WBES-TV
WBES-TV was an early UHF television station in Buffalo, New York. The station operated on channel 59 from studios in the Hotel Lafayette in Buffalo. WBES-TV, the second UHF station in Western New York, was very short-lived, signing on September 29, 1953 and shutting down for the last time on December 19 of the same year. An independent station for its entire existence, WBES-TV was plagued by technical and financial problems, the primary factor in the station's failure. Channel 59 was never reissued; it would not be used again in Western New York until being reallocated to Rochester, New York station WHAM-TV, where it was used as the temporary digital channel prior to the digital television transition.
WBES-TV has occasionally been erroneously listed as being on channel 56 or 58, two channels that were later issued to other licensees, both low-power stations: 56 became WBXZ-LP, a station operated as of 2015 by Steven Ritchie. Channel 58, last known as WFHW-LP, has also gone silent.
Channels 52 through 69 were removed entirely from broadcast television use soon after the 2009 completion of US DTV transition.
After WBES-TV was shut down, Buffalo was left with two stations, market leader WBEN-TV and fellow UHF upstart WBUF-TV ; WGR-TV signed on for the very first time on August 14, 1954, using WBES-TV's broadcast tower.
