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WPTZ, virtual channel 5, is an NBC-affiliated television station located in Plattsburgh, New York, USA.^[1] WPTZ is owned by Hearst Television, and has its studios in Plattsburgh and transmitter located on Mount Mansfield in Vermont.

Most of WPTZ's programming can also be seen over semi-satellite station WNNE (channel 31), which is licensed to Hartford, Vermont and serves the Upper Connecticut River Valley region of Vermont and New Hampshire.

History[link]

The station signed-on December 8, 1954 on VHF analog channel 5 as WIRI, licensed to the hamlet of North Pole, New York. WIRI was owned by the Great Northern Broadcasting Company along with WIRY radio (1340 AM), with its studios in Plattsburgh and transmitter on Terry Mountain in Peru, New York. The station has been a primary NBC affiliate since its inception; it carried secondary affiliations with ABC until 1968 when WVNY (channel 22) signed-on, and with DuMont until that network ceased operations in 1956.

Rollins Telecasting purchased WIRI in 1956. The new owners changed the station's call letters to the present WPTZ (for PlatTZburgh); the WPTZ calls had recently been dropped by the channel 3 facility in Philadelphia following its controversial trade by Westinghouse Broadcasting to NBC earlier in that year. Rollins merged with Heritage Broadcasting in 1987 to form Heritage Media. In 1991, Heritage Media purchased WNNE, which had been a separate station with its own news department. With Heritage's purchase, WNNE was made into a semi-satellite of WPTZ, significantly improving WPTZ's coverage in the southeastern part of the market. During the analog era, the station was the only one in the area that did not operate any translators. Heritage moved WNNE's master control to WPTZ in Plattsburgh in 2000.

The company sold all of its broadcasting properties to the Sinclair Broadcast Group in 1997 prior to its merger with News Corporation. The sale protected new Fox affiliate WFFF-TV which was initially operated by WPTZ under a local marketing agreement (LMA) and shared the analog transmitter on Terry Mountain. Otherwise WPTZ/WNNE, along with then-sister stations in Pensacola, Florida and Charleston, West Virginia would have been forced to switch to Fox. Sinclair, in turn, sold WPTZ/WNNE along with the WFFF LMA to Sunrise Television in 1998. Sunrise then decided to swap all three stations, along with Smith Broadcasting-owned KSBW in Salinas, California to what was then known as Hearst-Argyle Television in return for WNAC-TV in Providence, Rhode Island and WDTN in Dayton, Ohio. The swap became official on July 2, 1998. WFFF began operating as an independently-owned and controlled station in 2000 when the LMA with WPTZ was terminated.

On June 23, 1999, WPTZ petitioned the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to change its community of license (COL) from North Pole to Plattsburgh. The station cited the area's declining population as the reason for the change. The 2000 United States Census did not even count North Pole as a separate community, and instead included it in Lake Placid.^{[citation needed]} The community-of-license change was approved by the FCC on January 5, 2011.^[2] However, WPTZ had dropped North Pole from its station IDs some years earlier, instead identifying as "Plattsburgh/Burlington."^{[citation needed]}

WPTZ was one of two television stations in the United States with a "North Pole" community of license. The other is KJNP-TV, a religious station licensed to North Pole, Alaska in the Fairbanks area. It was a subject of a blooper when Oprah Winfrey taped a promo for her show for WPTZ and started laughing after she spoke the station's community of license. David Letterman in another promo during his NBC tenure, riffed on the station's request for him to pronounce the "Z" in WPTZ as "zed" instead of "zee" for the station's Canadian audience.^{[citation needed]}

On February 17, 2009, the station shut down its analog signal and began to broadcast exclusively in digital. It was one of the first stations owned by Hearst to cease analog broadcasting (KITV in Honolulu, Hawaii was the other).

WPTZ-DT2[link]

In September 2006, WPTZ established a daily web video forecast as part of a major revamping of its website. The feature, known as the "Weather Plus Update", introduced a logo showing WPTZ/WNNE offering NBC Weather Plus together as "5&31 Weather Plus". Starting in October, its studios in Plattsburgh underwent extensive renovations. During that time, its broadcasts were from a temporary set while the construction took place. While the studios as a whole were being upgraded, the weather department underwent the most change. In advance of the launch of NBC Weather Plus, the weather center was expanded to make room for new combined WPTZ/WNNE weather graphics and logos. The remodeling was completed by late-November.

WPTZ launched Weather Plus on a new second digital subchannel on November 15 after debuting a new digital signal from Mount Mansfield a day earlier. The service was never offered on WNNE's digital signal even though this had been airing since July 20, 2005. On digital cable, WPTZ-DT2 was carried on Comcast digital channel 169 (serving the Upper Valley), Telecom digital channel 305, and Time Warner digital channel 854. It was never offered on Charter systems in New York State.

In December 2008, NBC shut down the national Weather Plus service. WPTZ continued to air a locally-derived version of Weather Plus until August 31, 2009 when it was replaced with This TV. This marked the network's first foray into the Plattsburgh and Burlington area along with St. Lawrence County in New York and eastern portions of the adjacent Watertown market where WPTZ has long served as the default NBC affiliate on cable. WPTZ-DT2 remains on the three digital cable systems while being added to Charter digital channel 296 while still not being offered on WNNE-DT.

Overview[link]

Like the other network stations that serve Plattsburgh and Burlington, it has a large audience in Southern Québec, Canada. This includes Montréal, a city that is ten times more populous than all of WPTZ's entire American viewing area combined. For many years, the channel identified on-air as "North Pole/Plattsburgh/Burlington/Montréal" to acknowledge its large cable viewership in Canada. It is widely carried on cable in the province of Québec as far north as Saguenay and as far east as Gaspé. On Vidéotron systems in Montreal, it can be seen on: channel 23 (West Montreal), channel 18 (Central and East Montreal), and channel 52 (Illico digital). In addition, Southern Quebec viewers can also pick up WPTZ's over the air signal with a well-placed antenna.

During NBC prime time programming, Canadian cable systems frequently cover up WPTZ's signal on cable systems in Montreal and, to a lesser extent, Quebec City. This is done to satisfy the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission's simsub rules. The action benefits CFCF-TV and CKMI-TV. On the American side, WPTZ can be seen in New York State on Charter channel 2 and in Vermont on Comcast channel 5. It is the default NBC affiliate for Essex, Franklin, and Eastern St. Lawrence Counties in Upstate New York where it is seen on Time Warner Cable. In Ogdensburg and Western St. Lawrence County, that system offers both WPTZ and Syracuse's WSTM-TV.

WNNE, licensed to Hartford, Vermont, operates as a semi-satellite of WPTZ. It simulcasts all local, syndicated, and network programming but airs separate station identifications and advertisements. WNNE has its own studios on Dewitt Drive in White River Junction. The channel's coverage area includes the Connecticut River Valley (Upper Valley) area of Central and Western New Hampshire as well as Southern Vermont. Most of WNNE's viewership comes from the Southern New Hampshire sub-market which is part of the Greater Boston DMA. Additionally, the channel shares its coverage area with sister station WMUR-TV.

News operation[link]

For most of its history, WPTZ's newscasts have been a distant second in the ratings behind long-dominant CBS affiliate WCAX-TV. Traditionally, it focuses on the North Country and New York State while the other channel tends to cover more from Vermont. In order to cover that state, WPTZ operates secondary facilities known as the Vermont Bureau on Roosevelt Highway (U.S. 2/U.S. 7) in Colchester. At one point, there had been more general assignment reporters based at the main studios in Plattsburgh. However in more recent times,^[when?] additional reporters based at the Vermont Bureau have been hired.

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, WNNE operated its own news department and aired local newscasts. This was progressively cut back after being bought by Heritage, eventually resulting in the elimination of a full news operation in 2007. Today, the only visual difference between the stations are different channel bugs during newscasts. Occasionally when WNNE has technical problems, WPTZ's logo will peek through. The two currently use the NewsChannel branding.

During newscasts on WPTZ, WNNE is referred to as the Upper Valley Bureau and features a full-time reporter based in its White River Junction studios. Contributions to the broadcasts on this channel includes a live headline from the Upper Valley weeknights at 5:30 as well as video footage for other time slots. In addition to the Upper Valley and Vermont Bureaus, WPTZ airs national news from Hearst Television's Washington, D.C. bureau. It employs several reporters who give live reports to the various Hearst affiliates.

Although WPTZ and WNNE do not own or operate weather radars of their own, they use live NOAA National Weather Service radar data from several regional sites. It is presented on-screen in a forecasting system known as "Storm Tracker 5000" (powered by the Supper Doppler Network). Unlike most NBC affiliates, WPTZ does not air a midday newscast during the week. It had aired a show at noon until 2005 but was dropped in favor of 5:30 Now that airs on weeknights. With the departure of Thom Hallock (whose contract was not renewed by station) on November 23, 2007, WPTZ was left with an all-woman weeknight anchor team. That changed with the arrival of Gus Rosendale. He left WPTZ in 2005 to report at sister station WTAE-TV in Pittsburgh and made his debut back at this station in mid-December. Rosendale left the station again in December 2010 to join KSTP-TV in Minneapolis – Saint Paul, with George Mallet taking his place shortly thereafter. In February 2012 Rosendale joined WNBC-TV in New York City.

In August 2009, the station introduced a new format and title to its weeknight newscast at 11. The re-formatted show called NewsChannel 5 Nightcast features more fast-paced and edgier news. Despite its logo which includes "HD", the newscasts were aired in pillar-boxed 4:3 standard definition and it was the only station in the market to not have upgraded local news to high definition. WPTZ was one of six remaining stations owned by Hearst that has yet to make the upgrade to 16:9 enhanced definition widescreen or full HD, until on April 26, 2011, when WPTZ started airing newscasts in widescreen. However, unlike the newscasts on WCAX and WFFF/WVNY, the WPTZ newscasts are not in true HD—just SD widescreen.

Newscast titles[link]

• TV-5 News (1970s)
• NewsCenter 5 (1970s-1980s)
• Nightly News on 5 (1980s)
• News 5 (1980s-early 1990s)
• NewsChannel 5 (1995–present)
• Nightcast (weeknight 11 p.m. news, 2009–present)

Station slogans[link]

• "Coverage You Can Count On" (1998-2003)
• "Where the News Comes First" (2003-present)

News team[link]

Anchors

• Matt Hobbs - weekday mornings
• Courtney Kabot - weekday mornings
• George Mallet - weeknights at 5, 6, and 11
• Stephanie Gorin - weeknights at 5, 6, and 11
• Bridget Shanahan - weeknights at 5:30
• David Schneider - weekends and reporter

NewsChannel 5 Weather Plus Meteorologists

• Tom Messner (CBM Seal of Approval) - Chief seen weeknights and "Hometown Hero Award" segment producer
  • heard on WOKO-FM 98.9, WKOL-FM 105.1, WJOY-AM 1230, WSLP-FM 93.3, and CKON-FM 97.3
• Hayley LaPoint (CBM Seal of Approval) - weekday mornings
• Gib Brown (AMS Seal of Approval) - weekends

Sports

• Ken Drake - weeknights at 6 and 11
• Damien Quinlan - weekends and sports reporter

Reporters

• Paul Sands - President and General Manager seen in editorials
• Heather Van Arsdel - New York State and fill-in news anchor
• Kate Amara - weekday morning Washington D.C. Bureau
• Lewis First - "First With Kids" segment producer
• David Charns - Upper Valley Bureau (WNNE)
• Stewart Ledbetter - Vermont Bureau Senior
• Nikole Killion - Washington D.C. Bureau
• Sally Kidd - Washington D.C. Bureau
• Lauren Victory - New York State
• Mia Moran - Vermont Bureau
• Jill Glavan - Vermont Bureau

Notable past personnel

• Chris Ortloff - early-1980s
  • served in the New York State Assembly from 1986 until 2007
  • on December 24, 2008 pleaded guilty to felony charge of online enticement of minors and sentenced April 23, 2009
• Jeanne Moos - now reporter for CNN
  • in 1976 Moos became WPTZ's first female correspondent
• Dawn Fratangelo - now NBC News correspondent
• Michael French - now Hearst Television and Freelance Photographer

References[link]

External links[link]

• WPTZ "NewsChannel 5"
• WPTZ mobile
• WPTZ-DT2 This TV
• WNNE "NewsChannel 31"
• Query the FCC's TV station database for WPTZ