Wometco Home Theater
Encyclopedia
The Wometco Home Theater (WHT) was an early pay television service in the New York City area, owned by Miami
-based Wometco Enterprises
, which owned several major network affiliates in medium markets and their flagship WTVJ
in Miami (then the CBS
affiliate on Channel 4, now an NBC
O&O on channel 6). The signals were broadcast on Channel 68 beginning in August, 1977, WWHT-TV and later on WSNL-TV
Channel 67 out of Smithtown, New York
. The service had ended by 1986.
Subscribers paid $15 for a set-top descrambling box that allowed subscribers to view channel 68's scrambled television signals. (A later addressable, 2-channel version of this descrambler was developed under V.P. of Engineering, Alex MacDonald.) The service was similar to Home Box Office
, but a Wometco executive told The New York Times
that WHT was more likely to select films with a particular interest to the New York City
area. Wometco also targeted areas that were not yet served by cable
(note that although parts of Manhattan had cable television service as early as 1971, the vast majority of the five boroughs of New York City would not begin getting cable television until 1988).
Programming began at 8pm and consisted of 12 features a month, including movies and entertainment specials. In addition, select home games of the NHL's New York Islanders
were broadcast live from the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum
. Each program was repeated five times during the month. During the daytime, WWHT was a small commercial television
station. The station was originally going to be a general entertainment station with shows that WNYW, WWOR, and WPIX
passed on. However, costs were too high for such shows so the station broadcast only a couple hours of low budget syndicated shows, The Uncle Floyd Show, public affairs programs, religious programs, stock market reports, and minority-interest and foreign language programs. In 1980, WHT began programming a movie from 10:30 AM to 1 PM as well, later adding the adult-themed late night service, "Nightcap" with its black cat logo.
In the fall of 1980 Wometco Enterprises brought in a new management team. The team consisted of Harold Brownstein as the new President, and Robert Borders, Vice President of Marketing, who had previously worked together at a major BTB direct marketing company. Having operated at $1 million plus loss for over 4 years, this team turned the operation profitable within 18 months. This was accomplished by:
WHT also employed an MATV division in an effort to expand their viewership by partnering with the real estate community to provide the service to buildings and apartment complexes, using a facility's pre-existing master antenna system.
In the spring of 1983, WHT also began operating 22 hours a day with only 2 hours a day of religious and public affairs shows on WWHT. It was at this time that the operation was sold to Kohlberg Kravis & Roberts...their first $ Billion buyout
By 1984, Wometco Home Theater had stopped programming its own channel and began carrying the programming of California
based pay-TV service SelecTV
. Finally, after losing more and more subscribers over the next two years, WHT (then owned by KKR) ceased operations in 1986. Channels 67 (WSNL) and Channel 68 (WWHT) had moved to an all-music format similar to MTV
which lasted for about one year before both stations were purchased by an affiliate of the Home Shopping Network
. The station is now an affiliate of the Telefutura
Spanish-language television network.
An interesting side note, Wometco Home Theater and Wometco Enterprises were for several years owned by the private investment firm of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.
which two years after the shut-down of Wometco Home Theater would battle F. Ross Johnson
for control of snack food and tobacco giant RJR Nabisco
. The broadcast division was sold to Gillett Broadcasting for the most part, while several other stations were spun off to other broadcasters.
Another side note, the name Wometco was actually an acronym for the parent company of Wometco; the WOlfson MEyers Theatre COmpany. One of its founders, Col. Mitchell Wolfson, along with his partner, owned a string of motion picture theatres throughout the U.S. South. His daughter, Linda Wolfson continued to play an active role in the company and was a frequent visitor to the WHT offices in Fairfield, NJ.
Miami, Florida
Miami is a city located on the Atlantic coast in southeastern Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, the most populous county in Florida and the eighth-most populous county in the United States with a population of 2,500,625...
-based Wometco Enterprises
Wometco Enterprises
Wometco Enterprises is a company headquartered in Coral Gables, Florida; a suburb of Miami. It was a large media company but today it is known only as the owner of the Miami Seaquarium.- History :...
, which owned several major network affiliates in medium markets and their flagship WTVJ
WTVJ
WTVJ, virtual channel 6 , is an owned-and-operated television station of the NBC television network, located in Broward County. WTVJ shares its TV studio and office facility with co-owned Telemundo station WSCV in Miramar, Florida, and its transmitter is located near Sun Life Stadium in north...
in Miami (then the CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
affiliate on Channel 4, now an NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
O&O on channel 6). The signals were broadcast on Channel 68 beginning in August, 1977, WWHT-TV and later on WSNL-TV
WFTY-TV
WFTY-DT is one of two TeleFutura network-Owned stations for the New York City market, along with WFUT-DT. Owned by the Univision Broadcast Group, the station is licenced to Smithtown, New York and serves Long Island.-History:...
Channel 67 out of Smithtown, New York
Smithtown, New York
As of the census of 2000, there were 115,715 people, 38,487 households, and 31,482 families residing in the town. The population density was 2,159.9 people per square mile . There were 39,357 housing units at an average density of 734.6 per square mile...
. The service had ended by 1986.
Subscribers paid $15 for a set-top descrambling box that allowed subscribers to view channel 68's scrambled television signals. (A later addressable, 2-channel version of this descrambler was developed under V.P. of Engineering, Alex MacDonald.) The service was similar to Home Box Office
Home Box Office
HBO, short for Home Box Office, is an American premium cable television network, owned by Time Warner. , HBO's programming reaches 28.2 million subscribers in the United States, making it the second largest premium network in America . In addition to its U.S...
, but a Wometco executive told The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
that WHT was more likely to select films with a particular interest to the New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
area. Wometco also targeted areas that were not yet served by cable
Cable
A cable is two or more wires running side by side and bonded, twisted or braided together to form a single assembly. In mechanics cables, otherwise known as wire ropes, are used for lifting, hauling and towing or conveying force through tension. In electrical engineering cables are used to carry...
(note that although parts of Manhattan had cable television service as early as 1971, the vast majority of the five boroughs of New York City would not begin getting cable television until 1988).
Programming began at 8pm and consisted of 12 features a month, including movies and entertainment specials. In addition, select home games of the NHL's New York Islanders
New York Islanders
The New York Islanders are a professional ice hockey team based in Uniondale, New York. They are members of the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League...
were broadcast live from the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum
Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum
The Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum is a multi-purpose indoor arena in Uniondale, New York, United States. Home to the New York Islanders of the National Hockey League, the Coliseum is located approximately east of New York City on Long Island...
. Each program was repeated five times during the month. During the daytime, WWHT was a small commercial television
Commercial Television
Commercial Television was the third free-to-air broadcast television station in Hong Kong. It first went on air in 1975, and ceased transmissions in 1978.-History:...
station. The station was originally going to be a general entertainment station with shows that WNYW, WWOR, and WPIX
WPIX
WPIX, channel 11, is a television station in New York City built, signed on, and owned by the Tribune Company. WPIX also serves as the flagship station of The CW Television Network...
passed on. However, costs were too high for such shows so the station broadcast only a couple hours of low budget syndicated shows, The Uncle Floyd Show, public affairs programs, religious programs, stock market reports, and minority-interest and foreign language programs. In 1980, WHT began programming a movie from 10:30 AM to 1 PM as well, later adding the adult-themed late night service, "Nightcap" with its black cat logo.
In the fall of 1980 Wometco Enterprises brought in a new management team. The team consisted of Harold Brownstein as the new President, and Robert Borders, Vice President of Marketing, who had previously worked together at a major BTB direct marketing company. Having operated at $1 million plus loss for over 4 years, this team turned the operation profitable within 18 months. This was accomplished by:
- Consolidating numerous satellite offices/functions into the company's Headquarters in Fairfield, NJ
- Producing a bi-monthly program guide (instead of monthly), significantly reducing printing and postage costs
- Implementing direct response marketing concepts into the company's multi-million dollar local television ads, so that the company could determine which markets and promotions generated sales, instead of just awareness.
WHT also employed an MATV division in an effort to expand their viewership by partnering with the real estate community to provide the service to buildings and apartment complexes, using a facility's pre-existing master antenna system.
In the spring of 1983, WHT also began operating 22 hours a day with only 2 hours a day of religious and public affairs shows on WWHT. It was at this time that the operation was sold to Kohlberg Kravis & Roberts...their first $ Billion buyout
By 1984, Wometco Home Theater had stopped programming its own channel and began carrying the programming of California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
based pay-TV service SelecTV
SelecTV USA
SelecTV was a subscription television service formed in 1976, and first broadcasting in 1978 The service focused entirely on televising movies, and ended in 1991...
. Finally, after losing more and more subscribers over the next two years, WHT (then owned by KKR) ceased operations in 1986. Channels 67 (WSNL) and Channel 68 (WWHT) had moved to an all-music format similar to MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
which lasted for about one year before both stations were purchased by an affiliate of the Home Shopping Network
Home Shopping Network
Home Shopping Network or HSN began in 1977 as a 24-hour/7 day a week home shopping television network televised via cable, satellite, and some terrestrial channels in the Philippines. HSN can also be shopped online at hsn.com...
. The station is now an affiliate of the Telefutura
TeleFutura
TeleFutura is a U.S. Spanish-language broadcast television network owned by Univision with headquarters in Miami, Florida.-Overview:TeleFutura Is America’s #2 Spanish-Language Network in prime time...
Spanish-language television network.
An interesting side note, Wometco Home Theater and Wometco Enterprises were for several years owned by the private investment firm of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.
Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.
KKR & Co. L.P. is an American-based global private equity firm, specializing in leveraged buyouts, based in New York. The firm sponsors and manages private equity investment funds. Since its inception, the firm has completed over $400 billion of private equity transactions and was a pioneer in...
which two years after the shut-down of Wometco Home Theater would battle F. Ross Johnson
F. Ross Johnson
-Biography:Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, into a lower-middle-class family, he used a military cadet scholarship program to attend the University of Manitoba where he graduated in 1952 with a Bachelor of Commerce degree and was a member of the fraternity Phi Delta Theta. He went on to earn an M.B.A....
for control of snack food and tobacco giant RJR Nabisco
RJR Nabisco
RJR Nabisco, Inc., was an American conglomerate formed in 1985 by the merger of Nabisco Brands and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. RJR Nabisco was purchased in 1988 by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co...
. The broadcast division was sold to Gillett Broadcasting for the most part, while several other stations were spun off to other broadcasters.
Another side note, the name Wometco was actually an acronym for the parent company of Wometco; the WOlfson MEyers Theatre COmpany. One of its founders, Col. Mitchell Wolfson, along with his partner, owned a string of motion picture theatres throughout the U.S. South. His daughter, Linda Wolfson continued to play an active role in the company and was a frequent visitor to the WHT offices in Fairfield, NJ.
List of Wometco Home Theater affiliates
This list is incomplete, please help by adding stations which carried WHT.| Station | Channel | FCC City of License City of license A city of license or community of license, in American and Canadian broadcasting, is the community that a radio station or television station is officially licensed to serve by that country's broadcast regulator.... |
Affiliation Years | Notations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| WTVG, 1977-1979 WWHT, 1979-1985 (Now WFUT) |
68 | Newark, New Jersey Newark, New Jersey Newark is the largest city in the American state of New Jersey, and the seat of Essex County. As of the 2010 United States Census, Newark had a population of 277,140, maintaining its status as the largest municipality in New Jersey. It is the 68th largest city in the U.S... |
1977-1985 | Flagship station for the WHT Network. |
| WRBV (Now WUVP) | 65 | Vineland, New Jersey Vineland, New Jersey Vineland is a city in Cumberland County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city had a total population of 60,724... |
1981-1985 | |
| W60AI-LP W60AI W41DO-D is a low-power television station licensed in New York, New York. It is currently owned by Ventana Television, a subsidiary of Home Shopping Network which holds its TV broadcast licenses... |
60 | New York City, New York New York City New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and... |
1977-1985 | Simulcast of WTVG/WWHT's signal. |
| WSNL (Now WFTY) | 67 | Smithtown, New York Smithtown, New York As of the census of 2000, there were 115,715 people, 38,487 households, and 31,482 families residing in the town. The population density was 2,159.9 people per square mile . There were 39,357 housing units at an average density of 734.6 per square mile... |
1981-1985 | Simulcast of WTVG/WWHT's signal. |