WBNG-TV
WBNG-TV, virtual channel 12, is a dual CBS/CW+-affiliated television station licensed to Binghamton, New York, United States and serving the Eastern Twin Tiers of Southern Upstate New York and Northern Pennsylvania. The station is owned by Quincy Media. WBNG-TV's studios are located on Columbia Drive in Johnson City, and its transmitter is located on Ingraham Hill Road in the town of Binghamton. On cable, the station is available on Charter Spectrum channel 2 in both standard and high definition. It is also carried in portions of Sullivan County on Spectrum channel 12 in standard definition only.
History
The station signed-on December 1, 1949 as WNBF-TV and was originally owned by Clark Associates Inc. along with WNBF radio. At its launch, WNBF carried programs from all four American television networks at the time since it was the market's first television outlet to launch. For many of its early years, WNBF was the only station available to viewers in the nearby Scranton–Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania market as set owners pointed their roof-top antennas north towards Binghamton. The station subsequently lost its affiliations with DuMont in 1956 after the network's collapse, and the others when new UHF stations arrived in town: NBC on WINR-TV in 1957; and ABC to WBJA-TV in 1962.The station was a major beneficiary of a quirk in the Federal Communications Commission 's plan for allocating stations. In the early days of broadcast television, there were twelve VHF channels available and 69 UHF channels. The VHF bands were more desirable because they carried longer distances. Since there were only twelve VHF channels available, there were limitations as to how closely the stations could be spaced.
After the FCC's Sixth Report and Order ended the license freeze and opened the UHF band in 1952, it devised a plan for allocating VHF licenses. Under this plan, almost all of the country would be able to receive two commercial VHF channels plus one noncommercial channel. Most of the rest of the country would be able to receive a third VHF channel. Other areas would be designated as "UHF islands" since they were too close to larger cities for VHF service. The "2" networks became CBS and NBC, "+1" represented non-commercial educational stations, and "1/2" became ABC.
However, the Binghamton market was sandwiched between Syracuse and Utica to the north, Elmira to the west, Scranton–Wilkes-Barre to the south, and Albany-Schenectady-Troy and New York City to the east. This created a large "doughnut" in south-central New York where there could only be one VHF license. Binghamton was also too close to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and New Haven, Connecticut to reallocate channel 8 into the market; the original channel 8 allocation would later be moved to Rochester. Additionally, UHF signals usually do not travel very far over rugged terrain, as was the case in Binghamton and in Scranton–Wilkes-Barre. As a result, WNBF was the only station in Binghamton until WINR-TV signed on in 1957.
Philadelphia-based Triangle Publications, owner of various broadcasting and newspaper properties, purchased the WNBF stations in 1955. As part of Triangle's exit from broadcasting in 1972, WNBF-AM-FM-TV and sister stations in Altoona and Lebanon were sold to Gateway Communications. Gateway was a new broadcasting concern majority-owned by the publishers of the Bergen Record of Hackensack, New Jersey and headed by George Koehler, president of Triangle's broadcast division. As a condition of the purchase, Gateway sold the WNBF radio stations to Des Moines-based Stoner Broadcasting and retained channel 12 which was renamed to its current call sign, WBNG-TV on October 28, 1972.
In September 1998, an agreement between WBNG, The WB 100+ Station Group and the area's cable provider allowed the station to launch the WB-affiliated "WBXI" cable channel, which replaced superstation WPIX on Binghamton-area cable systems. Since it was a cable-exclusive outlet, the call sign was not officially recognized by the FCC. WBNG provided sales and promotional opportunities to "WBXI".
In 2000, Gateway was purchased by SJL Broadcasting which reduced staff from 100 to 58 over five years to fit the aggressive SJL automation model. In 2002, WBNG's digital signal on VHF channel 7 signed-on.
In April 2006, it was announced that Granite Broadcasting made a deal to acquire the station from Television Station Group License Subsidiary, LLC for $45 million. The required money was funded by a new senior credit facility created after the previously announced sales of Detroit's WMYD and San Francisco's KBWB fell apart. Granite would close on its purchase of WBNG on July 26, 2006. As part of the transaction, Les Vann was promoted to Executive Vice President of the company's Central and Southern New York operations. His duties were regional in nature with responsibilities at both WBNG and WTVH.
WBNG's digital signal began broadcasting network programming in high definition in late January 2007. Beginning in September 2007, CW affiliate "WBXI" began to be simulcast on a new second digital subchannel of WBNG; the faux "WBXI" call sign, which was inherited from the former WB 100+ cable-only channel, was then dropped. In December 2008, it was announced a deal was reached between Granite and Time Warner Cable to carry WBNG's high definition feed throughout the Binghamton region. This was the first time HD programming from CBS was available to customers in the Southern Tier of New York State without using an antenna.
WBNG-TV shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 12, on June 12, 2009, the official date in which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition VHF channel 7. Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former VHF analog channel 12.
On February 11, 2014, Quincy Newspapers announced that it had reached a deal to purchase WBNG from Granite along with other company-owned and/or managed stations in three other markets. The sale was approved on September 15, 2015 and completed on November 2.
Until April 25, 2009, WBNG served as the longtime default CBS affiliate for the Elmira and Corning area. On that date, ABC affiliate WENY-TV signed-on a new second digital subchannel in order to offer access to CBS for the first time ever in that market. On November 22, 2015, WBNG also lost its status as the default CBS affiliate for most of Otsego County in the Utica market, when NBC affiliate WKTV's second digital subchannel became CBS' first full-time affiliate in that area. However, WBNG continues to be shown in Otsego County as a result of viewer complaints caused when the station was taken off Time Warner Cable systems on August 31, 2016. The WBNG signal was restored January 25, 2017.
Digital television
Digital channels
The station's digital signal is multiplexed:| Channel | Video | Aspect | PSIP Short Name | Programming |
| 12.1 | 1080i | WBNGCBS | Main WBNG-TV programming / CBS | |
| 12.2 | 720p | WBNGCW | Binghamton CW 11 | |
| 12.3 | 720p | WBNGME | MeTV | |
| 12.4 | 480i | CourtTV | Court TV | |
| 12.5 | 480i | Grit | Grit |