WENY-TV

WENY-TV is the ABC/CBS and CW Television affiliate for the Central and Western Twin Tiers of Southern Upstate New York and Northern Pennsylvania. Licensed to Elmira, New York,. WENY broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 36 from a transmitter on Higman Hill in Corning. The station can also be seen on Time Warner Cable channel 4 and in high definition on digital channel 1200. Owned by Lilly Broadcasting, WENY has studios on Old Ithaca Road in Horseheads, NY. It was also be seen over-the-air through an analog repeater W06AR on VHF channel 6.

History

The station signed-on November 19, 1969 after Howard Green, owner of WENY radio (1230 AM and 92.7 FM) and WCMC-AM-TV in Wildwood, New Jersey, was awarded analog UHF channel 36 by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Another area broadcaster, Frank Saia, had surrendered the construction permit to build what would have been WEHH-TV on the same channel.

Green purchased the equipment of WNYP-TV, a defunct station in Jamestown, and hired Larry Taylor (that station’s Assistant Chief Engineer) to move and install the equipment into a space on the ground floor of the Mark Twain Hotel in Downtown Elmira (former restaurant). The station’s analog Antenna was side-mounted to the WSYE tower on Hawley Hill. An addition was constructed to the building that that housed NBC affiliate WSYE (now WETM-TV) to house the Analog Transmitter. The station's DTV transmitter is relocated in Corning.