WBBZ-TV - History - Temporary Shutdown and Return

Temporary Shutdown and Return

On April 16, 2009, as a result of it bankruptcy, Equity Media Holdings auctioned off 60 of its television stations. WNGS was sold to Daystar Television Network, who already owned WDTB-LP in nearby Hamburg, along with six other full-service stations and nine LPTV and Class A stations for a total of US$7.4 million. Also around this time, WNGS's agreement with WKBW ended. The sale was approved by the FCC in August 2009. WNGS went off the air on June 12, 2009 after not being able to complete its digital transition in time, and remained silent for almost a year. Meanwhile, on May 14, 2010, Daystar filed to sell the station to ITV of Buffalo, LLC, a partnership owned by local TV personalities Philip Arno and Donald Angelo, for $2,750,000, with plans to program the station from Clarence. Angelo later dropped his involvement in the station.

WNGS finally completed its digital transmitter and returned to the air in late May 2010, carrying Daystar programming. The sale was completed on September 16, 2010; at that time, the station rejoined This TV. However, as part of the deal, Daystar must remain on WNGS in the form of a digital subchannel for 10 years, a deal which was previously made with KOCE-TV in the Los Angeles area as a compromise after Daystar was unable to purchase that station.

WNGS, formerly on a digital subchannel of WKBW-TV, had planned to start its own digital signal on WKBW-TV's former analog location, channel 7, at the end of the 2009 digital transition. There were concerns that this could cause interference in some areas of the Southern Tier as WBNG (which covered an area all the way up to WKBW's coverage boundary in Steuben County) uses channel 7 as its digital signal, but WBNG apparently reduced its coverage area, ceding some of its western territory to another station, which alleviated these concerns.

As of December 2008 both the ability of WNGS to transition to its own digital facilities and its ability to continue broadcasting were directly jeopardized as (according to the station's most recent DTV status report), "On December 8, 2008, the licensee's parent corporation filed a petition for bankruptcy relief under chapter 11 of the federal bankruptcy code, case #4:08-BK-17646-M, US district court for the district of Arkansas. This station must obtain post-petition financing and court approval before digital facilities may be constructed. The station will cease analogue broadcasting on June 12, 2009, regardless of whether digital facilities are operational by that date. The station will file authority to remain silent if so required by the FCC."

While the station had applied for an extension of its DTV construction permit, it was unable to continue analog operations as it is not only a full-service station, but it also operated on a frequency which is to be reallocated for non-broadcast use at the end of the digital television transition. Further complicating matters is that Kitchener, Ontario's CTV owned-and-operated station CKCO-TV, a station serving portions of southern Ontario with a signal that penetrates Western New York, being assigned the same channel 7 by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission for its own digital signal should it apply to simulcast digitally before its analog channel 13 broadcasts end in August 2011, when that station would move digital broadcasts to channel 13.

Daystar's last-minute proposal to transmit from the WNYO-TV broadcasting tower in Folsomdale, New York instead of using WKBW's Colden tower was rejected due to WNYO/Sinclair's last-minute shift of broadcasting on its lower power digital channel 34 from Grand Island, and receiving FCC approval to transfer its digital signal to a full-power channel 49 transmission from Folsomdale on June 12.

Because WNGS failed to begin digital broadcasts on channel 7 after June 12, 2009, local cable systems had an out to no longer carry the station despite WNGS's direct fiber connection to the providers from West Valley. As the Buffalo market stretches west to near Erie, east towards Rochester, north towards Toronto and several counties in northern Pennsylvania in an area with several varieties of terrain, pay television service is almost a requirement for optimum viewing in outlying areas, resulting in the Buffalo–Hamilton–Toronto area having one of the highest pay-television penetration rates in the Northeast. Very few households watch the over-the-signals of many of the stations, resulting in serious trouble for WNGS if it were unable to continue maintaining its must-carry status. While Daystar's existing analog translator stations could maintain the station's service in the area, WDTB-LP only covers small portions of the city of Buffalo, far from providing market-wide coverage by any means.

On June 12, 2009, WNGS switched to a "nightlight" service, broadcasting only a still screen reading "WNGS has ceased operations as of June 12, 2009." Though it technically extended the broadcast life of the station, this was not allowed to continue any later than July 12, far too soon for a digital over-the-air signal to be ready. DirecTV customers in the Buffalo market stopped receiving WNGS on June 22, 2009.

As of March 2010, the station still had not returned to the air in any form. Time Warner Cable ended its hold on WNGS's channel 11 cable slot; WNLO was moved into that position and Time Warner's cable news service, YNN Buffalo was placed on channel 9, the former location of WNLO.

In late May 2010, WNGS finally started transmitting its ATSC signal on channel 7. It invoked must carry and returned to Time Warner Cable on channel 5 (a prime cable position that WNGS specifically lobbied to obtain) in November 2010. The station's website returned sometime in December 2010.