WUTV

WUTV
	The WUTV and WNYO studios in North Buffalo as seen in June 2022
	Buffalo, New York; United States;
Channels	Digital: 32 (UHF); Virtual: 29;
Branding	Fox 29
Programming
Affiliations	29.1: Fox; 29.2: Roar; 29.3: Charge!;
Ownership
Owner	Sinclair Broadcast Group; (WUTV Licensee, LLC);
Sister stations	WNYO-TV
History
First air date	December 21, 1970
Former channel numbers	Analog: 29 (UHF, 1970–2009); Digital: 14 (UHF, until 2019);
Former affiliations	Independent (1970–1986, 1989–1990); UPN (secondary, 1995–1998);
Call sign meaning	Ultravision, founding owner
Technical information
Licensing authority	FCC
Facility ID	415
ERP	1,000 kW
HAAT	329 m (1,079 ft)
Transmitter coordinates	43°1′32.2″N 78°55′42.1″W / 43.025611°N 78.928361°W
Links
Public license information	Public file; LMS;
Website	wutv29.com

WUTV (channel 29) is a television station in Buffalo, New York, United States, affiliated with the Fox network. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group alongside MyNetworkTV affiliate WNYO-TV (channel 49). The two stations share studios on Hertel Avenue near Military Road in Buffalo; WUTV's transmitter is located on Whitehaven Road (near I-190) in Grand Island, New York, behind its former main studio building.

After a years-long permit fight, WUTV began broadcasting on December 21, 1970, as Buffalo's first modern independent station. It was built by Ultravision Broadcasting Company, a group of local investors. In addition to its broadcast in the Buffalo area, it was widely available in the adjacent Golden Horseshoe region of Ontario, including the Greater Toronto Area, with its broadcast signal and on cable television systems. Under the ownership of Philip Lombardo's Citadel Communications, WUTV became a Fox affiliate when the network launched in 1986, but it was an underperforming affiliate and struggled with ratings issues stemming from the duplication of Fox programming on Canadian stations. The network agreed to move its affiliation to channel 49, then a competing independent known as WNYB-TV. However, by the time the network moved, Act III Broadcasting had already agreed to buy WUTV and the programming inventory of WNYB, which had lost money under the ownership of the Buffalo Sabres hockey team and lacked the Canadian cable carriage that channel 29 enjoyed. The two stations combined as WUTV on July 27, 1990, and the station continued to televise Sabres games for several years.

Sinclair bought WUTV in 1998 as part of its purchase of the Sullivan Broadcasting group and WNYO-TV in 2001. While Fox stations elsewhere added 10 p.m. local newscasts, WUTV did not; it had a strong franchise in that time period with syndicated reruns. Instead, WNLO (channel 23) launched the market's dominant 10 p.m. newscast in 2001, while Sinclair's ventures into Buffalo newscasts aired on WNYO. In 2013, the newscast produced for that station by WGRZ moved to channel 29, where its ratings increased. After eight years, Sinclair replaced the WGRZ newscast with an in-house program utilizing resources at other Sinclair stations in Upstate New York, which was canceled in 2023 due to continued low ratings.