About WNYW

WNYW is the east coast flasghip station of the Fox television network. It is best kinown in the market for its influential and popular “Ten O’Clock News”, the first of that kind in its market (and the second of its kind in the nation behind sister WTTG in Washington). Fox has owned this station since 1986; before that it was Metromedia-owned WNEW-TV and Dumont flagship WABD-TV.

Station History

WNYW officially signed on the air on May 2, 1944 as WABD, owned and operated by Allen B. DuMont. From 1946 until 1955, it was the flagship of the ill-fated DuMont Television Network. In 1955, DuMont decided to shutter its network operation, converting WABD and its Washington station, WTTG, into independents. The two stations were spun off from DuMont into the DuMont Broadcasting Corporation, which soon after became the Metropolitan Broadcasting Corporation. Investor John Kluge took over Metropolitan in 1958 and merged his own broadcasting holdings into the company, including his WNEW radio stations. At this point, Channel 5 took the WNEW-TV calls to match up with its new radio sisters. Now firmly under Kluge’s control, Metropolitan became Metromedia, Inc. Metromedia was nothing if not agressive with channel 5, and the station went from a low-budget also-ran to the leading independent in New York, thanks to the company’s innovative programming strategies, from popular movies and shows, to newscasts, even to product produced by Metromedia itself. In 1986, the Metromedia television stations were acquired by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, to serve as the cornerstone for his Fox network that would launch on a limited basis later that year, and fully the next year. Fox only got the Metromedia television stations and not the radio stations, so as a result Fox was forced (by FCC rules) to change the call letters to the current WNYW. At this point, the station embraced its new owners, and subsequently its new network, wholeheartedly. WNYW’s promotions, programming, and even newscasts shifted to an often edgy, hard-hitting style, often echoing not only the network, but also the New York Post (also owned by Murdoch) and Fox News Channel. In fact, the station currently features a news format that emulates the graphical style and presentation of Fox News.

Notable WNEW/WNYW Personalities

WNEW TV 1977 – 1982

WNEW TV Forty Years of Fine Tuning – 1984

WNEW celebrated its 40th anniversary in 1984, launching the memorable “Forty Years of Fine Tuning” campaign and jingle, which made its appearance at the end of many promos.

WNEW Signoff / Closedown

Before the advent of 24-hour television, stations closed down in the US, too. The spectacle was far more technical and long-winded than in the UK. Here’s the sequence of events as WNEW shut down for the night:

WNYW TV 1986 ‘Grey look’

This interim look was launched in March 1986, after Fox assumed control of the Metromedia stations. Aside from the new look and the new calls, most everything stayed the same – station references were still to “Channel Five”, and the Metromedia announcers stuck around for a little while longer.

WNYW TV 1986 – late 80s

Fox’s influence wasn’t felt until late 1986, when “A Current Affair” and a weeknight chat show, “The Late Show with Joan Rivers” debuted. The former one, produced at WNYW, established the aggressive tone of many of the Fox stations, where the latter was the very first programme aired over what would become the Fox network. The gray idents were ditched for a fantastic CGI look, the Metromedia announcers were retired, and the station was beginning to evolve into a network O&O as Fox’s ideas on branding began to slowly creep in. WNYW began to be referred to on-air as the snappily named “Fox Television Channel Five New York”…

WNYW 2002 – 2005