WNED-TV

WNED-TV

Buffalo, New York/Toronto, Ontario
Branding	WNED
Channels	Digital: 43 (UHF) Virtual: 17 (PSIP)
Subchannels	17.1 PBS-HD 17.2 World
Affiliations	PBS
Owner	Western New York Public Broadcasting Association
First air date	March 30, 1959
Call letters' meaning	Western New York EDucational Television
Sister station(s)	WBFO, WNED-FM
Former channel number(s)	Analog: 17 (UHF, 1959–2009)
Former affiliations	NET (1959–1970)
Transmitter power	156 kW
Height	328 m
Facility ID	71928
Transmitter coordinates	43°1′48″N 78°55′15″W / 43.03000°N 78.92083°W / 43.03000; -78.92083
Website	http://www.wned.org/

WNED-TV, virtual channel 17 (UHF digital channel 43), is a PBS member television station located in Buffalo, New York, United States. The station is owned by the Western New York Public Broadcasting Association. WNED's studios are located in downtown Buffalo, and its transmitter is located in Grand Island, New York.

In addition to Buffalo, WNED also has a substantial viewership in Southern Ontario, including Toronto; it identifies as serving "Buffalo/Toronto" on-air. Many cable and satellite providers in Southern Ontario include WNED as the PBS station, and more than half of its financial support comes from Canada.

History

As WBUF-TV

Channel 17 first signed on in 1953 as WBUF-TV, operating as a commercial station. At first, WBUF was locally owned and carried programs from the major broadcast networks of the time (CBS, NBC, ABC and DuMont) that the city's oldest station, WBEN-TV (channel 4, now WIVB) opted not to carry. WGR-TV (channel 2, now WGRZ) later signed on in August 1954, and claimed most of the ABC and some NBC programming that channel 17 had previously used to fill much of its schedule. This could have left WBUF without a significant source of the network programming that most viewers preferred.

However in 1955, NBC bought channel 17 as an experiment to see if a UHF station could compete with VHF stations given sufficient signal strength, marketing promotion and program investment. The network also hoped to expand its presence in major markets beyond the five stations where the Federal Communications Commission allowed any network or group owner to operate full-power VHF outlets, a limit NBC had reached by 1948. But there was a loophole in the ownership limits allowing any such group owner to acquire two additional UHF outlets without relinquishing a VHF property.

NBC expanded WBUF's transmitter power considerably to improve its signal strength and range, and built a new studio and transmitter complex on Buffalo's north side to provide service capabilities to match market-leading CBS affiliate WBEN-TV on channel 4 and fast-rising ABC affiliate WGR-TV on channel 2. However, despite a large investment, WBUF never made much headway against WBEN-TV and WGR-TV. Part of the problem was that television manufacturers were not required to include built-in UHF tuning capability. Viewers needed a converter to watch WBUF, and even with one, the picture quality was often inferior to the VHF competition without an outdoor antenna. In fact, viewers of NBC programs in the eastern portion of the Buffalo metropolitan area often got a better signal from WROC-TV in Rochester, which then operated with full power on low-band VHF channel 5.

The final blow came in late 1956, when the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ended an almost decade-long competitive process and issued a third VHF license to Buffalo, on channel 7 -- the winner was Churchill Broadcasting, owner of WKBW radio, for the station which was to become WKBW-TV. NBC signed off WBUF on September 30, 1958 (two months to the day before WKBW-TV signed on) and moved its affiliation to WGR-TV, while ABC signed with the new channel 7.

As WNED-TV

After WBUF shut down, NBC donated the channel 17 license and some equipment to the newly formed Western New York Public Broadcasting Association. Channel 17 returned to the air on March 30, 1959 as WNED-TV, the second educational station in New York State. Although WNED-TV still had a commercial license, it operated as a noncommercial educational station. Its first general manager was Leslie C. Martin Jr., who held the position from 1959 to 1966.

In 1975, the Western New York Public Broadcasting Association bought two commercial radio stations, WEBR-AM and WREZ-FM. The AM station had been founded in 1924, while the FM station was founded as WEBR-FM in 1960, becoming WBCE-FM in the early 1970s before becoming WREZ. The FM station was renamed WNED-FM in 1977, when it adopted a classical music format. In 1977, WEBR-AM became the nation's first public all-news radio station and was the top-rated public radio station in the country by 1978. In 1993, it was renamed WNED-AM after cutbacks in government funding forced it to dramatically cut its local programming in favour of network and syndicated content. The AM station was sold off to a religious broadcaster in 2012 as WNED took over operations of University of Buffalo-owned station WBFO and placed most of WNED-AM's programming on it.

On May 23, 1987, WNED-TV signed on a sister station, WNEQ, on UHF channel 23. However, both struggled financially and the Buffalo market was unable to support two public television stations. As a result, the Western New York Public Broadcasting Association put WNEQ up for sale; it then announced the sale of WNEQ to LIN Broadcasting (owner of WIVB) in late 1999.

Until this time, WNED-TV had maintained the old commercial license it had inherited from WBUF-TV, while WNEQ had operated on a traditional non-commercial license. LIN needed WNED's commercial license in order to make its acquisition viable. At one point, it seemed likely that LIN would actually purchase channel 17 from the Western New York Public Broadcasting Association. This would have resulted in the WNED-TV intellectual unit moving to channel 23 (which would have made WNEQ the area's primary PBS station), while channel 17 would have become a commercial station. However, the long history of channel 17 as a PBS member station made this an undesirable option for the public broadcaster due to concerns that having WNEQ become the market's sole PBS outlet would cause viewer confusion and potentially reduce the amount of donations that the station would receive. The FCC was persuaded to allow channel 17 and channel 23 to swap licenses, allowing WNEQ to be sold to LIN. After 42 years of being a commercial licensee operating as a non-commercial broadcaster, WNED received an educational license in 2000. WNEQ was sold to LIN in early 2001; that station is now WNLO and operates as the market's CW affiliate.

Through the use of a digital subchannel, WNED-TV began providing ThinkBright as a second programming service in the late 2000s, covering most of New York State with 12 hours a day of regional, educational and cultural programming. It was available on all New York PBS member stations except Long Island/New York City. ThinkBright later became ThinkBright and Well, and was discontinued in 2011 to merge with World.

Over time, WNED-TV has become a leading PBS member station. It produced several original programs that have been carried throughout the PBS network and its member stations such as the Mark Russell comedy specials and Reading Rainbow, produced in association with the Great Plains Network until early 2006. Starting in May 2006, co-production of Reading Rainbow continued with Educate Inc. of Baltimore, Maryland, after the University of Nebraska Regents (the owners of GPN and NET) sold its long-time production interest to WNED.

Translator network

WNED-TV was simulcast on many translators covering the Southern Tier of Western New York for several decades. Because of inadequate signal coverage to rural schools in the valley areas of mountainous southwestern New York State, WNED once had a massive network of translator licenses – in some cases even "extra-legal." The transmitters and towers belonged to the Chautauqua Board of Cooperative Educational Services, the experimental Appalachian Television Project, and Cattaraugus Area Television System (CATS) group and were scattered across numerous small towns in Chautauqua, Cattaraugus and Allegany counties. The network predates the FCC's discontinuation of channels 70 to 83, since some of the Cattaraugus County licenses were in that range.

In addition, the CATS system originated some of its own local programming, such as live high school football games (this was possible mainly because one of the licenses, W26AA, was also a former commercial independent station, that of former CTV affiliate WNYP, whose license was still active). The remaining stations in Chautauqua and Allegany Counties were expunged from the FCC records and presumably shut down in 2012, leaving the translator network without any remaining transmitters.

Digital television

Digital channels

Analog-to-digital conversion

WNED-TV discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over UHF channel 17, on April 16, 2009, just under two months before the official June 12 date in which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 43.^[2][3] Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former UHF analog channel 17. WNED offers audio simulcasts of WBFO and WNED-FM via the SAP feed on 17.2.^[4]

See also

• WNED-FM
• WBFO
• WDCZ (formerly a news-talk station owned by WNED)
• WNLO (formerly WNEQ, a secondary PBS outlet owned by WNED)

References

External links

• Official website
• UHF Morgue: History of WBUF-TV Channel 17's earlier incarnation
• Query the FCC's TV station database for WNED
• BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on WNED-TV
• Gallery of past logos for WNED