WSYR-TV

WSYR-TV (channel 9) is a television station in Syracuse, New York, United States, affiliated with ABC. Owned by Nexstar Media Group, the station maintains studios on Bridge Street (off NY 290) in East Syracuse (a village of DeWitt), and its transmitter is located on Sevier Road in Pompey, New York. WWTI (channel 50) in Watertown operates as a semi-satellite of WSYR-TV. As such, it clears all network programming as provided by its parent and simulcasts most of WSYR-TV's newscasts, but airs a separate offering of syndicated programming; there are also separate station identifications and commercial inserts. WWTI maintains its own studios on Court Street in downtown Watertown. History Channel 9 was the last of Syracuse's major network affiliates to sign on, doing so September 9, 1962, after a channel shuffle involving rival WHEN-TV and Rochester's WROC-TV allowed a third analog VHF station in Syracuse. The original call letters were WNYS-TV (now assigned to Syracuse's MyNetworkTV affiliate). It signed-on under the ownership of a group of local investors. The station has always been an ABC affiliate. Channel 9's original studios were located in the basement of the Shoppingtown shopping center on Erie Boulevard in DeWitt. Fire overtook the studios in April 1967, forcing the station to temporarily move to WCNY-TV (channel 24)'s studios in Liverpool until its facilities were rebuilt. In 1969, then-owner W. R. G. Baker Television Corporation applied for a WNYS-TV translator on channel 7, W07BA; this facility, serving Syracuse and nearby Nedrow, came on the air in 1972. W07BA, which later moved its second city of license to DeWitt, remained a repeater of channel 9 until 2014; its license was canceled on March 24, 2014. The station was purchased by The Outlet Company in 1971.