WWOR-TV (channel 9) is a television station licensed to

Secaucus, New Jersey Secaucus ( ) is a town in Hudson County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States census, the town's population was 16,264,New York City area as the

flagship A flagship is a vessel used by the commanding officer of a group of naval ships, characteristically a flag officer entitled by custom to fly a distinguishing flag. Used more loosely, it is the lead ship in a fleet of vessels, typically the fi ...

of MyNetworkTV. It is owned and operated by Fox Television Stations alongside

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''). Twelv ...

flagship WNYW (channel 5). Both stations share studios at the Fox Television Center on East 67th Street in Manhattan's

Lenox Hill Lenox Hill () is a neighborhood on Manhattan's Upper East Side. It forms the lower section of the Upper East Side—east of Park Avenue in the 60s and 70s. A significant portion of the neighborhood lies within the Upper East Side Historic Dist ...

neighborhood, while WWOR-TV's transmitter is located at One World Trade Center.

History

WOR-TV (1949–1987)

Early history

Channel 9 signed on the air on October 11, 1949, as WOR-TV. It was owned by the Bamberger Broadcasting Service (a division of R.H. Macy and Company and named after the

Bamberger's Bamberger's was a department store chain with branches primarily in New Jersey and other locations in Delaware, Maryland, New York, and Pennsylvania. The chain was headquartered in Newark, New Jersey. History 1892–1912 Newark was known for ma ...

department store chain), which also operated WOR (710 AM) and WOR-FM (98.7 FM, now WEPN-FM). Exactly ten months earlier, Bamberger launched Washington, D.C.'s fourth television station, WOIC (now

WUSA WUSA or wusa may refer to: * Women's United Soccer Association (defunct), the world's first women's professional association football league, based in the United States * ''WUSA'' (film), a 1970 drama film * WUSA (TV), a television station (chann ...

), also on channel 9. WOR-TV entered the New York market as the last of the city's

VHF Very high frequency (VHF) is the ITU designation for the range of radio frequency electromagnetic waves (radio waves) from 30 to 300 megahertz (MHz), with corresponding wavelengths of ten meters to one meter. Frequencies immediately below VHF ...

stations to sign on, and one of three independents—the others being WPIX (channel 11) and Newark, New Jersey-based WATV (channel 13). On WOR-TV's opening night, a welcome address was read by WOR radio's morning host, John B. Gambling. However, the audio portion of the speech was not heard because of a technical glitch. The problem was fixed and Gambling repeated the message later that evening, prior to the station's sign-off. That first broadcast and other early WOR-TV shows emanated from the New Amsterdam Theatre's Roof Garden, located west of Times Square. For a short time, the station's transmitter operated from WOR TV Tower in North Bergen, New Jersey, and was later moved to the

Empire State Building The Empire State Building is a 102-story Art Deco skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The building was designed by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon and built from 1930 to 1931. Its name is derived from "Empire State", the nickname of the st ...

. At the start of 1950, Bamberger Broadcasting changed its name to General Teleradio. Later that year, WOIC was sold to a joint venture of '' The Washington Post'' and CBS, who would change that station's call sign to WTOP-TV. In 1951, the station moved uptown to the newly constructed "9 Television Square" facility at 101 West 67th Street. The West 67th Street studio was built from the ground up as a television facility. Initially built by the Robert Gless Co. for the Bamberger Broadcasting Service, the building itself was owned by the Macy's employee pension fund, and it had been leased prior to completion to Thomas S. Lee Enterprises (a company that was later absorbed into RKO General). Lee, the son of the broadcasting pioneer Don Lee, owned several Mutual Network stations on the West Coast, and held a 25-year lease on the building running January 1952 to January 1977. Soon after the building was completed in 1952, Macy's–Bamberger's merged the WOR stations with the General Tire and Rubber Company, which already had broadcasting interests in three cities through two other subsidiaries: the regional Yankee Radio Network and WNAC AM– FM– TV in Boston; and the Don Lee Broadcasting System, which operated KHJ AM– FM– TV in Los Angeles and KFRC AM– FM in San Francisco. The subsidiaries were then brought together under the General Teleradio name. The main impetus for the merger was to give General Tire a controlling share in the Mutual Radio Network, which was affiliated with and partially owned by WOR and other stations. The merger also raised speculation that Mutual would launch a television network, plans that were discussed since before WOR-TV went on the air but ultimately did not come to fruition. After a transitional period, WOR relocated TV operations to their headquarters at 1440 Broadway closer to its radio station sisters and to a new compact studio for news and special events programming located on the 83rd floor of the Empire State Building. In early 1954, RKO sublet the 67th Street facility (both building and TV equipment) to NBC for three years with options for extensions. In 1955, General Tire purchased RKO Radio Pictures, giving the company's TV stations access to RKO's film library, and in 1959, General Tire's broadcasting and film divisions were renamed as RKO General. During the 1950s and early 1960s, all three of New York's independents struggled to find competitive and acceptable programming. The field would increase by one in 1956 when former DuMont flagship station

WABD WABD (97.5 FM) is an American radio station licensed to serve the community of Mobile, Alabama. The station, established in 1973 as WABB-FM, is owned and operated by Cumulus Media. Its studios are on Dauphin Street in Midtown Mobile, and it ...

(channel 5) became an independent. During this era, WOR-TV's programming was comparable to its rivals, with a blend of movies, children's programs, cancelled TV series which had previously run on one of the networks and public affairs shows. In 1962, the field of independent stations was narrowed to three, as WOR-TV and its competition benefited from the sale of WNTA-TV (channel 13) to the non-profit Educational Broadcasting Corporation, who would convert the station to a

non-commercial educational A non-commercial educational station (NCE station) is a radio station or television station that does not accept on-air advertisements (TV ads or radio ads), as defined in the United States by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and was or ...

station. For much of the 1960s, WOR-TV was a standard independent station with a schedule composed of some local public affairs shows, off-network programs, children's shows such as '' The Friendly Giant'' (which later moved to WNDT) and '' Romper Room'' (which moved to the station from WNEW-TV in 1966), sporting events, and a large catalog of movies, some of which came from the RKO Radio Pictures film library. Until 1985, the station had a tradition of showing '' King Kong'', '' Son of Kong'' and '' Mighty Joe Young'' on Thanksgiving and '' Godzilla'' films the

day after Thanksgiving Black Friday is a colloquial term for the Friday after Thanksgiving (United States), Thanksgiving in the United States. It traditionally marks the start of the Christmas shopping season in the United States. Many stores offer highly promote ...

. In 1962, nostalgia maven Joe Franklin moved his daily talk program to WOR-TV, after a 12-year run on WABC-TV. ''The Joe Franklin Show'' ended on August 6, 1993, which, having run for 42 years, makes it one of the longest-running programs in television history, local or national. The long-running public affairs show '' Firing Line'' began on WOR-TV in 1966 and ran on the station until 1971, after which its host, William F. Buckley, Jr., moved the program to public television where the program aired until it ended in 1999. In 1968, the station continued to maintain offices at 1440 Broadway, while the station moved to new studio facilities two blocks north at 1481 Broadway.

1970s

By the early 1970s, WNEW-TV evolved into the leading station for cartoons and sitcoms, while WPIX aired a similar format though with more movies. In the early 1970s, WOR-TV had shows such as '' The Beverly Hillbillies'', '' The Dick Van Dyke Show'', ''

Gilligan's Island ''Gilligan's Island'' is an American sitcom created and produced by Sherwood Schwartz. The show's ensemble cast features Bob Denver, Alan Hale Jr., Jim Backus, Natalie Schafer, Tina Louise, Russell Johnson and Dawn Wells. It aired for thr ...

'' and ''

The Avengers Avenger, Avengers, The Avenger, or The Avengers may refer to: Arts and entertainment In the Marvel Comics universe * Avengers (comics), a team of superheroes ** Avengers (Marvel Cinematic Universe), a central team of protagonist superheroes o ...

''. But channel 9 was behind the other two independents in the local ratings. Beginning in 1971, the station began gradually seeking a different programming strategy—one that was more adult-oriented with a heavy emphasis on films, reruns of hour-long network dramas, game shows and sports. The station also gradually phased out most sitcoms and all children's programming with the exception of ''Romper Room.'' It was also the first New York City station to have a 12 p.m. newscast on weekdays, in addition to producing several hours a day of local talk shows (such as ''The Joe Franklin Show'', ''Straight Talk'' and public affairs shows such as ''Meet the Mayors'', titles that were shared by other RKO General television stations). Later in the 1970s, WOR-TV looked towards the United Kingdom for alternative offerings. On September 6, 1976, WOR-TV offered a week of programs from Thames Television during prime time; many of these shows had never before been seen on American television, including the first U.S. telecasts of '' The Benny Hill Show'', the Quentin Crisp

biopic A biographical film or biopic () is a film that dramatizes the life of a non-fictional or historically-based person or people. Such films show the life of a historical person and the central character's real name is used. They differ from docudra ...

'' The Naked Civil Servant'', and an airing of an episode of '' Man About the House'', which would be adapted by ABC as '' Three's Company'' the following year. WOR-TV also aired episodes of the ITV musical drama '' Rock Follies'' and the BBC science-fiction series ''

Doctor Who ''Doctor Who'' is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series depicts the adventures of a Time Lord called the Doctor, an extraterrestrial being who appears to be human. The Doctor explores the u ...

'' during this period. On April 5, 1980, WOR-TV presented ''Japan Tonight!'', a seven-hour block of programs from Japan's Tokyo Broadcasting System, featuring shows that were either dubbed or subtitled in English. During this period, various sports telecasts aired on most nights in prime time, with feature films running on nights where sports did not air under the ''Million Dollar Movie'' banner. Despite its ambitious programming, WOR-TV was perceived by people that preferred a more traditional independent to be an also-ran, even though the station was very profitable for RKO General. In 1984, WOR-TV began moving classic sitcoms like ''

Bewitched ''Bewitched'' is an American fantasy sitcom television series that originally aired for eight seasons on ABC from September 17, 1964, to March 25, 1972. It is about a witch who marries an ordinary mortal man and vows to lead the life of a typic ...

'', ''

Burns & Allen Burns and Allen was an American comedy duo consisting of George Burns and his wife, Gracie Allen. They worked together as a successful comedy team that entertained vaudeville, film, radio, and television audiences for over forty years. The du ...

'', ''

I Dream of Jeannie ''I Dream of Jeannie'' is an American fantasy sitcom television series, created by Sidney Sheldon that starred Barbara Eden as a sultry, 2,000-year-old genie and Larry Hagman, as an astronaut with whom she falls in love and eventually marrie ...

'', and others into its weekday lineup, focused slightly less on sports, and added more off network drama shows to the lineup. The station also pulled back

religious programming Religious broadcasting, sometimes referred to as faith-based broadcasts, is the dissemination of television and/or radio content that intentionally has religious ideas, religious experience, or religious practice as its core focus. In some coun ...

as well, pushing it earlier in the morning. With the advent of cable and satellite-delivered television, independent stations were being uplinked for regional and national distribution, thus becoming "

superstation ''Superstation'' (alternatively rendered as "super station" or informally as "SuperStation") is a term in North American broadcasting that has several meanings. Commonly, a "superstation" is a form of distant signal, a terrestrial television, br ...

s". In April 1979,

Syracuse, New York Syracuse ( ) is a City (New York), city in and the county seat of Onondaga County, New York, Onondaga County, New York, United States. It is the fifth-most populous city in the state of New York following New York City, Buffalo, New York, Buffa ...

-based Eastern Microwave, Inc. began distributing WOR-TV to cable and C-band satellite subscribers across the United States, joining WTBS (now WPCH-TV) in Atlanta and

WGN-TV WGN-TV (channel 9) is an Independent station (North America), independent television station in Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, United States. Owned by Nexstar Media Group, it is sister station, sister to the company's sole radio property, talk ra ...

in Chicago as national superstations.

Troubles with the FCC

While WOR-TV was gaining national exposure, a battle for the station's survival—and that of its owner—was well underway. In 1975, RKO applied for renewal of its license to operate WOR-TV. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) conditioned this renewal on that of its Boston sister station, WNAC-TV. In 1980, the FCC stripped RKO of WNAC-TV's license due to a litany of offenses dating back to the 1960s, but ultimately because RKO had withheld evidence of corporate misconduct by General Tire. The decision meant that RKO lost WOR-TV's license and that of Los Angeles sister station KHJ-TV. However, an appeals court ruled that the FCC had erred in tying WOR-TV and KHJ-TV's renewals to WNAC-TV, and ordered new proceedings. RKO soon found itself under renewed pressure from the FCC, which began soliciting applications for all of the company's broadcast licenses in February 1983.

Move to New Jersey

In order to buy itself some time, RKO (with the help of New Jersey senator

Bill Bradley William Warren Bradley (born July 28, 1943) is an American politician and former professional basketball player. He served three terms as a Democratic U.S. senator from New Jersey (1979–1997). He ran for the Democratic Party's nomination f ...

) persuaded the U.S. Congress to pass a law requiring the FCC to automatically renew the license of any VHF station that moved its license to a state not served by a commercial VHF station. New Jersey and Delaware were the only states not to be served by a commercial VHF station, and there were complaints for many years that New Jersey in particular had been "underserved" by VHF stations from the New York City and Philadelphia markets (New Jersey was left without any commercial VHF allocations located within the state due to the 1962 conversion of Newark's channel 13 to a non-commercial outlet). Soon after this law took effect, RKO moved WOR-TV's license to Secaucus, New Jersey ( west of Manhattan) on April 20, 1983. However, for all intents and purposes, it remained a New York City station. WOR radio had originally been licensed to Newark when it signed on in 1922; while it moved its studios across the Hudson River in 1926, it remained licensed in Newark until 1941. One of the FCC's conditions of renewing channel 9's license required RKO to also move the station's main studio to New Jersey. Three years after its city of license was moved to New Jersey, WOR-TV moved its operations to the newly built Nine Broadcast Plaza in Secaucus on January 13, 1986. The FCC also required channel 9 to increase its coverage of events on the New Jersey side of the market. One month later, the New Jersey State Senate petitioned the FCC to approve an extension of the channel 9 signal into southern New Jersey. Because of various other issues, one of which would be the fact that rights to most syndicated programs would interfere with the local broadcast rights to these shows on Philadelphia stations, the request was denied. The move to New Jersey did little to relieve the regulatory pressure on RKO. Seeing the handwriting on the wall, RKO put channel 9 up for sale in 1985. Westinghouse Broadcasting,

Chris-Craft Industries Chris-Craft Industries, Inc., formerly National Automotive Fibers, Inc., was a publicly held American corporation that was traded on the New York and Pacific Stock Exchanges. In 1962, the company adopted the name of one of its acquisitions, Chris ...

, and a joint venture of Cox Enterprises and

MCA MCA may refer to: Astronomy * Mars-crossing asteroid, an asteroid whose orbit crosses that of Mars Aviation * Minimum crossing altitude, a minimum obstacle crossing altitude for fixes on published airways * Medium Combat Aircraft, a 5th gene ...

/ Universal emerged as the leading suitors for WOR-TV; the station was sold to the Cox/MCA group in late 1986 for $387 million. Cox later withdrew the joint venture due to disagreements between the two firms on who would be responsible for running the station, leaving MCA to take sole ownership of WOR-TV on April 21, 1987. The sale came just in the nick of time for RKO: two months after MCA closed on the purchase, an administrative law judge recommended that RKO be forced out of broadcasting altogether due to a litany of misconduct. Eventually, WOR radio would be sold to

Hartford, Connecticut Hartford is the capital city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It was the seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960. It is the core city in the Greater Hartford metropolitan area. Census estimates since the ...

-based Buckley Broadcasting, and WRKS-FM (now WEPN-FM) would go to Summit Broadcasting.

As WWOR-TV (1987–present)

Upon taking control, MCA added an extra "W" to its call letters becoming WWOR-TV on April 29, 1987. MCA knew it had to change the call letters (due to FCC rules at the time that dictated that TV and radio stations in the same market, but with different ownership, had to use different call signs), but still wanted to trade on the 65-year heritage of the WOR calls in the New York area. Initially, the station's programming stayed nearly the same, while the RKO-era "dotted 9" logo was replaced by a new "red 9". MCA relaunched WWOR-TV that fall with a new, all-CGI look. The logo was replaced with a new "Venetian-blinds 9"; movie and special presentations were preceded by a new, more dramatic intro, while a new, three-pointed triangle was used in the main ident and in the first intro for ''The News at Ten'', representing the Tri-State area. However, the RKO-era announcers stayed on, and all but six hours of programming per day remained the same. The station dropped most of its public affairs shows, ''Romper Room'' was cut back to a half-hour and moved to 6:00 a.m., all religious shows except for the Sunday Mass were dropped, cartoons were added to the station's morning lineup and stronger syndicated shows were added in the early evenings. Late morning timeslots consisted of classic sitcoms and afternoons continued to consist of game shows, drama series and movies. Programs seen in both dayparts were largely those held over from the station's final years under RKO ownership. Later that fall, in prime time, the ''Million Dollar Movie'' was relegated to weekends in favor of Morton Downey Jr.'s controversial new talk show, while the 8:00 p.m. newscast was moved to 10:00 p.m. and expanded to one hour (to emphasize this, it was briefly titled ''The News at Ten''; this did not last long and by 1988, it became ''Channel 9 News''). The overhaul continued in 1988 and 1989, when it added the locally produced kids' show ''

Steampipe Alley ''Steampipe Alley'' is a children's television program that aired on Secaucus, New Jersey station WWOR-TV from February 7, 1988 to April 18, 1993. The program was hosted by comedian Mario Cantone, with announcing duties handled by longtime station s ...

'', and more evening sitcoms, including among others, reruns of NBC's top-rated sitcom '' The Cosby Show'', Columbia Pictures Television's '' Who's the Boss?'' and ''

227 Year 227 ( CCXXVII) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Senecio and Fulvius (or, less frequently, year 980 ''Ab urbe condi ...

'', as well as MCA/Universal-sourced programming including '' The Munsters Today'', '' Out of This World'', ''

Superboy (TV series) ''Superboy'' is an American television series based on the fictional DC comic book character Superman's early years as Superboy. The show ran from 1988–1992 in syndication. It was renamed ''The Adventures of Superboy'' at the start of the t ...

'', '' My Secret Identity'', '' Bionic Six'', and '' The New Lassie''. WWOR-TV also borrowed program formats used on the Westinghouse stations: a short-lived version of '' Evening Magazine'' aired in prime time, and a locally produced talk show called ''

People Are Talking ''Truth Be Told'', known during production as ''People Are Talking'', is an American sitcom television series created by D. J. Nash and executive produced by D. J. Nash and Will Packer for Universal Television. The NBC series debuted on October ...

'' ran at 11 a.m. That show would later change its title to ''9 Broadcast Plaza'' (named after the station's Secaucus studio location), and then to ''

The Richard Bey Show ''The Richard Bey Show'' is a syndicated American talk show hosted by Richard Bey which aired from September 28, 1992 to December 27, 1996. The program was originally produced from and aired on WWOR-TV in Secaucus, New Jersey, from 1992 to late 1 ...

'' for syndication. During this time, the studios were a hotbed of production, including the aforementioned local shows, ''The Morton Downey Jr. Show'' (which was nationally syndicated by then-sister firm MCA TV), and '' The Howard Stern Show'' hosted by New York radio personality Howard Stern from 1990 to 1992. Because of this, the station's newscasts had to be moved to the newsroom, and it would not return to having its own set until joining UPN. In 1989, the FCC passed the "Syndicated Exclusivity Rights" rule (or "

SyndEx Syndication exclusivity (also known as syndex) is a federal law () implemented by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the United States that is designed to protect a local television station's rights to syndicated television programs b ...

") into law—which required cable providers to black out certain syndicated programs on out-of-market stations where local broadcasters claim the rights to air in a particular market. In order to lighten the burden on cable providers as a result of this law, Eastern Microwave acquired the rights to programs to which no station owned exclusive in-market rights. It then broadcast this programming on WWOR's national feed to replace programs that could not be aired nationally. Most of the programs came from the Universal and Quinn Martin libraries, along with some shows from '' The Christian Science Monitor''s television service, as well as some holdover shows that had aired on the local New York feed before the SyndEx law's passage. Eastern Microwave would eventually launch a separate feed for satellite and cable subscribers on January 1, 1990, called the " WWOR EMI Service". By the early 1990s, WWOR and WPIX began to be replaced on many cable systems by the superstation feed of WGN-TV, which also launched an alternate feed for nationwide viewers in response to SyndEx regulations. During autumn 1990, WWOR-TV began branding itself as ''Universal 9'' on-air, highlighting its association with the MCA/Universal entertainment empire. However, later that same autumn, MCA's ownership of the station ended with the company's purchase by Osaka, Japan-based Matsushita Electric (now Panasonic Corporation). Since FCC regulations do not allow foreign companies to own more than a 25% interest in a television station, MCA spun off the assets of WWOR-TV into a new company called Pinelands, Incorporated on January 1, 1991. Universal would re-enter the New York television market after it merged with NBC to form NBCUniversal in 2004, acquiring the network's flagship station, WNBC, in the process. WWOR partnered with KCOP-TV and MCA TV Entertainment on a two night programming block,

Hollywood Premiere Network In American television terminology, a fourth network is a reference to a fourth commercial broadcast (over-the-air) television network, as opposed to the Big Three television networks that dominated U.S. television from the 1950s to the 1980s: A ...

starting in October 1990, the month before Matsuhita's purchase of MCA. Channel 9 also aired select episodes of the Australian soap opera ''

Neighbours ''Neighbours'' is an Australian television soap opera, which has aired since 18 March 1985. It was created by television executive Reg Watson. The Seven Network commissioned the show following the success of Watson's earlier soap '' Sons an ...

'' from mid-June to mid-September 1991. On March 30, 1992, Disney Studios agreed to sell KCAL-TV (the erstwhile KHJ-TV) to Pinelands, Inc. for a 45% ownership stake in Pinelands, so as to have interest in TV stations in the two largest markets, New York and Los Angeles, allowing for increased original programming. Instead, Pinelands agreed to an unsolicited bid in May from Chris-Craft Industries' BHC Communications subsidiary, thus ending the planned business merger with Disney's KCAL, making WWOR a sister station to Chris-Craft/BHC's KCOP in the process. Disney later acquired WABC-TV as part of its larger purchase of Capital Cities/ABC Inc. in 1996. In 1993, BHC aligned its independent stations with the Prime Time Entertainment Network. WWOR carried Spelling Premiere Network at its launch in August 1994.

UPN affiliation (1995–2006)

In 1994, Chris-Craft and its broadcasting subsidiary, BHC Communications, and Viacom's newly acquired subsidiary

Paramount Pictures Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldes ...

partnered to form the United Paramount Network ( UPN), which debuted on January 16, 1995. In 1996, Viacom bought 50% of UPN from Chris-Craft. At the network's launch, WWOR-TV was UPN's "flagship" station. However, UPN did not allow WWOR's superstation feed to carry the network's programs nationally (in contrast, The WB allowed WGN-TV to air network programming on cable feed during that network's first four years on the air). In the 1990s, the station continued with a large amount of younger-skewing talk shows, reality programming, some sitcoms in evenings, and syndicated cartoons during the morning hours. On January 1, 1997, with only a month's advance warning,

Advance Entertainment Corporation Advance Publications, Inc., doing business as Advance, is an American media company owned by the descendants of S.I. Newhouse Sr., Donald Newhouse and S.I. Newhouse Jr. It owns a large number of subsidiary companies, including Condé Nast, an ...

, which had purchased the satellite distribution rights to WWOR from Eastern Microwave a few months earlier, stopped uplinking the national version. The EMI Service's transponder space was sold to Discovery Communications for the then six-month-old Animal Planet. Amid outcries from satellite dish owners, National Programming Service, LLC uplinked the station again exclusively for satellite subscribers. The national feed was once again the same feed as the New York market feed. NPS dropped WWOR in 1999, in favor of Pax TV, but Dish Network still carries the New York feed of WWOR as part of its superstations package except in areas where the local UPN (and later, MyNetworkTV) affiliate invoked SyndEx to block the feed. In 2000, Chris-Craft announced that it was selling its television stations. It was believed that Viacom, which had purchased Chris-Craft's half of the network that year not long after buying CBS—gaining full control of UPN (and effectively stripping WWOR of its status as an

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 ...

of the network in the process), would buy the stations. However, Viacom lost its bid for the group to the Fox Television Stations subsidiary of News Corporation on August 12, 2000, in a $5.5 billion deal, making WWOR-TV a sister station to longtime rival WNYW—creating a unique situation in which the largest affiliate station of one network was owned by the operator of another network. While some cast doubt on UPN's future, Fox quickly cut a new affiliation deal with UPN. On September 11, 2001, the transmitter facilities of WWOR-TV and eight other New York City television stations and several radio stations were destroyed when two hijacked airplanes crashed into and destroyed the World Trade Center towers. With its broadcast signal shut down, WWOR fed its signal directly to cable and satellite systems, running wall-to-wall coverage of the attacks from CNN and later the

Fox News Channel The Fox News Channel, abbreviated FNC, commonly known as Fox News, and stylized in all caps, is an American multinational conservative cable news television channel based in New York City. It is owned by Fox News Media, which itself is owne ...

. The station's website received unprecedented traffic but remained available, including streaming video of pre-recorded newscasts. Channel 9 resumed regular programming on September 17, 2001. The station installed a new transmitter at the Empire State Building (where the transmitter had been based prior to 1975) along with most of the other major New York City stations, until moving back to One World Trade Center in 2018. The attacks delayed the closing of the Chris-Craft deal for several days. Fox began integrating the operations of its two stations soon afterwards. In the fall of 2001, the

Fox Kids Fox Kids (originally known as Fox Children's Network and later as the Fox Kids Network; stylized as FOX KIDS) was an American children's block programming, programming block and branding for a slate of international children's television channel ...

weekday afternoon block moved to WWOR-TV from WNYW, while the station also ran UPN's ''

Disney's One Too Disney's One Too (later known as Disney's Animation Weekdays) was an American two-hour Sunday-to-Friday children's programming block that aired on UPN (and sometimes in syndication) from September 6, 1999 to August 31, 2003. A spin-off of the ''Di ...

'' during the morning hours. Channel 9 was New York City's last remaining commercial station to air children's programming on both weekday mornings and afternoons, an ironic twist from 20 years earlier; however, Fox later discontinued the Fox Kids weekday block in January 2002 while UPN ended its cartoon block in August 2003, WWOR then picked up syndicated cartoons in the fall of 2003 in the 7 to 9 a.m. slot (and later until 8 a.m.), before dropping them in 2006. This made WWOR-TV the last commercial station to run any cartoons on weekdays. This will be the second time the station phased out cartoons in favor of mandated children's programing which WWOR has aired in its early years. WNYW also placed several of its underperforming syndicated shows on WWOR, and cherry-picked channel 9's stronger programs for broadcast on channel 5's schedule. Currently, WWOR offers several "double-runs" of WNYW's programs, but the two stations' individual schedules (outside of network programming) are much different. In 2004, Fox Television Stations announced that it would shut down WWOR-TV's Secaucus facilities and move its operations to WNYW's facility at the Fox Television Center in Manhattan. WNYW had already been handling some of WWOR's internal operations for some time before then. Fox planned to keep 9 Broadcast Plaza as a satellite relay station for WNYW and WWOR (the facility also performed master control operations for

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic, and the 30th most populous city in the United States with a population of 585,708 in 2020. Baltimore was d ...

's MyNetworkTV affiliate WUTB until locally based Sinclair Broadcast Group purchased WUTB from Fox in 2013). While some office functions were merged, plans for a full move to Manhattan were scuttled later that year due to pressure from New Jersey Congressman Steve Rothman (whose congressional district included Secaucus) and Senator Frank Lautenberg. The two lawmakers contended that if WWOR moved its operations back across the Hudson, it would be violating its conditions of license. According to Rothman, WWOR's license specifically required that its main studio be based in New Jersey. Even without this to consider, a full merger of WNYW and WWOR's operations would have likely resulted in channel 9's news department being downsized to the point that it would not be able to adequately cover news events focused on New Jersey, if not shut down altogether. As mentioned above, WWOR's license requires it to emphasize coverage of events on the New Jersey side of the market.

MyNetworkTV affiliation (2006–present)

On February 22, 2006, News Corporation announced the launch of a new "sixth" network called MyNetworkTV, which would be operated by Fox Television Stations and its syndication division Twentieth Television. MyNetworkTV was created to compete against another upstart network that would launch at the same time that September, The CW (an amalgamated network that was originally consisted primarily of UPN and The WB's higher-rated programs) as well as to give UPN and WB stations that were not mentioned as becoming CW affiliates another option besides converting to independent stations. WPIX, which had been a WB affiliate since 1995, was announced as The CW's New York City area affiliate as part of a 10-year affiliation deal with channel 11's parent company Tribune Broadcasting. The network's officials were on record as preferring the "strongest" stations among The WB and UPN's affiliates, none of which included any of Fox's UPN-affiliated stations – locally, WPIX had been well ahead of WWOR-TV in overall viewership for some time. The day after the announcement of The CW's formation (January 25, 2006), Fox removed all network references from the on-air branding of its UPN affiliates, and stopped promoting UPN programs altogether. WWOR accordingly changed its branding from UPN 9 to WWOR 9 (although the station was referred to on-air as simply "9"), and altered its logo to only feature the boxed "9" with a small red strip on the left side. WWOR had just introduced a new graphics package for its newscasts and a revised logo almost three weeks prior, with UPN branding. With the impending switch to MyNetworkTV, channel 9's on-air branding was changed to ''My 9'' beginning on April 4, with the new brand being introduced during Nets and Yankees game telecasts; two weeks later on April 17, WWOR incorporated the ''My 9'' name into the station's remaining branding elements, including news. On June 2, WWOR changed its logo again, this time adopting one similar to the MyNetworkTV logo presented at the launch announcement. Despite MyNetworkTV's announcement that its launch date would be September 5, 2006, UPN continued to broadcast on stations across the country until September 15, 2006. While some UPN affiliates that switched to MyNetworkTV aired the final two weeks of UPN programming outside its regular prime time period, WWOR and the rest of the network's Fox-owned affiliates dropped UPN's programming entirely on August 31, 2006. WWOR-TV discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over VHF channel 9, at 11:59 p.m. on June 12, 2009, as part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television. The last program to air on analog was an episode of '' Law & Order: Criminal Intent''. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition

UHF Ultra high frequency (UHF) is the ITU designation for radio frequencies in the range between 300 megahertz (MHz) and 3 gigahertz (GHz), also known as the decimetre band as the wavelengths range from one meter to one tenth of a meter (on ...

channel 38, using PSIP to display WWOR-TV's virtual channel as 9 on digital television receivers. On October 15, 2010, News Corporation pulled WWOR, WNYW, WTXF (

South Jersey South Jersey comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of New Jersey located between the lower Delaware River and the Atlantic Ocean. The designation of South Jersey with a distinct toponym is a colloquialism rather than an administrative ...

only),

Fox Business Fox Business (officially known as Fox Business Network, or FBN) is an American business news channel and website publication owned by the Fox News Media division of Fox Corporation. The channel broadcasts primarily from studios at 1211 Avenue ...

, Fox Deportes, and Nat Geo Wild from Cablevision systems in the New York City Tri-state area, due to a dispute between Fox and Cablevision in which Cablevision claimed that News Corporation demanded $150 million a year to renew its carriage of 12 Fox-owned channels. News Corporation responded to Cablevision's claims. Cablevision offered to submit to binding arbitration on October 14, 2010, though News Corporation rejected Cablevision's proposal, stating that it would "reward Cablevision for refusing to negotiate fairly". WWOR, WNYW, WTXF and the three cable channels were restored on October 30, 2010, when Cablevision and News Corporation struck a new carriage deal. On November 3, 2011, Fox Television Stations signed an affiliation agreement with

Bounce TV Bounce TV is an American digital multicast television network owned by Katz Broadcasting, a subsidiary of E. W. Scripps Company. Promoted as "the first 24/7 digital multicast broadcast network created to target African Americans", the channel fe ...

, a subchannel network aimed at African American audiences, to carry the service on the second or third digital subchannels of its MyNetworkTV-affiliated stations. On January 7, 2014, WWOR applied for a digital fill-in translator on channel 34 from the Armstrong Tower and licensed to

Alpine, New Jersey Alpine is a borough in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States, approximately north of Midtown Manhattan. It is the easternmost community in New Jersey. As of the 2010 United States census, the borough's population was 1,849,

that will serve the northern viewing area.

=2007–2014 license renewal and objections

= Before August 2014, the station awaited renewal of its broadcast license since 2007, the same year that two petitions to deny the license's renewal were submitted. According to claims from U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg and media observers, who filed a complaint with the FCC in November 2009, WWOR-TV's performance was "clearly inadequate to meet its public interest obligations" and he questioned the truthfulness of its application. The station was also accused of misrepresenting the number of station employees based in Secaucus, and failing to report a reduction in local news coverage. On February 17, 2011, the FCC opened an investigation against then-WWOR parent News Corporation to determine whether the company misrepresented information about WWOR-TV's news operations and programming during the station's license review. News Corporation would have been stripped of its licenses to operate both WWOR-TV and sister station WNYW, as well as facing other penalties if found guilty of any wrongdoing (News Corporation spun off both stations and its other U.S. television properties to

21st Century Fox Twenty-First Century Fox, Inc., doing business as 21st Century Fox (21CF), was an American multinational mass media corporation that was based in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It was one of the two companies formed on June 28, 2013, f ...

in June 2013). Legal representation hired by WWOR stated that the station had fulfilled its commitments. In December 2012, Lautenberg called for an investigation into the potential relaxing of FCC rules regarding ownership consolidation within media markets stating that News Corporation's co-ownership of WNYW and the '' New York Post'' "has not served New Jersey well." Following Lautenberg's June 3, 2013 death and the subsequent announcement of the WWOR news department's closure one month later, fellow New Jersey senator Robert Menendez took up the cause, saying it was increasingly critical with WWOR dropping their newscast and going with the outside '' Chasing New Jersey'' for coverage of state issues for the FCC to make a ruling on WWOR's license and their fulfillment of their obligations. Rep. Frank Pallone also called for the revocation of WWOR's license. In November 2013 the

New Jersey Legislature The New Jersey Legislature is the legislative branch of the government of the U.S. state of New Jersey. In its current form, as defined by the New Jersey Constitution of 1947, the Legislature consists of two houses: the General Assembly and the ...

passed a resolution urging the FCC to revoke the station's license. In March 2014, New Jersey's senior United States senator, Bob Menendez, wrote to the FCC asking for swift action to determine if the station had been fulfilling its licensing requirements.

New Jersey is one of the most densely populated states in the country, but because of its location between New York City and Philadelphia, does not have a designated market area (DMA)...WWOR is required to fill this gap by operating in the state of New Jersey to the benefit of all residents. Unfortunately, concerns have mounted that the operations of WWOR have not fulfilled these requirements.

On August 8, 2014, the FCC renewed WWOR's license, dismissing all of the objecting petitions, though the permanent waiver allowing Fox Television Stations to run both WNYW and WWOR along with 21st Century Fox's shared ownership with the ''New York Post'' was denied; a temporary waiver was granted.

=2018 license renewal and full consolidation with WNYW

= In January 2018, Senators Menendez and Cory Booker said the station had "failed to live up to its federal mandate" to cover New Jersey news. Despite this, the station's license was renewed by the FCC on July 12, 2018, for a new ten-year cycle without objection; Booker and Menendez have continued to push for revocation of the station's license. One month after the license renewal, Fox Television Stations sold 9 Broadcast Plaza back to Hartz Mountain Industries (which developed the Secaucus office park WWOR-TV's facility was built in) for $4.05 million, several months after the repeal of the FCC's Main Studio Rule which mandated continued operation of WWOR from Secaucus. Since that point, WWOR's operations have been consolidated with WNYW in Manhattan, and Hartz Mountain began demolition of the former WWOR studios in June 2019.

Programming

Sports programming

As an independent station, channel 9's schedule was heavy on sports programming. Early in its history, WOR-TV established itself as the home of National League baseball in New York, carrying

Brooklyn Dodgers The Brooklyn Dodgers were a Major League Baseball team founded in 1884 as a member of the American Association (19th century), American Association before joining the National League in 1890. They remained in Brooklyn until 1957, after which the ...

(beginning in 1950) and

New York Giants The New York Giants are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Giants compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East division. ...

games (beginning in 1951) until both teams moved to California (Los Angeles and San Francisco, respectively) following the 1957 season. From 1958 to 1961, the station aired a limited schedule of

Philadelphia Phillies The Philadelphia Phillies are an American professional baseball team based in Philadelphia. They compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member of the National League (NL) National League East, East division. Since 2004, the team's home sta ...

games, consisting of matchups against the Dodgers and Giants. In 1962, WOR-TV gained broadcast rights to the New York Mets, the National League's new expansion team. The partnership between the station and the team would last through the 1998 season, after which the Mets moved their broadcasts to WPIX, replacing Yankee telecasts on the station. Channel 9 acquired rights to the NHL's New York Rangers and the

NBA The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United St ...

New York Knicks The New York Knickerbockers, shortened and more commonly referred to as the New York Knicks, are an American professional basketball team based in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The Knicks compete in the National Basketball Associat ...

in 1965, holding onto both teams until 1989 (when the two teams' television rights moved exclusively to cable on the MSG Network). The

New York Islanders The New York Islanders (colloquially known as the Isles) are a professional ice hockey team based in Elmont, New York. The Islanders compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Metropolitan Division in the Eastern Conference ( ...

; New York/New Jersey Nets;

New Jersey Devils The New Jersey Devils are a professional sports, professional ice hockey team based in Newark, New Jersey. The Devils compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Metropolitan Division in the Eastern Conference (NHL), Eastern ...

; local college basketball; New York Cosmos

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

; WWWF/WWF; WCW and briefly in the mid-1970s, IWA wrestling were also broadcast on channel 9. For a generation of New York sports fans, the station became synonymous with its relationships with the Mets, Knicks, Rangers, Islanders, Devils, Nets and the World Wrestling Federation (WWWF/WWF/WWE). Except for the Mets (for whom OR did cover a large number of home games), WWOR's pro sports coverage mainly featured away games, although in the mid-1960s, the station taped a handful of Rangers' Saturday afternoon home games for broadcast that evening. One such game, on November 12, 1965, against the Chicago Blackhawks, is said to be the first NHL game to ever be broadcast in color. In early 1968, the station also carried live coverage of the Rangers' and Knicks' last home games at the old Madison Square Garden and the first home games of both teams from the new MSG arena. WWOR-TV also broadcast an infamous interview between

Mike Tyson Michael Gerard Tyson (born June 30, 1966) is an American former professional boxer who competed from 1985 to 2005. Nicknamed "Iron Mike" and "Kid Dynamite" in his early career, and later known as "The Baddest Man on the Planet", Tyson is cons ...

and the station's then-sports anchor Russ Salzberg in January 1999, whose intent was to discuss Tyson's then comeback fight against Francois Botha; Tyson shouted several expletives, made threats and told the audience to switch the station off. This prompted Salzberg to abruptly end the interview, giving Tyson a half-hearted wish of luck on his upcoming fight. Tyson responded by telling Salzberg to "fuck off". In late September

2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a Participants in ...

, WWOR-TV aired several New York Yankees baseball games that were originally scheduled to air on WNYW. In

2005 File:2005 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico; the Funeral of Pope John Paul II is held in Vatican City; "Me at the zoo", the first video ever to be uploaded to YouTube; Eris was discovered in ...

, channel 9 picked up Yankees games on a full-time basis, with the broadcasts being produced by the YES Network. Whenever YES broadcasts a Yankees game during the same time period as a Brooklyn Nets game, the Nets game airs instead on WWOR due to channel overflow, and the mutual agreement between the two networks. This is usually the case during the month of April, and most of the Nets playoff games. Channel 9 and YES became corporate siblings in 2012, when Fox bought a 49 percent stake in the latter channel (since increased to 80 percent). In

2015 File:2015 Events Collage new.png, From top left, clockwise: Civil service in remembrance of November 2015 Paris attacks; Germanwings Flight 9525 was purposely crashed into the French Alps; the rubble of residences in Kathmandu following the Apri ...

, Yankees games moved back to WPIX after ending a ten-year deal; both Yankee and Met games are now aired on WPIX. WWOR has sometimes aired

pre-season games due to commitments by WNBC to air network coverage of the Summer Olympics as has occurred in

2012 File:2012 Events Collage V3.png, From left, clockwise: The passenger cruise ship Costa Concordia lies capsized after the Costa Concordia disaster; Damage to Casino Pier in Seaside Heights, New Jersey as a result of Hurricane Sandy; People gather ...

and

2016 File:2016 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Bombed-out buildings in Ankara following the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt; the impeachment trial of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff; Damaged houses during the 2016 Nagorno-Karabakh ...

. WWOR has also simulcast ESPN-produced '' Monday Night Football'' games in which the Giants or Jets were involved (WABC-TV holds right of first refusal on local ''MNF'' broadcasts as a corporate sibling to ESPN, but often exercises that right to air ABC's ''

Dancing with the Stars ''Dancing with the Stars'' is the name of various international television series based on the format of the British TV series '' Strictly Come Dancing'', which is distributed by BBC Studios, the commercial arm of the BBC. Currently the forma ...

''), as well as such games during the early existence of the NFL Network; WWOR was scheduled to be the local outlet for the December 30, 2007 Giants/Patriots game, but with the Patriots on the verge of an undefeated regular season, and NFL Network having minimal cable carriage at the time, the game ended up being simulcast nationally on CBS and NBC in addition to WWOR. As a sister station to WNYW, WWOR has sometimes aired Fox sports programming while WNYW aired local programming. This was the case on September 11, 2021, when WNYW aired local 9/11 memorial programming while WWOR aired a nationally televised '' Fox College Football'' game.

Newscasts

As most of New York's independent stations were during the 1960s and 1970s, WOR-TV was a very minor player in the area of local news. Before 1971, the station did not carry any live news programming, but had an early morning audio-only newscast read by the on-duty staff announcer over the station logo. In 1971, WOR-TV launched its first live newscast, the ''News at Noon'', which was also the first midday newscast in the New York City market. In 1983, following the move to New Jersey, channel 9 launched a nightly 8 p.m. newscast called ''News 9: Primetime''. After the MCA takeover in 1987, the 8:00 newscast was moved two hours later to 10 p.m., and expanded to an hour (placing it in direct competition with newscasts in that timeslot airing on WPIX and eventual sister station WNYW). The noon program, which was later merged into ''9 Broadcast Plaza'', ended in 1993 and was replaced with '' The Ricki Lake Show''. Despite the presence of its sister station WNYW's long-running and successful news program at 10 p.m., WWOR-TV was able to compete in that same timeslot following Fox's acquisition of channel 9 simply because both stations use separate studios. As opposed to the model of most television station duopolies, WWOR-TV and sister station WNYW operated news departments that were technically separate from one another: WWOR operated its news department from the station's Secaucus studios, while WNYW runs theirs from the Fox Television Center in Manhattan, allowing the two stations to maintain their own on-air identities and offer individual local news programs simultaneously. However, the two stations shared a fairly significant amount in regards to news coverage, with some staffers having switched from one station to the other. Both stations maintained their own primary on-air personalities (such as news anchors and reporters) that only appeared on one station. WWOR's newscasts also focused a larger proportion of their stories on New Jersey issues, a condition the station had adhered to since its license was transferred from New York City to Secaucus. On July 13, 2009, the 10 p.m. newscast was moved to 11 p.m. and was shortened to a half-hour due to budget cuts. In addition, weekend newscasts and a Sunday night sports highlight program were canceled. On June 27, 2011, WWOR-TV returned the newscast to its previous 10 p.m. timeslot and retitled it ''The Ten O'Clock News''; it remained a half-hour in length and continued to air on weeknights only. On September 10, 2012, WWOR-TV began broadcasting its local newscasts in

high definition High definition or HD may refer to: Visual technologies *HD DVD, discontinued optical disc format *HD Photo, former name for the JPEG XR image file format *HDV, format for recording high-definition video onto magnetic tape * HiDef, 24 frames-pe ...

. Sports director Russ Salzberg, anchor Brenda Blackmon, and reporter Brenda Flanagan were the station's longest-tenured on-air personalities. Flanagan worked for the station starting in 1983, while Salzberg and Blackmon joined WWOR in 1988 and 1992, respectively.Meet the Team
WWOR-TV, Retrieved May 6, 2013. In areas of central New Jersey, where the New York and Philadelphia markets overlap with one another, both WWOR and WNYW shared resources with their Philadelphia sister station WTXF-TV. The stations shared reporters for stories occurring in New Jersey counties served by both markets. The 10 p.m. newscast was canceled following its July 2, 2013, broadcast (ending 42 years of newscast production by channel 9 and 30 years of prime time newscasts); in its place, the station introduced ''Chasing New Jersey'' (which was later renamed to '' Chasing News''), a nightly New Jersey-focused news magazine with a "fast-paced" format, on July 8. The program, which was produced by Fairfax Productions (a production company led by the vice president and general manager of Philadelphia sister station WTXF-TV) from a studio in Trenton and hosted by Bill Spadea, was also seen on WTXF as a lead-in to its morning newscast. With the end of WWOR's newscast,

Brenda Blackmon Brenda Blackmon is an American anchor based in New York City. Blackmon most recently anchored the PIX11 News weeknights at 6:30 with Kaity Tong. Blackmon joined the station in 2016 as an anchor. She first co-anchored in New York at WWOR-TV with ...

was reassigned to produce and host news specials for the station (although she would leave for WPIX in 2016, while other members of the on-air staff were offered new roles (including at WNYW). Despite the closure of WWOR's news department, the station's Secaucus facilities remained operational until 2018, when the repeal of the FCC Main Studio Rule allowed the full consolidation of WWOR's operations with WNYW. ''Chasing News'' was canceled in June 2020, leaving WWOR without any news programs.

Former personalities

* Steve Albert * Ernie Anastos (now at sister station WNYW) *

(later with WPIX) * Mario Cantone (currently an actor) * Pat Collins * Judith Crist (deceased) *

Morton Downey, Jr. Sean Morton Downey Jr. (December 9, 1932 – March 12, 2001) was an American television talk show host and actor who pioneered the "trash TV" format in the late-1980s on his program ''The Morton Downey Jr. Show''. Early life Downey's parents we ...

(deceased) * Tom Dunn (deceased) * Carter Evans (now Los Angeles correspondent for

CBS News CBS News is the news division of the American television and radio service CBS. CBS News television programs include the ''CBS Evening News'', ''CBS Mornings'', news magazine programs '' CBS News Sunday Morning'', '' 60 Minutes'', and '' 48 H ...

) * Joe Franklin (deceased) * Barry Gray (deceased) * Tony Guida (now with

) * Van Hackett (retired) * Ray Heatherton (deceased) * Larry Kenney (now a voice actor) * Sara Lee Kessler (now with NBC News Radio) * Walter Kiernan (deceased) * Matt Lauer (later at NBC News) * Otis Livingston (weekend sports anchor; now at WCBS-TV and WLNY-TV) *

Mike Lupica Michael Lupica (; born May 11, 1952) is an author and former American newspaper columnist, best known for his provocative commentary on sports in the ''New York Daily News'' and his appearances on ESPN. Biography Lupica was born in Oneida, ...

(now with the New York ''Daily News'') * Malachy McCourt (retired from TV) *

Mary Helen McPhillips Mary Helen McPhillips (1931–1998), was a noted television personality. TV and radio career McPhillips worked for CBC and CHUM radio in Canada. She moved to New York to work for WOR-TV and radio. She spent 20 years at the company. She appeare ...

(deceased) *

Cora-Ann Mihalik Cora-Ann Mihalik (born c. 1954) is a former Emmy Award-winning television news anchor and reporter who was best known for her role as co-anchor and news reporter for Fox WNYW and My 9 WWOR since 1987. Her career at Fox/My 9 concluded in 2011 when ...

(retired) * Sean Mooney (now with KVOA in Tucson, Arizona) * Audrey Puente (now with WNYW) * Bill Ryan (deceased) * Rolland Smith (retired) * Howard Stern (now with '' The Howard Stern Show'') * Phil Tonken (deceased) * Jennifer Valoppi *

Lisa Willis Lisa Camille Willis (born June 13, 1984) is an American basketball coach currently working as an assistant coach for the Westchester Knicks of the NBA G League. She played professionally in the WNBA with the Los Angeles Sparks, New York Libert ...

(marketing, retired from TV) * Kelly Wright (most recently with

FOX News Channel The Fox News Channel, abbreviated FNC, commonly known as Fox News, and stylized in all caps, is an American multinational conservative cable news television channel based in New York City. It is owned by Fox News Media, which itself is owne ...

) *

Lloyd Lindsay Young Lloyd Lindsay Young, known as "Double L" (born September 4, 1941) is an American weather reporter who gained notoriety for his over-the-top delivery and antics. He is the father of former KGET-TV weatherman George Lindsay Young, with whom he worked ...

(was with KKSF in San Francisco until 2016) *

John Zacherle John Zacherle ( ; sometimes credited as John Zacherley; September 26, 1918 – October 27, 2016) was an American television host, radio personality, singer, and voice actor. He was best known for his long career as a television horror host, oft ...

(deceased)

In popular culture

* The station's Broadway studio building can be seen in the 1971 film ''

Shaft Shaft may refer to: Rotating machine elements * Shaft (mechanical engineering), a rotating machine element used to transmit power * Line shaft, a power transmission system * Drive shaft, a shaft for transferring torque * Axle, a shaft around whi ...

''; its familiar "dotted 9" logo is visible in the background early on, as Shaft is walking around Times Square. * A WOR-TV helicopter is shown in the 1975 film '' Dog Day Afternoon'', complete with a video crew trying to get coverage of the bank hold-up; an NYPD helicopter forces WOR's helicopter out of the area. * In the 1983 film '' Without a Trace'', the main character (played by Kate Nelligan) is interviewed live by a fictional WOR-TV reporter, who has a "9" flag on her microphone and identifies with "WOR-TV News". * In 1989–90, WWOR (then owned by MCA) was incorporated into the popular Universal Studios Florida ride, Kongfrontation. This ride was closed down in 2002 and replaced in 2004 for Revenge of the Mummy, a high-speed indoor

roller coaster A roller coaster, or rollercoaster, is a type of amusement ride that employs a form of elevated railroad track designed with tight turns, steep slopes, and sometimes inversions. Passengers ride along the track in open cars, and the rides are o ...

. * Newscasts from the station can be seen in the 1990 film '' Gremlins 2: The New Batch''. * A ''UPN 9 News'' van can be seen briefly in the 2006 film '' Freedomland''.

Technical information

Subchannels

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

References

External links

My9NJ.com
– Official website

from TVARK
Two articles about WOR-TV's premiere night on the air in 1949

"Thames on 9" -- WOR-TV's prime-time schedule from September 6-10 1976, when Thames took over channel 9

WWOR-TV logos and screenshots from 1950s to the present day
*CDBS files for WWOR-TV
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BXLCDT-20110505ABT

BXPCDT-20110617AAA

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:Wwor-Tv Mass media in Hudson County, New Jersey

WOR-TV WWOR-TV (channel 9) is a television station licensed to Secaucus, New Jersey, United States, serving the New York City area as the flagship of MyNetworkTV. It is owned and operated by Fox Television Stations alongside Fox flagship WNYW (cha ...

MyNetworkTV affiliates Buzzr affiliates Heroes & Icons affiliates Fox Television Stations Superstations in the United States Television channels and stations established in 1949 1949 establishments in New York City RKO General National Hockey League over-the-air television broadcasters