WSYR-TV

WSYR-TV is the ABC-affiliated television station for Central New York State that is licensed to Syracuse. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 17 from a transmitter on Sevier Road in Pompey. The station can also be seen on Time Warner channel 9 and in high definition on digital channel 1240. Owned by Nexstar Broadcasting Group, it has studios on Bridge Street (NY 690) in East Syracuse.

History

Channel 9 was the last of Syracuse's major network affiliates to sign on, doing so September 9, 1962 after a channel shuffle involving rival WHEN-TV and Rochester's WROC-TV allowed a third analog VHF station in Syracuse. The original call letters were WNYS-TV (now assigned to Syracuse's MyNetworkTV affiliate). It signed-on under the ownership of a group of local investors. The station has always been an ABC affiliate. Channel 9's original studios were located in the basement of Shopping Town Mall on Erie Boulevard in DeWitt.

Fire overtook WNYS-TV's studios in the basement of the Shopping Town Mall in DeWitt in April 1967 forcing the station to temporarily move to WCNY-TV's studios in Liverpool until its facilities were rebuilt. In 1969, then-owner W.R.G. Baker Television Corporation applied for a WNYS-TV translator on channel 7, W07BA; this facility, serving Syracuse and nearby Nedrow, came on the air in 1972. W07BA, which later moved its second city of license to DeWitt, remained a repeater of channel 9 until 2014; its license was canceled on March 24, 2014. The station was purchased by The Outlet Company in 1971, and was sold in 1978 to WNYS Acquisition Corp., which was a joint partnership of Coca Cola's New York bottling division and former Washington Post president Larry H. Israel. The call sign was then changed to WIXT-TV with "IX" standing for Roman numeral 9. The Ackerley Group bought the station in 1982. The station moved to its current location on Bridge Street in 1985.