Wometco Home Theater

The Wometco Home Theater (WHT) was an early pay television service in the New York City area, owned by Miami-based Wometco Enterprises, which owned several major network affiliates in medium markets and their flagship WTVJ in Miami (then the CBS affiliate on Channel 4, now an NBC O&O on channel 6). The signals were broadcast on Channel 68 beginning in August, 1977, WWHT-TV and later on WSNL-TV Channel 67 out of Smithtown, New York. The service had ended by 1986.

Subscribers paid $15 for a set-top descrambling box that allowed subscribers to view channel 68's scrambled television signals. (A later addressable, 2-channel version of this descrambler was developed under V.P. of Engineering, Alex MacDonald.) The service was similar to Home Box Office, but a Wometco executive told The New York Times that WHT was more likely to select films with a particular interest to the New York City area. Wometco also targeted areas that were not yet served by cable (note that although parts of Manhattan had cable television service as early as 1971, the vast majority of the five boroughs of New York City would not begin getting cable television until 1988).

Programming began at 8pm and consisted of 12 features a month, including movies and entertainment specials. In addition, select home games of the NHL's New York Islanders were broadcast live from the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum. Each program was repeated five times during the month. During the daytime, WWHT was a small commercial television station. The station was originally going to be a general entertainment station with shows that WNEW-TV, WOR-TV, and WPIX passed on. However, costs were too high for such shows so the station broadcast only a couple hours of low budget syndicated shows, The Uncle Floyd Show, public affairs programs, religious programs, stock market reports, and minority-interest and foreign language programs. In 1980, WHT began programming a movie from 10:30 AM to 1 PM as well, later adding the adult-themed late night service, "Nightcap" with its black cat logo.

In the fall of 1980 Wometco Enterprises brought in a new management team. The team consisted of Harold Brownstein as the new President, and Robert Borders, Vice President of Marketing, who had previously worked together at a major BTB direct marketing company. Having operated at $1 million plus loss for over 4 years, this team turned the operation profitable within 18 months. This was accomplished by:

• Consolidating numerous satellite offices/functions into the company's Headquarters in Fairfield, NJ
• Producing a bi-monthly program guide (instead of monthly), significantly reducing printing and postage costs
• Implementing direct response marketing concepts into the company's multi-million dollar local television ads, so that the company could determine which markets and promotions generated sales, instead of just awareness.

WHT also employed an MATV division in an effort to expand their viewership by partnering with the real estate community to provide the service to buildings and apartment complexes, using a facility's pre-existing master antenna system.

In the spring of 1983, WHT also began operating 22 hours a day with only 2 hours a day of religious and public affairs shows on WWHT. It was at this time that Wometco Home Theater and Wometco Enterprises were sold to the private investment firm of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.

By 1984, Wometco Home Theater had stopped programming its own channel and began carrying the programming of California based pay-TV service SelecTV. Finally, after losing more and more subscribers over the next two years, WHT ceased operations in 1986. Channels 67 (WSNL) and Channel 68 (WWHT) had moved to an all-music format similar to MTV which lasted for about one year before both stations were purchased by an affiliate of the Home Shopping Network. The stations are now affiliates of the Telefutura Spanish-language television network.