WBES-TV

WBES-TV was an early UHF television station in Buffalo, New York. The station was formerly owned by the Buffalo-Niagara Television Corporation.

History

The station operated on UHF channel 59 from studios in the Hotel Lafayette in Buffalo. WBES-TV, the second UHF station in Western New York, was very short-lived, signing on September 29, 1953 and shutting down for the last time on December 19 of the same year. An independent station for its entire existence, WBES-TV was plagued by technical and financial problems, the primary factor in the station's failure. Channel 59 was never reissued in Buffalo.
Tom Jolls, at the time a radio personality at Lockport's WUSJ, was one of the station's personalities. He would eventually return to television a decade later, first with WBEN-TV, where he spent 24 years as a weatherman.
After WBES-TV was shut down, Buffalo was left with two stations, market leader WBEN-TV and fellow UHF upstart WBUF-TV ; WGR-TV signed on for the very first time on August 14, 1954, using WBES-TV's broadcast tower.