WNYA
WNYA (
My TV 4 Albany), is the callsign of the UPN (becoming
My Network TV) affiliate for the
Albany, New York area. WNYA's main signal is broadcast on channel 51 and is licenced to and transmits from
Pittsfield, Massachusetts.
WNYA-CA, channel 15, is licensed to
Albany, New York and serves as an in-town relay of the main WNYA signal broadcasting from the Helderberg Mountain tower farm in New Scotland, New York. WNYA is owned and operated by Venture Technologies Group, LLC., and its sales are handled by
CBS affiliate
WRGB through a joint sales agreement (JSA); this relationship allows WRGB and WNYA to share programming and for WNYA's signal to be simulcast on WRGB-DT (where it airs on channel 6.2).
WNYA can be seen in the western part of the
Springfield, Massachusetts TV market, however the
Berkshire Mountains and a barely passable spacing to
WZMY from
Derry, New Hampshire, which has a repeater,
W18AE, channel 18, in
Killington, VT, interfere with the signal. WZMY is to be
Boston's MNTV affiliate
WNYA
What today is WNYA can indirectly trace its history to WUVW, a unbuilt station on channel 51, licenced to Pittsfield which was given a permit in the mid-1950s and was cancelled in the 1970s. The allocation that became WNYA was proposed in October
1996 by
Pappas Telecasting [
1] but went without an owner for several years until it was auctioned off in February
2002 with Venture Technologies getting the winning bid for $1.3 million. The FCC ganted the construction permit and the WNYA calls to Venture a year later.
WNYA-CA
What today is WNYA-CA signed on in
1996 as
WVBX-LP, a repeater of
WVBG-LP licensed to
Easton, New York in
Washington County that aired on channel 39. In Septmeber 1997, WVBG became the UPN affiliate for the market though the station could never get carriage on
Time Warner Cable which maintained carriage of
WSBK Boston. This affiliation ended at the start of
2000 when cable-only
WEDG-TV (later
UPN4) signed on. WVBX would then become an independent station before signing off in early 2002. While dark, WVBX upgraded to Class A status and moved down to Albany. [
2].
In April 2003, WNYA signed the inital SSA agreement with WRGB and their affiliation with UPN (becoming the first full-power broadcast UPN affiliate in the Capital District) and announced a sign-on date of
September 1, 2003. WNYA signed on the air in mid-July for testing purposes and WNYA-CA did so in late August. The official launch of the WNYA stations came at 6:00 a.m. on September 1 with the staions using the
UPN Capital Region branding. WNYA signed on taking the channel positions of
UPN4 on Time Warner systems plus
Charter Communications systems and the independent Mid-Hudson Cablevision in Greene County.
Adelphia systems would replace WSBK with WNYA at the start of
2004 with
DirecTV and
Dish Network adding the station later in 2004.
WNYA's original lineup included several new shows that had gone unclaimed in the market, shows not previously cleared, and various older shows. WNYA also aired replays of WRGB's noon (at 1:00 p.m.) and 11:00 p.m. (at 11:30 p.m.) newscasts as well as the public affairs program
Sunday Morning with Liz Bishop. This practice ended in mid-2004.
The JSA between WNYA and WRGB has led to some common involvement between the two stations, this was first appearent a mere six hours after signing on when WNYA broadcast CBS's coverage of the
U.S. Open tennis tournament on
Labor Day because of the latter's involvement with airing the
Jerry Lewis MDA telethon during that time. This arrangement continued in 2004 but due to a crop of syndication launches on Labor Day did not happen in 2005. There also has been the swapping of syndicated programs between the two stations. In late 2005, WRGB signed an extension that keeps the JSA agreement in place until the end of
2008 (it had been set to expire on August 31, 2006).
On
April 17,
2006, it was announced that WNYA would begin airing an extension of WRGB's weekday morning newscast from 7-8 AM with anchor Ed O'Brien and meteorologist Tom Mailey. This move could be seen as a preemptive move by WRGB to fend off a challenge by
FOX affiliate
WXXA-TV which had announced their plans for a morning newscast two weeks earlier. Rumors of WRGB producing a 10:00 p.m. newscast had circulated, however the pickup of a second run of
Dr. Phil to air at that hour has shifted those rumors of future WRGB sister
WCWN (the current
WB/future
The CW affiliate).
It was announced in January
2006 that
UPN and
The WB would cease operations and be replaced by
The CW Television Network in September
2006. The Albany area's WB affiliate,
WCWN (at that time still WEWB), was one of the initial CW affiliates named when the CW was announced.On
March 9 2006, it was announced that WNYA would become an affiliate of
My Network TV after UPN ceases operations in September
[http://www.tvweek.com/news.cms?newsId=9522 MyNetworkTV Signs Six More Affiliates]. WNYA would begin airing ads for the new network and put banner ads on their website that June.
On
July 30, 2006, WNYA's website became a promotion website for the up and coming My Network TV. There was no information about the station and its programming. On
August 2, 2006, the redesigned website was finished and the new WNYA MNTV logo was shown for the first time. With UPN affiliation, the station's logo did not include a channel number in it. Now the new logo is based on the station's position on most Time Warner systems, channel 4 in a manner similar to the station it replaced,
WEDG-TV (UPN4). Ironically, nowhere in WNYA's county of licence of Berkshire County is WNYA on channel 4 and in the northernmost part of that county, an actual channel 4 (
WBZ-TV) carries that spot on the Adelphia/to be Time Warner system out of
North Adams.
Logo Gallery
Image:WNYAlogo.jpg|WNYA UPN logo used until August 2006.Image:Wnya_news.jpg|Ad for WRGB morning news from WNYA's old website.Image:Wnya_mntv.gif|WNYA's current logo.
*
Station Website*
WRGB Website
