WNLO (channel 23) is a
television station
A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity, such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the earth ...
in
Buffalo, New York
Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, and is across the Canadian border from South ...
, United States, airing programming from
The CW
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
. It is
owned and operated
In the broadcasting industry, an owned-and-operated station (frequently abbreviated as an O&O) usually refers to a television or radio station owned by the network with which it is associated. This distinguishes such a station from an affiliate ...
by network majority owner
Nexstar Media Group
Nexstar Media Group, Inc. is an American publicly traded media company with headquarter offices in Irving, Texas; Midtown Manhattan; and Chicago, Illinois. The company is the largest television station owner in the United States, owning 197 te ...
alongside
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...
affiliate
WIVB-TV
WIVB-TV (channel 4) is a television station in Buffalo, New York, United States, affiliated with CBS. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group alongside CW owned-and-operated station WNLO (channel 23). WIVB-TV and WNLO share studios on Elmwood Aven ...
(channel 4). WNLO and WIVB-TV share studios on Elmwood Avenue in
North Buffalo; through a
channel sharing agreement, the two stations transmit using WNLO's spectrum from a
tower
A tower is a tall Nonbuilding structure, structure, taller than it is wide, often by a significant factor. Towers are distinguished from guyed mast, masts by their lack of guy-wires and are therefore, along with tall buildings, self-supporting ...
in
Colden, New York
Colden is a town in Erie County, New York, United States. The population was 3,265 at the 2010 census. The town derives its name from Cadwallader D. Colden, a state senator. Colden is an interior town in the southeastern part of the county. It is ...
. However,
master control
Master control is the technical hub of a broadcast operation common among most over-the-air television stations and television networks. It is distinct from a production control room (PCR) in television studios where the activities such as sw ...
and some internal operations are based at
Springfield, Massachusetts
Springfield is a city in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, United States, and the seat of Hampden County. Springfield sits on the eastern bank of the Connecticut River near its confluence with three rivers: the western Westfield River, the ...
–licensed Nexstar
sister station
In broadcasting, sister stations or sister channels are radio or television stations operated by the same company, either by direct ownership or through a management agreement.
Radio sister stations will often have different formats, and somet ...
and
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...
affiliate
WWLP
WWLP (channel 22) is a television station in Springfield, Massachusetts, United States, affiliated with NBC and The CW Plus. Owned by Nexstar Media Group, the station has studios at Broadcast Center in the Sandy Hill section of Chicopee at the ...
's studios in
Chicopee.
History
As a PBS member station (1987–2001)
The station signed on the air as WNEQ-TV on May 13, 1987, and was the second
public television
Public broadcasting involves radio, television and other electronic media outlets whose primary mission is public service. Public broadcasters receive funding from diverse sources including license fees, individual contributions, public financing ...
outlet serving the Buffalo
market
Market is a term used to describe concepts such as:
*Market (economics), system in which parties engage in transactions according to supply and demand
*Market economy
*Marketplace, a physical marketplace or public market
Geography
*Märket, an ...
. It was operated under an
educational
Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. Vari ...
license and was sister station to
WNED-TV
WNED-TV (channel 17) is a PBS member television station in Buffalo, New York, United States. It is owned by the Western New York Public Broadcasting Association (doing business as Buffalo Toronto Public Media) alongside NPR member WBFO (88.7 ...
(channel 17), which had a commercial license but operated as an educational station (WNED-TV operated on channel 17 because of the donation of equipment to it by
WBUF-TV
WBUF-TV was a television station that broadcast on ultra high frequency (UHF) channel 17 in Buffalo, New York, United States. It broadcast from August 17, 1953, to February 1955 and again from March 1955 until the morning of October 1, 1958.
Th ...
, a defunct commercial station). The analog UHF channel 23 allocation was originally intended to be part of a plan for a statewide public television network (the concept of which would much later become
ThinkBright) that would have seen a signature tower housing transmitters for channel 23 as well as
WBFO (88.7 FM) on the
University at Buffalo
The State University of New York at Buffalo, commonly called the University at Buffalo (UB) and sometimes called SUNY Buffalo, is a public research university with campuses in Buffalo and Amherst, New York. The university was founded in 1846 ...
's
Amherst Campus. Studios were to be located there as well during development of the futuristic "New U.B." complex in the 1970s. Budget constraints curbed the plan and years of tension between the university and WNED-TV board members ended allowing the station to go forward with its plans for the UHF channel.
WNEQ-TV's broadcast day began daily at 4 p.m. and it usually aired between six and seven hours of programming per day. In 1992, many cable providers in
Hamilton Hamilton may refer to:
People
* Hamilton (name), a common British surname and occasional given name, usually of Scottish origin, including a list of persons with the surname
** The Duke of Hamilton, the premier peer of Scotland
** Lord Hamilt ...
and
Niagara began carrying WNEQ-TV, displacing long-standing
WQLN from
Erie, Pennsylvania
Erie (; ) is a city on the south shore of Lake Erie and the county seat of Erie County, Pennsylvania, United States. Erie is the fifth largest city in Pennsylvania and the largest city in Northwestern Pennsylvania with a population of 94,831 a ...
, in the process. In fall 1998, most of the cable providers in those regions started to remove WNEQ as they were struggling with limited channel capacity and because it had a limited daily program schedule. One year later,
Rogers Cable
Rogers Cable Inc. is Canada's largest cable television service provider with about 2.25 million television customers, and over 930,000 Internet subscribers, primarily in Southern & Eastern Ontario, New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador. Ro ...
began carrying WNEQ on its digital tier for customers in the
Greater Toronto Area
The Greater Toronto Area, commonly referred to as the GTA, includes the City of Toronto and the regional municipalities of Durham, Halton, Peel, and York. In total, the region contains 25 urban, suburban, and rural municipalities. The Greater T ...
.
The Buffalo market was unable to support two public stations, and both WNEQ-TV and WNED-TV struggled financially. As a result, the educational foundation put WNEQ-TV up for sale.
LIN TV
LIN Media was an American holding company founded in 1994 that operated 43 television stations. All except one were affiliates of the television in the United States#Major broadcast networks, six major U.S. television networks. One of the re ...
(owner of CBS affiliate WIVB-TV) wanted to buy WNEQ-TV and run it as a commercial station. However, that was problematic because WNEQ-TV was operating under an educational license. One solution was for LIN to instead purchase WNED-TV (which already had a commercial license), resulting in WNEQ-TV becoming the area's primary PBS station. This solution was also rejected, since UHF channel 17 had long been established as a PBS station and a move to channel 23 might cause confusion among viewers, potentially reducing the amount of donations that the viewer-supported station would receive.
In 2000, the
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdiction ...
(FCC) agreed to reassign channel 23 to a commercial license and assigned channel 17 an educational license. Consequently, the Buffalo market retained an educational-licensed station and LIN TV was permitted to purchase the converted-to-commercial WNEQ-TV.
As a commercial station (2001–present)
In March 2001, LIN closed on its purchase of WNEQ-TV and converted it to a general entertainment
independent station
An independent station is an independent radio or terrestrial television station which is independent in some way from broadcast networks. The definition of "independence" varies from country to country, reflecting governmental regulations, market ...
under the call sign WNLO, though it would not merge its transmitter facilities with new sister station WIVB until 2019, instead continuing to transmit from the WNED tower. In 2003, WNLO secured the
UPN
The United Paramount Network (UPN) was an American broadcast television network that launched on January 16, 1995. It was originally owned by Chris-Craft Industries' United Television. Viacom (through its Paramount Television unit, which pr ...
affiliation for the Buffalo market when the network's affiliation agreement with the weaker-rated WNGS (channel 67, now
WBBZ-TV
WBBZ-TV (channel 67) is an independent television station licensed to Springville, New York, United States, serving the Buffalo area. It is owned by ITV of Buffalo, a company controlled by former news photographer Philip A. Arno. WBBZ-TV's stu ...
) expired. On cable in Toronto, WNLO was replaced with
WTVS
WTVS (channel 56) is a PBS member television station in Detroit, Michigan, United States, owned by the Detroit Educational Television Foundation. Its main studios are located at the Riley Broadcast Center and HD Studios in Wixom, with an addi ...
from
Detroit
Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at th ...
in January 2001 when it relaunched as a commercial station. In 2005, Rogers submitted a successful request to the
Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC; french: Conseil de la radiodiffusion et des télécommunications canadiennes, links=) is a public organization in Canada with mandate as a regulatory agency for broadcasti ...
(CRTC) to allow carriage of WNLO in
Ontario
Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...
. The station would not compete on advertising revenue from the Toronto area (as Rogers suggested with another Buffalo station it carried,
WNYO-TV
WNYO-TV (channel 49) is a television station in Buffalo, New York, United States, affiliated with MyNetworkTV. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group alongside Fox affiliate WUTV (channel 29). Both stations share studios on Hertel Avenue near ...
) and the signal was also available over-the-air in a good portion of the
Golden Horseshoe
The Golden Horseshoe is a secondary region of Southern Ontario, Canada, which lies at the western end of Lake Ontario, with outer boundaries stretching south to Lake Erie and north to Lake Scugog, Lake Simcoe and Georgian Bay of Lake Huron. The ...
of
Southern Ontario
Southern Ontario is a primary region of the province of Ontario, Canada, the other primary region being Northern Ontario. It is the most densely populated and southernmost region in Canada. The exact northern boundary of Southern Ontario is disp ...
.
On January 24, 2006,
CBS Corporation
The second incarnation of CBS Corporation (the first being a short-lived rename of the Westinghouse Electric Corporation) was an American multinational media conglomerate with interests primarily in commercial broadcasting, publishing, and t ...
and
Time Warner
Warner Media, LLC ( traded as WarnerMedia) was an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate. It was headquartered at the 30 Hudson Yards complex in New York City, United States.
It was originally established in 1972 by ...
announced the shutdown of both UPN and
The WB
The WB Television Network (for Warner Bros., or the "Frog Network", for its former mascot, Michigan J. Frog) was an American television network launched on broadcast television on January 11, 1995, as a joint venture between the Warner Bros. ...
effective that fall. In place of these two networks, a new "fifth" network—"
The CW
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
" (its name representing the first initials of parent companies
CBS and
Warner), jointly owned by both companies, would launch, with a lineup primarily featuring the most popular programs from both networks. On February 22,
News Corporation
News Corporation (abbreviated News Corp.), also variously known as News Corporation Limited, was an American multinational mass media corporation controlled by media mogul Rupert Murdoch and headquartered at 1211 Avenue of the Americas in Ne ...
announced it would start up another new network called
MyNetworkTV
MyNetworkTV (unofficially abbreviated MyTV, MyNet, MNT or MNTV, and sometimes referred to as My Network) is an American commercial broadcast television syndication service and former television network owned by Fox Corporation, operated by its ...
. This new service, which would be a sister network to
Fox
Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush'').
Twelve sp ...
, would be operated by
Fox Television Stations
Fox Television Stations, LLC (FTS; alternately Fox Television Stations Group, LLC), is a group of television stations located within the United States, which are owned-and-operated by the Fox Broadcasting Company, a subsidiary of the Fox Corp ...
and its syndication division
Twentieth Television
20th Television (formerly 20th Century Fox Television, 20th Century-Fox Television, and TCF Television Productions, Inc.) is an American television production company that is a division of Disney Television Studios, part of The Walt Disney Comp ...
. MyNetworkTV was created in order to give UPN and WB stations that were not mentioned as becoming CW affiliates another option besides becoming an independent station, as well as to compete against The CW. In April, WNLO removed the UPN branding from its station logo following the lead of News Corporation's UPN affiliates. MyNetworkTV launched on September 5 on
Sinclair Broadcast Group
Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. (SBG) is a publicly traded American telecommunications conglomerate that is controlled by the descendants of company founder Julian Sinclair Smith. Headquartered in the Baltimore suburb of Cockeysville, Maryland, t ...
-owned WNYO-TV (channel 49), while WNLO became part of The CW upon its launch on September 18, 2006.
On November 2 of that year, WNLO began broadcasting CW network programming in high definition on its digital signal. Until this point, it was rebroadcasting WIVB-TV's
high definition feed, because UPN had little to no HD programming to broadcast. On May 18, 2007, LIN TV announced the company was exploring strategic alternatives that could have resulted in its sale. In early July 2007, WNLO launched its own website; previously, the station's web page was merely a separate section within WIVB-TV's website.
On March 10, 2010, the station acquired a universal cable channel slot on Time Warner Cable systems throughout
Western New York
Western New York (WNY) is the westernmost region of the U.S. state of New York. The eastern boundary of the region is not consistently defined by state agencies or those who call themselves "Western New Yorkers". Almost all sources agree WNY in ...
after years of being on different channels throughout the provider's service area. The station moved to channel 11 because Time Warner Cable ended a reserve for former channel 11 slot holder WNGS, which had been off the air for several months. Most cable providers had previously placed WNLO on channel 9, which had to be cleared for the move of TWC's in-house cable-only news channel
YNN Buffalo from cable channel 14, which had not been available to all of its subscribers.
On March 21, 2014, it was announced that
Media General
Media General was an American media company based in Richmond, Virginia. The company's origins can be traced back to 1887 when Richmond attorney Joseph Bryan acquired ''The Richmond Daily Times'', which later became ''The Richmond Times-Dispatch' ...
would acquire LIN. The merger was completed on December 19, bringing WIVB-TV and WNLO under common ownership with
ABC
ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet.
ABC or abc may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting
* American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster
** Disney–ABC Television ...
affiliate
WTEN
WTEN (channel 10) is a television station licensed to Albany, New York, United States, serving the Capital District as an affiliate of ABC. Owned by Nexstar Media Group, it is a sister station to Fox affiliate WXXA-TV (channel 23, also licens ...
and under the same management as Fox affiliate
WXXA-TV
WXXA-TV (channel 23) is a television station licensed to Albany, New York, United States, serving the Capital District as an affiliate of the Fox network. It is owned by Mission Broadcasting and operated under a shared services agreement (SSA ...
, both in
Albany.
On January 27, 2016, Media General announced that it had entered into a definite agreement to be acquired by
Nexstar Broadcasting Group
Nexstar Media Group, Inc. is an American publicly traded media company with headquarter offices in Irving, Texas; Midtown Manhattan; and Chicago, Illinois. The company is the largest television station owner in the United States, owning 197 te ...
. The combined company is now known as "Nexstar Media Group," and owns 171 stations (including WIVB and WNLO).
Programming
WNLO can be considered an alternate CBS affiliate as it simulcasts the ''
CBS Overnight News
''CBS Overnight News'' is an American overnight news broadcasting that is broadcast on CBS during the early morning hours each Monday through Friday. The program maintains a infotainment format, incorporating national, international and busine ...
'' and the ''
CBS Morning News
The ''CBS Morning News'' is an American early-morning news broadcast presented weekdays on the CBS television network. The program features late-breaking news stories, national weather forecasts and sports highlights. Since 2013, it has been anc ...
'' from WIVB-TV. The station is also responsible for airing CBS programs when WIVB-TV is unable or otherwise chooses not to air a program due to local or
syndicated programming commitments. Syndicated programming on WNLO as of September 2020 includes ''
The Good Dish
''The Dr. Oz Show'' (or simply ''Oz'') is an American syndicated daytime television talk show, hosted by Mehmet Oz, that aired between September 14, 2009, and January 14, 2022. Each episode features segments on health, wellness, and medical infor ...
'', ''
The Real
In continental philosophy, the Real refers to the remainder of reality that cannot be expressed, and which surpasses reasoning. In Lacanianism, it is an "impossible" category because of its opposition to expression and inconceivability.
In ...
'', ''
Tamron Hall
Tamron Hall (born September 16, 1970) is an American broadcast journalist and television talk show host. In September 2019, Hall debuted her self-titled syndicated daytime talk show, which earned her a Daytime Emmy Award. Hall was formerly a ...
'', ''
The Drew Barrymore Show
''The Drew Barrymore Show'' (often shortened to ''Drew'') is a first-run syndicated American talk show hosted by actress Drew Barrymore. The show is distributed by CBS Media Ventures and debuted on September 14, 2020. In April 2022, the show w ...
'', and ''
The Wendy Williams Show
''The Wendy Williams Show'' (often shortened to ''Wendy'') is an American syndicated talk show created and hosted by Wendy Williams, and produced by Wendy Williams Productions, along with Perler Productions. The show is distributed by Debmar- ...
'' among others.
In 2015, WNLO acquired
Raycom Sports
Raycom Sports is an American producer of sports television programs. It is headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, and owned and operated by Gray Television.
It was founded in 1979 by husband and wife, Rick and Dee Ray. In the 1980s, Raycom ...
's
ACC Network
ACC Network (ACCN) is an American multinational subscription-television channel owned and operated by ESPN Inc. Dedicated to coverage of the Atlantic Coast Conference, it was announced in July 2016 and launched on August 22, 2019. The channel o ...
package of
college football
College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States.
Unlike most ...
and men's
basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...
broadcasts from the
Atlantic Coast Conference
The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) is a collegiate athletic conference located in the eastern United States. Headquartered in Greensboro, North Carolina, the ACC's fifteen member universities compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Associa ...
. The ACC package had previously aired on WBBZ-TV for the previous two seasons.
In April 2019, WNLO announced the acquisition of a package of
Buffalo Bisons
The Buffalo Bisons (known colloquially as the Herd) are a Minor League Baseball team of the International League and the Triple-A affiliate of the Toronto Blue Jays. Located in Buffalo, New York, the team plays their home games at Sahlen ...
Minor League Baseball games, mostly on Saturday nights, once approximately every two weeks.
Newscasts
After WIVB-TV took over operations of WNLO in March 2001, the CBS affiliate began producing a nightly half-hour prime time newscast on channel 23. Known as ''The 10 O'Clock News'', it competed with another newscast in the timeslot on Pax affiliate WPXJ-TV that was produced by
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...
affiliate
WGRZ
WGRZ (channel 2) is a television station in Buffalo, New York, United States, affiliated with NBC and owned by Tegna Inc. The station's studios are located on Delaware Avenue in downtown Buffalo, and its transmitter is located on Warner Hill ...
(channel 2; it was eventually dropped in 2003). On April 20, 2006, WGRZ started producing a half-hour prime time newscast for The WB (now MyNetworkTV) affiliate WNYO-TV (WNYO-TV briefly had its own
News Central
''News Central'' is an American series of primetime newscast television programs on television stations owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group. The programs mixed locally produced news with nationally produced news and an opinion segment from S ...
-based newscast from 2005 to 2006). In order to gain more viewers than WNLO, the second WGRZ 10 p.m. newscast originally featured ten minutes of news and weather, with the rest of the half-hour dedicated to sports. However, due to low ratings, the sports segment was reduced to a traditional segment seen after weather.
WNLO consistently led WNYO-TV in the ratings, for a number of reasons. By May 2011, it was the highest-rated late newscast (10 or 11 p.m.) in all of Western New York among viewers 18 to 54, beating all of the market's 11 p.m. newscasts; among total viewers, it trails WGRZ and sister station WIVB-TV. On February 2, 2009, WNLO began airing a two-hour extension of WIVB-TV's weekday morning newscast. Known as ''Wake Up! on CW 23'', it aired from 7 to 9 a.m., and competed against WIVB-TV's broadcast of ''
The Early Show
''The Early Show'' is an American morning television show that aired on CBS from November 1, 1999 to January 7, 2012, and the ninth attempt at a morning news-talk program by the network since 1954. The program aired Monday through Friday from ...
''. The station airs its own locally produced morning talk show, ''Winging It! Buffalo Style'' during the 8 a.m. hour, which upon its debut, reduced WNLO's ''Wake Up!'' newscast to one hour. The station also rebroadcasts WIVB-TV's hour-long weekend morning newscast, ''Weekend Wake Up!'', from noon to 1 p.m., and simulcasts that station's hour-long 6 p.m. newscast on Sunday nights.
On February 1, 2012, WIVB-TV became the third and last television station in the Buffalo market to begin broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition; the newscasts that WIVB-TV produces for WNLO were included in the upgrade. On January 6, 2014, WIVB-TV expanded the 10:00 weeknight newscast on WNLO to one hour (the move was originally planned to maintain a lead-in for ''
The Arsenio Hall Show
''The Arsenio Hall Show'' is an American syndicated late-night talk show created by and starring comedian Arsenio Hall.
There have been two different incarnations of ''The Arsenio Hall Show''. The original series premiered on January 3, 1989, ...
'', which the station had planned to air at 10:30 but could not get the syndicator to distribute until 11:00; that show would be canceled in May, while the newscast remains at its full length). The newscast remains a half-hour on weekends. In either 2013 or 2014, the WNLO portion of ''Wake-Up!'' expanded to 2 hours, once again from 7:00–9:00 a.m., moving ''Winging It! Buffalo Style'' to 9:00 a.m.; ''Winging It! Buffalo Style'' was canceled effective January 2015.
In December 2017, WIVB announced that it would begin producing a half-hour early evening newscast at 6:30 p.m. for WNLO which premiered on January 15, 2018, serving as a local alternative to the national network evening news programs seen on WGRZ,
WKBW-TV
WKBW-TV (channel 7) is a television station in Buffalo, New York, United States, affiliated with American Broadcasting Company, ABC. Owned by the E. W. Scripps Company, the station maintains studios at 7 Broadcast Plaza in downtown Buffalo and ...
and WIVB.
Technical information
Subchannels
The station's digital signal is
multiplexed
In telecommunications and computer networking, multiplexing (sometimes contracted to muxing) is a method by which multiple analog or digital signals are combined into one signal over a shared medium. The aim is to share a scarce resource - a ...
:
In June 2013, WNLO announced it would begin carrying
Bounce TV, an African American-oriented television network, on its second
digital subchannel
In broadcasting, digital subchannels are a method of transmitting more than one independent program stream simultaneously from the same digital radio or television station on the same radio frequency channel. This is done by using data compress ...
; the network began to be carried on channel 23.2 on July 1.
Analog-to-digital conversion
WNLO discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over
UHF channel 23, at 9 a.m. on June 12, 2009, the official 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 32.
Through the use of
PSIP
The Program and System Information Protocol (PSIP) is the MPEG (a video and audio industry group) and privately defined program-specific information originally defined by General Instrument for the DigiCipher 2 system and later extended for the AT ...
, digital television receivers display the station's
virtual channel
In most telecommunications organizations, a virtual channel is a method of remapping the ''program number'' as used in H.222 Program Association Tables and Program Mapping Tables to a channel number that can be entered via digits on a receiver's ...
as its former UHF analog channel 23. The UHF channel 23 allotment formerly allocated to WNLO for its analog signal is now used for the digital signal of
Ion Television
Ion Television is an American broadcast television network owned by the Katz Broadcasting subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company. The network first began broadcasting on August 31, 1998, as Pax TV, focusing primarily on family-oriented enter ...
owned-and-operated station
In the broadcasting industry, an owned-and-operated station (frequently abbreviated as an O&O) usually refers to a television or radio station owned by the network with which it is associated. This distinguishes such a station from an affiliate ...
WPXJ-TV (virtual channel 51).
WIVB began to share WNLO's physical channel in summer 2018 after Nexstar sold WIVB's existing spectrum in the FCC transition auction, moving to the WNLO/WNED tower temporarily. In the summer of 2019, WNLO/WIVB shifted to its post-transition channel, and began to transmit from the
WIVB-TV Tower
The WIVB-TV Tower is a guyed steel mast located at 8242 Center Street in Colden, New York, United States. The tower site was first used in 1948 by the ''Buffalo Evening News'' as the main broadcast tower for WIVB-TV (channel 4, the former WBEN-T ...
in Colden, and merged the two stations' operations fully together, including physical
transmitter
In electronics and telecommunications, a radio transmitter or just transmitter is an electronic device which produces radio waves with an antenna (radio), antenna. The transmitter itself generates a radio frequency alternating current, which i ...
.
Carriage disputes
In October 2008, LIN TV broke off all retransmission deals with Time Warner Cable. LIN TV was demanding a fee of 25 cents per month per subscriber to carry each of its stations as it is entitled to under federal
must carry
In cable television, governments apply a must-carry regulation stating that locally licensed television stations must be carried on a cable provider's system.
North America Canada
Under current CRTC regulations, the lowest tier of service on ...
regulations. TWC had initially refused to accept these fees and, on October 2, WNLO and sister station WIVB-TV were removed from the provider's lineups. LIN TV and TWC reached an agreement for the two stations and each were returned to the cable provider's lineup on October 30. As part of the agreement, WNLO's high definition signal began to be carried on TWC's digital tier for the first time. Another retransmission consent dispute threatened to take WIVB-TV and WNLO off
Dish Network
DISH Network Corporation (DISH, an acronym for DIgital Sky Highway) is an American television provider and the owner of the direct-broadcast satellite provider Dish, commonly known as Dish Network, and the over-the-top IPTV service, Sling TV. A ...
lineups in March 2011.
WNLO is not available in portions of
Cattaraugus County that are served by
Atlantic Broadband
Breezeline (previously Atlantic Broadband) is the trade name for the United States operations of Cogeco Communications, constituting the 8th largest cable operator in the United States, based on the number of television service customers served ...
, where
WSEE-DT2 out of Erie, Pennsylvania is used as a less expensive alternative.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wnlo
The CW affiliates
Rewind TV affiliates
Television channels and stations established in 1987
NLO
Nexstar Media Group
1987 establishments in New York (state)