's initials. It was one of the few stations that continued broadcasting during World War II, making it the fourth-oldest continuously broadcasting commercial station in the United States. The station broadcast from DuMont Building|515 Madison Avenue and on December 15, 1945 WABD changed the channels from Channel 4 to Channel 5. Soon after channel 5 received its commercial license, DuMont Laboratories began a series of experimental coaxial cable hookups between WABD and W3XWT, a DuMont-owned experimental station in Washington, D.C. (now WTTG). These hookups were the beginning of the DuMont Television Network, the world's first licensed commercial television network. DuMont began regular network service in 1946 with WABD as the flagship station. In 1954, WABD and DuMont moved into the million DuMont Tele-Centre at 205 East 67th Street, inside the shell of the space formerly occupied by Jacob Ruppert's Central Opera House. A half-century later, the station is still headquartered in the same building, which was later renamed the Metromedia Telecenter, and is known today as the Fox Television Center. By February 1955, DuMont realized it could not continue in network television, and decided to shut down network operations and operate WABD and its Washington sister station, WTTG (also operating on channel 5), as independents. After DuMont aired its last network broadcast in August 1956, DuMont spun off WABD and WTTG as the "DuMont Broadcasting Corporation", which later changed its name to '''Metropolitan Broadcasting Corporation'''. In 1958, Washington-based investor John Kluge|John W. Kluge acquired controlling interest in Metropolitan Broadcasting and installed himself as the company's chairman. WABD's operations were merged with Kluge's New York radio stations, WNEW (1130 kHz., now WBBR) and WNEW-FM (102.7 MHz., now WWFS) and channel 5's call letters were changed on September 7, 1958 to '''WNEW-TV''' to match its new radio sisters. Metropolitan Broadcasting would change its name to '''Metromedia''' in 1961. In the 1960s, WNEW-TV ran on a low budget like the other two major New York independents, WOR-TV (now WWOR-TV) and WPIX and was the home of the pioneering childrens shows of early to mid '60s New York, hosted by Soupy Sales, Sandy Becker and Chuck McCann. But in the late 1960s and early 1970s, channel 5 benefited from Metromedia's aggressiveness in acquiring movies, cartoons and first-run syndicated shows, some of which (including Wonderama) were produced by Metromedia. By the 1970s the station was New York's leading independent, and WNEW-TV was also popular in most of upstate New York and portions of New Jersey, Connecticut and eastern Pennsylvania, where the station was available on cable until the late 1980s. In 1986 Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, who owned a controlling interest in the 20th Century Fox film studio, purchased the Metromedia television stations including WNEW-TV. The station's call letters were changed on March 7, 1986 to '''WNYW''' and it and the other Metromedia stations formed the cornerstone of the Fox network, with WNYW as the flagship station. Initially, WNYW's schedule changed little, as Fox only aired network programming on weekends. Murdoch had one local obstacle to overcome before his purchase of channel 5 could become final. The News Corporation had been publishing the ''New York Post'' since 1976, and Federal Communications Commission rules of the time did not allow common ownership of newspapers and broadcast licenses in the same city. Murdoch was granted a temporary waiver of this prohibition in order to complete the Metromedia television purchase. The News Corporation would sell the ''Post'' in 1988, but reacquired the paper 1993|five years later with a permanent waiver of the concentration of media ownership|cross-ownership rules. Starting in the late summer of 1986, WNYW produced the nightly newsmagazine ''A Current Affair (US)|A Current Affair'', one of the first shows to be labeled under the tag "tabloid television". Originally a local program, it was first anchored by Maury Povich, formerly of WTTG (and who would later do double-duty, albeit briefly on WNYW's newscasts as an anchor). Within months of its launch, ''A Current Affair'' was on the other Fox-owned stations and in 1988 the series went into national syndication, where it remained until its cancellation in 1996. On August 2, 1988, the station abruptly dropped the morning cartoons in favor of a morning newscast called '''Good Day New York'''. WNYW became the first Fox-owned station with a weekday morning newscast, and within five years of its launch it became the top-rated morning show in the New York market. Today it remains a viable competitor to the network morning shows, and the success of ''Good Day New York'' led to other Fox-owned stations launching morning shows of their own, including: ''Fox Morning News'' on WTTG, ''Fox News in the Morning'' on WFLD-TV in Chicago and ''Good Day L.A.'' on KTTV in Los Angeles. As Fox continued to expand its primetime hours to an eventual seven nights by 1992, WNYW's schedule continued to feature children's programs from ''Fox Kids'' during afternoons, and sitcoms in early evenings. As the decade progressed, the station added talk/reality shows and court shows during middays. From 1999 to 2002, WNYW was the broadcast home of the New York Yankees, displacing long-time incumbent WPIX. In 2001, Fox bought most of the television interests of Chris-Craft Industries, including WNYW's former rival, WWOR-TV. In the fall of 2001, WNYW dropped the ''Fox Kids'' weekday block and moved it to WWOR-TV, where it ran for a few more months before being cancelled at the end of the year. Some office functions have been merged, but most of the stations' operations remain separate. Fox announced plans to merge the two stations' operations in 2004, with WWOR-TV moving from its studios in Secaucus, New Jersey to the Fox Television Center. However, it backed off later in the year under pressure from New Jersey's congressional delegation. On 2001|September 11, 2001, the transmitter facilities of WNYW as well as eight other local television stations and several radio stations were destroyed when two hijacked airplanes crashed into and destroyed the World Trade Center towers. Since then, WNYW has been transmitting its signal from the Empire State Building.

Digital television

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

WNYW-DT

WNYW-DT broadcasts on digital channel 44.

Branding and station identity

The station is also known for starting the trend of stations using their network and channel number (or cable channel number) as their on-air name in the United States. After Fox bought the station, it began calling itself ''Fox Television Channel 5 New York''. Soon after the Fox network premiered, the station shortened its on-air name to ''Fox Channel 5'' and later shortened that to the current ''Fox 5''. However, this practice dated in another form to its days as WNEW. For much of the time from at least the 1970s until the Fox takeover, its main ID was "WNEW-TV, channel 5, Metromedia New York." In the early days after Fox took control, WNYW reporters would end their reports by saying ''"I'm (name) Fox News, Channel 5"''. This sign off would later be shortened to ''Fox News,'' then later it became ''Fox 5 News'', as to avoid confusion with the Fox News Channel. Ironically, recent changes made to WNYW's logo and newscasts (effective April 2006) bear a close stylistic resemblance to the Fox News Channel. Successful branding campaigns for WNEW-TV include the long-running "Choice" campaign. Well-known station jingles in the late 1970s and early 1980s included "Take Five!", "The Choice is Channel 5, Metromedia New York 5" and later, "Your Choice is 5." Channel 5's public service announcements were also a key part of its image for decades. The phrase, ''It's 10:00 PM...Do you know where your children are?'' was coined in 1969 (though another source mentioned that it was Buffalo, New York's American Broadcasting Company|ABC affiliate WKBW-TV|WKBW that coined that phrase), and variations of the phrase would spread to television stations nationwide. In addition, WNEW-TV, used PSAs during the 1970s and 1980s that aired during different day parts, such as "Have you done your homework yet?"; "Have you hugged your child today?"; and "It's 6 PM. Do you know where your children are?", using a simple slide and staff voiceover. In 2001, the slogan was "What New Yorkers Watch" derived from the call letters and was used until the logo was changed in early 2006.

Newscast titles

- ''Late Night News'' (1944-1945)
- ''TV5 Late Report'' (1945-1962 & 1967-2001)
- ''TV5 24 Hours'' (1962-1967)
- ''The 10 O'Clock News'' (March 13, 1967)
- ''Channel 5 News'' (1980s)
- ''Fox Channel 5 News'' (1987-1996)
- ''Fox 5 News'' (1996-Present)

Screenshots

Image:wnew.jpg|Old WNEW ID from 1982 to 1984.

External links

- WNYW Website *

References

- History of WNYW Fox 5 Including historical video clips. ''myfoxny.com''
- 10 O'Clock News 40th Anniversary Coverage. ''myfoxny.com'' Category:Television stations in New York City Category:Television stations in New York Category:Television stations in New Jersey Category:Television stations in Connecticut Category:Fox network affiliates Category:Fox Television Stations Group Category:Channel 5 TV stations in the United States Category:Television channels and stations established in 1944 Category:Metromedia

Related Images

- Broadcast Center

Sources: StartLearningNow, Wikipedia | Usage license: GNU FDL

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