21 Facts About WUTV

WUTV is a television station in Buffalo, New York, United States, affiliated with the Fox network.

Since February 2008, WUTV serves as the Fox network feed received in the Cayman Islands.

WUTV signed on the air on December 21,1970, as a general entertainment independent station, and its original studios were located at the transmitter site in Grand Island, New York.

The WUTV call sign was originally to be used for a station on VHF channel 3 in Indianapolis, Indiana under the ownership of department store William H Block Co.

WUTV was the only independent station in Buffalo for many years; its schedule included cartoons, sitcoms, and sci-fi shows, along with classic movies and drama series.

Related searches

On October 9,1986, WUTV became one of the original charter affiliates of the newly launched Fox network.

At the time, Fox only aired late-night programming five days a week, so WUTV was still essentially programmed as an independent station.

However, by 1989, WUTV was one of several Fox affiliates nationwide that were disappointed with the network's weak prime time programming offerings, particularly on Saturday nights, which were bogging down WUTV's otherwise successful lineup.

Fox then signed an agreement with WNYB-TV to become its new Buffalo affiliate, and WUTV reverted to being an independent station full-time, effective September 1,1989.

The sale was finalized in June 1990, and Lear moved WNYB-TV's stronger programming to WUTV, in turn bringing the Fox affiliation back to the station.

The Buffalo Sabres, who held a minority stake in the new WUTV, which was then sold WNYB-TV to Tri-State Christian Television .

On January 16,1995, WUTV became a secondary affiliate of the upstart United Paramount Network .

On May 15,2012, Sinclair Broadcast Group and Fox agreed to a five-year extension to the network's affiliation agreement with Sinclair's 19 Fox stations, including WUTV, allowing them to continue carrying the network's programming until 2017.

Chances of WUTV keeping its Fox affiliation increased in October 2017 when Ion elected its stations to have must-carry status instead of retransmission consent, which the FCC ruled Ion must keep for three years.

On May 9,2018, Sinclair announced that seven Fox affiliates would be sold to FTS, but WUTV was not included and an affiliation renewal was announced for that station instead, keeping WUTV with Sinclair.

Since Fox began airing NFL games in 1994, WUTV is guaranteed to air at least two Bills games per season .

Until 2013, WUTV did not air news programming, making Buffalo the largest television market in the United States whose Fox affiliate did not offer any newscasts at all .

Under the terms of the agreement to carry WGRZ's newscasts on WUTV, Sinclair had no editorial control over the newscasts.

In March 2021, WUTV established a studio to produce content for Sinclair's national news programming, such as The National Desk.

On July 1,2021, WUTV introduced a new in-house newscast; it uses resources from other Sinclair-owned stations in the state of New York, with its anchors based out of WSTM-TV in Syracuse, and its weather and sports segments produced from WHAM-TV in Rochester.

WUTV was carried via microwave on cable systems in Central New York, including the towns of Sullivan and Chittenango in the mid 1970s.