Once upon a time, WTZA-62 served the mid-Hudson Valley of New York as an unaffiliated TV station. It eventually morphed into what is today “RNN,” based in Westchester County.
The FCC just granted RNN the OK to modify its market. As a result, it now has Garden State security.
On Dec. 15, 1985, with Nancy Cozean and Brian Madden as co-anchors of its local newscasts, WTZA signed on the air. Nearly 10 years later, due to various economic challenges in the Hudson Valley and as an independent TV station within the New York DMA, WTZA became WRNN.
Coverage was expanded to the entire market, with a news-heavy presentation and the “RNN” regional news network brand was born.
Eventually, Channel 62 would be abandoned, replaced by an all-digital broadcast signal at Channel 48. In the FCC’s incentive auction, Channel 48 was put up for bids. It attracted interest, and as a result “WRNN License Co.” earned $211,680,472 for giving up the over-the-air station and entering into a channel-sharing agreement with WWOR-9, a Secaucus, N.J.-licensed station. With the shift, WRNN changed its city of license from Kingston to New Rochelle, adjacent to The Bronx.
With this move, WRNN now broadcasts from an antenna that is located on top of One World Trade Center in lower Manhattan; the over-the-air signal cannot reach Kingston.
This is key to MB-Docket 19-95, in which WRNN License Co. sees a market modification of WRNN, given its new city of license and channel-sharing arrangement.
Since WWOR-9 is its channel-sharing partner, WRNN wants to add the New Jersey communities of Fort Lee, Edgewater, Ridgefield, Englewood Cliffs, Cliffside Park, Englewood, Palisades Park, Fairview, Ridgefield Park, Guttenberg, Little Ferry, Moonachie, Leonia and Teterboro to its TV market.
The petition was unopposed.
As such, WRNN’s petition is granted. This means Charter Communications‘ Spectrum services in Bergen County, N.J., will need to start including WRNN as a “must carry,” given the change in local market definition for the station — the impetus of the petition.
Previously, WRNN didn’t have must-carry status in these communities because, as WTZA, it used a broadcast tower atop Overlook Mountain in Woodstock, N.Y., nearly 90 miles to the north of midtown Manhattan.
Now, with WRNN a truly local station to the New York Tri-State Area’s biggest population center, “RNN” can gain these Bergen County communities.
