| Riverhead, New York | |
|---|---|
| Branding | WLNY TV-10/55 |
| Channels | Digital: 47 (UHF) Virtual: 55 (PSIP) |
| Translators | WLNY-CD 45 Mineola NY W27CD Stamford CT WLIG-LD 17 Morristown NJ |
| Affiliations | Independent |
| Owner | WLNY Limited Partnership (sale pending to CBS Corporation) (WLNY Holdings, Inc.) |
| First air date | April 28, 1985 |
| Call letters' meaning | W Long Island New York or We Love New York |
| Former callsigns | WLIG (1985-1996) |
| Former channel number(s) | Analog: 55 (UHF, 1985-2005) Digital: 57 (UHF, 2002-2009) |
| Transmitter power | 425 kW |
| Height | 193.7 m |
| Facility ID | 73206 |
| Website | www.wlnytv.com |
WLNY-TV, channel 55, is an independent television station licensed to Riverhead, New York, with studios in Melville, New York and transmitter in Middle Island, New York. WLNY's primary over-the-air signal serves most of Long Island, comprising Nassau and Suffolk counties.[1] WLNY further extends its coverage in the New York City metropolitan area and Connecticut using low-power digital repeaters WLNY-CD (channel 45), in Mineola, New York and WLIG-LD, channel 17, in Morristown, New Jersey, and low-power analog repeater W27CD in Stamford, Connecticut.
The station has been carried on either channel 10 or channel 55 on most local cable TV systems for years, and in 2007 changed their on-air branding to WLNY TV 10/55 (read as TV 10 and 55) to reflect that.[2]
Contents |
| Channel | Video | Aspect | Programming |
|---|---|---|---|
| 55.1 | 480i | 4:3 | Main WLNY-TV programming |
WLNY-TV also has two Mobile DTV feeds, one of of subchannel 55.1, labelled "WLNY MH1", and a blank feed of 55.2, labelled "WLNY MH2", broadcasting at 3.67 Mbit/s. This is the highest bitrate of any New York City television station mobile feed[3][4].
On June 12, 2009, WLNY-TV discontinued regular analog programming on channel 55.[5] The station switched to its post-transition channel of 47,[6] using PSIP to display the station's virtual channel as 55.
Founded by Long Island businessman Michael Pascucci,[7] the station went on the air April 28, 1985 as WLIG, with the on-air branding TV-55. It was the first Long Island-based independent television station since the demise of WSNL-TV (channel 67, now WFTY-TV), which was merged with Newark, New Jersey-based independent WWHT-TV (now WFUT-TV) several years earlier. During its first year of operations, WLIG employed a number of gimmicks to attract viewers, such as a Watch and Win Sweepstakes in which viewers were shown a "code word" on-screen during a particular show and had to send in a postcard with that word for the chance to win a prize,[8] and offering 100,000 free loop antennas to non-cable viewers who couldn't receive the station clearly. The efforts paid off, as WLIG gradually became a solid ratings player.
By June 1987, WLIG was estimated to reach 200,000 viewers, and was carried on eight of nine cable television systems on Long Island.[9] The lone exception was Cablevision, the largest system in Long Island, which claimed that TV-55 added nothing to the service they already offered, and so, refused to carry it.[10] A cable subscriber advocacy group, New Yorkers for Fair Cable, claimed that the real reason was that WLIG competed with services that Cablevision owned and offered, specifically News 12 Long Island.[11] In October 1987, BQ Cable Company (now part of Time Warner Cable) began offering WLIG to subscribers in Brooklyn and Queens.[9]
During its early years, WLIG relied heavily on old movies and reruns of classic television shows, and positioned itself as a station offering family-friendly entertainment consistent with the philosophy of its owner, who is a devout Roman Catholic. It featured a daily newscast at 10 p.m., and other local programming, such as a political talk show called Focus on Long Island. Sports programming and some first-run syndicated programming rounded out the broadcast day. By the late 1980s, WLIG had dropped its local news broadcasts, except for a 5-minute newscast that continued to air until a new full-fledged, hour-long 10 p.m. newscast debuted in 1993. The station also aired several half-hour feeds of CNN Headline News until the mid-1990s, providing its only broadcast outlet for Long Island residents without cable. In the meantime, the station gradually began adding newer films and stronger syndicated programming to its lineup, eventually scoring a major victory in early 1991 when they landed Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy! and The Oprah Winfrey Show, which at that time were the top three syndicated programs on television.
On September 1, 1996, WLIG changed its call letters to WLNY (for "We Love New York") and rebranded itself as NY 55.[12] Still, its location on the fringes of the New York City television market made cable television coverage of the station an ongoing concern. Although the FCC imposed "must carry" rules on cable companies in 1992, in 1997, they allowed some cable systems in New Jersey to exclude WLNY from carriage. WLNY, along with WRNN-TV and WPXN-TV, appealed, but the courts upheld the FCC decision.[13] In spite of these difficulties, WLNY still receives cable coverage from Northern New Jersey to Southern Connecticut, and on satellite television.
In 1997, WLNY was assigned UHF channel 57 for its digital television operations, making it one of 18 full-service television stations in the country to have neither analog nor digital assignments within the new core television station spectrum, channels 2 through 51. The station began broadcasting in digital in 2002, with a low-power signal under Special Temporary Authority, then made news in 2005 when it struck a deal with Qualcomm to surrender its analog license and build full DTV facilities on channel 57, allowing Qualcomm to use the channel 55 frequency for its MediaFLO service. At the time, approximately 92 percent of Long Island's population receives television service by cable or satellite, so the FCC approved the request, and on December 31, 2005, WLNY shut down its analog signal and became a digital-only station. The FCC has since changed the station's callsign to WLNY-DT. The FCC later announced it would remove the -DT suffix from call signs after the analog shutoff unless a station applied to keep it;[14] the station elected to change its callsign to WLNY-TV, adding the -TV suffix the station did not use prior to 2006, and the change took effect on June 19, 2009.[15]
WLNY-DT requested channel 47 as its final, in-core broadcast channel after the end of the 2009 DTV conversion, but the FCC initially ruled the election in conflict with another station -- WNJU, a Spanish-language station licensed to Linden, New Jersey which broadcast its analog signal on channel 47.[16] Eventually the issues were worked through and WLNY gained FCC approval for its move to digital channel 47, which it began broadcasting from on June 13, 2009.
At some point since 1996, WLNY dropped its NY 55 branding in favor of the old TV-55, but on October 22, 2007, WLNY once again changed its branding, this time from TV-55 to TV 10/55 to reflect its most frequent cable and satellite assignments. The station also debuted a new set and graphics for their 11 p.m. newscast, replacing the old set which dated back to the early 1990s.
WLNY can currently be viewed from as far north as Connecticut, and as far south as Delaware over its digital broadcast.
On December 12, 2011, CBS Television Stations announced its intent to purchase WLNY-TV, which will create a duopoly with the CBS network's flagship station WCBS-TV (channel 2); terms of the purchase were originally not made public, though an FCC application for the purchase later revealed that CBS Television Stations would purchase WLNY for $55 million.[17] The company announced that it would add additional on-air staff and expand WLNY's local news programming outside the current 11 p.m. newscast. Pending approval from the Federal Communications Commission, the station will become CBS's tenth television station duopoly.[18]
Tribune Broadcasting-owned WPIX (channel 11) is already in an existing affiliation agreement with the CW Television Network (owned in a joint venture between CBS Corporation and Time Warner), which does not expire until 2016.[19] As such, WLNY-TV is likely to continue to operate as an independent station, which would make it the third independent in CBS's portfolio, alongside KCAL-TV in Los Angeles and KTXA in the Fort Worth-Dallas metroplex.
WLNY carries a typical independent schedule of movies and syndicated shows, plus religious programming and infomercials. WLNY offers "second-chance" viewing of programs such as Jeopardy!, Wheel of Fortune, Dr. Phil and The Ellen DeGeneres Show, as WLNY airs these shows in the late afternoon and evening, compared to earlier broadcasts on the main New York City stations. Often, most of WLNY's movie airings are also carried by another local station within a day or so.
The station enjoys widespread coverage on cable in New York City as well as other parts of lower New York state, Connecticut, and New Jersey. While many of those areas see a separate feed due to SyndEx laws (similar to the old WOR EMI Service and WGN America), Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune are the only two programs preempted on the SyndEx feed. Subscribers in the New York City market who receive the station on DirecTV and Dish Network view the station's clean over-the-air feed.
In June 2009, WLNY completely revamped its weeknight primetime schedule, replacing the movie with all of its syndicated programming. These offerings now air for five consecutive hours from 5 to 10 p.m., followed by a double-run of Judge Judy as the lead-in to the 11 p.m. newscast. To replace the primetime movie WLNY recently reintroduced an afternoon movie to its schedule. It still airs a late night movie, or a rerun of Matlock or one of the NBC Mystery Movie series WLNY has rights to -- Banacek, McCloud, and McMillan & Wife.
Over the years, WLIG/WLNY also broadcast professional and collegiate sports. WLNY carried Big East Conference college basketball for many years until that conference moved its games exclusively to cable in the New York City market. For a number of years, WLNY also carried New York Islanders hockey games and New Jersey Nets basketball games as overrun when they could not be broadcast on regional sports networks due to conflicts with other games. WLNY has occasionally picked up CBS Sports events that WCBS-TV can't carry due to news pre-emptions, such as airing The NFL Today on September 11, 2011 while WCBS aired the day's tribute ceremonies.
WLNY produces a 35-minute local news program, which airs at 11 p.m. weeknights, and is rebroadcast Tuesday through Saturday mornings at 5 a.m. WLNY also produces a weekly public affairs show, tv10/55 Focus. The news and public affairs shows focus mostly on Long Island issues, aside from weather and sports coverage, which serve most of the New York City market.
Anchors
Reporters
WLNY-TV is carried on the following cable television systems:[21]
| Cablevision | Comcast | DirecTV | Dish Network | RCN | Verizon FiOS | Time Warner Cable | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10* | 10** | 55/893 | 55/8107 | 14 | 10 | 55 | |
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