WTVH

WTVH (channel 5) is a television station in Syracuse, New York, United States, affiliated with CBS. It is the only station whose broadcast license continues to be owned by Granite Broadcasting, a moribund company (controlled by Greenwich, Connecticut–based hedge fund Silver Point Capital) that sold most of its remaining assets in 2014 and 2017. Granite maintains a local marketing agreement (LMA) with Sinclair Broadcast Group, owner of dual NBC/CW affiliate WSTM-TV (channel 3), for the provision of certain services. Both stations share studios on James Street/NY 290 in the Near Northeast section of Syracuse, while WTVH's transmitter is located in the town of Onondaga. History The station debuted on December 1, 1948, as WHEN-TV airing an analog signal on VHF channel 8. It went on-the-air as Syracuse's first television station. The channel was the first station owned and operated by the Meredith Corporation and was the 47th station to launch in the United States. Meredith simultaneously entered the television field in several Midwestern cities including Omaha and Kansas City. In 1954, it purchased WAGE radio (620 AM) and changed that station's call letters to WHEN (AM); it also switched the station's network affiliation to CBS Radio in 1956 matching it with other Meredith-owned outlets. The station became a primary CBS affiliate on January 1, 1949, and also carried secondary affiliations with NBC, ABC, and DuMont. When the original WSYR-TV (now WSTM-TV) signed-on in 1950 and took the NBC affiliation, WHEN-TV shared ABC with that channel until WNYS-TV (channel 9, later WIXT-TV and now the present WSYR-TV) signed-on in 1962 and took the ABC affiliation. The affiliation with DuMont ended in 1956 when that network ceased operations. It is the oldest continuing affiliate of the CBS Television Network among stations not owned by the network itself. In July 1961, WHEN-TV moved to channel 5, swapping channel locations with WROC-TV in Rochester as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) revised its Upstate New York allocation table to provide more VHF service in the two cities. In 1963, the WHEN stations moved from their original Court Street studios into a new state-of-the-art facility on James Street near WSYR (AM)-FM-TV's studios. Popular national radio and television personality Arthur Godfrey originated his late-morning CBS network radio show from the new WHEN studios on the day the facility opened to help Meredith celebrate.