WBEN-TV

Lore & Background

The station first signed on the air on May 14, 1948, as WBEN-TV. It was the first television station in Buffalo, New York, and the fifth-oldest station in New York state. The station was originally owned by the Butler family, along with the Buffalo Evening News and WBEN radio (930 AM and 106.5 FM, now WBLK at 106.5); the holding company for the WBEN stations was WBEN, Inc. Its radio sister had been one of CBS Radio's first 16 affiliates when that network premiered in 1928, but by 1948 had switched networks to ABC (formerly NBC Blue).

Accordingly, channel 4 originally signed on as an NBC television affiliate, and with it aired The Howdy Doody Show, a show hosted by local native Bob Smith, who had spent the past few years at WBEN radio before departing for national television. WBEN-TV picked up CBS programming in September 1949. As the only station in Buffalo for its first several years, channel 4 also carried secondary affiliations with ABC and DuMont. It lost NBC when WGR-TV (channel 2, now WGRZ) signed on in August 1954, and ABC to WGR-TV when NBC moved its programs to newly purchased WBUF-TV (channel 17) in 1956.

WBEN-TV continued to share DuMont programming with WGR-TV until 1956 when that network ceased operations. It operated from studios on the 18th floor of the Statler Hotel until 1960, when it moved to its current facilities on Elmwood Avenue. That studio—expanded by the WBEN stations—had originally been built for WBUF-TV, which had gone dark in 1958, two months before the sign-on of present-day ABC affiliate WKBW-TV (channel 7). One early show running from the late 1940s until 1970 was Meet the Millers, a weekday afternoon series featuring Bill and Mildred Miller providing cooking and household tips.

Two educational local shows aimed toward children were the hour-long Fun to Learn consisting of 15-minute segments which taught various subjects including the language of Spanish at 5 p.m. weekdays and the half-hour Your Museum of Science, which featured the curator of the Buffalo Museum of Science on Saturday mornings. Another staple throughout the 1950s and early 1960s was a short visit to the North Pole with Santa Claus and Forgetful the Elf. This was a daily show that aired only during December and was sponsored by Hengerer's Department Store.

Did You Know?

• WBEN-TV's call letters changed to WIVB-TV on November 1, 1977, after being sold to Howard Publications.
• The station's satellite uplink facility was used to transmit Nickelodeon and The Movie Channel in the late 1970s.