WBBZ-TV


WBBZ-TV, virtual channel 67, is a primary independent and secondary MeTV-affiliated television station serving Buffalo, New York, United States that is licensed to Springville. The station is owned by ITV of Buffalo, a company controlled by former news photographer Philip A. Arno. WBBZ-TV's studios are located at the Eastern Hills Mall in the town of Clarence, and its transmitter is located near Springville in the hills of southern Erie County.

History

Early years

The station was founded as WJTQ on March 12, 1993. Bill Smith, an amateur radio enthusiast, and his wife, Caroline Powley, daughter of late LPTV innovator John R. Powley, who built several full-service UHF television stations using economical "ham" radio equipment and surplus educational television "translator" transmitters, changed its call letters to WNGS in May 1993.
WNGS initially broadcast on analog UHF channel 67. Although licensed as a full-power station, it transmitted its analog signal at low power with a northward directional pattern covering much of the Southtowns, but not reaching the city of Buffalo proper. Radiated power in the direction of Buffalo was limited due to a treaty with Canada that protected the coverage area of CHCH-TV-3, a Midland, Ontario-based rebroadcaster of Hamilton, Ontario-based independent station CHCH-TV that also operated on UHF channel 67. As a result, from the city of Buffalo northward, it was only available on cable or by satellite, and in certain places in the Southern Tier, it was not available at all.
The station began with an infomercial/home shopping format, but added general-entertainment barter talk shows, cartoons and low-budget sitcoms in 1997. WNGS became a UPN affiliate in April 1998, but lost the affiliation to WNLO in January 2003. Shortly afterward, WNGS dropped most of its entertainment programming in favor of infomercials. For most of its time as an independent station and UPN affiliate, WNGS operated from studios in West Valley, New York.
Olean, New York, low-powered station WONS-LP shared the UPN affiliation under a mutual agreement with WNGS until the network was picked up by WNLO, at which time, the station began carrying programming from The Sportsman Channel. At least one television listings provider had erroneously listed WONS-LP as a translator of WNGS.

Equity and WKBW era

After Equity Broadcasting took ownership of the station, WNGS became an affiliate of Equity's Retro Television Network. During Equity's ownership, the station was operated by Granite Broadcasting, owner of ABC affiliate WKBW-TV, under a local marketing agreement. As part of the agreement, WNGS was carried on WKBW's digital subchannel. Along with RTN programming, WNGS aired sports programming from WKBW-TV and various sports broadcasts.
Equity sold RTN to Luken Communications in 2008. Following a dispute between Equity and Luken, all of Equity's RTN affiliates, including WNGS, disaffiliated from the network on January 4, 2009. WNGS continued to carry other programs, such as sports and locally produced B-movie film showcase Off Beat Cinema. Later that month, WNGS switched its affiliation to This TV.
The RTN affiliation later moved to a digital subchannel of WGRZ, then to the pairing of low-power stations W30BW in Olean and WBXZ-LP, assuming they get their transmitter installed, in Buffalo.

Temporary shutdown and return

On April 16, 2009, as a result of its bankruptcy, Equity Media Holdings auctioned off 60 of its television stations. WNGS was sold to Daystar Television Network for a total of US$7.4 million They already owned WDTB-LP in nearby Hamburg, along with six other full-service stations and nine LPTV and Class A stations. Also around this time, WNGS's agreement with WKBW-TV ended. The sale was approved by the Federal Communications Commission in August 2009. WNGS went off the air on June 12, 2009, after not being able to complete its transition to digital-only broadcasts on time, and remained silent for almost a year. Meanwhile, on May 14, 2010, Daystar filed to sell the station to ITV of Buffalo, LLC, a partnership owned by local TV personalities Philip Arno and Donald Angelo, for $2.75 million, with plans to program the station from Clarence, New York. Angelo later dropped his involvement in the station.
WNGS finally completed its digital transmitter and returned to the air in late May 2010, carrying programming from Daystar. The sale was completed on September 16, 2010; at that time, the station rejoined This TV. However, as part of the deal, Daystar had to remain on WNGS in the form of a digital subchannel for 10 years, a deal which was previously made with KOCE-TV in the Los Angeles area as a compromise after Daystar was unable to purchase that station.
WNGS, formerly on a digital subchannel of WKBW-TV, had planned to launch its own digital signal on WKBW-TV's former analog channel allocation, channel 7, at the end of the 2009 digital transition.
By December 2008, both the ability of WNGS to transition to its own digital facilities and its ability to continue broadcasting were directly jeopardized as, "On December 8, 2008, the licensee's parent corporation filed a petition for bankruptcy relief under Chapter 11 of the federal bankruptcy code, case #4:08-BK-17646-M, U.S. district court for the district of Arkansas. This station must obtain post-petition financing and court approval before digital facilities may be constructed. The station will cease analogue broadcasting on June 12, 2009, regardless of whether digital facilities are operational by that date. The station will file authority to remain silent if so required by the FCC.
While the station had applied for an extension for a construction permit for its digital transmitter, it was unable to continue analog operations as it was not only a full-service station, but it also operated on a frequency which was to be reallocated for non-broadcast use at the end of the digital television transition. Further complicating matters was that Kitchener, Ontario's, CTV owned-and-operated station CKCO-TV, a station serving portions of southern Ontario with a signal that penetrates Western New York, was assigned the same channel 7 allocation by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission for its own digital signal. It should have applied to simulcast digitally before its analog channel 13 broadcasts end in August 2011, when that station would move digital broadcasts to channel 13.
Daystar's last-minute proposal to transmit from a broadcast tower used by WNYO-TV in Folsomdale, New York instead of using WKBW-TV's Colden tower was rejected due to WNYO-TV owner Sinclair Broadcast Group's last-minute decision to broadcast WNYO-TV on its lower power digital channel 34 from Grand Island, and receiving FCC approval to transfer its digital signal to a full-power channel 49 transmission from Folsomdale on June 12.
Because WNGS failed to begin digital broadcasts on channel 7 after June 12, 2009, local cable providers had an option to no longer carry the station despite WNGS' direct fiber connection to the providers from West Valley. As the Buffalo market stretches west to near Erie, Pennsylvania, east towards Rochester, New York, north towards Toronto, Canada, and several counties in northern Pennsylvania in an area with several varieties of terrain, pay television service is almost a requirement for optimum viewing in outlying areas. This resulted in the Buffalo–Hamilton–Toronto area having one of the highest pay-television penetration rates in the Northeast. Very few households watched the over-the-signals of many of the stations, resulting in serious trouble for WNGS if it were unable to continue maintaining its must-carry status. While Daystar's existing analog translator stations could maintain the station's service in the area, WDTB-LP only covered small portions of the city of Buffalo, far from providing market-wide coverage by any means.
On June 12, 2009, WNGS switched to a "nightlight" service, broadcasting only a still screen reading "WNGS has ceased operations as of June 12, 2009". Though it technically extended the broadcast life of the station, this was not allowed to continue any later than July 12, far too soon for a digital over-the-air signal to be ready. DirecTV customers in the Buffalo market stopped receiving WNGS on June 22, 2009, and on July 12 the analog transmitter was turned off, starting the clock on the station's requirement to build digital facilities by July 12, 2010, when the FCC could consider the license abandoned and delete it.
By March 2010, the station still had not returned to the air in any form. Time Warner Cable ended its hold on WNGS' channel 11 cable slot; WNLO was moved into that position and TWC's regional cable news channel YNN Buffalo was placed on channel 9, the former location of WNLO.
In late May 2010, WNGS began transmitting its digital signal on channel 7, a month before license deletion. It invoked must carry and returned to Time Warner Cable on channel 5 in November 2010. The station's website returned sometime in December 2010. After an appeal to the Federal Communications Commission, WBBZ-TV also invoked must-carry in Time Warner Cable's other Western New York service areas in November 2012; TWC had initially refused to carry WBBZ-TV in those markets, ostensibly because of signal quality issues. As of 2014, WBBZ-TV is still not available on the region's other cable provider, Atlantic Broadband/Cogeco, which covers portions of Cattaraugus County; McKean County, Pennsylvania; and southern Ontario.

Relaunch as WBBZ

WNGS changed its call sign to WBBZ-TV at 5:00 a.m. on August 1, 2011, as part of a planned drastic increase in the station's local programming. The This TV affiliation moved to a digital subchannel, while it began carrying MeTV on its main channel. WBBZ-TV struggled to find a studio location to house its operations. Arno had preferred to use the former Studio Arena Theater, but had been unable to secure a deal; he also passed on the Buffalo Central Terminal due to the building's state of disrepair. The Eastern Hills Mall, which holds the station's offices, originally rejected the plan to build a studio at the mall but later relented and allowed it to be constructed. By early 2012, the studio at the Eastern Hills Mall began construction; the first program was taped from there in June.

Digital television

Digital channels

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:
ChannelVideoAspectPSIP Short NameProgramming
67.1720pWBBZ-TVMain WBBZ-TV programming / Independent & MeTV
67.2480iTHISTVHeroes & Icons
67.3480iMETVMeTV
67.4480iDAYSTARDaystar
67.5480iDABLDabl
67.6480iStart TV
67.7480iDecades
67.8480iMovies!

On March 1, 2017, Heroes & Icons replaced This TV on the 67.2 subchannel. DABL is set to be added on the 67.5 subchannel in September 2019.
Start TV, Decades and Movies!, three other digital subchannel networks owned by Weigel Broadcasting, were added July 1, 2020. Decades and Movies! had previously been on WVTT-CD until that channel left the air.

Personnel

WBBZ-TV hired former WKBW-TV sports director and general manager of the Empire Sports Network, Bob Koshinski as its executive in charge of production in 2012. He was promoted to vice president and general manager and served in those posts until resigning in January 2015; he continued to serve as a sports host through summer of that year. John DiSciullo, WKBW-TV's program director of three decades, was hired as executive in charge of production; he also serves as on-air host for local programs. Chris Musial, former general manager at WIVB-TV, was hired as a consultant in 2015. As of May 2013, the station employs fifteen people, not counting Arno.

Notable current staff

Originally proposed local programming

Philip Arno is highly critical of the local news programming seen on WGRZ, WIVB-TV and WKBW-TV and has no intention to develop a full news department as those stations have. He is nonetheless considering a daily newsmagazine, in the vein of AM Buffalo, with news, features and a meteorologist.
Local programming that Arno had announced in 2011 that he was seeking to add to the station included a morning show, a game show, a local late-night talk show with a local comedian as host, a local talk show in the mold of ABC's The View, a show geared to the military, a local Battle of the Bands and a video game review show that is aimed at younger viewers. Also slated for the future were a sports talk show hosted by Sabres Hockey Network personalities Rob Ray and Danny Gare, "a weekly made-for-TV play produced in conjunction with a local theater company drawing on its actors and production crew," and a weekly Buffalo Bills postgame show. The ultimate goal is to produce four to six hours per day of local programming, although Arno acknowledges this may be too expensive and ambitious to achieve; he has suggested he would need to sell a stake in the station, at a significant premium, to fund such a project.

Regularly scheduled local programming

Local programming seen on WBBZ-TV includes the following regularly scheduled series:
All of these programs can be seen by an audience; reservations are suggested on the station's website. Additional airings with the exception of Off Beat Cinema take place, usually twice, shortly after the original airing.

Previous local programming

From 2011 to 2015, WBBZ-TV carried a number of sports broadcasts and sports-related programs, a genre the station has since abandoned.
WBBZ-TV held rights to the package of New York Yankees games produced for broadcast syndication by WWOR-TV from 2011 until 2013; a bulk syndication agreement with Sinclair Broadcast Group, coupled with increased rights fees and declining ratings, led to WBBZ-TV dropping the Yankees broadcasts for the 2014 season. As RTN11, WNGS carried Yankees, New York Mets and Cleveland Indians games.
WBBZ-TV announced the acquisition of the rights to a Thursday Night Football broadcast featuring the Buffalo Bills during the 2012 season, following an "aggressive" bidding process; those rights had previously resided with WKBW-TV. WBBZ-TV had made the bid in part because as it stood, the station would be the only place on Time Warner Cable that viewers could see the game, but Time Warner Cable and NFL Network signed a carriage agreement during the course of the 2012 season, rendering the advantage moot. WBBZ-TV again won the rights to the NFL Network Bills game in 2013, with a lower bid than the year before but one that was still much higher than the other stations had offered. Due to Thursday Night Football broadcast rights moving exclusively to CBS affiliates in 2014, and the fact that the Bills were not selected for any Monday Night Football games that year, no games were made available to any local stations. WBBZ lost the rights to the Bills' lone cable game for 2015 to WKBW-TV.
During a prolonged contract dispute between MSG Network and Time Warner Cable, WBBZ-TV proposed buying the rights to Buffalo Sabres games from MSG in order for Time Warner Cable subscribers to see the game. The two sides came to an agreement before any action could be taken on Arno's proposal.
In August 2013, WBBZ-TV announced it had affiliated with Raycom Sports's ACC Network to carry the syndicated Atlantic Coast Conference Saturday package of college football and college basketball games starting with the 2013 season, when Syracuse University joined the conference; WBBZ-TV emphasizes games involving Syracuse and the University of Pittsburgh. WBBZ lost the ACC package to WNLO in 2015, leaving the station without any live sports play-by-play.
WBBZ aired an NBA on ABC game on March 5, 2016; the usual ABC affiliate, WKBW, broadcast its annual telethon for Variety, the Children's Charity that day. The station also served as an overflow for a Little League World Series broadcast that was preempted on WKBW for a Bills preseason game on August 20.
The station also carried a number of sports-related half-hour shows.
This does not include special episodes of The Big Picture and What's the Buzz in WNY? that break from their respective formats. Other specials are in the works.

Other programming

As of September 2017, WBBZ-TV no longer carries any syndicated programming, except for the Entertainment Studios productions cars.tv and Career Day, both of which air once a week on Saturday mornings.
The Daily Buzz was carried during the 2011-12 season, but was removed after the producers of that show cut back and revamped the format; other shows WBBZ-TV previously carried include Cash Cab, The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, The Addams Family, Beer Geeks and That '70s Show, King of the Hill, and The King of Queens. Supreme Justice with Judge Karen and Justice with Judge Mablean both moved to WNLO in 2017 after airing on WBBZ for several years. The remaining programming on the station comes from MeTV and infomercials. In contrast to the station's competitors, who broadcast a liberal number of infomercials during the overnight hours, WBBZ-TV airs its infomercials on weekday mornings instead, which varies from one to three hours and pre-empts MeTV's non-E/I children's programs. WBBZ-TV also preempts large portions of MeTV's weekend lineup for infomercials.
The station added a locally originated home shopping block in July 2019.

Ratings

WBBZ-TV's programming to date has proven competitive with other stations in the market, having finished in a near statistical tie with WNLO and WNYO-TV in the Nielsen ratings for the November 2011 sweeps; this is despite the fact that both of those stations had local newscasts at the time, whereas WBBZ-TV does not. However, by summer 2012, ratings had fallen to a third of their 2011 highs. The ratings later rebounded in November 2012. As of the May 2014 sweeps, WBBZ-TV is earning approximately a 2.0 Nielsen rating for its prime-time MeTV offerings and a 1.0 rating for its original productions. Arno hopes to move into fourth place in the all-day Nielsen ratings. Because the station was already in the high-VHF band and most interested parties sought UHF channels, WBBZ-TV's spectrum went unsold.