WWTI - History

History

The station signed-on February 1, 1985 with the calls WJCK. Airing an analog signal on UHF channel 50, it replaced a low-powered translator of Utica's ABC affiliate WUTR previously on the allotment. The station was the third outlet established in Watertown after WWNY-TV and WPBS. Prior to WJCK's launch, WWNY was a secondary ABC affiliate and also served Massena and Malone along with WIXT-TV (now WSYR) from Syracuse.

At its sign-on, WJCK took over operation of repeater W25AB channel 25 in Massena to better serve the St. Lawrence River Valley. However, WVNY in Burlington, Vermont eventually launched a translator (W60AF channel 60) of its own in Malone. WJCK also operated a second repeater (W25AB channel 25) in order to expand its reach in and around Watertown. The station became WFYF on August 8, 1986.

In addition to being an ABC affiliate from the start, it shared secondary Fox status with WWNY beginning October 9, 1986. While the latter cleared more of Fox's programming offerings, WFYF aired Fox Sports National Football League (NFL) games on Sunday afternoons (in addition to carrying Monday Night Football through ABC). Its original ownership team consisted of several investors including General Manager David James Alteri, Steven Fox, and Richard Kimball. After the station went bankrupt under the initial partnership, it was sold to Robert Smith of Smith Broadcasting in 1990 and the current call sign WWTI was adopted September 14. A new General Manager, Shelly Markoff, took control of operations.

In September 1998, an agreement between this station and Time Warner Cable allowed WWTI to launch cable-exclusive WB affiliate "WBWT". The arrangement was established during a period when The WB deployed various network stations outside the top 100 markets as cable-only channels. WWTI provided sales and promotional opportunities to "WBWT" which was originally seen on Time Warner Cable channel 31. Since it was a cable-exclusive outlet, the call sign was not officially recognized by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). At some point in time, "WBWT" moved to the more appropriate channel 14 slot allowing it to be known on-air as "Watertown's WB 14".

In 2000, the United Communications Corporation (owner of WWNY) entered into an agreement with Smith Broadcasting to make WWTI's repeaters (W28BC and W25AB) separate full-time Fox affiliates known together as WNYF. After a year of joint operation, United Communications took complete ownership of the two stations. The Ackerley Group purchased WWTI in 2000 at which point David Males, then General Sales Manager, was promoted to General Manager. It joined Ackerley's cluster of New York stations with master control and other internal operations based out of centralcasting facilities at flagship WIXT in Syracuse. Clear Channel Communications would take control of the station with its purchase of Ackerley in 2001. On July 30, 2003, WWTI began broadcasting a digital signal on UHF channel 21.

On January 24, 2006, The WB and UPN announced the two networks would end broadcasting and merge. The new combined service would be called The CW. The letters would represent the first initial of corporate parents "C"BS (the parent company of UPN) and the "W"arner Bros. unit of Time Warner. Some of UPN's programming was seen in Watertown on WNYF in a secondary nature through a tape-delayed arrangement. On May 18, it was confirmed "WBWT" would be joining The CW via The CW Plus (a similar operation to The WB 100+). When the new network launched on September 18, WWTI created a second digital subchannel to offer non-cable viewers access to CW programming. "WBWT" dropped the faux call sign in favor of WWTI-DT2 which began to be used in an official manner.

On April 20, 2007, Clear Channel entered into an agreement to sell its entire television station unit to Newport Television (a subsidiary of private equity group Providence Equity Partners). WWTI's broadcasts, which were originally scheduled to become digital-exclusive on February 17, 2009, were forced to continue in both analog and digital until June 12 due to FCC objections at an estimated $50,000 in additional cost. At 11:59 p.m. on the revised DTV transition date, the station finally shut down its analog transmitter and became digital-exclusive. Newport announced on July 19, 2012 that it would sell twelve of its stations, including WWTI, to the Nexstar Broadcasting Group. WFXV, WPNY-LP, and WUTR in nearby Utica are already owned/operated by Nexstar. The transaction was completed in December 3.