WWOR-TV - History - As WWOR-TV - UPN Affiliation

UPN Affiliation

Two years later, Chris-Craft and its broadcasting subsidiary, BHC Communications, and Viacom's newly-acquired subsidiary Paramount Pictures banded together to form the United Paramount Network, the sixth U.S. television service when it debuted in January 1995. At the network's launch, WWOR-TV was UPN's "flagship" station. However, UPN did not allow WWOR's superstation feed to carry UPN programming nationally (In contrast The WB Television Network allowed WGN-TV, one of WWOR's superstation counterparts, to air network programming on its cable feed during that network's early years.). In the 1990s, the station continued with a large amount of younger leaning talk shows, reality programming, some sitcoms in evenings, and morning syndicated cartoons.

On January 1, 1997, with only a month's advance warning, Advance Entertainment Corporation, which had purchased the satellite distribution rights to WWOR from Eastern Microwave a few months earlier, stopped uplinking the national version. The EMI Service's transponder space was sold to Discovery Communications for the then six-month-old Animal Planet. Amid an outcry from satellite dish owners, National Programming Service, LLC uplinked the station again exclusively for satellite subscribers. The national feed was back to being the same feed as the one for the New York market. NPS dropped WWOR in 1999, in favor of Pax, but Dish Network still carries the New York feed of WWOR on its Superstations package except in areas where the local UPN (and later, MyNetworkTV) affiliate invoked SyndEx to block it out.

In 2000, Chris-Craft announced that it was selling its television stations. It was believed that Viacom, which had gained complete control of UPN a year earlier by purchasing Chris-Craft's half of the network not long after buying CBS, would end up buying the group as a whole. However, Viacom lost the bid for the group to News Corporation, making WWOR-TV a sister station to longtime rival WNYW. This created a unique situation in which the largest affiliate station of one network was owned by the operator of another network. While some cast doubt on UPN's future, Fox quickly cut a new affiliation deal with UPN.

On September 11, 2001, the transmitter facilities of WWOR-TV and eight other New York City television stations, and several radio stations, were destroyed when two hijacked airplanes crashed into and destroyed the World Trade Center towers. The attacks delayed the closing of the Chris-Craft deal for several days. With its broadcast signal shut down, WWOR fed its signal directly to cable and satellite systems, running wall-to-wall 9/11 news coverage from CNN and later the Fox News Channel. Channel 9 resumed regular programming on September 17, 2001. The transmitter has since been relocated to an antenna located atop the Empire State Building, along with most of the other major New York City stations.

Fox began integrating the operations of its two stations soon afterwards. In the fall of 2001, WWOR-TV began running Fox Kids programs that were moved from WNYW in afternoons while running UPN's Disney's One Too during the morning hours. Channel 9 was the last commercial station remaining in New York City to air children's programming both mornings and aftertnoons on weekdays, an ironic twist from 20 years earlier. This did not last long because Fox Kids ended weekday programming in January 2002. UPN ended cartoons in the fall of 2003. But WWOR picked up syndicated cartoons in the fall of 2003 in the 7 to 9 a.m. slot and later until 8 a.m., before cancelling the shows in the Fall of 2006. This made WWOR-TV the last commercial station to run any weekday cartoons. WNYW also placed several of its under-performing programs on WWOR, and cherry-picked channel 9's stronger-performing programs for placement on channel 5's schedule. Currently, WWOR offers several "double-runs" of WNYW programming, but the two stations' individual schedules (outside of network programming) are much different.

Fox considered shutting down WWOR-TV's Seacaucus facilities and moving them to Manhattan with sister station WNYW, but after some negative reactions, Fox Television Stations management reconsidered. They also have considered moving WNYW's facilities to Seacaucus but to date both stations remain at their respective locations.