WCTX: New Haven's MyTV9 and News 8 Partner Station
WCTX, virtual channel 59, is an independent station carrying MyNetworkTV programming, licensed to New Haven, Connecticut, and serving the Hartford-New Haven market. Known for years on cable as MyTV9, because it appears on channel 9 on almost all Connecticut cable systems, WCTX is owned by Nexstar Media Group as the sister station of ABC affiliate WTNH, channel 8. The two stations share studios on Elm Street in downtown New Haven and, under a channel-sharing agreement, transmit using WTNH's spectrum from a tower in Hamden. WCTX's schedule is now dominated by News 8 newscasts produced by WTNH, including a prime-time block that pushed MyNetworkTV to late night, supplemented by syndicated programming, LIV Golf through CW Sports, and overflow ABC programs when WTNH cannot air them. Its website presence is through wtnh.com.
A Channel That Took Four Decades to Reach the Air
Few American stations waited as long to be born as WCTX. As early as 1953 the FCC issued a construction permit for the analog UHF channel 59 allotment in New Haven to the Connecticut Radio Foundation. The group was never able to build the station and sold the permit to Impart Systems in 1967. In 1971 the owner of NBC affiliate WHNB-TV, channel 30 in New Britain, now WVIT, built a low-power translator on channel 59 in New Haven, W59AA, licensed to West Haven, to fill gaps in southern Connecticut where channel 30's signal remained weak even after a power increase. That translator was the only occupant of channel 59 for more than two decades. The full-power station New Haven had been allotted in the 1950s did not finally sign on until the 1990s, by which time cable carriage, not over-the-air reach alone, determined a UHF station's viability.
Sign-On as WTVU, The WB, and the LIN LMA in 1995
Channel 59 finally began broadcasting on April 3, 1995, as WB affiliate WTVU, under a local marketing agreement with LIN TV, owner of WTNH. Before WTVU existed, The WB's limited early schedule, then only two hours a week, had aired on WTNH after its late newscast on Saturday nights, and southwestern Connecticut viewers could watch The WB in pattern via New York superstation WPIX. Under the LMA, WTNH effectively programmed WTVU's entire day, supplying strong syndicated shows, many of them barter programs and second runs from WTNH, plus classic sitcoms and dramas that had left other Connecticut stations, including Hawaii Five-O, Perry Mason, M*A*S*H, I Love Lucy, Happy Days, The Honeymooners, The Andy Griffith Show, The Beverly Hillbillies, I Dream of Jeannie, Bewitched, and Gilligan's Island. The station also picked up over-the-air rights to Hartford Whalers hockey, which it carried until the team moved and became the Carolina Hurricanes in 1997.
From WBNE to WCTX and The X
The station's call letters changed as its identity evolved: WTVU at sign-on, then WBNE in 1996 to reflect The WB and New England, and then WCTX in 2001, when LIN TV bought the station outright. The WCTX calls supported branding as The X, a youthful identity suited to a WB affiliate carrying the network of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dawson's Creek, and Smallville-era programming alongside UConn sports and syndicated series. LIN's outright purchase converted a management agreement into a true duopoly with WTNH, one of the early legal duopolies after the FCC relaxed ownership rules in 1999 to permit common ownership of two stations in larger markets. From Elm Street in New Haven, the combined operation could share news, engineering, sales, and promotion while keeping two distinct program services: ABC and network news strength on channel 8, entertainment and sports overflow on channel 59.
The MyNetworkTV Transition
When The WB and UPN merged into The CW in 2006, the Hartford-New Haven CW affiliation went to the former UPN station, WTXX, now WCCT, and WCTX instead affiliated with MyNetworkTV, Fox's companion programming service launched that September. MyNetworkTV initially offered English-language telenovela adaptations and later settled into a schedule of off-network drama repeats on weeknights. WCTX branded this era as MyTV9, emphasizing its near-universal cable position on channel 9 rather than its over-the-air channel 59. Like its sister WTNH, the station draws a substantial audience in Fairfield County, which is formally part of the New York City market where MyNetworkTV flagship WWOR-TV is based, giving WCTX a secondary role for viewers between New Haven and New York. WCTX is also treated as an alternate ABC affiliate, airing ABC programs when WTNH is occupied by extended breaking news or a local special.
News 8 Newscasts in Prime Time and Mornings
Local news produced by WTNH has been part of WCTX since 2000. A nightly 10 p.m. newscast on channel 59 debuted April 17, 2000, competing directly with WTIC-TV's established 10 p.m. broadcast, which had led the time period since 1989 and by 2008 was drawing more viewers than the 11 p.m. news on the Big Three stations. In 2005 WCTX added morning news, simulcasting the second hour of WTNH's weekday show and then an exclusive 7 to 8 a.m. hour, with Good Morning America cut-ins on WTNH; the simulcast hour was later dropped while the exclusive hour faced new competition when WTIC launched its own morning expansion in 2008. WTNH's rebrand to News 8 in April 2010 brought widescreen production to WCTX newscasts, and high definition followed October 4, 2010. The decisive change came March 16, 2020, when WTNH expanded WCTX prime-time news to fill the evening, initially to provide continuous local coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic, pushing MyNetworkTV programming to 11:35 p.m. to 1:35 a.m.
Sports: UConn, the Red Sox, and LIV Golf
Sports have long justified WCTX's existence alongside WTNH. In the 2000s the two stations held extensive University of Connecticut rights through ESPN Regional Television, televising at least twelve UConn men's basketball games a year, the Big East men's basketball game of the week, and the Big East football game of the week, a package totaling more than thirty games. Local productions included Huskies All Access, an Emmy Award-winning monthly magazine show, and Inside Huskies Football, a weekly half-hour program that debuted in September 2008 with Sports Team 8 contributors. WCTX also formerly carried Boston Red Sox games syndicated from the Fox 25 Red Sox Television Network, serving Connecticut fans between the Boston and New York markets. Currently the station carries LIV Golf through CW Sports, an unusual arrangement in which a MyNetworkTV station airs a CW Sports property, reflecting how sports rights now flow across station groups and networks.
Ownership from LIN to Nexstar
WCTX passed through the major consolidations that reshaped its sister station. LIN TV bought it outright in 2001, explored strategic alternatives for the whole company in 2007, and on March 21, 2014, agreed to be acquired by Media General in a $1.6 billion merger completed December 19, 2014, bringing WTNH and WCTX under Media General. A competing Meredith acquisition of Media General would have raised top-four ownership problems involving WFSB, but on January 27, 2016, Nexstar announced it would acquire Media General instead, terminating the Meredith deal. Nexstar thus became WCTX's owner. When Nexstar acquired Tribune Media in 2019, it kept WTNH and WCTX and sold WTIC and WCCT to Tegna to satisfy FCC limits. In a final turn, Nexstar's acquisition of Tegna, announced August 19, 2025, and completed March 19, 2026, reunited all four Hartford-New Haven stations under one corporate parent, and Nexstar committed to divest WCTX within two years, along with five other stations in markets where the combined company held four licenses. WCTX's next ownership chapter is therefore already scheduled, even as its daily operation continues unchanged.
Channel Sharing and Technical Facilities
Technically, WCTX is now a channel-sharing station. After the broadcast spectrum incentive auction, WCTX sold its separate spectrum and entered a channel-sharing agreement with WTNH, so the two stations transmit together using WTNH's spectrum from the Hamden tower, with WCTX displaying as virtual channel 59 and WTNH as channel 8. Earlier, WCTX had transmitted digitally on VHF channel 10 as a full-power UHF-originated station with up to 1,000 kilowatts. Master control and some internal operations originate from hub facilities at Nexstar-owned WWLP in Chicopee, Massachusetts, an example of the hubbed operations Nexstar uses across New England. Its subchannel offering includes Comet on 59.2 alongside the main MyNetworkTV and news schedule on 59.1. For viewers, the sharing arrangement is invisible: channel 59 appears in guides, on cable channel 9, and on streaming platforms just as before, while engineers manage two program streams within one 6-megahertz channel.
Programming Beyond the Network Service
WCTX's daytime and weekend schedule mixes syndicated talk, court, entertainment, and drama programs with News 8 repeats and local specials, plus the late-night MyNetworkTV block. Because prime time on weeknights is now largely a News 8 block from 8 p.m. to 11:35 p.m., WCTX functions in practice as Connecticut's news-intensive independent, closer in spirit to a news channel extension of WTNH than to a traditional MyNetworkTV affiliate. That strategy follows a national pattern in which stations in Atlanta, Washington, Orlando, and Philadelphia likewise moved MyNetworkTV to late night to make room for local news in prime time. Weekend programming retains more entertainment and sports, including the LIV Golf broadcasts and occasional ABC overflow. The station's identity is therefore dual: MyTV9 in branding history, News 8 on WCTX in daily use.
Audience and Fairfield County Reach
WCTX benefits from a geographic accident. Its cable channel 9 position is easy to find statewide, and its signal and cable carriage reach into Fairfield County, Connecticut's southwestern county in the New York market, where WTNH has long been watched alongside New York stations. That gives a New Haven station influence in two markets. For advertisers, the WTNH-WCTX duopoly offers ABC reach plus a younger-skewing, sports- and news-heavy second channel without buying New York City time. For viewers, WCTX provides an alternative when WTNH pre-empts ABC for breaking news, a home for UConn-related programming, and prime-time local news for those who prefer 8, 9, or 10 p.m. to the traditional 11 p.m. slot. Its YouTube TV and other virtual cable carriage, secured through Nexstar's 2023 multi-year agreement launching its CW, MyNetworkTV, and independent stations on the platform, extends that reach to cord-cutters.
WCTX's Place in Connecticut Broadcasting
WCTX waited 42 years from permit to sign-on, then reinvented itself four times in three decades: as a WB affiliate programmed by WTNH, as The X under LIN ownership, as MyTV9, and as a prime-time News 8 outlet with MyNetworkTV in late night. Each reinvention kept the same underlying logic, using channel 59 to extend WTNH's news, sports, and sales strength to a second audience. Even its pending divestiture under the Nexstar-Tegna transaction reflects its value as a separable, viable station rather than a mere repeater. For WorldNM readers, WCTX demonstrates how a late-born UHF station with a cable-friendly number, a strong sister station, and flexible programming can build a durable role in a market dominated by heritage VHF brands. Its programs are listed through WTNH and News 8 at wtnh.com, where channel 59 continues to serve New Haven and Hartford viewers.
