WUTR
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| WUTR | |
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| Utica, New York | |
| Branding | WUTR |
| Channels | Analog: 20 (UHF) |
| Affiliations | ABC |
| Owner | Mission Broadcasting, Inc. (operated by Nexstar Broadcasting Group, Inc.) |
| First air date | February 28, 1970 |
| Call letters’ meaning | UTica/Rome |
| Sister station(s) | WFXV |
| Transmitter Power | 1150 kW (analog) 50 kW (digital) |
| Height | 244 m (analog) 227 m (digital) |
| Facility ID | 57837 |
| Transmitter Coordinates | |
| Website | www.cnyhomepage.com |
WUTR is the ABC affiliate for Utica, New York. The station is owned by Mission Broadcasting (and thus is operated by Nexstar Broadcasting Group, along with WFXV and WPNY-LP) and broadcasts its signal on UHF channel 20, with a digital signal on channel 30. WUTR's transmitter is located in Utica.
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[edit] History
The station first signed on February 28, 1970 as the second television station in the Utica market. Owned by Roy H. Park Communications at the outset, the station originally sought to affiliate with CBS but was stopped by WHEN-TV (today's WTVH) in Syracuse which claimed the Utica area in its market area. Though WHEN-TV cited potential revenue losses as reasoning for their actions, a rivalry between the Syracuse-based Park and then-WHEN owner Meredith also may have played a factor. As a result, WUTR signed on with ABC marking the only affiliate of that network owned by Park. For the next couple decades, WUTR stayed a distant but strong #2 behind dominant NBC affiliate WKTV. Until the 1980s, WUTR also was the default ABC affiliate for much of the Watertown market (also in the mid 80's in Alexandria Bay via Castle Cable) and operated translators both there and in Massena; the translators would be shut down after WFYF (now WWTI, which would later spend several years as a sister station to WUTR) began operations.
After Roy Park died in 1993, the future of the group was put into doubt as Park's estate sold much of the group to corporate investor Gary Knapp, who in turn sold the remnants of the Park group to Media General in 1996. With WUTR being one of the smallest of Park's stations and the sole station the group had in the Northeast, Media General spun WUTR off in mid-1997 to The Ackerley Group (then-owners of Syracuse ABC affiliate WIXT, today's WSYR-TV). With that purchase, Ackerley began to build a regional strategy called the Central New York Station Group (CNYSG) which eventually would cover most of Upstate New York and nearly acquired stations in the markets they did not enter. With the new ownership, WUTR became a real competitor to WKTV, and even the Observer-Dispatch.
In October 2001, Clear Channel Communications announced their buyout of Ackerley, closing on their purchase in 2002. Though initially no changes took place, market concentration concerns with Clear Channel's radio cluster in the Utica market put WUTR's future under Clear Channel in doubt. Given the option between potentially selling WUTR or the four-station "Sports Stars" sports radio simulcast, Clear Channel decided to hack away at WUTR by cutting budgets and redistributing resources to other stations in the CNYSG, and regionalizing its newscasts. This resulted in the ultimate cancellation of WUTR's newscasts in August 2003, followed in early 2004 with the sale of WUTR to current owner Mission Broadcasting.
Speculation of starting a news department for WUTR, as well as "sister" stations WFXV and WPNY-LP (WUTR is operated under an local marketing agreement with Nexstar Broadcasting, which owns those two stations), have circulated, but no progress has been made so far. The only news information currently on WUTR is a weather forecast originating from Nexstar-owned WROC-TV in Rochester.
[edit] News/Station Presentation
[edit] Newscast Titles
- NewsWatch 20 (1974-1981)
- TV-20 Eyewitness News (1981-1994)
- NewsChannel 20 (1994-2000)
- WUTR Channel 20 (2000-September 2003; newscasts were cancelled after September 2003)
[edit] Logo Gallery
 Logo as NewsChannel 20, used from 1998 to 2000 (based upon WIXT-TV's logo) |
 Logo as WUTR Channel 20, used from 2000 to 2003 (modified version of the previous logo) |
 Logo as ABC 20, used from WUTR's cancellation of newscasts in 2003 to September 2006 |
 WUTR's current logo, used since September 2006 |
[edit] External links
- Official website
- Query the FCC's TV station database for WUTR
- BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on WUTR-TV
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