states branding my tv buffalo general channel 2 news newscasts channels digital 49 uhf psip subchannels 49.1 mynetworktv 49.4 gettv 49.3 comet tv affiliations mynetworktv 2006 present owner sinclair broadcast group new york television inc. first air date september 1987 ; 29 years ago 1987 09 call letters meaning western new york ontario sister station s wutv wuhf wham tv wstm tv wstq lp wrgb wcwn former callsigns wnyb tv 1987 1996 former channel number s analog 49 1987 2009 59 w59bv rochester digital 34 2004 2009 former affiliations independent 1987 1989 fox 1989 1990 tbn tct 1990 1996 the wb 1996 2006 transmitter power 198 kw height 376 m facility id 67784 transmitter coordinates 42 46 53.6 n 78 27 25.9 w 42.781556 n 78.457194 w 42.781556 ; 78.457194 website www.mytvbuffalo.com wnyo tv uhf digital channel 49 is a mynetworktv affiliated television station located in buffalo new york united states . the station is owned by the sinclair broadcast group as part of a duopoly with fox affiliate wutv channel 29 . the two stations share studios at 699 hertel avenue near military road in buffalo wnyo tv s transmitter at ironwood golf course in bennington s cowlesville section . wnyo tv can also be seen on cable television in parts of canada ; it is the mynetworktv affiliate on the digital tiers of cable providers in canadian markets that carry stations from buffalo such as toronto and is also available in kingston brockville cornwall and ottawa via a fiber optic line . however neither wnyo tv nor any other mynetworktv affiliate is available on cable in portions of cattaraugus county new york which is served by atlantic broadband . this is due to financial demands as the must carry rule would normally apply in that area . in situations such as this atlantic usually picks up the station out of erie pennsylvania but that market has no mynetworktv affiliate of its own . contents 1 digital television 1.1 digital channel 1.2 analog to digital conversion 2 history 3 newscasts 3.1 notable current on air staff 4 references 5 external links digital television edit digital channel edit channel video aspect psip short name programming 1 49.1 720p 16 9 wnyo hd main wnyo tv programming mynetworktv 49.2 480i 4 3 asn 49.3 comet tv 49.4 gettv wnyo tv carried thecooltv on digital subchannel 49.2 until september 2012 when the network was removed nationwide on all sinclair stations carrying the network due to contractual issues . american sports network is now on that subchannel . analog to digital conversion edit wnyo tv discontinued regular programming on its analog signal over uhf channel 49 on june 12 2009 the official date in which full power television stations in the united states transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate . the station s digital signal was relocated from its pre transition uhf channel 34 to channel 49 . channel 34 was reallocated to wvtt . 2 wnyo tv s pre transition digital transmitter was located on the northeastern side of grand island it moved to its current location in bennington post transition . history edit wnyb tv signed on the air in september 1987 and was founded by the tvx broadcast group . prior to signing on it was sold to the seymour knox robert swados group original owners of the buffalo sabres nhl franchise who had intended it to serve as an outlet owned by aud television llc to telecast the team s hockey games to buffalo rochester and the niagara peninsula region of southern ontario . this was in the era before the rise of regional sports cable networks such as msg network and empire sports network . financing of the transmitter was facilitated by the prospect of potentially using the five million watt signal for a late night encrypted adult subscription service which was available in many television markets in the northeastern united states in the 1980s . however the station never pursued this option due to the rapid growth of cable . it had intended to sign on in the summer of 1987 but because many of the programs it was to carry would not become available to them until the fall it rescheduled its debut until september of that year . wnyb tv had secured the rights to star trek the next generation a major first run syndicated program which debuted that fall . due to the uncertainty that the station was going to be on the air by the fall of 1987 paramount the syndicator of the program and the later buyer of the tvx chain opted out of the deal with channel 49 and instead the program premiered on wutv . the station s original slogan was buffalo s superstation . in 1989 wutv was one of several fox affiliates nationwide unhappy with the network s weak primetime programming offerings . fox then signed an affiliation agreement with wnyb tv to become its new buffalo affiliate in the fall of that year while wutv reverted to being an independent station full time . wnyb tv did not stay with fox for long however ; that same year the station was sold to act iii broadcasting which almost immediately turned around and offered to buy wutv from citadel communications . citadel accepted the offer in 1989 and the sale was finalized in june 1990 . act iii moved wnyb tv s stronger programming including its fox affiliation to wutv . wnyb tv was then sold to tri state christian television and began to carry religious programming full time including programming from the trinity broadcasting network . grant broadcasting acquired the dormant channel 26 license in jamestown in 1995 and negotiated with tri state christian television to acquire wnyb tv in exchange for channel 26 and cash as well as a new broadcasting facility . the station changed hands in the spring of 1996 and became the market s original wb affiliate with kids wb programming airing late in the afternoons . tbn and other christian programming continued to air outside of late afternoon and primetime hours until september 1996 . at that point tbn programming continued to air from 9 a.m. to noon from midnight to 7 a.m. on weekdays and until 3 p.m. on sundays . the station also changed its call sign to the current wnyo tv on october 24 . 3 because channel 26 was still not operable the christian wnyb intellectual unit was unable to move there in 1996 . finally in january 1997 the christian programming moved to channel 26 along with the wnyb call letters . sinclair broadcast group purchased wnyo tv in 2001 creating a duopoly with wutv which it had already owned since 1997 . on january 24 2006 cbs corporation the parent company of upn and the warner bros. unit of time warner announced that the wb and upn would be shut down . the two companies decided to replace both the wb and upn with the cw the name representing the first initial of its corporate parents a new network that combined select programs from those networks with newer series . 4 5 on february 22 news corporation announced that it would start up another new network called mynetworktv . 6 7 this new service which would be a sister to fox would be operated by fox television stations and its syndication division twentieth television . mynetworktv was created in order to give upn and wb stations that were not mentioned as becoming cw affiliates another option besides becoming an independent station and to compete against the cw . wnyo tv became an affiliate of the network when mynetworktv launched on september 5 2006 . newscasts edit on august 16 2004 wnyo tv established a news department and began airing an hour long weeknight prime time newscast at 10 p.m. in an attempt to compete with the nightly wivb tv produced news broadcast on wnlo . known as wb 49 news at 10 it was part of sinclair s centralized news central operation based at the company s headquarters on beaver dam road in hunt valley maryland . although national news weather forecasts and some sports segments originated from news central local news and sports segments were based at wnyo tv s studios . it also aired the point a one minute conservative political commentary as did all sinclair owned stations with newscasts . the company ultimately chose to develop a news department for wnyo tv as opposed to sister station wutv despite the fact that fox requested its affiliates to air local news in the early 1990s to strengthen programming on the young fourth network . this was due to the fact that the ratings of the syndicated sitcom reruns at 10 p.m. on wutv were especially high in southern ontario . ironically wutv was far more popular in canada than it was its own home market at times even beating hamilton ontario independent chch tv . roughly twelve months after the inaugural newscast on wnyo tv the national news central operation officially folded at the end of march 2006 which effectively also forced the end of the wnyo tv newscast . the newscast had shown some signs of growth but never seriously challenged wnlo s 10 00 newscast in part due to the lack of locally produced weather segments western new york has always placed a high priority on its local meteorologists mainly due to the mesoscale influences of lake erie and a general lack of investment . prior to the news central shutdown wnyo tv had the smallest local news staff of any of the four television newsrooms in buffalo even smaller than that of radio station wben . on april 13 of that year sinclair announced that gannett company owned nbc affiliate wgrz tv channel 2 would begin producing a new weeknight prime time newscast at 10 p.m. for wnyo tv through a news share agreement . this was wgrz tv s second attempt at a 10 p.m. newscast after producing one for pax now ion owned and operated station wpxj tv channel 51 from 2001 to 2003 . originally to be called 2 on nyo 10 at 10 the wnyo tv newscast premiered on april 20 as 2 news on 49 10 at 10 ; the newscast was later retitled as channel 2 news at 10 . it originated from wgrz s studios on delaware avenue ny 384 in downtown buffalo . the newscast originally aired ten minutes of news and weather with a sports program called the sports zone completing the half hour . however due to low ratings the sports zone was cut to only a 6 8 minute segment . it consistently lagged behind the wivb tv produced newscast on wnlo in the ratings for numerous reasons . in 2011 the newscast was again reformatted to 10 at 10 which counts up the top news stories of the day in ascending order from the tenth most at the beginning of the newscast to the most important story near the middle . although seemingly counterintuitive the move did draw viewers who had already caught the top stories on wnlo and wanted to catch wnyo tv s top stories . on february 17 2010 wgrz became the first buffalo station to offer its newscasts in widescreen enhanced definition . however all of the video was still produced entirely in 4 3 standard definition which was then cropped to a 16 9 aspect ratio and upconverted to 1080i in the control room for broadcast . the wgrz newscast on wnyo tv remained in pillarboxed 4 3 standard definition as the station lacked a modern master control at its separate facility in order to receive the newscast in widescreen . wgrz upgraded to full hd on october 29 2011 . the wgrz produced newscast moved to sister station wutv on april 8 2013 trading places with the reruns of seinfeld