WNYT (TV) - History

History

The station began broadcasting on February 17, 1954 as CBS affiliate WTRI, licensed to Troy. The station aired an analog signal on UHF channel 35 and was co-owned with WTRY radio (now WOFX). WTRI's studios and transmitter were east of Troy on Bald Mountain in the town of Brunswick, New York. The station signed off in January 1955 when it loss it's CBS affiliation to Albany-based crosstown rival station WROW TV-41(today's WTEN); That same year, the original owners sold WTRI to Van Curler Broadcasting, a unit of Stanley Warner Theaters. WTRI returned on the air in August of 1956, this time as an ABC affiliate. In 1958, the new owners moved the license to Albany under the new call letters WAST (for Albany/Schenectady/Troy), and a new channel location, channel 13. Originally, the station had wanted to take the "WTAS" calls (for Troy/Albany/Schenectady) but the similarity of the "TAS" letters to the news agency of the Soviet Union led to the use of WAST.

Shortly after the upgrade, WAST moved to a converted warehouse on the Albany/Menands which previously housed Selective Service records. Channel 13 still operates from this location today. Despite the increased transmitter power, WAST's signal was still significantly weaker in some directions than the other Capital District television stations. This was because as a condition of being allowed to move to the VHF band, it remained on its original transmitter on Bald Mountain (a legacy of the days when it was licensed to Troy) and use a somewhat directional signal to protect WNDT (now WNET) in New York City. The other stations in the market had their transmitters at a common location southwest of Voorheesville. This forced WAST to build several translators to expand its coverage. Combined with the fact it was affiliated with ABC, the smallest and weakest of the three major networks, channel 13 was not really on par with rivals WRGB and WTEN until cable arrived in the Capital District in the early 1970s. In 1969, WAST was sold to Sonderling Broadcasting.

In 1977, the station switched affiliations with WTEN and became the Capital District's CBS affiliate. During the next year (1978), Viacom purchased Sonderling which made WAST the company's first television station holding. On September 21, 1981, WAST swapped affiliations with WRGB and became the area's NBC affiliate. Seeking a fresh start and a new identity, Viacom decided to mark the affiliation change with the current call sign of WNYT. It is one of the few stations in the United States to have been a primary affiliate of all of the big three networks.

In 1994, after Viacom bought Paramount Pictures, Viacom transferred all of its television stations to Paramount's broadcasting arm, the Paramount Stations Group. Not long after that, Paramount announced formation of the United Paramount Network. It also announced it would sell off all of its non-UPN stations. In 1996, Paramount/Viacom traded WNYT and WHEC-TV in Rochester to Hubbard Broadcasting for UPN affiliate WTOG-TV in the Tampa Bay area.

WNYT signed-on its digital signal in October 2003 on VHF channel 12. Unlike the station's analog signal, WNYT-DT's transmitter was and continues to be southwest of Voorheesville with the market's other stations. WNYT switched-off analog transmissions on June 12, 2009, as part of the DTV transition in the United States. It remained on its pre-transition channel 12. However, via PSIP, the station's signal redirects to channel 13.