WKTV

Utica/Rome, New York
Branding	NewsChannel 2 Central New York's CW 11 (on DT2)
Slogan	Where the News Comes First TV Now (on DT2)
Channels	Digital: 29 (UHF) Virtual: 2 (PSIP)
Subchannels	2.1 NBC 2.2 The CW
Network	NBC
Owner	Smith Media, LLC (Smith Media License Holdings, LLC)
First air date	December 1, 1949
Call letters' meaning	Kallet TeleVision (original owner)
Former channel number(s)	Analog: 13 (VHF, 1949-1958) 2 (VHF, 1959-2009)
Former affiliations	DuMont (1949-1956) CBS (1949-1956) ABC (1949-1970) all secondary
Transmitter power	708 kW
Height	402 m
Facility ID	60654
Transmitter coordinates	43°6′8.4″N 74°56′19″W / 43.102333°N 74.93861°W / 43.102333; -74.93861
Website	wktv.com

WKTV is the NBC affiliate for the Mohawk Valley of Central New York, licensed to Utica. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 29 (or virtual channel 2.1 via PSIP) from a transmitter in the Eatonville section of Fairfield and Herkimer. The station can also be seen on Time Warner Cable channel 4 and in high definition on digital channel 863. Owned by Smith Media, it has studios on Smith Hill Road in Deerfield (with a Utica postal address). Syndicated programming on WKTV includes Jeopardy!, Wheel of Fortune, Dr. Phil and Judge Judy among others.

Digital channels [edit]

History [edit]

The station launched on December 1, 1949 as Utica's first television station, operating on VHF channel 13. It was the 93rd television station in the United States to sign-on. This made Utica one of the smallest cities in the nation with a television station. It was owned by Copper City Broadcasting Corporation,^[1] controlled by Myron Kallet, along with WKAL (1450 AM).^[2] At its start, the station was one of the few to be affiliated with all four major networks at the time: NBC,^[3] DuMont,^[4] ABC,^[1] and CBS; however, it has always been a primary NBC affiliate. It lost DuMont in 1956 following the network's closure, and lost CBS soon afterward following a dispute with the network; since then, WHEN-TV/WTVH in Syracuse has served as the default CBS affiliate for the Utica area.

In 1951, a young local radio announcer named Dick Clark joined the staff at WKTV. He was a talented and good-looking announcer that quickly gathered a loyal following. Clark's father was the manager of Utica radio station WRUN (1150 AM, now WUTI; and 104.3 FM, now WFRG-FM), and his son wanted to avoid the name recognition factor. To avoid confusion, the younger Clark became known on-air as "Dick Clay". Eventually, Clark would anchor the weeknight newscasts on WKTV (replacing Robert Earle, who would later host the GE College Bowl).^[5] In 1952, Clark departed WKTV for WFIL AM-FM-TV in Philadelphia.

In 1958, Kallet sold WKTV and WKAL to a group led by Paul Harron and Gordon Gray, who had previously owned WIBG AM-FM in Philadelphia and WPFH in Wilmington, Delaware.^[6] Soon afterward, on January 1, 1959, WKTV moved to VHF channel 2 in a dial realignment, which allowed WTRI (channel 35) in Albany to move to channel 13 (where it became WAST, now WNYT), and (along with the earlier move of a channel 13 allocation in Hamilton, Ontario to channel 11, becoming CHCH-TV) led to a channel 13 allocation being assigned to Rochester (which signed on in 1962 as WOKR and is now WHAM-TV). With the switch, WKTV upgraded its signal and began to cover a fairly wide area stretching from as far south as the Catskill Mountains, as far east as The Berkshires in Western Massachusetts and into Southern Ontario, Canada. The Harron/Gray group, Mid New York Broadcasting, sold WKAL in 1961, but retained WKTV,^[7] and in subsequent years acquired several additional stations, including KAUZ-TV in Wichita Falls, Texas and WMTW-FM-TV on Mount Washington, New Hampshire.^[8] Harron also operated a chain of cable systems in the Northeastern United States, including a system in Utica, Central New York Cable TV, built in 1963.^[8][9] The company eventually became known as Harron Communications Corporation.^[9]

WKTV enjoyed a monopoly in the Utica/Rome television market until February 28, 1970 when WUTR signed on as an ABC affiliate. WKTV then became affiliated solely with NBC, and is now one of the network's longest-serving affiliates. In the mid-1980s, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ruled on cross ownership of broadcast, cable and print media in the same communities. With Harron Communications owning both WKTV and Harron Cable Television in Utica, it was required that Harron divest itself of one property or the other. In 1992, Harron sold WKTV to Smith Broadcasting (the cable system was later sold to Adelphia and now part of Time Warner). Today, the station is owned by Smith Media, LLC which is a successor to Smith Broadcasting as well as a subsidiary of Boston Ventures. And as of March 1, 2013, it is the sole television property of Smith Media.

In September 1998, the creation of The WB 100+ led WKTV to partner with the group to launch a cable-only WB affiliate. The new service replaced network flagship WPIX from New York City on Time Warner Cable systems in the Mohawk Valley and it used the "WBU" (standing for The WB Utica) call sign in a fictional manner. On January 24, 2006, The WB and UPN announced the two networks would end broadcasting and merge to form The CW; when the new network launched on September 18, WKTV launched a new second digital subchannel to carry it through The CW Plus (a similar service to The WB 100+); the new subchannel supplanted "WBU".

WKTV has been broadcasting its digital signal on UHF channel 29 since May 2006 and in high definition starting with the 2008 Summer Olympics. On February 18, 2009, the station turned-off its analog transmitter and began broadcasting exclusively in digital. This left some viewers without a reachable signal and others looking for an outdoor UHF antenna. To continue serving those areas, WKTV began simulcasting its weekday newscasts at noon and 5 on WUTQ (1550 AM) and WADR (1480 AM, now WRCK). In May 2011, the radio stations began simulcasting the second hour of WKTV's weekday morning show. Since March 16, 2012, the newscasts are also simulcast on WUTQ-FM (100.7 FM), which simulcasts WUTQ/WRCK.

Due to an ongoing retransmission dispute, Time Warner Cable replaced WKTV with fellow NBC affiliate WBRE-TV from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania on December 16, 2010. WKTV-DT2 was also dropped and eventually replaced by HBO Family. On the same date, rival WUTR began to be seen in the Burlington, Vermont/Plattsburgh, New York market on Time Warner Cable after sister station WVNY was dropped for the same reason.^[10] Nexstar Broadcasting Group, owner of WBRE and WUTR, opposed the use of their stations as replacement programming and requested the Time Warner Cable franchise for the affected regions be revoked. WKTV and Time Warner reached an agreement, the terms of which both sides refused to reveal, on January 8, 2011, allowing WKTV and the CW subchannel to return to the cable system the next day.

Local programming [edit]

America's Greatest Heart Run and Walk [edit]

WKTV hosts a telethon for the American Heart Association every March during the same weekend as America's Greatest Heart Run and Walk. The telethon is aired live from Utica College and usually begins the Friday evening before the run/walk. It continues on Saturday during the event with live coverage from various points along the course. Ironically, the telethon usually out-raises the WIBX Heart Radiothon by more than tenfold even though the radiothon was the original event from the entire Heart Weekend.

Boilermaker Road Race [edit]

For many years, WKTV has provided live coverage of the Boilermaker Road Race, a 15-kilometer (9.3 mi) road race that begins near Utica Boilers and ends at the F.X. Matt Brewery. Coverage is anchored primarily from the finish line and supplemented by live trucks positioned at key points along the course, portable transmitters on the race's media truck, motorcycles (driven by volunteers), and formerly a helicopter. The coverage is unique in that it begins by covering the race itself following the leaders throughout the race with interviews after they reach the finish line. Then, the focus shifts to the local angles of the race, with stories of life on the volunteers who make the race happen, local notables running the race (usually including current WKTV on-air staff), and former on-air staff who come back home to run. There is also coverage of post-race events.

Christmas cards [edit]

WKTV is popular in its coverage area for its Christmas cards where station personnel gather with their families. Each person (or group/family) gets about 7–10 seconds of face time and various shots are spliced together to create a sixty second spot. In order to include every employee, several versions are created and are rotated throughout the holiday season. The song "Christmas is Paintin' The Town" by The Oak Ridge Boys is played in the background every year. WUTR does a similar feature every year with "Winter Wonderland" playing in the background.

News operation [edit]

News open seen weekdays at noon.

The station has been a ratings stronghold in the Mohawk Valley for its entire history. For the most part, this is because the station had no local competition before WUTR's 1970 sign on; in addition, WUTR aired no local newscasts from August 2003^[11] through September 2011,^[12] again leaving WKTV as the lone news operation in the market.

In September 2001, WKTV entered into a news share agreement with Fox affiliate WFXV (then owned by Quorum Broadcasting), leading to a 10 p.m. newscast on that station.^[13] Known as NewsChannel 2 on Fox, the show aired every night for a half-hour and was virtually identical to WKTV's regular newscasts. The broadcast generally originated live from WKTV's studios; however, there were frequently technical problems beaming the show to WFXV's facility on Greenfield Road in Rome through microwave relay. Sometimes, WKTV personnel had to record the newscast in advance and physically deliver the videotape to WFXV; the stations' studios were roughly thirty minutes apart.

When the outsourcing contract ended on August 31, 2004, WFXV decided not to renew it (by this point, WFXV was owned by Nexstar Broadcasting Group and operated Mission Broadcasting's WUTR through a joint sales agreement). The next day, the 10 p.m. newscast moved to cable-exclusive "WBU", with the weekend edition dropped; the newscast continues to air on WKTV-DT2. ^[14] Like all CW Plus affiliates in the Eastern Time Zone, WKTV-DT2 airs the nationally syndicated morning show The Daily Buzz on weekdays from 6 until 8.

Newscasts on WKTV remain in pillarboxed 4:3 standard definition and there are currently no plans to upgrade to 16:9 enhanced definition widescreen or even full HD level. During weather forecast segments, WKTV features live NOAA's National Weather Service Doppler weather radar data from several regional sites. On-air, this is known as "StormTracker 2 Live Doppler".

Newscast titles [edit]

• World News (1949-1964)
• WKTV News (1964-1970)
• NewsCenter 2 (1970-1974)
• TV-2 News (1974-1988)
• WKTV 2 News (1988-1992)
• NEWSChannel 2 (1992-present)

Station slogans [edit]

• "Central New York's 24 Hour News Channel" (1989-1992)
• "Central New York's #1 Rated Newscast" (1992-1997)
• "Where the News Comes First!" (1997-present)

News team [edit]

Anchors

• Jason Powles - Co-anchor, NEWSChannel 2 at Daybreak and Sunrise
• Jenel Boston - Co-anchor, NEWSChannel 2 at Daybreak and Sunrise
• Dave Dellecese - Assistant News Director and Anchor, NEWSChannel 2 at Noon
• Kristen Copeland - Co-Anchor, Live at Five Newshour and NEWSChannel 2 at Six
• Don Shipman - Co-Anchor, Live at Five Newshour and NEWSChannel 2 at Ten on the CW11 and NEWSChannel 2 at 11
• Steve McMurray - News Director and Co-Anchor, NEWSChannel 2 at Six
• Gary Liberatore - Anchor, NEWSChannel 2 Weekend Today
• Nicole Pitt - Anchor, NEWSChannel 2 Weekend

StormTracker 2 Meteorologists

• Adam Musyt (NWA Seal of Approval) - weeknights
• Bill Kardas (NWA Seal of Approval) - weekday mornings and weekdays at noon
• Jill Reale (NWA Seal of Approval) - weekends

Sports

• Mike Levin - Director seen weeknights at 6, 10, and 11 (also Sports Express anchor)
• TBD - weekend evenings

Reporters

• Joleen Ferris
• Lexie O'Connor
• Hilary Lane
• Gary Liberatore
• Nicole Pitt

References [edit]

• WKTV's history

External links [edit]

• Official website (Mobile)
• WKTV-DT2 website
• Query the FCC's TV station database for WKTV
• BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on WKTV-TV