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Revision as of 16:55, 21 May 2020
WFXV is a Fox-affiliated television station licensed to Utica, New York, United States and serving Central Upstate New York's Mohawk Valley. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 27 (or virtual channel 33 via PSIP) from a transmitter at its studios on Smith Hill Road in Deerfield (official address is Utica). The station can also be seen on Charter Spectrum channels 6 and 1206 in both standard and high definition. Owned by Nexstar Media Group, WFXV is a sister station to low-powered MyNetworkTV affiliate WPNY-LP (channel 11) and ABC affiliate WUTR (channel 20, owned by Mission Broadcasting and operated by Nexstar through joint sales and shared services agreements) and the three stations share studios.
WFXV can be seen on analog repeater W31BP channel 31 in the Town of Burlington from a transmitter on Clock Hill Road.
History
A construction permit for a new television station on analog channel 33 in Utica was granted in 1982 and issued the call letters WTUV; construction began in the spring of 1983. The new station attempted to affiliate with CBS, but the network refused, citing that the new station would not attract new viewers, and that the area was sufficiently covered by Syracuse-based WTVH. A petition filed by WTUV's owner, Mohawk Valley Broadcasting, against both the network and WTVH was rejected by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 1984. (Utica would not receive a local CBS affiliate until November 22, 2015 when rival NBC affiliate WKTV, channel 2, affiliated its second digital subchannel with the network.) WTUV finally signed-on October 12, 1986 as an affiliate of the then-new Fox network, and has been with Fox ever since. However, as with other Fox affiliates, WTUV considered itself an independent station until Fox began its prime-time schedule in April 1987. The station adopted the current call sign WFXV on February 1, 1990 in reference to the network. The call letters can also be interpreted as FoX Vtica ("U"tica) since the "V" looks like "U". Channel 33's studios were originally located on Greenfield Road in Rome.
At some point in time, translator station W11BS licensed to Little Falls became a sister station to WFXV and began to be housed at the Rome facility. In 1996, WFXV and what had become WUPN-LP were sold to Sullivan Broadcasting, which would itself be bought out by the Sinclair Broadcast Group only two years later. Instead of being acquired by that company, WFXV and the low-power station (by then WPNY-LP) were purchased by Quorum Broadcasting founded by former Sullivan head Dan Sullivan. The station was acquired by current owner Nexstar in 2003.
In December of that year, Mission Broadcasting, a company with connections to Nexstar, announced it would acquire ABC affiliate WUTR from Clear Channel Communications (now iHeartMedia). The deal was closed on April 1, 2004—when local marketing and joint sales agreements were established between the two stations. Although the ABC affiliate was the subordinate entity, WFXV and WPNY-LP were consolidated into WUTR's studios in Deerfield.
This station aired The Bill Keeler Show (a local late-night comedy series) from April 1, 2003 to 2005 when the program moved to WKTV. Prior to the DTV transition, WFXV filed an application with the FCC to relocate its transmitter southwest of Utica to a tower on Skyline Drive in Clinton, a village of Kirkland. However, this proposal was ultimately denied by the FCC. WFXV's broadcast became digital-only, effective March 16, 2009.
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 WFXV and sister station WUTR.
| TV stations in New York |
|---|
| WNYW, New York City WNYF-CD/WWNY-CD, Watertown/Massena |
| TV stations in the Mohawk Valley, including Utica and Rome, New York |
|---|
| WKTV 2 (NBC) WPNY-LP 11 (MNTV) |