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WRGB

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WRGB is the CBS affiliate television station for New York state's Capital District (Albany, Schenectady, Saratoga Springs and Troy). It is licensed to Schenectady with studios in the nearby town of Niskayuna with its transmitterlocated in the Helderberg Mountains in New Scotland. The station broadcasts on channel 6 at an effective radiated power (ERP) of 93.3 kW. The station is owned by Freedom Communications. WRGB's audio signal can also be heard on 87.7 FM in most areas the video signal can be received (and some that it cannot); this is because of the electromagnetic field effect which puts the audio signal of channel 6 at the location of 87.75 MHz with tuners getting the signal at 87.7.

WRGB-DT, WRGB's digital signal is located on channel 39 and was the first full-market digital signal to sign on in the market. The signal consists of the following:

The ERP of the digital transmitter is 31.1 kW.

On June 19, 2006, WRGB parent Freedom Communications announced the purchase of current WB/future The CW affiliate WCWN from Tribune Broadcasting for $17 million. This purchase would give the Albany/Schenectady/Troy market its first duopoly and barring FCC objection would give WRGB control of three stations in the market given their sales agreement with WNYA is set to not expire until the end of 2008.

Contents

History

WRGB claims to be the world's first television station. It traces its roots to an experimental station founded on January 13, 1928 from the General Electric facility under the call letters W2XB on channel 4. It was popularly known as "WGY Television" after its radio sister. In 1939, it began sharing programs with W2XBS (forerunner of WNBC-TV) in New York City, becoming NBC's first television affiliate—a link that would last for 42 years.

On February 26, 1942, W2XB received a commercial license as WRGB—the fourth in the nation and only the second one outside of New York City. In 1954, it moved to its current position on channel 6 to alleviate interference from WNBC (then known as WRCA-TV).

WRGB produced two of the longest-running locally-produced programs in television history: a quiz show called Answers Please and a bowling program entitled TV Tournament Time. After the cancellation of both by the late 1980s, WRGB's local programming has been variable and erratic ranging from a local home shopping show to a weekly video countdown done with Top 40 stations WFLY and (later) WKKF.

On September 28, 1981, WRGB swapped affiliations with WAST (now WNYT) and became a CBS affiliate. Two years later, fifty-five years of General Electric ownership ended when they sold WRGB to Unicom Inc., a unit of Forstmann Little. Unicom's ownership of the station was short-lived as in 1986 they sold WRGB to its current owner, Freedom Communications. The next year, WRGB was awarded the Broadcast Pioneers Golden Mike Award and shortly thereafter was awarded a Presidential citation by Ronald Reagan.

For many years, WRGB had the leading newscast in the Capital District, anchored for many years by the veneable Ernie Tetrault (who was immortalized in the 1992 film Sneakers, directed by one-time WRGB intern Phil Alden Robinson). After Tetrault's retirement in 1993, the station was quickly eclipsed by WNYT and for several years in the mid-1990s fell to third place. For the most part, the station has stabilized to a steady #2 though for a period in the early 2000s it fell back to #3. This relative instablity led WRGB to shed its heritage "NewsCenter 6" brand in early 1998. It changed its on-air name to "CBS6" in October 2004 after decades of being known as either "TV6" or "Channel 6".

Today WRGB still pre-empts their programming from CBS, including sports spectaculars, movies, specials and reruns of series.

Logos

Image:WRGBcircle6.jpg|WRGB's old circle 6 logo, used 1981-98 Image:Wrgb_cbs6_albany.jpg|WRGB's previous logo, used 1998-2004 Image:WRGB6.png|Current WRGB logo, used since October 2004

Weather Coverage

As with its heritage of being the first station in the Capital Region, WRGB has had several firsts in the weather field as well given the unpredictable weather of the northeast. In February 1996, WRGB became the first Capital Region station to put forcasts on the world wide web with the launch of their website.

The Mechanicville Tornado Outbreak of 1998 led to further developments in the station's weather coverage. WRGB won an Emmy award for chief meteorologist Steve Lapointe's near-nonstop work over two days which made sure there were no fatalities in the otherwise devestating tornadoes.

In May 1999, the station (at the behest of LaPointe) started WeatherNet6 which allowed viewers of the station to join the station in reporting weather around the area, they were allowed to report anything from current conditions to snowfall totals.

In 2000, the station became the first station in the market to offer Live Doppler Radar as they installed Instant Doppler 6 to the station. For more information check out the , [Instant Doppler 6 website]. WRGB held this exclusive distinction until 2004 when WNYT set up their own live radar and both WTEN and WXXA updated their radar outputs to live capabilities (WXXA also adding interfacing with other sites around the state).

Ironically, WRGB was the last station in the Albany market to have a degree-holding meteorologist on their staff, not doing so until Freedom's purchase of the station several years after WTEN and WNYT did the same.

Notable personalities

Current Past Outside of news, WRGB is the home base for [Art "Mr. Food" Ginsburg] whose syndicated cooking segment airs across the US usually during midday newscasts. In the mid-1990's, WRGB was the springboard for Glens Falls native Rachael Ray who debuted her "30-Minute Meals" segments on the station.

Newscasts

Note: The time names listed here are not used on-air, the identification of all newscasts is merely "CBS6 News" regardless of time of day.

Weekdays

Weekends

Newscast titles

External links


Broadcast television in the Albany / Schenectady / Troy market [(Nielsen DMA #55)]
WRGB 6 (CBS) - WNCE-CA 8 (A1) - WTEN 10/WCDC 19 (ABC) - WNYT 13 (NBC) - WNYA-CA 15/WNYA 51 (UPN/MNTV) - WMHT 17 (PBS) - WXXA 23 (FOX) - WVBG-LP 25 (RSN) - WNGN-LP 35/WNGX-LP 42 (FamilyNet) - WCWN 45 (WB/CW) - W52DF 52/WTBY 54 (TBN) - WYPX 55 (i) - W58CX 58 (3ABN)
Local cable television channels
TW3 - EdgeTV/UPN4 (defunct) - TWTV7 - Capital News 9

'''CBS Network Affiliates in the state of New York
WCBS 2 () - WIVB 4 () - WTVH 5 () - WRGB 6 () - WWNY 7 () - WROC 8 () - WBNG 12 ()
'''See also: , , , , , and stations in New York

 

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