WNYW (Fox 5 New York)

About WNYW (Fox 5 New York)

WNYW, branded on air as Fox 5 New York, is the flagship station of the Fox television network and one of the oldest commercial television stations in the United States. Broadcasting on virtual channel 5 in New York City, the station is owned and operated by Fox Television Stations, the station group of Fox Corporation, and shares operations with its Secaucus, New Jersey–licensed sister station WWOR-TV, the flagship of MyNetworkTV. Serving the largest media market in the country, WNYW anchors its identity around a heavy schedule of locally produced news, including the long-running morning program Good Day New York and the market's first-ever primetime newscast at 10 p.m. With a history that reaches back to television's experimental years in the 1930s, the station has moved through some of the most consequential eras in broadcasting: the DuMont network, the independent-station boom, the Metromedia years, and the launch of the Fox network in 1986. Its studios sit in the Fox Television Center on East 67th Street in Manhattan, and its transmitter is located atop One World Trade Center.

History and Launch

WNYW traces its origins to 1938, when television equipment manufacturer Allen B. DuMont founded an experimental station, W2XVT, in Passaic, New Jersey. The station moved to Manhattan in 1940, taking the call sign W2XWV, and on May 2, 1944, it received a commercial license as WABD, its call letters formed from DuMont's initials. That made it the third licensed commercial station in New York City and the fifth in the nation. Because it kept broadcasting through World War II, it stands as the fifth-oldest continuously broadcasting commercial station in the United States. The station's original studios were in the DuMont Building at 515 Madison Avenue, with its transmitter tower on the same rooftop.

WABD moved from VHF channel 4 to channel 5 on December 17, 1945, and soon afterward became the flagship of the DuMont Television Network, the world's first licensed commercial television network, which began regular service in 1946. In 1954, the station moved into the DuMont Tele-Centre at 205 East 67th Street in Manhattan's Lenox Hill neighborhood, a $5 million facility built inside the shell of the old Jacob Ruppert's Central Opera House — the same building it still occupies today. DuMont exited network television by 1955, spinning its stations into the DuMont Broadcasting Corporation and leaving WABD as one of New York's four independent stations. In May 1958, DuMont Broadcasting renamed itself the Metropolitan Broadcasting Corporation, and that September the station adopted the call letters WNEW-TV to match its radio sisters, WNEW-AM and the newly launched WNEW-FM. Investor John Kluge took control of the company in late 1958, expanded its holdings nationwide, and renamed the group Metromedia in 1961.

The modern era began on May 4, 1985, when Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation announced it would purchase Metromedia's six independent television stations, including WNEW-TV. When the deal closed, the station's call sign was changed on March 7, 1986, to WNYW — the E swapped for a Y — because an FCC rule then in effect prohibited television and radio stations under different ownership from sharing a call sign. Together with the other former Metromedia stations, WNYW formed the cornerstone of the Fox Broadcasting Company when the network launched on October 9, 1986. Fox aired programming only a few nights a week at first, so channel 5 continued to look and schedule like an independent station for several years, finally carrying a full seven nights of network programming in 1993.

Ownership

WNYW is owned by Fox Television Stations, LLC, the station group of Fox Corporation, and it has been a Fox-owned station since the network's inception in 1986. It operates in a duopoly with WWOR-TV (channel 9), the MyNetworkTV flagship licensed to Secaucus, New Jersey, which Fox acquired in 2001 through its purchase of Chris-Craft Industries' BHC Communications stations. The two stations consolidated their operations at the Fox Television Center in Manhattan after Fox sold the former Secaucus studios in 2018.

The ownership path reflects the restructuring of Murdoch's media empire over the decades. When News Corporation bought the Metromedia stations, it had owned the New York Post since 1976, and FCC cross-ownership rules barred a company from owning both a newspaper and a broadcast license in the same market. The FCC granted a temporary waiver so the purchase could close; News Corporation sold the Post in 1988 and bought it back five years later with a permanent waiver. When News Corporation split in two on June 28, 2013, WNYW went with the entertainment and broadcast assets that became 21st Century Fox. The Walt Disney Company's 2017 agreement to acquire most of 21st Century Fox's assets specifically excluded the Fox broadcast network, MyNetworkTV, WNYW, WWOR, and the Fox Television Stations unit, since FCC rules prohibited a merger of major networks. Those assets instead became the new Fox Corporation, established on March 18, 2019, which owns the station today.

Programming and Signature Shows

WNYW's schedule combines the Fox network lineup with a heavy block of locally produced programming. The station's signature show is Good Day New York, the weekday morning news and talk program that debuted on August 1, 1988, making WNYW the first Fox station to run a weekday morning newscast. Within five years of its launch, the program had become the top-rated morning show in the New York City market, and it remains the station's flagship morning brand, streaming live each weekday through the station's digital platforms. The station also produces Good Day Street Talk, a weekly community affairs program hosted by Antwan Lewis, and carries Chasing New Jersey, a daily program covering headlines and issues affecting the New Jersey side of the market.

The 10 p.m. newscast is one of the longest-running primetime local newscasts in American television. First launched on March 13, 1967, when the station was WNEW-TV, it was the first primetime newscast in the New York market. Each evening it is still introduced by the famous announcement, "It's 10 p.m. Do you know where your children are?" — a line first spoken by the station's director of on-air promotions Mel Epstein and later by staff announcer Tom Gregory. The station broadcasts roughly 59 and a half hours of locally produced newscasts each week, including an early evening block and weekend evening editions. Fox network programming supplies the primetime lineup, weekend sports, and the national Fox News Sunday-style offerings alongside entertainment hits. Sports are a major draw: through Fox Sports, the station has aired numerous New York sporting milestones, including games of the New Jersey Devils' first Stanley Cup victory, the New York Giants' triumph in Super Bowl XLII, Super Bowl XLVIII coverage from MetLife Stadium, and the Yankees' World Series victories carried on Fox's national Major League Baseball package. In March 2024, WNYW and WWOR were named the broadcast partners of the WNBA's New York Liberty. The station's digital subchannels add Movies! on 5.2, Fox Weather on 5.3, Roar on 5.4, and Catchy Comedy on 5.5.

Notable Anchors and Personalities

The Fox 5 news team is led by several long-tenured figures. Rosanna Scotto has been with the station since 1986, anchoring Good Day New York and the station's newscasts for nearly four decades, and she has won three Emmy Awards for her anchoring work on FOX 5 News and Good Day New York. Chief meteorologist Nick Gregory has also served the station since 1986, holding the AMS Seal of Approval, while meteorologist Audrey Puente, sports anchor Tina Cervasio, and veteran reporter Lisa Evers are among the current on-air staff.

The station's history is filled with prominent broadcast names. Ernie Anastos anchored WNYW's newscasts from 2005 to 2020, part of a New York career that spanned all four of the market's flagship stations; he earned 30 Emmy Awards including a Lifetime Emmy, and he died in March 2026 at age 82, prompting a tribute from the station. John Roland was a 35-year veteran of channel 5 before retiring in 2004. Others who passed through the station include Maury Povich, who anchored the nightly newsmagazine A Current Affair when it debuted locally in 1986 before it went national, Greg Kelly, who co-anchored Good Day New York from 2008 to 2017, Lori Stokes, who co-anchored the morning show from 2017 to 2022, and Bill Jorgensen, the longtime 10 p.m. anchor of the 1960s and 1970s. The station's earlier decades also featured children's television hosts such as Sandy Becker, Sonny Fox, and Bob McAllister of Wonderama, and talk-show figures like David Susskind and Soupy Sales.

Ratings and Reach

WNYW serves the New York City designated market area, the largest television market in the United States, reaching millions of households across New York City, Long Island, northern New Jersey, and southern Connecticut. From the early 1970s through the late 1980s, channel 5 operated as a regional superstation, carried on cable systems across much of the Northeast — including upstate New York, eastern Pennsylvania, southern New England, and the Philadelphia-area portion of New Jersey — where it ranked as the highest-rated independent station in New York. That extended reach faded after Fox's launch, when most Northeast markets gained their own Fox affiliates, though the station remained on cable in areas like Binghamton and the New York side of the Plattsburgh–Burlington market into the late 1990s.

Locally, the station's news operation has been a consistent ratings performer. Good Day New York became the market's top-rated morning program within five years of its 1988 debut, and the 10 p.m. newscast has been a staple of the primetime landscape since 1967. The station's over-the-air signal broadcasts on digital channel 27, displayed as virtual channel 5, with a transmitter atop One World Trade Center. Beyond its core market, WNYW has historically been available to satellite viewers in parts of the eastern United States without an over-the-air Fox affiliate, and on cable systems in the Caribbean.

Digital and Streaming Presence

WNYW's digital home is fox5ny.com, which offers news stories, weather, video clips, and a live stream of the station's newscasts. The station was an early adopter of streaming: in April 2006 it became the first Fox-owned station to launch a website on Fox Interactive Media's MyFox platform, which emphasized expanded video and community features. The station maintains the FOX 5 New York news app for iOS and Android, published by Fox Television Stations, which delivers breaking news alerts, live streams of Good Day New York and other newscasts, hourly and seven-day forecasts, interactive radar, and video updates from the station's meteorologists. A 24/7 streaming feed branded FOX LOCAL NY carries breaking news, live events, investigations, and local stories, and is available through the station's YouTube channel and at fox5ny.com/live. The station is active on social media, including Facebook, Instagram, and X under the fox5ny handles. National Fox programming can also be streamed through Fox's authenticated platforms with a participating pay-TV subscription.

Controversies and Criticism

Like many major-market stations, WNYW has been at the center of several public disputes. In October 2010, News Corporation pulled WNYW, WWOR, and co-owned cable channels including Fox Business Network from Cablevision systems in the New York market during a carriage-fee dispute, with Cablevision claiming News Corporation had demanded $150 million a year to renew carriage of a dozen Fox-owned channels. The blackout lasted about two weeks before a new deal restored the channels on October 30, 2010.

The station's tabloid-inflected news style drew attention over the years, including parodies on Saturday Night Live and The Daily Show. In September 2009, anchor Ernie Anastos was caught in a live on-air profanity during banter with chief meteorologist Nick Gregory, an incident that spread widely online and was joked about on ABC's Jimmy Kimmel Live!; Anastos apologized on the following night's newscast. On a more somber note, WNYW was the first television station to report the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, interrupting a commercial break at 8:48 a.m. to deliver the first public report, with anchor Jim Ryan and reporter Dick Oliver on air. The station's own transmitter facilities atop the Twin Towers were destroyed that day, forcing it to relocate to the Empire State Building, where its transmitters had been housed until the 1970s. In 2012, WNYW donated a digitized copy of its September 11 coverage to the Internet Archive. Earlier, the station's 1960s prime-time schedule of violent crime-drama reruns drew criticism, and its 1986 ownership change required an FCC waiver of newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership rules because of News Corporation's ownership of the New York Post.

Studios and Headquarters

WNYW operates from the Fox Television Center at 205 East 67th Street in Manhattan's Lenox Hill neighborhood, a building it has called home, under different names, since 1954. The facility opened that year as the DuMont Tele-Centre, a $5 million broadcast plant constructed inside the shell of the former Central Opera House, and later carried the names Metromedia TeleCenter before becoming the Fox Television Center. Sister station WWOR-TV consolidated its operations into the same building in 2018 after Fox sold the Secaucus studios. The station's transmitter is located at One World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan, returning there in the late 2010s after an interim period on the Empire State Building following the destruction of the original World Trade Center facilities on September 11, 2001. The station broadcasts with an effective radiated power of 92.8 kW from a tower with a height above average terrain of 496 meters.

Awards and Recognition

WNYW's news operation has collected significant industry recognition over the years. Good Day New York won an Emmy Award for best morning show in 2008, when Ron Corning and Jodi Applegate were anchoring the program. Rosanna Scotto has earned three Emmy Awards for anchoring FOX 5 News and Good Day New York, along with a New York State Associated Press Award. Ernie Anastos, who anchored the station's newscasts from 2005 to 2020, received 30 Emmy Awards over his career, including a prestigious Lifetime Emmy Award. The station's news leadership has also been honored: WNYW news director Emad Asghar was nominated for several Emmy Awards and won for the station's coverage of the 2003 New York City blackout. Beyond formal awards, the station holds a distinctive place in broadcast history — its pioneering September 11, 2001 coverage was preserved through a donation to the Internet Archive, and its "It's 10 p.m. Do you know where your children are?" announcement became one of the most imitated slogans in local television.

How to Watch

Over the air, WNYW broadcasts on digital channel 27, appearing as virtual channel 5 on tuners across the New York City market. On cable and satellite, the station is carried on channel 5 in the New York area, though exact channel positions vary by provider. Cord-cutters can watch the station's newscasts live through the free FOX 5 New York app on iOS and Android, which streams Good Day New York and other newscasts daily, or through the 24/7 FOX LOCAL NY stream available at fox5ny.com/live and on the station's YouTube channel. The website fox5ny.com also hosts news stories, weather, and on-demand video clips. Full network programming from Fox is available through Fox's authenticated streaming apps with a participating pay-TV subscription, and live TV streaming services that carry the local Fox affiliate in the New York market include the station in their lineups.