WWTI-TV

Digital programming
It operates the area's CW affiliate on a second digital subchannel. Known on-air as The North Country CW, this is also offered on Time Warner channel 14.

History
Former logo.On September 23, 1987, the station began broadcasting an analog signal on UHF channel 50 with the calls WFYF-TV. It replaced a repeater of Utica's WUTR. It was the second commercial television station in the Watertown market behind WWNY-TV which had the area very much to itself since going on-the-air October 22, 1954. After the station went bankrupt under its initial investors (a group of Watertown businessmen), it were sold to Smith Broadcasting in 1990 and the current call sign WWTI was adopted.

The Ackerley Group purchased the station in 2000 and Clear Channel Communications took control of WWTI with its purchase of Ackerley in 2001. Until Fox affiliate WNYF (which had formerly been a WWTI translator but is now operated by WWNY) went on-the-air in 2000, WWTI also had a secondary affiliation with the network airing its Sunday NFL games. This station began broadcasting a digital signal on UHF channel 21 on July 30, 2003.

On January 24, 2006, The WB and UPN announced that they would end broadcasting and merge. The new combined network would be called The CW. The letters would represent the first initial of its corporate parents, CBS (the parent company of UPN) and the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warner_Bros. Warner Bros.] unit of Time Warner. Cable-only "WBWT" served as the area's WB affiliate via The WB 100+ and was operated by WWTI since its launch in 1998. On September 18, this station created a new second digital subchannel to simulcast WBWT and offer access to CW programming to non-cable viewers. WBWT then began to use the WWTI-DT2 calls officially and became part of The CW Plus a service similar to The WB 100+.

On April 20, 2007, Clear Channel entered into an agreement to sell its entire television stations group to Providence Equity Partners. WWTI's broadcasts, which were to be digital-only effective February 17, 2009, [1] were forced to continue in both analog and digital until June 12 due to Federal Communications Commission (FCC) objections [2] at an estimated $50,000 in additional cost. [3] At 11:59 p.m. on that date it finally shut down its analog transmitter and became digital exclusive. On September 14, 2009, WWTI switched its branding to "ABC 50" and website from "newswatch50.com" to "myabc50.com" de-emphasizing local news.[4]

News operation
WSYR's news open simulcasted on WWTI.WWTI maintained a minimal local news presence for several years. Having never successfully competed with WWNY, the nightly NewsWatch 50 broadcasts were canceled in 2004. For a short time, the station replaced full newscasts with a 24 Hour News Source-style series of short hourly news updates seen during the day. It continued to air several daily news and weather updates under the NewsWatch 50 branding. In December 2006, WWTI launched a weeknight news update at 5 known as 5 at 5. This broadcast was canceled when WWTI was hit by across the board cuts from Newport Television in June 2009.

Weekday morning newsman Alan Walts was let go, eventually ending up on WTNY-AM 790 while the station lost weekday morning meteorologist Ryan Coyle (who was based in Binghamton) due to the shutdown of news operations at sister stations WIVT and WBGH-CA. Another former meteorologist seen on WWTI was Samantha Hensell who was also based at the Binghamton operation. This station's lone locally-based meteorologist Jay Donovan was also let go at about the same time. Only longtime anchor John Moore remained based in Watertown. Eventually, his weekday morning cut-ins were taken off-the-air and he produced news and features for the station's website until February 2010 when he accepted a news position with rival WWNY. Eventually, this station hired a reporter to contribute content to WSYR in Syracuse as a news bureau as well as WWTI's website.

WWTI began simulcasting WSYR's nightly 11 o'clock news and added half-hour reports from the Buffalo Bills training camp produced by fellow ABC affiliate and sister station WHAM-TV in Rochester seen during the 2009-2010 season. [5] On September 8, 2009, WWTI began simulcasting WSYR's weekday morning and nightly 6 o'clock newscasts. [5] As with all CW Plus affiliates in the Eastern Time Zone, WWTI-DT2 airs the nationally syndicated morning show The Daily Buzz on weekdays from 6 to 9.

Newscast titles

 * North Country News (1988-1990s)
 * NewsWatch 50 (1990s-2009)
 * 5 at 5 (weeknight 5 p.m. update, 2006-2009)
 * NewsChannel 9 (2009–present, used during WSYR news simulcasts)

Station slogans

 * "Your North Country News Station" (1988-early 1990s)
 * "Always On" (2006–2009)
 * "We're Always On!" (2009–2011)
 * "Anytime, Anywhere: NewsChannel 9 is Everywhere." (2009–2011, used during WSYR news simulcasts)
 * "The Local Station" (2011-present, used during WSYR news simulcasts)

News team
Anchors Storm Team Meteorologists Sports (all seen on Friday Night Fever) Reporters
 * Dan Cummings - weekday mornings and reporter
 * Christie Casciano - weekday mornings starting at 5 and crime reporter
 * Carrie Lazarus - weeknights at 6 and "Family Healthcast" segment producer
 * Rod Wood - weeknights and consumer reporter
 * Racquel Asa - weekends and reporter
 * Dave Longley (AMS Seal of Approval) - Chief seen weeknights
 * Chris Brandolino - weekday mornings
 * Jim Teske (AMS Seal of Approval) - weekends
 * Tom Hauf (Certified Broadcast Meteorologist) - fill-in
 * Steve Infanti - Director seen weeknights
 * Sal Maneen - weekends and reporter
 * fill-in anchor
 * Mike Lacett - reporter
 * Holly Boname - North Country based at WWTI
 * Jennifer Lewke - consumer investigator
 * Kelly Quinn - fill-in news anchor
 * Tanja Babich - weekday mornings
 * Jeff Kulikowsky - Senior
 * Keith Kobland - producer
 * James Gaddis - producer
 * Tim Fox - producer
 * Staci-Lyn Honda
 * Jan Carabeo