WTVE (New York)
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Broadcasting |
| Founded | 1953 |
| Defunct | 1957 |
| Headquarters | Elmira, New York , United States |
| Products | Television broadcasting |
WTVE (channel 24) was a television broadcaster based in Elmira, New York, with two periods of operation: from 1953 to 1954 and again between 1956 and 1957. As the Elmira region’s inaugural station, it transmitted from studios located on Market Street and utilized a transmitter positioned on Comfort Hill near Ashland. Financial difficulties typical of early UHF broadcasters contributed to its shutdown, alongside attempts to obtain a VHF channel allocation for Elmira—a request that was initially approved but subsequently revoked. Throughout its 44 months on air, WTVE accumulated losses totaling $350,000.
Construction and early years
In June 1952, Elmira Television—a partnership formed by Thompson K. Cassel and John S. Booth, who had radio holdings in Pennsylvania—filed an application for channel 18 in the Elmira–Corning area but shifted their focus to channel 24 by August. This move put them in competition with the Elmira Star-Gazette’s application. After the newspapers combined their efforts under El-Cor Television for channel 18, the FCC issued a construction permit to Elmira Television for channel 24 on November 6, 1952. By the end of that month, construction commenced on a transmission tower atop South Mountain (Comfort Hill) in Ashland.
Elmira Television targeted a launch date of May 15, 1953; however, delays postponed the first test pattern until June 1, with regular broadcasts beginning June 15. The station secured affiliations with CBS, ABC, DuMont, and initially NBC until WECT (channel 18) started operations in late September. Live CBS and NBC programming was delivered via microwave relay from Syracuse, supplemented in October by an additional feed carrying ABC shows from Wilkes-Barre. That same month marked the debut of locally produced live content from studios converted from a YMHA building on Madison Avenue and Market Street, featuring news segments and children’s programming.
By April 1954, WTVE had plans to expand its Madison Avenue studios and filed an application to launch a daytime-only radio station at 800 kHz despite facing opposition due to frequency conflicts with a proposed Wellsville outlet.
Tower collapse
On October 15, 1954, Hurricane Hazel brought wind gusts reaching approximately at South Mountain, causing the station’s transmission tower to collapse at 9:15 p.m.—the most significant damage Elmira sustained during the storm. The tower fell toward the north direction but left the transmitter building and its engineer unharmed.
The collapse was expected to keep the station off-air for a minimum of one month. Following this incident, Elmira Television abandoned its plans for the radio station proposal. Restoration required constructing a new tower along with a specially designed antenna for channel 24.
Channel 9 fight
Plans for rebuilding were overshadowed by WTVE’s pursuit of a VHF television channel allocation for Elmira—a strategic decision given that VHF channels did not necessitate viewers to convert their sets as UHF channels did. The Corning Leader had initially proposed channel 9 for Elmira back in 1951; however, it was omitted from the 1952 allocation due to interference concerns with Toronto’s channel 9. In June 1954, Cassel and Booth revived their request for channel 9. A competing application originated from Blossburg, Pennsylvania.
Support within the local business community favored assigning channel 9 to Elmira. They argued that without an operational local station (since WECT had ceased operations in May), advertisers and viewers relied on Binghamton’s WNBF-TV (channel 12), which placed Elmira enterprises at a competitive disadvantage relative to those in Binghamton.
Opposition emerged from Binghamton interests—particularly Southern Tier Radio Service, owner of WINR radio—which held a permit for UHF channel 40 (WICZ-TV). They contended that an Elmira-based channel 9 capable of reaching Binghamton audiences would undermine television development in Binghamton and diminish overall service quality. Binghamton’s mayor Donald W. Kramer, who owned Southern Tier Radio Service, cautioned that granting channel 9 to either Elmira or Blossburg would effectively terminate WINR-TV’s plans.
During the deliberations over channel 9 assignments, both WTVE and WINR-TV requested extensions from the FCC; WINR-TV noted that network affiliations had been withheld contingent upon local assignment of channel 9. Ultimately, the FCC ordered both stations to be operational by January 1956, rejecting concerns about UHF economic viability as justification for further postponements.
Reassignment of channel 9; channel 24 returns to broadcasting
On December 1, 1955, the FCC assigned channel 9 to Elmira, creating new opportunities for applicants while automatically denying WTVE’s petition to modify its license. Opposition arose from a group intending to operate on channel 18, and WSYR-TV (channel 3) in Syracuse—planning a satellite station in Elmira—expressed concerns that the VHF designation of channel 9 would disrupt its local programming plans for the Twin Tiers region. Both WSYR-TV and the prospective WINR-TV submitted formal objections to the allocation.
By early 1956, the Star-Gazette also filed an application for channel 9, aiming to establish an NBC-affiliated station that would complement Binghamton’s CBS affiliate WNBF-TV and align with its WENY radio operations. In March, the FCC dismissed protests from Syracuse and Binghamton. At this stage, four applications were active for channel 9: from WTVE, the Star-Gazette, a consortium connected to radio station WELM, and Veterans Broadcasting Company based in Rochester.
Simultaneously, channel 24 resumed transmissions following an eighteen-month interruption. Although it missed a February deadline and faced setbacks due to harsh winter weather, a new 500-foot tower was constructed on South Mountain. Testing commenced in late April, and WTVE returned to the airwaves on May 6, 1956, broadcasting NBC and ABC content. William W. Scranton, owner of Pennsylvania’s WARM-TV, acquired a 30-percent stake. This made WTVE the sixth UHF station to suspend operations and subsequently resume broadcasting. Live programming soon followed, featuring religious shows as well as local news and weather segments.
A devastating setback; cessation
Just as the FCC was preparing to hold hearings on the four channel 9 applications, the commission voted 4–3 in June to replace the assigned VHF channel 9 with UHF channel 30 under a deintermixture initiative aimed at reducing competition between VHF and UHF stations. Elmira was grouped with cities such as Evansville, Fresno, Hartford, Madison, Peoria, and Springfield under this proposal. Local business leaders, U.S. Representative W. Sterling Cole, and all four applicants for channel 9 convened to consider their options and launched a public awareness campaign. Veterans Broadcasting filed the first formal objection, contending that Elmira’s topography was unfavorable for UHF transmission. Meanwhile, an educational television organization endorsed the FCC’s plan as beneficial for UHF growth, while a Syracuse-based group supported relocating channel 9 there.
By January 1957, three of the original applicants merged into one after the Star-Gazette withdrew; Television Associates of Elmira and Veterans Broadcasting acquired interests in WTVE’s channel 9 bid. However, in February the FCC reaffirmed its decision to designate Elmira as an exclusively UHF market with channels 18, 24, and 30. Two weeks prior, on February 13, WTVE ceased broadcasting after incurring losses exceeding $350,000 over 44 months and facing challenges in obtaining network programming—exacerbated by WSYE-TV’s launch in September 1956 as a WSYR-TV satellite station. By the end of 1958, both the channel 24 license and channel 9 application had been withdrawn.
The Comfort Hill transmitter site was revitalized in 1965 when FM radio station WENY-FM utilized WTVE’s former tower; today several other FM stations and translators operate from this mast. WENI-FM continues transmitting from this location on this frequency.