united states branding wnep tv 16 general newswatch 16 newscasts wnep 2 on dt2 slogan the news station channels digital 50 uhf virtual 16 psip subchannels 16.1 abc 16.2 antenna tv 16.3 justice network translators see article affiliations abc owner dreamcatcher broadcasting llc local tv pennsylvania license llc operator tribune broadcasting first air date wilk tv september 16 1953 warm tv february 4 1954 merged as wnep tv october 1957 call letters meaning we re in northeast pennsylvania former channel number s analog 34 uhf 1953 1957 16 uhf 1957 2009 digital 49 uhf until 2009 transmitter power 500 kw height 517 m facility id 73318 transmitter coordinates 41 10 57.2 n 75 52 13.9 w 41.182556 n 75.870528 w 41.182556 ; 75.870528 licensing authority fcc public license information profile cdbs website wnep.com wnep tv channel 16 is a television station licensed to scranton pennsylvania united states and is the abc affiliate for the scranton wilkes barre television market . the station is owned by dreamcatcher broadcasting llc ; tribune broadcasting a subsidiary of the tribune media company operates wnep under a shared services agreement . the station maintains studio facilities located on montage mountain road in moosic and its transmitter is on penobscot knob in mountain top pennsylvania . contents 1 history 1.1 wilk tv and warm tv 1.2 merger and transition 1.3 analog broadcast tower collapse 1.4 local programming 2 digital television 2.1 digital channels 2.2 analog to digital conversion 3 translators 4 news operation 5 out of market coverage 6 references 7 external links history edit wilk tv and warm tv edit there were originally two abc network affiliates in northeastern pennsylvania . wilk tv operating on channel 34 and owned by wilk radio took to the air from wilkes barre on september 16 1953 . 1 it was followed by scranton licensed warm tv broadcasting on channel 16 and owned by future governor william scranton along with warm radio in february 1954 . 2 during the late 1950s wilk tv was also briefly affiliated with the nta film network . 3 wilk wanted to get a head start on the other local stations when it signed on in 1953 going on the air at 2 pm rather than the 3 pm sign on that the other stations did . the engineers got the signal ready by noon and decided to take a break . however at lunch they turned on the station to inspect their handiwork only to find the signal was dead . they rushed back and were able to establish the link by 1 50 pm 10 minutes before sign on . 4 getting a signal from abc headquarters in new york city was a challenge in the early days with no access to satellites . as a result wilk set up a microwave tower in effort about 45 miles east of wilkes barre . from there the network signal was bounced to the penobscot knob transmitter site . often station engineers had to adjust the effort transmitter to accept a signal from wfil tv now wpvi tv in philadelphia if they were unable to receive the new york feed . wilk tv and warm tv were both losing money in large part because their network abc was not on an equal footing with nbc and cbs and would not be until the 1970s . however they stayed on the air because they were owned by well respected local radio stations . merger and transition edit by 1955 however it was obvious that scranton and wilkes barre were going to be a single television market . in late 1957 wilk tv and warm tv agreed to merge into a single abc station for northeastern pennsylvania . the merged station then as now operated under wilk tv s license but used warm tv s channel 16 in order to provide wider signal coverage at less cost no small consideration given the station s vast and mostly mountainous coverage area . transcontinent television corporation a buffalo new york based media firm acquired a 60 percent interest in the merged station ; the remaining shares were split between the warm and wilk groups with william scranton as chairman . 5 the merged station wnep tv was licensed to scranton and split operations between wilk tv s former facility in wilkes barre and a new studio in scranton . in 1962 wnep tv consolidated its operations at a new studio near wilkes barre scranton international airport in avoca . wilk tv s transmitter site at penobscot knob was retained by wnep tv and the warm tv transmitter was donated a decade later to the area s pbs member station wvia tv channel 44 . meanwhile the wilk tv facility was repurposed as a satellite repeater of wnep tv until late summer 1958 . 6 7 the channel 34 assignment was later reallocated to binghamton new york to be occupied by abc affiliate wbja tv now wivt beginning in 1962 . 8 9 despite a power boost to 1.5 million watts and an increased coverage area expanded to 15 counties in northeastern pennsylvania 4 wnep tv bounced back and forth in the ratings for most of the next two decades . it was never able to achieve any consistency because of the bitter rivalry between scranton and wilkes barre . viewers in wilkes barre thought it was a scranton station while viewers in scranton thought it was a wilkes barre station . it was also hobbled by being an affiliate of the smallest and weakest network ; indeed wnep s launch made scranton wilkes barre the smallest market in pennsylvania with full service from all three networks . transcontinent exited broadcasting in 1964 and sold several of its stations including wnep tv to taft broadcasting . 10 11 when taft purchased philadelphia independent station wibf tv channel 29 now wtxf tv in 1969 12 it sought a waiver to keep both stations . channel 16 s grade b signal reaches the lehigh valley which is part of the philadelphia market . wnep tv had also operated an outlying translator on channel 7 in allentown for many years . the federal communications commission fcc normally did not allow one company to own two stations with overlapping coverage areas . while it initially granted the waiver it reversed itself four years later and forced taft to sell channel 16 . a group of wnep tv station employees and executives formed nep communications which bought the station from taft in late 1973 . 13 soon after nep took over the station news director elden hale decided to take a regional approach . he billed the station as serving northeastern and central pennsylvania and stepped up coverage of the remote portions of the market . these areas had largely been ignored by the other stations in town . he also added the area s first news helicopter . this approach quickly paid off . in november 1976 wnep surged to first place for the first time in a decade . after briefly falling back to second it surged to number one in 1978 around the same time abc became the nation s number one network . apart from a brief period in the mid 1990s when wbre tv passed it it has been number one ever since . nep also established a remote production company which operated as an adjunct to wnep tv . the new york times company bought the station in 1985 . 14 wnep moved to its current studios in moosic in 1989 ; the facility is similar to the building the times company built for sister station whnt tv in huntsville alabama but on a larger scale . nep communications retained the production unit which became nep broadcasting ; the company provided remote broadcast facilities for the olympics fifa world cup and the academy awards as well as a studio production facility in new york city . 15 on january 4 2007 the station along with the rest of the times company s television division was sold to oak hill capital partners in a 575 million transaction . oak hill formed local tv as a holding company for its stations . 16 on july 1 2013 local tv announced that its 19 stations would be acquired by the tribune company for 2.75 billion ; 17 tribune owns the the morning call in allentown . although allentown is part of the philadelphia television market wnep has long claimed the lehigh valley as part of its coverage area . the fcc ruled that tribune could not keep wnep due to its ban on newspaper television crossownership within a single market the morning call serving a city within wnep s coverage area although tribune has maintained crossownership waivers for its newspaper television station combinations in los angeles chicago miami and hartford . tribune spun off wnep tv to dreamcatcher broadcasting an unrelated company owned by former tribune company executive ed wilson . 18 however tribune will operate the station and provide other services under a shared services agreement and will hold an option to buy back wnep outright in the future . 19 the sale was completed on december 27 . 20 tribune later announced on july 10 2013 that it would spin off its newspapers including the morning call into a separate company the tribune publishing company in 2014 pending shareholder and regulatory approval . 21 the split was completed in august 2014 though as of yet tribune has not announced plans to acquire dreamcatcher outright . analog broadcast tower collapse edit wnep tv s transmission tower broadcasting the analog signal on channel 16 collapsed on december 16 2007 due to severe ice winds and snow at the transmitter location on penobscot knob . 22 the tower collapse also destroyed the transmitter building . no one was injured during the incident . 22 wclh s fm antenna and transmitter which was co located on wnep s analog tv tower was also destroyed during the incident . 23 transmission of the digital signal on channel 49 was restored after a brief interruption of power to the tower supporting the digital transmitter and antenna . wnep s signal on local cable systems and satellite was restored by the end of the day on december 16 2007 . wnep tv partially restored its analog over the air tv signal by january 1 2008 24 by broadcasting from the nearby american tower on penobscot knob supporting the wnep dt antenna as well as wolf tv dt s antenna . 25 26 as the wnep tv analog broadcast tower collapsed on december 16 2007 one of the falling guy wires supporting the wnep tv tower damaged the neighboring tower broadcasting wvia tv analog and digital and wvia fm by shearing off the top section of the wvia tower supporting the antenna for the analog and digital tv signals . the antenna for wvia fm remained intact as it is located on the lower section of the shared wvia fm tv tower . the wvia tv analog signal on channel 44 was temporarily put off the air until service was restored through a back up tower on penobscot knob . 27 the collapse of wnep tv s analog tower also severed power to the transmitters for wyou channel 22 and wbre tv channel 28 putting those stations off the air for a time . 28 on june 12 2009 wnep was to operate on a new tower which is currently complete though the antenna had not arrived in a timely fashion . their goal was to have the new facility operating by august 2009 but it was delayed a few months . 29 on december 5 2009 wnep turned off channel 49 and moved to channel 50 . moving to channel 50 was necessary so it can alleviate possible interference from wwsi which currently operates out of atlantic city new jersey on uhf channel 49 . 30