Branding The North Country CW Founded September 1998 | Slogan TV Now | |
Channels Digital: WWTI-DT 21 (UHF)
Virtual: 50.2 (PSIP) Affiliations The CW (via The CW Plus) Owner Nexstar Media Group
(Nexstar Broadcasting, Inc.) | ||
WWTI-DT2 is the CW-affiliated television station for Upstate New York's North Country. It is part of The CW Plus which a special CW feed broadcasting on cable and/or over-the-air on a digital signal. The station is a second digital subchannel of ABC affiliate WWTI that is owned by Nexstar Media Group. Over-the-air, WWTI-DT2 broadcasts a 720p high definition digital signal on UHF channel 21 (or virtual channel 50.2 via PSIP) from a transmitter on Hayes Road in Copenhagen.
The station can also be seen on Slic Network Solutions' myEVTV service in St. Lawrence County on channel 14 and Time Warner Cable channel 14. Known on-air as The North Country CW, its parent station has studios on Arsenal Street/SR 3 in Watertown. However, master control and some internal operations are based within centralcasting facilities at the studios of sister station WSYR-TV on Bridge Street in East Syracuse.
History
In September 1998, an agreement between WWTI and Time Warner Cable allowed the station 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".
The station 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".
On January 24, 2006, CBS Corporation (which took over UPN after Viacom's split into two companies in December 2005) and TimeWarner (the owner of The WB at that time) announced they would shut down the two networks and combine their resources to make a new service called The CW. The letters would represent the first initial of the name of those respective two companies. Some of UPN's programming was seen in Watertown on Fox affiliate WNYF-CA-LP 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 August 17, 2012, it started broadcasting in HD. ([1])
On March 4, 2013, WPTZ's second digital subchannel assumed the CW affiliation for the Plattsburgh/Burlington market. Since the main WPTZ channel also serves as one of the default NBC affiliates for Massena, New York (along with WSTM-TV in Syracuse), that area now has access to two CW affiliates when WWTI-DT2 is included.