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The Time CTV Had An Affiliate In Buffalo
It's hard finding exact info about this, so I'm presenting this in the hope all the facts are right - because this story is just amazing. If you can add or correct any of it, please feel free.
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Did you know that CTV once had an affiliate in the Buffalo area? This is the incredible story of what is now WNYB-TV, Channel 26 in Jamestown, New York. It was recently highlighted here as one of the newest affiliates for METV’s all cartoon channel.
But in 1966, long before it was a religious broadcaster, it was called WNYP. And somehow, it would end up as a very unlikely American CTV affiliate. The place, run by the guy who would one day become the founder of the much more successful Home Shopping Network in the U.S., was - by all accounts – a mess.
To begin with, they couldn’t afford a satellite or a direct line to pick up CTV. So they simply rebroadcast Toronto’s Channel 9 signal off the air, sometimes including CFTO’s station I.D., which was against FCC rules.
The odd way they received the station meant that in tropo circumstances, other channel 9s would often cut into the T.O. signal, which meant viewers might suddenly be watching something else entirely!
There were endless technical glitches with the broadcaster, including audio interference from a nearby Jamestown radio station.
And then there’s the fact that CTV bought the rights to American shows, which meant the station would often be showing the same programs that were on local Buffalo ABC, NBC or CBS affiliates, which they didn’t appreciate and threatened expensive lawsuits over.
Not only that, but the station would sometimes air programming from CHCH or CBC-TV without asking permission, prompting legal threats from those channels, as well – which they frequently won.
WNYP disappeared in the early 70s, when WUTV debuted, taking what few viewers the “little-independent-that-couldn’t” had, with them. In the end, the owner decided to shut the place down entirely, leaving the channel blank until it returned in various incarnations, finally emerging as a fulltime religious outlet in 1995.
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Re: The Time CTV Had An Affiliate In Buffalo
Saul might have some DX comments but here are mine. The antenna was located near Akrwright i the US side of the Niagara Escaprpment. The place was known as the arkwright hills. It was a DX haven and I atteneded a couple of DX conventions - there was a farmhouse on the top of one of the hills with electrical power where we plugged in TV’s in the 60’s and early 70’s. Every morning in the summer there was tropo on UHF out to the east coast of the USA and well into the midwest. It was not unusual to see Chicago area UHF’s up there every day. WNYP’s signal was massive and I had constant reception on a Delhi 6 foot parabolic UHF dish in North York. I used to visit a DXer in Buffalo and I remember how “good” the signal was, despite the fact that the transmitter was nearer to Dunkirk NY. I recall that WNYP had Phillips colour cameras which were always mis-adjusted. Perhaps it was studio lighting but the flesh tones were bizarre - pinkish at best. Our TV was a Clairtone (Canadian made in NS) and the pictures on other stations were very good with excellent colour fidelity. But WNYP’s picture was strange…But it was fun to watch, bizarre local shows, and of course the pirated programmng was
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Re: The Time CTV Had An Affiliate In Buffalo
Sounds like the original SCTV!
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Thread Starter- paterson1
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Re: The Time CTV Had An Affiliate In Buffalo
I posted about this five years ago. WKBW, WGR and WBEN didn't like when WNYP became the CTV affiliate in the Buffalo area since CTV often ran the US imports prior to the local Buffalo stations. The owner of WNYP Lowell (Bud) Paxton had a long association with CTV long after his Buffalo experiment finished. Bud formed the PAX network in the US which eventually became ION. These networks always carried a lot of cancon particularly from CTV.
Here is the original post regarding CTV's Buffalo affiliate and information from Wikipedia..
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Here's a small addition to the story that's about CTV's main affiliate, CFTO.
Did you know ABC in the U.S. once tried to buy a piece of Channel 9 just a few months after it signed on Dec. 31, 1960? I'd never heard this before, but this article confirms that it happened. The BBG - the forerunner of the CRTC - turned them down. 
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Thread Starter- paterson1
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Re: The Time CTV Had An Affiliate In Buffalo
I believe ABC did "loan" CTV money to keep them afloat in the early months. The new network got a bit of traction when they got rights to the CFL playoffs and figure skating. Both thanks to Johnny Esaw, their first sports director.
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Re: The Time CTV Had An Affiliate In Buffalo
RadioActive wrote:
Here's a small addition to the story that's about CTV's main affiliate, CFTO.
Did you know ABC in the U.S. once tried to buy a piece of Channel 9 just a few months after it signed on Dec. 31, 1960? I'd never heard this before, but this article confirms that it happened. The BBG - the forerunner of the CRTC - turned them down.
This offer apparently had a profound effect on the Board of Broadcast Governors. After this investment attempt, according to Broadcasting Magazine, the Board announced "it will not recommend any future transactions which will permit financial participation by U.S. networks in Canadian television stations."
I believe that policy is still in effect all these years later.
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Thread Starter- tvguy
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Re: The Time CTV Had An Affiliate In Buffalo
Espn had a significant shareholding in TSN, within the 20% foreign ownership limit. Discovery Networkks also had a significant shareholding in Discovery Canada. There are quite a number of situations where US networks took equity positions in Canadian broadcaters. My recollection is that for many years ,US citizens who were acceptable to ABC, occupied executive positions at CTV. But CTV which in those days was a consortium owned by its affliates, operated within the parameters of Canadian ownership law.
Foreign ownership of sone Canadian broadcasters continues to this day.
The CRTC site currently lists a numbered company controlled by ESPN - owning 20% of CTV Specilaty Television Inc,
Last edited by tvguy (Yesterday 10:39 am)
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Re: The Time CTV Had An Affiliate In Buffalo
It was my understanding that the rule applied to over-the-air TV stations, not necessarily cable. Bit of course, when the rule was made, no one had any real idea about cable or what it would become.
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Thread Starter- markow202
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Wasnt then there, an article where John of CFTO got excited upon CN Tower opening up, to block anything US related with the stronger signals?
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Re: The Time CTV Had An Affiliate In Buffalo
Wasnt then there, an article where John of CFTO got excited upon CN Tower opening up, to block anything US related with the stronger signals?
It was actually the Buffalo stations that expressed concerned about the strength of the signals off the Tower. As it turns out, none of those worries really came to pass, especially when cable came into the picture. And radio stations also found out their worst fears didn't come true.
From 1976:
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Thread Starter- tvguy
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Re: The Time CTV Had An Affiliate In Buffalo
A couple of clarifications. Since I was around broadcating around the time of the end of the BBG days, there weren’t hard and fast regulations prohibiting foreign ownership of TV and radio. there were no specialty tv services at that time (e.g. cable channels). But contrary to what some may believe there were several over-the-air broadcasting companies controlled by US or foreign nationals, CFCF TV and radio was owned by Canadian Marconi - which wasn’t at all controlled by Canadians. And the CKLW ownership by RKO - CKLW TV and Radio was another “irritant”. When I became active in CRTC related matters by the early 70’s there were ownership reviews ongoing - by government - there were some special committees - looking into media ownership. Not the CRTC!!! To be clear the CRTC for several years, did not actually have the (legal) “tools” to regulate foreign ownership. By the way this also applied to Telecom. BC Tel was foreign controlled. Eventually the Federal Cabinet issued a “Directive to the CRTC” on foreign ownership. Even today that "Cabine" directive still stands as the legal/regulatory policy document. It is not a CRTC regulation per se. But CRTC regulations, limiting foreign ownership appear in the Radio and Television Regulations. It' is the (Cabine) "Directive to the CRTC" which where the 20% “rule” came into effect for broadcasting. Foreign companies were given time to divest their ownership. That’s when the Bronfman family gained control of CFCF through a company which I recall was called “multiple access”. If my memory serves me well the Directive to the CRTC eventually led CKLW being sold to Baton Broadcasting. They later divested the stations to CUC Limited - which owned Scarborough Cable and a large network of cable systems in N. Ontario controlled by Geoff Conway. But the legal regulations limiting foreign ownership - pursuant to the “Directive to the CRTC also extended to cable company ownership. Few people will recall that some cable companies in Toronto were foreign owned. We had 12 or 13 different cable systems throughout the GTA and through a freak of gov’t ineptness the Ministry of Fisheries (yup fisheries handed out cable tv licences in the 1960's - NOT the BBG). Fisheries (probably through a clerical error) had allowed two companies to over-wire a few streets around Yonge and St. Ciair. Famous Players had cable lines along Balmoral (south of St. Clair) and I believe Rogers had wires on the same poles. Bill Ballentine who was GM of CKFM had Rogers on one floor of his house and service from Famous Players on another floor of his house. The divestitures were not particularly rapid. RKO I believe got multiple extensions of time to divest. In fact there were court cases that went as high as the Supreme Court of Canada that related to foreign ownershiup. I was in the Supreme Court of Canada on the day that J.J. Robinette argued on behalf of the Canadian Goverment on the constitutionalaity of cable regulation and regulation of foreign ownership. That would have been around 1976 or 1977. That is more than a decade and a half after the BBG ownership story. The bottom line is that foreign ownership of Canadian media continued longer than you might have thought. The CFTO BBG story isn’t factually incorrect, but certainly the BBG took no action against other over-the-air Radio and TV licensees which were foreign owned. All these years later I am at a bit of a loss to recall all of the foreign owned Radio and TV stations. I think there were a few out west as well. It seems to me that Famous Players might have been one of the parties involved in the Supreme Court case, but it might have also involved some cable companies (U.S.) operating up around Port Arthur or Sault Ste Marie (Ontario).
Last edited by tvguy (Yesterday 5:36 pm)