WUTV


WUTV, virtual channel 29, is a Fox-affiliated television station licensed to Buffalo, New York, United States. The station is owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group, as part of a duopoly with MyNetworkTV affiliate WNYO-TV. The two stations share studios on Hertel Avenue near Military Road in Buffalo and transmitter facilities on Whitehaven Road in Grand Island, New York.
Since February 2008, WUTV serves as the Fox network feed received in the Cayman Islands. It joined the Primetime 24 lineup in 2009, serving most of the Caribbean islands. The channel is also broadcast in parts of Canada.

History

WUTV signed on the air on December 21, 1970 as a general entertainment independent station; its schedule included cartoons, sitcoms, sci-fi shows, along with classic movies and drama series. WUTV's original studios were located at the transmitter site in Grand Island, New York. The station was owned by Ultravision Broadcasting Company, from which the "UTV" in the WUTV callsign originates. Ultravision was owned by Stan Jasinski, who also owned Buffalo's WMMJ at the time; shortly thereafter, Jasinski spun off WMMJ to country musician Ramblin' Lou Schriver, who turned it into present-day WXRL. Jasinski had first filed an application for the station's license in 1963.
WUTV was the only independent station in Buffalo for many years and was the first commercially successful UHF station in Western New York; previous efforts on the UHF dial, including WBES-TV, WBUF-TV and WNYP-TV all had failed within a few years of their debuts. Ultravision Broadcasting sold the station to Whitehaven Entertainment Corporation in 1977. The station was acquired by Citadel Communications, a Bronxville-based company not related to the larger radio station owner Citadel Broadcasting, in 1984.
On October 9, 1986, WUTV became one of the original charter affiliates of the newly launched Fox network. At the time, Fox only aired late night programming five days a week, so WUTV was still essentially programmed as an independent station. However, by 1989, WUTV was one of several Fox affiliates nationwide that were disappointed with the network's weak prime time programming offerings, particularly on Saturday nights, which were bogging down WUTV's otherwise successful lineup. Fox then signed an agreement with WNYB-TV to become its new Buffalo affiliate, and WUTV reverted to being an independent station full-time. Later that year, WNYB-TV's owner, Act III Broadcasting, offered to buy WUTV, and Citadel accepted. The sale was finalized in June 1990, and Lear moved WNYB-TV's stronger programming to WUTV, and brought the Fox affiliation back to the station in turn. He then sold WNYB-TV to Tri-State Christian Television.
ABRY Partners, forerunners to the current Nexstar Media Group, purchased WUTV in 1994 following its acquisition of the Act III group. On January 16, 1995, WUTV became a secondary affiliate of the upstart United Paramount Network and WONS in 1997, and then to WNLO. Sinclair Broadcast Group acquired WUTV as part of its purchase of some of ABRY's assets in 1997; Sinclair then bought WNYO-TV in 2001, creating a duopoly with WUTV. Since the 1994 NFL season, the station has aired Buffalo Bills games via the NFL on Fox; they are given at least two games a season to air, usually when the team plays host to an NFC team at New Era Field; although the station has seen more games aired since 2014 when the NFL instituted cross-flex rules, meaning that games can be arbitrarily moved to the station from WIVB, which airs most of the team's games.
After Sinclair came to a retransmission consent agreement in February 2007 nationally with Time Warner Cable, WUTV and WNYO-TV's high definition feeds began to be carried locally by the provider. WUTV's HD feed was not available on the region's other cable provider, Atlantic Broadband, until 2012. The Time Warner Cable agreement was to expire at the end of 2010, and the two companies were late in reaching an agreement. In the event Sinclair had pulled WUTV from TWC, a separate agreement allows Fox programming to be piped in from out of market. This made WUTV particularly vulnerable to a prolonged blackout. It does not produce any local content, serving mostly as a "pass-through" for automated programming. Much of its syndicated programming can be seen on other cable channels, and much of its daytime programming consisted of infomercials. The dispute was resolved without a blackout.
On May 15, 2012, Sinclair Broadcast Group and Fox agreed to a five-year extension to the network's affiliation agreement with Sinclair's 19 Fox stations, including WUTV, allowing them to continue carrying the network's programming until 2017. GritTV was added to a subchannel in October-November 2014.
The second subchannel was affiliated with The Country Network until early 2017 when it was announced to be switching over to TBD. On June 1, 2017, both digital subchannels were replaced, 29.2 with the previously announced TBD and 29.3 with Charge!.

Averted loss of Fox affiliation; near-sale to Fox

On May 8, 2017, Sinclair announced that it would acquire Tribune Media for $3.9 billion. The deal is expected to receive FCC approval sometime in the first half of 2018. The deal has brought concerns by Fox who see Sinclair as a competitor towards conservative-leaning news, as well as increased leverage by Sinclair on reverse compensation to air Fox programming.
On August 2, 2017, it was reported that Fox Television Stations was in talks with Ion Media to create a joint venture that would own their respective stations. The partnership was said to include plans to shift affiliations from Sinclair stations in favor of Ion-owned stations, such as those whose affiliation agreements are soon to expire. In Buffalo's case, this would include shifting Fox from WUTV to WPXJ-TV. In the event that WUTV loses its Fox affiliation, the station may return to independent status.
The chances of WUTV keeping its Fox affiliation increased in October 2017 when Ion elected its stations to have must-carry status instead of retransmission consent, which the FCC ruled Ion must keep for three years. However, must-carry only applies to a main signal, allowing Fox to possibly affiliate with a digital subchannel on WPXJ-TV and other Ion stations.
On December 6, 2017, it was reported that Sinclair and Fox were working on a deal that would see its Fox affiliates renew their affiliation agreement in exchange for Sinclair selling some of its Fox affiliates directly to Fox Television Stations. The deal would see between six and ten Fox affiliates owned by Sinclair and Tribune become Fox owned-and-operated stations. It is not known if WUTV will be one of the stations sold, although the stations being sold to Fox are expected to be from Tribune Media, many of which were previously owned by Fox. A sale to Fox would make WUTV Buffalo's first Big Four network O&O since WBUF-TV, which was owned by NBC from 1955 until its sign-off in 1958. On May 9, 2018, Sinclair announced that seven Fox affiliates would be sold to FTS, but WUTV was not included and an affiliation renewal was announced for that station instead, keeping WUTV with Sinclair.

Digital television

Digital channels

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:
ChannelVideoAspectPSIP Short NameProgramming
29.1720pFOXMain WUTV programming / Fox
29.2480iTBDTBD
29.3480iChargeCharge!

Analog-to-digital conversion

WUTV discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over UHF channel 29, at 11:59 p.m. on February 17, 2009, the original target date in which full-power television stations in the United States were to transition from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate ; this made WUTV the first television station in Buffalo to switch to digital. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 14. Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former UHF analog channel 29.
As part of the SAFER Act, WUTV kept its analog signal on the air until March 3, 2009 to inform viewers of the digital television transition through a loop of public service announcements from the National Association of Broadcasters. WUTV, along with PBS member station WNED-TV were the only Buffalo television stations that did not terminate their analog signals on the new June 12 date.

Canadian coverage

Up until 2003, Rogers Cable carried WUTV in Ottawa and London, Ontario; that year, Rogers replaced WUTV with Detroit owned-and-operated station WJBK as the Fox station available in these markets. The reason for the switch in Ottawa was twofold. The main reason was that MCI, the company which microwaved U.S. network television signals to Ottawa from Rochester, New York, had decided to discontinue this service. Secondly, Rogers chose Detroit as the new source for U.S. television network signals because Canadian broadcasters were concerned about the increased Canadian advertising revenues that Buffalo stations would attract, were they to receive an expanded viewing audience across Ontario. Since Detroit is a much larger market than either Buffalo or Rochester, advertising prices would be much higher and it would therefore not be economical for Canadian businesses to purchase advertising time on such stations.
Although WUTV was the Fox affiliate available in Ottawa, Rogers decided to switch to WJBK in order to ensure uniformity in the source cities for all U.S. network television signals. Rogers switched to WJBK in the London market because the signal for the CBS affiliate available in London, WSEE-TV was of lower quality than that of Detroit's CBS station, WWJ-TV. Hence, Rogers' London system switched from WSEE-TV to WWJ-TV and, as in Ottawa, decided to switch its Fox affiliate from WUTV to WJBK for source city uniformity for the U.S. network signals. Rogers continues to carry WUTV in both standard and high definition for customers in the Golden Horseshoe, including Toronto.
Cogeco Cable carries WUTV in standard definition for its customers in the Golden Horseshoe, but carries WJBK in high definition. For many years, WUTV was carried on cable in Quebec as far east as Gaspe, and was once carried on cable in Montreal and Monteregie until 1997, when Vidéotron replaced WUTV with WFFF-TV in Burlington, Vermont. Originally, its sister station in Rochester, WUHF, was carried on cable in the Western Montreal suburbs during 1995. Those stations were the first Fox stations to be carried on cable in Montreal. It also returned temporarily when WFFF-TV was off the air for a brief time in the mid-2000s. WUTV was also carried via microwave on cable systems in Central New York, including the towns of Sullivan and Chittenango in the mid 1970s.
Because of its Canadian coverage, the station plays the respective American and Canadian national anthems "The Star-Spangled Banner" and "O Canada" and a display of both countries' national flags during its sign-off for maintenance on early Monday mornings between 3 and 5 a.m.

Programming

In addition to the Fox network schedule, syndicated programming on WUTV includes The People's Court, Judge Judy, Family Feud, Seinfeld, Two and a Half Men, America Says and 25 Words or Less among others.
Additionally, the station carries Bills games that air via the NFL on Fox. Since Fox began airing NFL games in 1994, WUTV is guaranteed to air at least two Bills games per season. Since 2014, however, WUTV can air more than two games via the NFL's cross-flex scheduling policy, along with a third guaranteed game starting in 2018 due to Fox's agreement to carry Thursday Night Football.

Newscasts

Until 2013, WUTV did not air news programming, making Buffalo the largest television market in the United States whose Fox affiliate did not offer any newscasts at all. The station long opted to air syndicated programming instead of carrying news programming, as it is within range of the Toronto market and features advertising targeted at Southern Ontario viewers, along with the large number of stations within the Buffalo market and those receivable in the market from Hamilton and Toronto that already produce local newscasts.
This lack of local news programming ended on April 8, 2013, as the 10 p.m. newscast produced by NBC affiliate WGRZ channel 2 moved from WNYO-TV to WUTV. Along with the move, it was expanded to seven nights per-week, and the station also announced plans to air an encore of the final hour of WGRZ's morning show on a one-hour delay. These moves were part of an effort to better compete against the WIVB-produced newscasts in the same timeslots on CW affiliate WNLO—both of which have been historically more successful even though WGRZ has surpassed WIVB in most of its main newscasts. Under the terms of the agreement to carry WGRZ's newscasts on WUTV, Sinclair Broadcast Group has no editorial control over the newscasts.
In addition to carrying WGRZ's newscasts, WHAM-TV meteorologists provide Fox 29 Weather Updates between programs.

Notable current on-air staff