SPRINGVILLE, N.Y.: Two long-time local TV figures have purchased a dark station that formerly served the Buffalo, N.Y., market. Philip Arno and Donald Angelo formed ITV of Buffalo LLC., to buy WNGS-TV from Daystar Television, a Christian broadcast nonprofit based in Bedford, Texas, according to TheBuffalo News. They paid a reported $2.75 million for the station on the condition that Daystar power it back up.
WNGS went dark last June 12 because the previous owners, Equity Media Holdings, went bankrupt and couldn’t afford to transition it to digital broadcasting. Daystar picked up WGNS along with 15 other stations in the Equity asset auction last summer, The News said. WGNS was never upgraded for digital broadcasting. The station’s digital allocation is on Ch. 7 at 15.5 kW effective radiated power.
Arno told the newspaper that a format had not yet been decided upon. Daystar will control the programming selection from the time it powers up WGNS to the close of the sale, he said. WGNS previously was an affiliate station for UPN, the Retro TV Network, which was once owned by Equity Media, and for diginetwork, This TV. Arno said the station would likely be based in Clarence Center, N.Y., northeast of Buffalo.
-- Deborah D. McAdams
CATEGORIES
LATEST ARTICLES