WSTM-TV - History

History

The station began operations on February 15, 1950 with the call sign WSYR-TV. It was owned by Advance Publications (the Newhouse family's company) along with the Syracuse Post-Standard, Syracuse Herald-Journal, and WSYR radio (AM 570 and FM 94.5, now WYYY). It was Syracuse's second television station, signing on a year and three months after WHEN-TV (now WTVH). It originally had facilities at the Kemper Building in Downtown Syracuse. In 1958, WSYR-AM-FM-TV moved to new studios on James Street.

Unlike most NBC affiliates in two station markets, WSYR-TV did not take a secondary ABC or DuMont affiliation. WSYR-TV doubled as the NBC affiliate for Binghamton until WINR-TV (now WICZ-TV) signed-on in 1957. The station also operated a satellite station in Elmira until 1980; that station, first known as WSYE-TV and now WETM-TV, is now owned by Nexstar Broadcasting Group and fed via centralcasting facilities of a Syracuse cross-town rival, which ironically now holds the WSYR-TV call letters. It remains affiliated with NBC.

The Newhouse family largely exited broadcasting in 1980 and sold WSYR-TV to the Times Mirror Company. Since the company was not interested in the radio stations, it changed the television station's calls to WSTM-TV (for Syracuse Times Mirror) and kept the James Street studios. Under Times Mirror ownership, WSTM was sister to fellow NBC affiliate WVTM-TV in Birmingham, Alabama (which later became network owned-and-operated and is now owned by Media General) as well as later Fox O&O's KTVI in St. Louis, Missouri, KDFW in Dallas-Fort Worth, and KTBC in Austin, Texas (KTVI is now owned by Local TV). In 1986, Times Mirror sold WSTM to SJL Broadcast Management, a broadcast holding company controlled by George Lilly. SJL then sold WSTM to Federal Broadcasting in 1992. That company was bought out by Raycom Media in 1997. The WSYR-TV calls returned to Syracuse in 2005 after Clear Channel Communications purchased WIXT (formerly WNYS-TV) as part of the Ackerley Group acquisition three years earlier. The company changed WIXT's calls to match WSYR radio, which it had owned for several years.

On March 5, 1996, WSTM General Manager Charles Bivins died after collapsing at the Syracuse Track and Racquet Club. He was 48 and had previously suffered a mild heart attack two years earlier. Bivins was also a visiting professor at Syracuse University's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications teaching television programming.

In 2003, Raycom Media purchased Syracuse's low-powered UPN affiliate WAWA-LP from Venture Technologies Group, LLC for an undisclosed amount of money. The station had its call letters changed to WSTQ-LP (derived from WSTM) and given the on-air branding of "UPN 6, The Q". Raycom used "6" to reflect its cable slot as a result of the station becoming offered on the basic lineup of Time Warner on July 1. Before the purchase, Time Warner had refused to carry WAWA. The same "must-carry" rules that kept the station off the cable system eventually got WSTQ on. The must-carry rules give full-powered stations the option of "retransmission consent" or requiring compensation from cable systems as a condition of carrying a station's signal. In this case, full-powered WSTM can require cable systems like Time Warner to offer WSTQ on their systems as a condition of carrying WSTM.

On March 27, 2006, Raycom Media announced the sale of WSTM and WSTQ to Barrington Broadcasting. The sale was finalized that August. On March 2, 2009 as a result of low ratings and slow advertising sales, it was announced that WTVH would enter into joint sales and shared service agreements with WSTM. Initially, the station continued to operate out of its own Jame Street studios a block away but was eventually merged into this station's facilities. WTVH was also integrated into WSTM's website.

On June 14, 2009 two days after the digital transition, its digital signal began broadcasting on UHF channel 24. Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers continue to display WSTM-DT's virtual channels as 3. On September 6, 2009, WTVH's transmitter was damaged after a power failure. While Granite Broadcasting worked to fix the signal, WSTM's third digital subchannel carried that station. On September 12, the signal was restored.

On February 28, 2013, Barrington Broadcasting announced the sale of its entire group, including WSTM-TV and the LMA for WTVH, to Sinclair Broadcast Group. To comply with Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ownership regulations, Sinclair will transfer its existing Syracuse station, WSYT, and the LMA for WNYS-TV, to Cunningham Broadcasting. However, Sinclair will continue to effectively own WSYT because nearly all of Cunningham's stock is controlled by trusts in the names of the children of Sinclair's principals.

Through cable coverage, this station serves as the de facto NBC affiliate for the Watertown and Ithaca/Finger Lakes region of New York State. WSTM provides some news coverage of these areas. Interestingly, the channel also carries substantial news stories from Utica and Herkimer County even though that area has its own affiliate WKTV that produces local news. WSTM's analog signal reached parts of Southeastern Ontario and was carried on Cogeco systems in Kingston until February 2009 when it was replaced with Buffalo's WGRZ-TV. It is still (after customer protest) carried on Time Warner systems in Ogdensburg and Gouverneur along with replacement WPTZ.