MyNetworkTV
On January 24, 2006, The WB and UPN announced that they would end broadcasting and merge to form a new network, The CW; the new network immediately named WEWB-TV (channel 45, now WCWN) its Capital District affiliate after then-owner Tribune Broadcasting signed a ten-year affiliation deal with the new network on most of its WB stations.[19] On February 22, News Corporation announced that it would start up another new broadcast television network called MyNetworkTV; on March 9, it was announced that WNYA would join this network.[20] After having not branded with a channel number during its UPN affiliation, the station chose to call itself "My TV 4 Albany" after its channel position on Time Warner Cable systems. Ironically, nowhere in Berkshire County, Massachusetts is WNYA currently on channel 4; in North Adams, that channel is the spot where Boston's CBS affiliate WBZ-TV is located. After MyNetworkTV's launch on September 5, 2006, WNYA aired the last two weeks of UPN programming from 1 to 3 a.m. from Tuesday to Saturday.
A few months after the affiliation change, on December 5, 2006, Freedom Communications purchased WCWN from Tribune, in effect giving it control over three stations in the Capital District.[21] In February 2007, the joint sales agreement with WRGB was terminated,[22] and WNYA moved to a facility in Rotterdam that formerly housed WMHT-FM-TV.[23]
In December 2007, WNYA reached an agreement to carry the New York Yankees' over-the-air television package, which had previously been carried on WXXA-TV.[24] The station hired Dan Murphy, a former WTEN (channel 10) sports anchor and WOFX (980 AM) host, to host a local pregame show for Yankee telecasts and other local sports broadcasts.[23] Yankee broadcasts remained on WNYA through the 2012 season, after which they migrated to WCWN and WRGB.[25]
On April 18, 2008, WNYA launched its high definition channel on Time Warner Cable in Albany, even though it was not able to transmit its digital signal over the air until 2009. This coincided with the first Yankee baseball broadcast it had the rights to. WNYA switched to digital broadcasting as part of the transition on June 12, 2009. The Albany repeater, WNYA-CA, had a construction permit to perform a "flash-cut" to a low-power digital signal; due to its Class A status, it was not mandated to make the transition until 2015. Around April 20, 2011, WNYA launched its first digital subchannel in the form of Tribune Broadcasting's Antenna TV over Channel 51.2. The new subchannel also began to be simulcast on WNYA-CA in place of WNYA's main programming.[26]
