WENY-TV

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WENY
Elmira, New York
Branding	ABC 36, NewsChannel 36
Slogan	Local, Accurate, Complete
Channels	36 (UHF) analog, 55 (UHF) digital
Affiliations	ABC The CW on DT2
Owner	Lilly Broadcasting LLC
Founded	November 19, 1969
Call letters meaning	W Elmira, New York
Website	www.weny.com

WENY-TV is the ABC affiliate for the Elmira, New York television market.

The station began in 1969 when Howard Green, owner of Elmira radio stations WENY-AM/FM and WCMC-TV, Wildwood (Atlantic City), N.J. was awarded UHF channel 36 by the FCC after another area broadcaster, Frank Saia, surrendered the construction permit (he had planned to construct what would have been WEHH-TV). Green purchased the equipment of channel 26, a defunct station in Jamestown, N.Y., and hired Larry Taylor, that station’s engineer, to move and install the equipment into a space on the ground floor of the Mark Twain Hotel in downtown Elmira. The station’s transmitter was placed on Hawley Hill, in a newly constructed addition to the building that then housed WSYE (now WETM). The station began operation on channel 36 on November 19, 1969, out of a mixed color/black and white facility. At first the station aired only a 6:00 and 11:00pm newscast, the original anchor team featured news director Bill Miller, sports with Dick Ireland, and long-time WENY disc jockey Steve Christy with weather. Afterward came a small amount of other locally produced programming, including an Elmira edition of Claster Television's long-running children's program "Romper Room", and a very short-lived horror film program, hosted by then WENY AM evening disc jockey Paul Leigh as the ghoulish "Overtaker".

After the disastrous flooding caused by Hurricane Agnes in 1972, Green obtained a building on Old Ithaca Road in Horseheads that had been previously used by the Army Corps of Engineers. The station was then moved from the hotel to the garage of this property, where it remains to this day.

WENY is now owned by Lilly Broadcasting LLC. Lilly was awarded the The CW Television Network affiliate in the spring of 2006. The CW programming line-up migrated to WBE (the former WB 100+ Station Group station in Elmira) in September 2006. WBE is seen on Time Warner Cable Channel 2 in Elmira, Corning, Watkins Glen, and other smaller communities in the Elmira market.

WENY does not currently have a digital signal broadcasting in the market; when their digital service begins, it will broadcast on UHF channel 55, though newer digital sets can tune the station in at channel 36, using PSIP. Also, when digital telecasts begin, WBE will be seen on WENY's digital signal.

[edit] See also

• WENY (AM)
• WENY-FM

[edit] External links

• WENY Official Site
• Query the FCC's TV station database for WENY