WPTZ

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For more information on the former WPTZ in Philadelphia, please go to the entry for KYW-TV.

WPTZ
North Pole/Plattsburgh, New York/Burlington, Vermont
City of license	North Pole, New York
Branding	News Channel 5
Slogan	Where The News Comes First
Channels	5 (VHF) analog, 14 (UHF) digital
Affiliations	NBC WX+ (on DT2)
Owner	Hearst-Argyle Television
Founded	1954
Call letters meaning	PTZ (Plattsburgh)
Former callsigns	WIRI (1954-1956)
Former affiliations	ABC (secondary, 1954-1968) Du Mont (secondary, 1954-1956)
Transmitter Power	25.1 kW (analog) 650 kW (digital)
Website	wptz.com

WPTZ is the NBC affiliated television station serving Plattsburgh, New York and Burlington, Vermont. Licensed to North Pole, New York, the station has studios located in Plattsburgh and operates a "Vermont Bureau" located on Roosevelt Highway in Colchester, Vermont near Burlington. The station broadcasts an analog signal on VHF channel 5 from a transmitter located on Terry Mountain in the town of Peru, New York. WPTZ broadcasts a digital signal on UHF channel 14 from a transmitter located on Mount Mansfield, Vermont's highest peak. WPTZ and FOX/CW affiliate WFFF are the only stations in the market that do not operate any outlying transmitters. Owned by Hearst-Argyle Television, WPTZ is known on-air as "News Channel 5".

The station's signal covers the Champlain Valley of Vermont and Upstate New York. It also has a large audience in southern Quebec, Canada including Montréal, a city far larger than all of WPTZ's entire American viewing area combined. In the past, the station had identified itself as "North Pole / Plattsburgh / Burlington / Montreal" but no longer does. WFFF is currently the only television station in the market that mentions Montreal in its on-air identification.

On cable, WPTZ can be seen in Burlington on Comcast channel 5 and Plattsburgh on Charter channel 2. On Videotron systems in Montreal, it can be seen on channel 23 in West Montreal, channel 18 in Central and East Montreal, and channel 52 on Illico digital. However, during NBC prime time programming, Canadian cable systems frequently cover up WPTZ's signal due to the CRTC's Simsub rules, mostly to the benefit of CFCF and CKMI.

The station performs master operations for sister station and NBC affiliate WNNE, although it has its own studios in White River Junction, Vermont. WNNE serves the Connecticut River Valley portion of Central Vermont and Western New Hampshire as a semi-satellite of WPTZ. However, WNNE maintains a separate identity in terms of station identifications, local advertisements, and newscast openings. WPTZ's homepage is identified as "Vermont, Northern New York, and Western New Hampshire News".

Contents 1 History 2 Newscasts 3 News Staff 3.1 Notable Alumni 4 Station Trivia 5 See Also 6 External Links

[edit] History

Channel 5 first signed on the air on December 8, 1954 known as WIRI-TV and owned by WIRY Radio. The channel has been an NBC affiliate since its inception, although it carried secondary affiliations, with ABC from its launch until 1968 when WVNY signed on and Du Mont until that network ceased operations in 1956. [1] WIRY sold the station to Rollins Telecasting in 1956. Shortly before that, WPTZ-TV in Philadelphia was sold to NBC and renamed WRCV-TV. Rollins quickly grabbed the WPTZ calls for WIRI, realizing that "PTZ" could easily mean "Plattsburgh".

Rollins merged with Heritage Broadcasting in 1987 to form Heritage Media. In 1991, Heritage bought NBC affiliate WNNE in White River Junction. Until that point, WNNE had been a separate station with its own news staff and newscasts. With Heritage's purchase, it was made into a semi-satellite of WPTZ. Channel 5 took over the master control operations for WNNE in 1996. Heritage Media sold all of its broadcasting properties to Sinclair Broadcast Group in 1997, prior to Heritage's merger with News Corporation. The sale protected new sign-on WFFF, which was initially operated by WPTZ under a local marketing agreement, as the market's FOX affiliate. Otherwise, WPTZ and WNNE along with then-sister stations WEAR in Pensacola, Florida and WCHS in Charleston, West Virginia would have been forced to switch their network affiliations to FOX. Sinclair, in turn, sold WPTZ and WNNE to Sunrise Television in 1998. However, instead of keeping them, Sunrise decided to swap both stations along with Smith Broadcasting-owned KSBW in the Salinas / Monterrey / Santa Cruz, California market to Hearst-Argyle Television in return for WNAC in Providence, Rhode Island and WDTN in Dayton, Ohio. The swap became official on July 2, 1998. On June 23, 1999, WPTZ petitioned the FCC to change its community of license to Plattsburgh. As of the start of 2007, this has not yet been approved. [2] In 2001, a microwave link was established between WPTZ and WNNE which began to allow for live news coverage from WNNE's studios. In 2004, WPTZ celebrated 50 years of broadcasting.

In September of 2006, after WPTZ redesigned its website, a daily web forecast was created. The video is known as the Weather Plus Update and features a picture showing WPTZ and WNNE offering Weather Plus together, branded as 5 & 31 Weather Plus. This was seen as the first step toward the two stations beginning to offer NBC Weather Plus. Another web forecast known as the Weather Plus Evening Drive Forecast with a separate Upper Valley (WNNE) version was also created.

Beginning in October of 2006, WPTZ's main studios in Plattsburgh underwent extensive renovations. During that time, WPTZ broadcasted from a temporary studio while the renovation took place. While the studios as a whole were being upgraded, the weather department underwent the most change. In advance of the launch of NBC Weather Plus, the weather center was expanded to make room for the addition of combined WPTZ and WNNE weather graghics and logos. The remodeling was completed by late November.

WPTZ launched NBC Weather Plus on its DT2 digital subchannel on November 15, 2006, after the station launched a new digital signal from Mount Mansfield, Vermont's highest elevation a day earlier. Weather Plus does not currently broadcast on WNNE's DT2 digital subchannel although the station has been broadcasting its own digital signal from Mount Ascutney in Vermont since July 20, 2005. On digital cable, Weather Plus is carried on Comcast channel 169 and Telecom channel 305. Although the daily web forcasts show the two stations offering Weather Plus together, WPTZ's Weather Plus channel, weather page, and live Weather Plus video only refers to News Channel 5 Weather Plus.

[edit] Newscasts

WPTZ and the area's CBS affiliate WCAX are the only stations in the market that offer local news. WPTZ and WNNE use the popular News Channel branding. During WPTZ newscasts, WNNE is referred to as the "Upper Valley Bureau" and features two full-time reporters based in WNNE's White River Junction studios. In addition to the Colchester and Upper Valley bureaus, WPTZ also broadcasts national news from a Washington D.C. Bureau operated by Hearst-Argyle. The bureau employs several reporters who give live reports to the various Hearst-Argyle affiliates.

Although WPTZ and WNNE do not own or operate weather radars of their own, WPTZ uses live NOAA NWS radar data from several regional sites in a forecasting system presented onscreen in newscasts as the "Super Doppler Radar Network". It is referred to as "Storm Tracker 5000". The main signal comes from the radar located next to the NWS Local Forecast Office at Burlington International Airport. Unlike most other NBC affiliates, WPTZ does not air a weekday Noon newscast. The station had aired a Noon newscast until 2005 but it was dropped in favor of "5:30 Now".

Weekdays

• News Channel 5 Today at 5 (5 to 6 AM)
• News Channel 5 Today at 6 (6 to 7 AM)
• First at Five (5 to 5:30 PM)
• 5:30 Now (5:30 to 6 PM)
• News Channel 5 at 6 (6 to 6:30 PM)
• News Channel 5 at 11 (11 to 11:35 PM)

Weekends

• News Channel 5 at 6 (6 to 6:30 PM)
• News Channel 5 at 11 (11 to 11:30 PM)

(live weather updates are provided during the weekend editions of The Today Show)

[edit] News Staff

Anchors

• Erin Connors - 5 and 5:30 PM weekday anchor, also health reporter
• Stephanie Gorin - 5, 6, and 11 PM anchor (also works as a professor at Plattsburgh State)
• Thom Hallock - 6 and 11 PM anchor
• Gabrielle Komorowski - morning anchor and reporter
• Michelle Mortensen - weekend anchor / 5 on your side reporter

WeatherPlus Meteorologists

• Gib Brown - 5:30 meteorologist
• Erik Heden - weekend meteorologist
• Tom Messner - chief meteorologist seen at 5, 6, and 11 p.m.
• Jim Moore - morning meteorologist

Sports

• Matt Hobbs - Sports Anchor, Monday-Friday 6 & 11 pm
• Jamie Scavotto - weekend sports anchor

Reporters

• Malini Basu - New York reporter
• Hailee Lampert - New York reporter
• Stewart Ledbetter- Reporter (formerly main anchor and news director)
• Mary Morin - Vermont reporter
• Mia Moran - Vermont reporter
• Kelley Morris - New York reporter
• Ben Stein - Vermont reporter
• Heather VanArsdel - WNNE reporter
• Tiffany Yasus - WNNE reporter (also contributes to WPTZ reports)
• Sally Kidd - national correspondent
• Laurie Kinney - national correspondent
• Traci Mitchell - weekday morning national correspondent

[edit] Notable Alumni

• Jeanne Moos, Reporter for CNN (in 1976, Moos became WPTZ's first female correspondent)
• Dawn Fratangelo, NBC News Correspondent
• Chris Ortloff, New York State Assemblyman from 1986 to 2006
• Tim Singer, international winter sports announcer
• Patrick Driscoll, Photographer extrodinaire, 2004 -2006

[edit] Station Trivia

WPTZ is one of two television stations in the U.S. to broadcast from "North Pole". The other is KJNP, a religious station licenseed to North Pole, Alaska that serves Fairbanks. WPTZ was a subject of a television blooper when Oprah Winfrey taped a promo for her show for WPTZ and started laughing after she spoke the station's community of license.

[edit] See Also

• WNNE

[edit] External Links

• Station Website
• WNNE Website
• WPTZ at TV Hat
• Query the FCC's TV station database for WPTZ

v • d • e

Broadcast television in the Burlington, Vermont and Plattsburgh, New York market (Nielsen DMA #90)

Local television stations WCAX 3 (CBS) - WPTZ 5 / WNNE 31 (NBC) (WX+ on WPTZ DT2) - W16AL 16 (TBN) - W18AE 18 (RSN / A1) - WVNY 22 (ABC) - WWBI 27 (Daystar) - W27CP 27 (ABC) - WETK 33 (PBS / VPT) - WGMU 39 (MNTV) - WCWF 40 (Ind) - WFFF 44 (FOX / The CW) - WCFE 57 (PBS)
Out of market channels available in the Burlington / Plattsburgh area on cable Montreal: CBFT 2 (SRC) - CBMT 6 (CBC) - CFCF 12 (CTV) New York City: WPIX 11 (The CW)
Regional cable television channels NECN - NESN - YES - SNY