Granite ownership
After nearly 45 years, Meredith sold WTVH and KSEE in Fresno, California, in 1993 to Granite Broadcasting. The $32 million transaction gave Granite stations that it had sought for a year[27] and saw Meredith sell WTVH, the oldest station the company owned.[28] After closing on the purchase, Granite and the station's NABET–CWA unionized workforce entered into a labor dispute that at one point saw six employees fired for picketing a nearby advertiser and encouraging them to boycott WTVH.[29]
Granite's ownership ushered in the decline of WTVH's news operation. Between 1993 and 1996, the station had four news directors, lost reporters, and made multiple shuffles of its anchor lineup. It had fired Green during maternity leave in 1996, only to rehire her three years later after a brief stint at WIXT.[30] WIXT first made inroads in the 5:30–6:30 p.m. time slot where it aired its main early evening newscast.[31]
The news product was rebranded several times during this period. In 1998, WTVH renamed its newscasts Eyewitness News in a bid to promote the station's coverage of breaking news.[32] By 2000, the station was third in every news time slot except noon.[33]
In 2000, longtime anchorman Ron Curtis—who had anchored the 6 p.m. news from 1966 to 1999 before moving over to noon—retired from WTVH after a 41-year career.[34] Curtis died of cancer the next year and was remembered by employees and civic figures.[35] Though Curtis's retirement was not the cause of WTVH's ratings decline, it was the most visible symbol of it.[36][37] Dow Smith, a professor at Siena College, noted in 2009, "[T]hey never figured out what they were going to do after Ron Curtis."
WTVH dropped the Eyewitness News moniker in 2003 and rebranded as "5 On Your Side". Alongside the new name came a replacement for the 5 p.m. news, a news and talk show called Central New York Live![38] The show was a lifestyle program that included sponsored segments paid for by advertisers, which were not initially fully disclosed to viewers. Live! was a ratings failure and was canceled in May 2004.[39] In 2005, the newscasts were reformatted once again and retitled CBS 5 News.[40] Long-tenured news personalities including Maureen Green (fired in 2007 after 22 years), Matt Mulcahy (contract not renewed in 2004 after seven years), and Liz Ayers (moved to public station WCNY-TV in 2005 after 19 years[41]) departed as Granite lowered salaries, with younger, more inexperienced employees.
The changes did not stem the decline in WTVH's news viewership. Between 1996 and 2003, WTVH lost half the audience for its 6 p.m. news and slipped from second to third place.[42] By 2005, WTVH had fewer viewers from 5 to 6 p.m. than reruns of Judge Judy on WSYT,[43] and by 2006, the only time period in which a WTVH newscast was not in third place or worse was at noon.[44]
In 2000, WTVH replaced WSTM-TV as the news provider for Fox affiliate WSYT (channel 68)'s 10 p.m. newscast. Unlike the previous newscast channel 68 aired, it entirely used WTVH anchors and reporters. Management hoped that offering a newscast on WSYT would draw viewers to WTVH's other newscasts.[45] Ratings for the WTVH-produced newscasts were initially higher than for the ones WSTM had produced.[46] The partnership expanded in January 2005, when WTVH began producing Fox Eyewitness News at 7 a.m. for channel 68.[47] The newscasts aired for nearly six years in total before WTVH opted to end the arrangement effective April 21, 2006, to focus on its own newscasts.[48]
WTVH began broadcasting a digital signal on UHF channel 47 on January 29, 2004.[49] It ceased analog broadcasting with the digital television transition on June 12, 2009.[50]
