WHEC-TV - History

History

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) awarded the license of Rochester's second-oldest VHF station to two local firms who competed for the license. The Gannett Company, then the Rochester-based publisher of the Democrat and Chronicle and owners of CBS Radio Network affiliate WHEC (1460 AM) and the Veterans Broadcasting Company, owners of WVET radio (1280 AM, now WHTK), began shared operation of channel 10 on November 1, 1953, broadcasting from separate studios but using the same channel and transmitter. The combined WHEC-TV and WVET-TV operation shared a primary affiliation with the CBS Television Network, and also carried ABC programs on a secondary basis.

In 1961, the split-channel, shared-time arrangement ended as Veterans sold its half of channel 10 to Gannett. Veterans subsequently acquired its own, fully owned station, WROC-TV (then on channel 5) from Transcontinent Broadcasting. The completion of the deal made WHEC-TV the sole occupant of the channel 10 frequency in Rochester. The following year WHEC-TV became a full-time CBS affiliate, as the ABC affiliation moved to newly signed-on WOKR (channel 13, now WHAM-TV). In 1966, channel 10 was one of the founding members of the "Love Network" that airs the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon every Labor Day. WHEC was the creator of the "cut-ins" that local stations insert into the national telethon, a concept that has since spread across the country.

Gannett split up its radio/TV holdings in 1971 when WHEC radio was sold to a local group (the station is now known as WHIC). Channel 10 was allowed to retain the WHEC-TV call letters. The station remained the Gannett Company's lone broadcast holding until 1979, when Gannett sold channel 10 in the wake of its purchase of Combined Communications. Gannett feared the FCC, who several years earlier decided to eliminate several small-market print/broadcast ownership combinations, would force it to sell either the television station or the newspaper. Gannett retained the Democrat and Chronicle, which it continues to publish, and the company maintained its headquarters in Rochester until moving to the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C. in 1985.

The new owners of channel 10 made U.S. television history. WHEC-TV became the first VHF, network-affiliated station to be purchased and wholly owned by an African-American group, led by investor Ragan Henry. Despite the historical notation, the Henry-led group's stewardship of WHEC-TV would be short-lived. In 1983 the Henry group traded channel 10 to the original Viacom in exchange for a pair of radio stations, WDIA in Memphis and KDIA (now KMKY) in San Francisco.

Under Viacom ownership, channel 10 took part in another trade—this one the first (and only) network affiliation switch in Rochester. On July 1, 1989 WHEC-TV joined the NBC network, replacing WROC-TV (now on channel 8), which took on CBS. This move was the result of WROC-TV's poor performance and constant pre-emptions of network programming (NBC was very intolerant of pre-emptions at this time). The swap brought channel 10 in-line with sister stations WNYT in Albany and WVIT in New Britain, Connecticut, which had recently renewed their NBC relationships. In addition, NBC's strong primetime programming—NBC was the most-watched network at the time, while CBS was in distant third near the midpoint of the Laurence Tisch era—was another major factor.

Viacom purchased Paramount Pictures in 1994, and merged its five-station group (WHEC-TV, WNYT, WVIT, KMOV in St. Louis, and KSLA-TV in Shreveport, Louisiana) into the Paramount Stations Group. However, in 1995, the company decided to divest itself of all stations not affiliated with its fledgling UPN network. In Spring 1996, Paramount traded WHEC-TV and WNYT to Hubbard Broadcasting in return for UPN affiliate WTOG-TV in St. Petersburg, Florida.

WHEC's digital signal on UHF channel 58 signed-on September 27, 2002 under a special temporary authority. For many years WHEC-TV was one of three Rochester area stations offered on cable in the Ottawa, Ontario/Gatineau, Quebec and Eastern Ontario regions. The Rochester area stations were replaced with Detroit, Michigan stations when the microwave relay system that provided these signals was discontinued. WHEC and other Rochester stations were available on cable in several communities along the north shore of Lake Ontario such as Belleville and Cobourg, Ontario. All Rochester affiliates with the exception of Fox affiliate WUHF were replaced with Buffalo stations in January 2009.