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WNYW (channel 5) is a television station in New York City, serving as the flagship of the Fox network. It is owned and operated by the network's Fox Television Stations division alongside Secaucus, New Jersey–licensed MyNetworkTV flagship WWOR-TV (channel 9). Both stations share studios at the Fox Television Center on East 67th Street in Manhattan's Lenox Hill neighborhood, while WNYW's transmitter is located at One World Trade Center.

History[]

DuMont origins (1944–1956)[]

The station traces its history to 1938, when television set and equipment manufacturer Allen B. DuMont founded experimental station W2XVT in Passaic, New Jersey. That station's call sign was changed to W2XWV when it moved to Manhattan in 1940. On May 2, 1944, the station received its commercial license, the third in New York City. It began broadcasting on VHF channel 4 as WABD with its call sign made up of DuMont's initials. It was one of the few television stations that continued to broadcast during World War II, making it the fourth-oldest continuously broadcasting commercial station in the United States. The station originally had its studios in the DuMont Building at 515 Madison Avenue, with its transmitter tower atop the same building. (The original tower, long abandoned by the station, still remains.) On December 17, 1945, WABD moved to channel 5. WNBT (now WNBC) took over channel 4 the following spring, moving from channel 1, which the FCC was de-allocating from the VHF TV broadcast band.

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. (However, NBC was feeding a few programs and special events from its New York station WNBT to outlets in Philadelphia and Schenectady as early as 1940.) DuMont began regular network service in 1946 with WABD as the flagship station. On June 14, 1954, WABD and DuMont moved into the $5 million DuMont Tele-Centre at 205 East 67th Street in Manhattan's Lenox Hill neighborhood, inside the shell of the space formerly occupied by Jacob Ruppert's Central Opera House. Channel 5 is still headquartered in the same building, which was later renamed the Metromedia TeleCenter, and is now known as the Fox Television Center.

By February 1955, DuMont realized it could not continue in network television. In most cities around the U.S., NBC and CBS had secured affiliations with the top TV stations, making it difficult for DuMont shows to develop an audience and attract advertising dollars. DuMont decided to shut down the network's operations and run WABD and Washington station WTTG as independent stations. DuMont had previously sold WDTV in Pittsburgh to the locally based Westinghouse Electric Corporation, arguably hastening DuMont's demise. WABD thus became the New York market's fourth independent station, alongside WOR-TV (channel 9), WPIX (channel 11) and Newark-licensed WATV (channel 13).

After DuMont wound down network operations in August 1955, DuMont Laboratories spun off WABD and WTTG into a new firm, the DuMont Broadcasting Corporation. Channel 5 gained a sister station in 1957, when DuMont purchased WNEW (1130 AM, now WBBR) in April of that year. The deal also included a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) construction permit for an FM radio station, which went on the air as 102.7 WNEW-FM when it began operations in August 1958.

The Metromedia era (1957–1986)[]

In May 1958, DuMont Broadcasting changed its name to the Metropolitan Broadcasting Corporation to distinguish itself from its former corporate parent. Four months later, on September 7, 1958, WABD's call letters were changed to WNEW-TV to match its radio sisters. The final major corporate transaction involving the station during 1958 occurred in December. Washington-based investor John Kluge acquired Paramount Pictures' controlling interest in Metropolitan Broadcasting and appointed himself as the company's chairman. Metropolitan Broadcasting began expanding its holdings across the United States, and changed its corporate name to Metromedia in 1961. However, the Metropolitan Broadcasting name was retained for Metromedia's TV and radio station properties until 1967.

In the early 1960s, WNEW-TV was a leader in producing local children's shows. They included Romper Room (until 1966, when it moved to WOR-TV), The Sandy Becker Show and The Sonny Fox Show, which was later known as Wonderama. Bob McAllister took over hosting Wonderama in 1967 and by 1970 it was syndicated to the other Metromedia stations. WNEW-TV also originated The Jerry Lewis MDA Labor Day Telethon in 1966, and broadcast the program annually until 1986 when it moved to future sister station WWOR-TV, where it aired through 2012. In the early 1960s, the educational series Columbia Lectures in International Studies was shown on early weekday mornings, before Sandy Becker, and was distributed to other Metromedia stations. The station also aired cultural programs such as Festival of the Performing Arts. However, the station's prime time schedule during those years was dominated by reruns of recently concluded crime dramas such as Peter Gunn, Outlaws, and the 1950s edition of Dragnet, bringing the station some criticism for overly violent programming. In the 1970s, and early 1980s, local programming also included a weekly public affairs show hosted by Gabe Pressman, the New York edition of PM Magazine, and Midday Live, a daily talk/information show hosted by Lee Leonard, and later by Bill Boggs. The station also carried movies , cartoons, off-network sitcoms, drama series and a prime time nightly newscast at 10:00 p.m.

By the 1970s, channel 5 was one of the strongest independent stations in the country. Despite WOR-TV's and WPIX's eventual status as national superstations, WNEW-TV was the highest-rated independent in New York. From the early 1970s to the late 1980s, channel 5 was available as a regional superstation in large portions of the Northeastern United States, including most of Upstate New York, and sections of eastern Pennsylvania and southern New England.

The Fox era (1986–present)[]

On May 4, 1985, Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, which had recently bought a controlling interest in the 20th Century Fox film studio, announced its purchase of Metromedia's six independent television stations, including WNEW-TV. In the interim between the announcement and the buyout, Metromedia references were largely phased out of channel 5's branding. Upon taking control nearly one year later, on March 7, 1986, channel 5's call sign was changed slightly to the present WNYW. The change was made due to an FCC rule in place (no longer in effect) that prohibited TV and radio stations with different ownership from sharing the same call sign. Along with the other former Metromedia independent stations, WNYW formed the cornerstone of the Fox Broadcasting Company when it launched on October 9, 1986.

WNYW's schedule initially changed very little, as Fox aired programming only on late nights and weekends on two nights of the week in the network's first few years. It was not until 1993 that Fox began broadcasting a full seven nights' worth of programming. Although it began taking on the look of a network-owned station in the fall of 1986, channel 5 continued to carry decades-old syndicated cartoons, sitcoms and films into the late 1980s. As a result, channel 5 was still considered by many to be an independent station.

Murdoch had one local obstacle to overcome before his purchase of channel 5 could become final. News Corporation had owned the New York Post since 1976 and the FCC's media ownership rules barred common ownership of newspapers and broadcast licenses in the same media market. The FCC granted Murdoch a temporary waiver to keep the Post and WNYW to allow News Corporation to complete its purchase of the Metromedia television stations. News Corporation sold the New York Post in 1988, but bought the paper back five years later with a permanent waiver of the cross-ownership rules.

In late summer 1986, WNYW debuted the nightly newsmagazine A Current Affair, one of the first shows to be labeled as a "tabloid television" program. Originally a local program, it was first anchored by Maury Povich, formerly of Washington sister station WTTG. (He also briefly anchored WNYW's evening newscasts.) Within a year of its launch, A Current Affair was syndicated to the other Fox-owned stations. In 1988, the series entered into national syndication, where it remained until the original incarnation of the program was cancelled in 1996. On August 1, 1988, the station dropped its weekday morning cartoons in favor of a local news and information program titled Good Day New York, which continues to this day.

Following the launch of the Fox network, WNYW lost much of its out-of-market superstation reach, as most markets in the northeast had their own Fox affiliates. WNYW continued to be seen on cable in the Binghamton area and the New York side of the Plattsburgh–Burlington market until the late 1990s, when WICZ-TV and WFFF-TV joined the network.

In 2001, Fox bought BHC Communications, a television station group owned by Chris-Craft Industries, which effectively created a duopoly between WNYW and its former rival, WWOR-TV. In autumn 2001, WNYW dropped Fox Kids' weekday block and moved it to WWOR-TV, where it ran for a few more months before Fox discontinued the network's weekday children's lineup at the end of that year. In 2004, Fox Television Stations announced that it would move WWOR's operations from Secaucus to WNYW's facility at the Fox Television Center in Manhattan. While some office functions were merged, plans for a full move to Manhattan were abandoned later that year due to pressure from New Jersey Congressman Steve Rothman (whose congressional district includes Secaucus) and Senator Frank Lautenberg on the grounds that any move to Manhattan would violate the conditions of WWOR's broadcast license. The company also considered moving WNYW's operations to Secaucus, but ultimately decided to remain in the Fox Television Center.

On September 11, 2001, the transmitter facilities of WNYW, eight other New York City television stations, and several radio stations, were destroyed when two hijacked airplanes crashed into and destroyed the north and south towers of the World Trade Center. The station relocated to an antenna located atop the Empire State Building, where its transmitter facilities had been located until they were moved to the World Trade Center in the 1970s. By the late 2010s, the transmitter returned to the newly built One World Trade Center.

In April 2006, WNYW became the first Fox-owned to launch a website on Fox Interactive Media's "MyFox" platform, which featured expanded content, more videos and new community features such as blogs and photo galleries. The MyFox sites were later outsourced to WorldNow, and later Lakana beginning in 2015, after which the "MyFox" brand was discontinued.

On October 15, 2010, News Corporation pulled the signals of WNYW, WWOR, along with co-owned cable channels Fox Business Network, Fox Deportes, and National Geographic Wild from Cablevision systems in the New York television market area, due to a dispute between Fox and Cablevision. Cablevision claimed News Corporation had demanded $150 million a year to renew its carriage of 12 Fox-owned channels, including those removed due to the dispute. Cablevision offered to submit to binding arbitration on October 14, 2010. News Corporation rejected Cablevision's proposal, stating that it would "reward Cablevision for refusing to negotiate fairly". WWOR, WNYW and the three cable channels were restored on October 30, 2010, when Cablevision and News Corporation struck a new carriage deal.

After News Corporation split into two companies on June 28, 2013, spinning off its publishing assets (including the New York Post) into a new News Corp, WNYW became part of 21st Century Fox. On December 14, 2017, The Walt Disney Company, owner of ABC owned-and-operated station WABC-TV (channel 7), announced its intent to buy the assets of 21st Century Fox for $66.1 billion, pending regulatory approval. The sale did not include the Fox network, MyNetworkTV, WNYW, WWOR, the Fox Television Stations unit or any other broadcast assets, since that would be illegal under FCC rules prohibiting a merger between any of the four major networks. Ownership was transferred to a new company called Fox Corporation, a split officially completed on March 18, 2019.

In the fall of 2018, after WWOR's license was renewed, and several months after the repeal of the FCC's main studio rule (which required WWOR to operate from New Jersey as a license condition), Fox Television Stations sold its former Secaucus studios to Hartz Mountain Industries for $4.05 million, and consolidated WWOR's operations with WNYW at the Fox Television Center.

Gallery[]


TV stations in New York
WNYW, New York City

WNYF-CD/WWNY-CD, Watertown/Massena
WXXA, Schenectady/Albany
WUTV, Buffalo
WUHF, Rochester
WSYT, Syracuse
WFXV, Utica
WICZ, Binghamton
WYDC, Corning

TV Stations in the New York City Metropolitan Area
Long Island:

WLIW 21 (PBS)|WVVH-CD50 (YTA)|WLNY 55 (IND)|WFTY 68 (UNM)
New York City:
WCBS 2 (CBS) |WNBC 4 (NBC)|WNYW 5 (FOX)|WABC 7 (ABC)|WPIX 11 (IND)|WNDT-CD 14 (FNX)|WNYC-TV 19 (ABN)|W20CQ-D 20 (HPC) |WASA-LD 24 (ESTRELLA)|WNYE 25 (ETV)|WYNX-LD 26 (CGTN)|WPXN 31 (ION)|WXNY-LD 32 (CGTN)|WNYX-LD 35 (CGTN)|WNYN-LD 39 (AZA)|WKOB-LD 42 (IND)|WNXY-LD 43 (CGTN)|WMBQ-CD 46 (FNX)|WRNN 48 (ShopHQ)|WBQM-LD 51 (SIN)|W41DO-D 60 (HSN)
Southwestern Conneticut:
WZME 43 (MeTV+)|WEDN 49 (PBS)
Upper NJ:
WWOR 9 (IND)|WNET 13 (PBS)|WDVB-CD 23 (Inspire)|WJLP 33 (MeTV)|WXTV 41 (UNI)|WNJU 47 (TLM)|WNJN 50 (PBS)|WTBY 54 (TBN)|WNJB 58 (PBS)|WMBC 63 (IND)|WFUT 68 (UNM)
Defunct Stations:
WNTA 13 (IND)|WMUN-CD 45 (IND)|WNYJ 66 (ETV)


New York
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