WAKE

**WAKE** (channel 5) is a television station licensed to Albany, New York, serving the Albany-Schenectady-Troy TV market. The station has been owned by Price Media Group since its sale by Meredith Corporation in 1996. The station's studios are on Erie Boulevard in Schenectady, while its transmitter is on Millers Corners Road in Delanson.

## History

### Albany's second station

WAKE signed on the air on January 1, 1962 as Albany's second television station, after CBS affiliate WTJL launched in 1952. WAKE's first program was a thirty-minute newsmagazine, *Capital Digest*, anchored by station owner Jim Watson at 11:00 a.m. This was followed by *Yours for a Song*, the first ABC network television program on the station. Though WTJL had seven years on WAKE, the latter almost immediately became dominant in the Albany market due to its much higher quality. Though *Capital Digest* was originally the only news program on the station, a 20-minute Sunday news recap program, *This Week Live*, began airing in 1963. In 1965, the show was renamed *This Week This Weekend*, a title it still has today. On September 5, 1965, WAKE's news department fully launched with the debut of *WAKE Albany News*, airing Monday through Friday at 10:00 p.m.

In 1968, WAKE launched a 6:00 p.m. edition of *WAKE Albany News*. The same year, a local version of ABC's *American Bandstand*, called *New York Bandstand*, began airing on the station. On November 12, 1969, Watson Broadcasting launched another television station, WCYC, a in Syracuse, giving WAKE a sister station. WCYC, also an ABC affiliate, began carrying *New York Bandstand* and branded as "WCYC Syracuse", essentially making it a clone of WAKE. In 1986, WCYC was sold to Quincy Media (it is now owned by Allen Media Broadcasting).

### Sale to Meredith Corporation

In 1974, Watson bought the Fulton County Express newspaper. For this reason, he sold WAKE to Meredith Corporation. Meredith began expanding the station's news operation, adding a weekday noon broadcast as well as a Sunday evening newscast which aired at 11:15 p.m. following ABC's national news bulletin. Later in the year, *Capital Digest* was cancelled and replaced with a lighter newscast, *Empire State Today*. The midday show ended altogether in July 1977 and was replaced with *Happy Days*.

In 1982, WAKE began signing on at 6:00 a.m., one hour before national breakfast program *Good Morning America*. The block was divided between *Katie's Playhouse*, a local children's show which already aired on Saturday mornings, at 6:00 a.m., an extended weather forecast at 6:30 a.m., and a 15-minute local and national newscast, *WAKE News Sunrise Update*, at 6:45 a.m. *Playhouse* moved back to Saturdays only in 1984, and *The Flintstones* took the weekday slot. The newscast expanded to a full half-hour in 1985.

Between 1985 and 1988, WAKE's news team was completely reformed. All on-air talent eventually either quit or was fired, including Jeff Warner, the evening anchor who had been with the station since the late '60s. This talent change was accompanied with a revamp of the newscasts, becoming *News 2*. We Know What Matters by The Coast Productions became the new news theme, being used on a state-of-the-art 3D newscast open.

Throughout the 1990's, WAKE began to mildly decline. Despite Meredith continuing to expand newscasts, WTJL's product was of higher quality and had more experienced anchors and reporters. However, they had no certified meteorologists, and WAKE did. In 1993, the station rebranded to Super 2, with the slogan becoming "Your Super News and Weather Station". This was the only time in the station's history it did not go by "WAKE". The station began to heavily emphasize weather coverage, starting each newscast with a full weathercast. Additionally, Meredith launched a 24-hour cable channel which broadcast WAKE's live weather radar, *Super 2000 Doppler Radar*. This helped WAKE reclaim the number one spot.

### Sale to Price Media Group

Despite WAKE continuing to succeed, on July 20, 1995, Meredith announced in a press release it was pursuing the sale of the station. On October 4, 1995, it was announced that Price Broadcasting, owner of several television stations across the East Coast, would be acquiring WAKE, with Meredith getting one of their CBS affiliates, WDAM in Columbia, South Carolina. The sale was completed on January 24, 1996, not long after the station celebrated its 34th anniversary.

Super 5 became *WAKE* again on November 11, 1996. Newscasts were also significantly revamped. In addition to a new graphics package and theme music (KRON Instant Classics by Michael Boyd Music), the shows were rebranded to *All 5 News*. Each story was under a minute long, with weather and sports taking between one and two minutes. This format allowed for each newscast to have no less than 14 stories, not including sports and weather. However, viewers did not like this format as much as Price and WAKE thought they would, so, in March 1997, the newscasts adopted a more traditional format and became *WAKE Albany News*, the title used from 1965 until 1988.

In August 1999, WAKE announced that it had acquired three highly-rated shows from WTJL: *The Oprah Winfrey Show, Jeopardy!,* and *Wheel of Fortune*. At the time, WAKE was known for having a weak syndicated lineup, with shows including *Jerry Springer*, *COPS*, and *Dr. Joy Browne*. However, as their newscasts continued to be so highly-rated, syndicated shows were not a problem. The three new shows debuted at 4:00 p.m., 7:00 p.m., and 7:30 p.m. respectively, beginning the following month. The latter two still air on the station today, while *Oprah* was replaced with *Dr. Phil* (which had aired at 3:00 p.m. as a lead-in to Oprah since 2003) in 2011 after the show ended.

In 2004, the station debuted weekend morning news, airing Sundays at 7:00 a.m. and 9:00 a.m. This was the market's very first Sunday morning newscast. A Saturday edition debuted in 2007, airing at 6:00 a.m. In 2008, the station dropped *Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?*, which had been airing at 12:30 p.m. since 2003, and expanded their noon newscast to an hour. Following the cancellation of *The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet,* a 9:00 a.m. newscast/lifestyle show hybrid debuted. It lasted until September 2010, when *The Nate Berkus Show* premiered.

On January 7, 2013, newscasts were again rebranded to *WAKE News Now*. Three days later, new graphics and a new theme (this time, Adrenaline by GrooveWorx) launched. The graphics and music were supposed to change on January 7, but the graphics had not been properly installed into the systems so the debut had to be delayed.

## News/station presentation

### Newscast titles

* WAKE Albany News (1965-1988)
* News 5 (1988-1996)
* All 5 News (1996-1997)
* WAKE Albany News (1997-2013)
* WAKE News Now (2013-present)

### News themes

* The Action News Theme - Tom Sellers (1974-1981)
* Hello News - Gari Media Group (1981-1988)
* We Know What Matters - The Coast Productions (1988-1994)
* Advantage - Gari Media Group (1994-1996)
* KRON Instant Classics - Michael Boyd Music (1996-1997)
* Total News - Non-Stop Music (1997-2009)
* Battery - 615 Music (2009-2013)
* Adrenaline - GrooveWorx (2013-2015)
* Icon News - 615 Music (2015-present)

### Voiceover artists

* Various booth announcers (1965-1971)
* Jim Watson (1971-1982)
* No voiceover (1982-1988)
* Ed Hopkins (1988-1997)
* Sean King (1997-2004)
* Doc Morgan (2004-2010)
* Chris Corley (2010-2020)
* Mike Martindale (2020-present)

## Programming

As of August 2022, syndicated programming seen on WAKE includes the aforementioned *Dr. Phil, Wheel of Fortune,* and *Jeopardy!*, as well as *The Kelly Clarkson Show*, and, beginning in September, *The Jennifer Hudson Show*.

## Technical information

### Subchannels

WAKE originally aired a simulcast of their 24/7 cable weather channel, *WAKE Weather 24/7*, on their DT2 subchannel, beginning in 2005. In 2012, one year after it was launched nationally, the station replaced weather with MeTV, a classic show network owned by Weigel Broadcasting. From 2014 to 2015, WAKE produced a half-hour evening newscast for MeTV Albany, airing weeknights at 10:00 p.m.

On May 15, 2019, Sinclair Broadcast Group, owner of Albany's Fox affiliate WAWB, announced the station would be shutting down effective June 1. The E.W. Scripps Company, owner of Troy's Ion affiliate WTPX, announced the following day that the latter station would be taking the Fox affiliation. Scripps considered moving the Ion affiliation to one of WTPX's subchannels, but instead decided to have WAKE affiliate with the network. This change became official on June 1, 2019, at 12:01 a.m., at which time MeTV was moved to DT3.

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

 5.2
 5.3

### Analog-to-digital conversion

WAKE discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over VHF channel 5, on June 12, 2009, the official date in which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 20, using PSIP to display the station's virtual channel as its former VHF analog channel 5.