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WPTZ is the NBC -affiliated Television Station serving Vermont and northern New York State . Licensed to North Pole, New York , the station broadcasts an analog signal on VHF channel 5 from a transmitter located on Terry Mountain in Peru, New York . WPTZ broadcasts a digital signal on UHF channel 14 from a transmitter located on Mount Mansfield , Vermont's highest peak. The station has studios located on Television Drive in Plattsburgh, New York and operates a "Vermont Bureau" located on Roosevelt Highway in Colchester, Vermont . Owned by Hearst-Argyle Television , WPTZ is known on-air as '''''"NewsChannel 5"'''''. Like other stations that serve Plattsburgh and Burlington , it has a large audience in Southern Quebec , Canada including Montréal , a city far larger than all of WPTZ's entire American viewing area combined. On cable, WPTZ can be seen in Plattsburgh on Charter channel 2 and in Burlington on Comcast channel 5. On Videotron systems in Montreal, it can be seen on channel 23 in West Montreal, channel 18 in Central and East Montreal, and channel 52 on Illico digital. However, during NBC Prime Time programming, Canadian cable systems frequently cover up WPTZ's signal due to the CRTC 's Simsub rules, mostly to the benefit of CFCF and CKMI . The station performs master operations for sister station and NBC affiliate WNNE , although that station has its own studios located in White River Junction, Vermont . WNNE serves the Connecticut River Valley portion of Central Vermont and Western New Hampshire as a Semi-satellite of WPTZ. However, WNNE airs its own station identifications, local advertisements, and newscast openings. HISTORY Channel 5 first signed on the air on was sold to NBC and renamed WRCV-TV (it is now KYW-TV ). Rollins quickly grabbed the WPTZ calls for channel 5, realizing that "PTZ" refers to "Plattsburgh". Rollins merged with Heritage Broadcasting in 1987 to form Heritage Media. In 1991 , Heritage bought NBC affiliate WNNE, which had been a separate station with its own news team and newscasts. With Heritage's purchase, it was made into a semi-satellite of WPTZ. Channel 5 took over the master control operations for WNNE in 1996 . Heritage Media sold all of its broadcasting properties to Sinclair Broadcast Group in 1997 , prior to Heritage's merger with News Corporation . The sale protected the area's new FOX affiliate WFFF-TV, which was initially operated by WPTZ under a Local Marketing Agreement . Otherwise, WPTZ and WNNE along with then-sister stations WEAR-TV in Pensacola, Florida and WCHS-TV in Charleston, West Virginia would have been forced to switch their network affiliations to FOX. Sinclair, in turn, sold WPTZ and WNNE to Sunrise Television in 1998 . However, instead of keeping them, Sunrise decided to swap both stations along with Smith Broadcasting-owned KSBW in Salinas, California to Hearst-Argyle Television in return for WNAC-TV in Providence, Rhode Island and WDTN in Dayton, Ohio . The swap became official on July 2 , 1998 . On June 23 , 1999 , WPTZ petitioned the FCC to change its city of license from North Pole to Plattsburgh. The station cited the area's declining population. The last census did not even count North Pole as a separate community and collapsed it into Lake Placid . As of 2007 , this has not yet been approved. {Link without Title} However, the station has largely dropped North Pole from its station identifications, and now identifies as "Plattsburgh/Burlington" most of the time. In 2001 , a microwave link was established between WPTZ and WNNE which began to allow for live news coverage from WNNE's studios and for WPTZ stories to air on WNNE. In 2004 , WPTZ celebrated 50 years of broadcasting. In September of 2006 , WPTZ established a daily web video forecast as part of a major revamping of its website. The video forecast is known as the "Weather Plus Update" and features a picture showing WPTZ and WNNE offering Weather Plus together branded as "5 & 31 Weather Plus". This was seen as the first step toward the two stations beginning to offer NBC Weather Plus . Another web video forecast known as the "Weather Plus Evening Drive Forecast" with a separate Upper Valley (WNNE) version was also created. Starting in October of 2006, WPTZ's studios in Plattsburgh underwent extensive renovations. During that time, WPTZ broadcasted from a temporary news set while the renovations took place. While the studios as a whole were being upgraded, the weather department underwent the most change. In advance of the launch of NBC Weather Plus, the weather center was expanded to make room for the new combined WPTZ and WNNE weather graghics and logos. The remodeling was completed by late November . WPTZ launched NBC Weather Plus on its DT2 digital subchannel on November 15 , 2006 , after the station launched a new digital signal from Mount Mansfield , Vermont 's highest elevation a day earlier. Weather Plus does not currently broadcast on WNNE's DT2 digital subchannel although the station has been broadcasting its own digital signal from Mount Ascutney in Vermont since July 20 , 2005 . On digital cable, Weather Plus is carried on Comcast channel 169, Time Warner channel 854, and Telecom channel 305. Although the daily web video forcasts show the two stations offering Weather Plus together, WPTZ's Weather Plus channel, its website's weather page, and live Weather Plus video only refers to ''NewsChannel 5 Weather Plus''. NEWSCASTS WPTZ and WNNE use the popular " NewsChannel " branding. During WPTZ newscasts, WNNE is referred to as the "Upper Valley Bureau" and features two full-time reporters based in WNNE's White River Junction studios. During some headlines that WNNE's reporters produce, they will occasionally sign-off by mentioning "NewsChannel 31". This is a more common practice in video seen on WNNE's website. In addition to the Colchester and Upper Valley bureaus, WPTZ also broadcasts national news from a Washington D.C. bureau operated by Hearst-Argyle. The bureau employs several reporters who give live reports to the various Hearst-Argyle affiliates. Although WPTZ and WNNE do not own or operate Weather Radars of their own, WPTZ uses live NOAA NWS radar data from several regional sites in a forecasting system presented onscreen in newscasts as the "Super Doppler Radar Network". It is referred to as "Storm Tracker 5000". The main signal comes from the radar located next to the NWS Local Forecast Office at Burlington International Airport . Unlike most other NBC affiliates, WPTZ does not air a weekday Noon newscast. The station had aired a weekday Noon newscast until 2005 but it was dropped in favor of a weeknight 5:30 PM newscast. NEWS STAFF Anchors
''NewsChannel 5 Weather Plus Meteorologists''
Sports
Reporters
Notable Alumni
STATION TRIVIA WPTZ is one of two television stations in the United States to broadcast from "North Pole". The other is KJNP-TV , a religious station licenseed to North Pole, Alaska that serves Fairbanks . WPTZ was a subject of a blooper when Oprah Winfrey taped a promo for her show for WPTZ and started laughing after she spoke the station's community of license. David Letterman in another promo (during his NBC tenure) riffed on the station's request for him to pronounce the "Z" in WPTZ as "Zed" instead of "zee" for the station's Canadian audience. EXTERNAL LINKS |
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