The Metropolitan Television Alliance, LLC (MTVA) is a group organized in the wake of the loss of the transmission facilities atop the
World Trade Center in 2001. Its mission is to identify, design and build a facility suitable for the long-term requirements of its member stations to meet their over-the-air digital broadcast requirements. This could include designing facilities for the
Freedom Tower in
Lower Manhattan, assessing alternative sites and technologies and dealing with local, state and federal authorities on relevant issues.
The group, which includes stations
WABC-TV 7,
WCBS-TV 2,
WFUT–TV 68,
WNBC–TV 4,
WNET
WNET (channel 13), branded on-air as "Thirteen" (stylized as "THIRTEEN"), is a primary PBS member television station licensed to Newark, New Jersey, United States, serving the New York City area. Owned by The WNET Group (formerly known as the ...
–TV 13,
WNJU
WNJU (channel 47) is a television station licensed to Linden, New Jersey, United States, broadcasting Telemundo programming to the New York City area. It is one of two flagship stations of the Spanish-language network (the other being WSCV i ...
–TV 47,
WNYE-TV
WNYE-TV (channel 25) is a non-commercial independent television station in New York City. The station is operated by NYC Media, a division of the Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment, and is sister to public radio station WNYE (91.5 FM). ...
25,
WNYW
WNYW (channel 5) is a television station in New York City, serving as the flagship of the Fox network. It is owned and operated by the network's Fox Television Stations division alongside Secaucus, New Jersey–licensed MyNetworkTV flagsh ...
–TV 5,
WPIX–TV 11,
WPXN-TV
WPXN-TV (channel 31) is a television station in New York City, airing programming from the Ion Television network. Owned and operated by the Ion Media subsidiary of the E.W. Scripps Company, the station maintains offices on Seventh Avenue ...
31,
WWOR-TV 9 and
WXTV
WXTV-DT (channel 41) is a television station licensed to Paterson, New Jersey, United States, serving as the Univision outlet for the New York City area. It is one of two flagship stations of the Spanish-language network (the other being WL ...
–TV 41, signed a
memorandum of understanding in 2003 with the developer,
Larry A. Silverstein
Larry A. Silverstein (born May 30, 1931) is an American businessman. Among his real estate projects, he is the developer of the rebuilt World Trade Center complex in Lower Manhattan, New York City, as well as one of New York's tallest resident ...
, to install antennas atop the Freedom Tower. Broadcasters have used the
Empire State Building (and, to a lesser degree,
4 Times Square) since the
September 11 attacks
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commer ...
. In 2006, control of the project was transferred to the
Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, with which further discussions have been ongoing.
The group received a grant from the NTIA to study
distributed transmission system (DTS) in New York City. Multiple tests were run from various sites in the New York and Newark region in 2006 and 2007 by MTVA and individual member stations, with the use of distributed transmission on a permanent, non-experimental basis ultimately approved for US stations by 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 jurisdicti ...
on November 7, 2008.
In 2008,
Saul Shapiro was appointed President.
TV coalition head leads digital push, ''Crain's NY Business'', April 24, 2008
/ref>
References
{{Telecommunications
Television organizations in the United States