WIVB

About WIVB

WIVB-TV, branded as News 4, is the CBS-affiliated television station serving Buffalo, New York, and the Niagara Falls region. Broadcasting on channel 4, the station is owned by Nexstar Media Group as part of a duopoly with WNLO, the market's CW affiliate on channel 23. WIVB is Buffalo's first television station and one of the oldest in the United States, on the air since May 1948, and it has been a CBS affiliate for more than 75 years. Its studios sit on Elmwood Avenue in North Buffalo, and its "We're 4 Buffalo" slogan reflects a station identity built over three-quarters of a century of local broadcasting.

Sign-On as WBEN-TV in 1948

The station first signed on the air on May 14, 1948, as WBEN-TV, Buffalo's first television station and the fifth-oldest station in New York State. It was owned by the Butler family, publishers of the Buffalo Evening News, along with WBEN radio on 930 AM and 106.5 FM. The call letters reflected the newspaper ownership, as was common in early television. The station operated from studios on the 18th floor of the Hotel Statler in downtown Buffalo, and its first evening featured a modest two-hour schedule of programming, including a ventriloquist act and a live local telecast of professional wrestling. For its first several years, channel 4 was the only television station in Buffalo, and its programming was emphatically local: news, local sports, a cooking show, and even a locally produced mystery program that launched the careers of actors Broderick Crawford and Lorne Greene.

The Early Network Years

As Buffalo's only station, channel 4 initially carried programming from all four networks of the time: CBS, NBC, ABC, and DuMont. It signed on as an NBC affiliate, a natural fit given the radio sister's network ties, and aired programs such as The Howdy Doody Show, hosted by Buffalo native Bob Smith, who had worked at WBEN radio before departing for national television. The station picked up CBS programming in January 1949 and has remained with CBS ever since, making it one of the network's longest-tenured affiliates. It lost NBC when WGR-TV signed on in 1954 and ABC when NBC purchased WBUF-TV in 1956, and it shared DuMont programming with WGR until that network ceased operations in 1956. In 1960, the station moved from the Hotel Statler to its current facilities on Elmwood Avenue, a studio complex originally built for WBUF-TV that had gone dark two years earlier.

Becoming WIVB

The Butler family sold its broadcast properties in the late 1970s, ending three decades of local newspaper ownership. WBEN-TV went to new owners who changed the call letters to WIVB on November 1, 1977, a name constructed to read as "We're IV Buffalo," with IV as the Roman numeral for the station's channel 4. The rebranding gave the station a distinctive identity built around its channel number, an identity it has maintained ever since. In 1988, King World Productions, the syndication company behind hit game shows, purchased the station, beginning a new era of corporate ownership. The station later passed to LIN TV, then to Media General, and finally to Nexstar Media Group, which acquired Media General's stations in 2017. Through each transition, the channel 4 identity and CBS affiliation remained constant.

News 4 and Local Journalism

WIVB brands its newscasts as News 4 and uses the slogan "We're 4 Buffalo," positioning itself as Western New York's news leader. The station produces local newscasts throughout the day, from early-morning broadcasts through midday, evening, and late-night shows. Its newsroom covers Buffalo city government, Erie County, the region's economic revitalization, education, and public safety, along with the cross-border dynamics of a market that sits minutes from Ontario, Canada. In 1972, the station launched Buffalo's first hour-long weekday 6 p.m. newscast, a format innovation that set the standard for the market. The station's journalists have chronicled the region's industrial decline and rebirth, its notorious lake-effect snowstorms, and the renaissance of downtown Buffalo, earning a reputation for authoritative local reporting.

Weather Coverage and Lake-Effect Snow

Weather is central to life in Western New York, and WIVB's meteorologists are among the most-watched in the market. Lake-effect snowstorms, which can bury parts of the region under feet of snow while leaving other neighborhoods untouched, demand hyperlocal forecasting and extended coverage. The station's weather team provides wall-to-wall reporting during major storms, tracking bands of snow as they stream off Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, and the station maintains school closing and delay listings that parents across the region rely on each winter. Beyond snow, the team covers severe thunderstorms, flooding, and summer heat across the Buffalo-Niagara region. The station's storm coverage, combining radar technology with experienced on-air meteorologists, has made its weather brand one of its strongest assets.

Sports: Bills, Sabres, and College Athletics

Buffalo is one of America's most passionate sports markets, and WIVB covers it intensively. The station reports on the Buffalo Bills of the National Football League, whose devoted fan base, known as Bills Mafia, is famous nationwide, and the Buffalo Sabres of the National Hockey League. As a CBS affiliate, the station carries the network's AFC football package, which regularly features the Bills in high-profile national broadcasts, along with the NCAA men's basketball tournament and professional golf championships. The station's sportscasters cover training camps, provide game analysis, and report on the region's college programs. The intersection of the station's CBS sports rights and Buffalo's football obsession makes fall Sundays a cornerstone of the channel 4 schedule.

The WNLO Duopoly

Under Nexstar ownership, WIVB operates in duopoly with WNLO, the CW affiliate on channel 23. The two stations share the Elmwood Avenue studios and transmit from a tower in Colden, New York, through a channel-sharing arrangement using WNLO's spectrum. The duopoly allows the stations to pool news-gathering resources while maintaining distinct on-air brands. Notably, WIVB produces a daily 10 p.m. newscast for WNLO, extending the News 4 brand into prime time on the sister station. The arrangement, common in modern broadcasting, gives Nexstar two full-power outlets in the Buffalo market and allows for coordinated coverage of major stories across both channels.

Studios, Transmitter, and Technical Details

WIVB's studios are located on Elmwood Avenue in North Buffalo, the facility it has occupied since 1960. The station transmits digitally on UHF channel 36, shared with WNLO, while displaying as virtual channel 4. Its transmitter in Colden, south of Buffalo, broadcasts a powerful signal across Western New York and into Southern Ontario, where the station has long had a substantial Canadian audience. The station completed the transition from analog to digital broadcasting in 2009, ending 61 years of analog transmission on VHF channel 4. Its digital subchannels include Cozi TV, the classic-television network, giving antenna viewers additional free programming. The station's signal reaches one of the most distinctive coverage areas in American television, spanning two countries.

Digital and Streaming Presence

WIVB operates wivb.com as its digital news platform, publishing breaking news, investigations, weather, and sports coverage with video from its newscasts. The station offers mobile apps for news and weather alerts with live streaming video, and its newscasts stream through the station's website and app as well as virtual pay-TV services including YouTube TV, Hulu with Live TV, and Fubo. On social media, News 4 maintains large followings on Facebook, X, Instagram, and YouTube, where breaking news, storm coverage, and Bills content drive heavy engagement. Under Nexstar ownership, the station's digital operation is supported by the company's national technology infrastructure, while the Buffalo newsroom produces the local journalism that anchors the site's audience.

Legacy as Buffalo's Pioneer Station

For more than 75 years, channel 4 has been Buffalo's television pioneer, from its 1948 debut in the Hotel Statler to its modern incarnation as a Nexstar-owned CBS affiliate. It was the station that introduced television to Western New York, the station that carried Howdy Doody to Buffalo children, and the station that has been affiliated with CBS since 1949, making it one of the longest-running network affiliations in broadcasting. Its call-letter change to WIVB in 1977 created one of the cleverest station identities in the business. Through newspaper ownership, syndication-company ownership, and the consolidation era, the station has remained a constant in the lives of Buffalonians, and its "We're 4 Buffalo" slogan captures a relationship between a station and a city that few markets can match.