WNET was a television station broadcasting on ultra high frequency (UHF) channel 16 serving Providence, Rhode Island, United States, from April 5, 1954, to July 10, 1955.
Channel 16 of New England successfully appealed the dismissal, but by that point, the WNET call sign had been assigned to the New York City–area public TV station.
The permit was sold in 1980 to a group intending to use it for subscription television programming, which returned the station to air in December 1981—more than 26 years after WNET signed off—as WSTG, today's WNAC-TV.
[7] It also argued that the merger agreement for channel 12 violated FCC rules by combining ownership interests in other radio stations beyond WPRO and that Cherry & Webb had engaged in unauthorized construction of a TV facility prior to receiving the grant.
On October 16, the FCC ordered a halt to construction activities and prevented Cherry & Webb from putting WPRO-TV on the air so it could hold a hearing on the matter.
[14] In a separate matter, Channel 16 of Rhode Island sued Cherry & Webb for defamation in connection with newspaper advertisements it ran: the case was initially dismissed by a judge as "legally insufficient".
In an October 1954 article, John C. Quinn of The Journal called it "a championship bout in broadcasting circles" that had moved much slower than the expedited handling required of protest investigations.
Some CBS programs, such as Omnibus and Studio One, provisionally remained on WNET because they were subject to existing sponsor commitments, though they would move to channel 12 at the earliest opportunity.
[35] The next night, the station announced it would close down for good on the evening of July 10, unable to sustain further losses with what New England Television Company attorney Abraham Belilove termed "little or small future expectations of gain".
[36][37] Though Channel 16 of Rhode Island had left the door open to returning to the air if circumstances changed, this did not come to pass in the years immediately following its closure in July 1955.
[38] A glimmer of hope appeared in January 1956, when an appeals court reversed the order granting WPRO-TV's construction permit and remanded the matter to the FCC for further hearing.
[41] Channel 16 of Rhode Island and Cherry & Webb settled the years-long dispute in March 1957; WNET's owner was paid $10,000 in exchange for withdrawing all pending litigation and agreeing not to further protest FCC actions in favor of WPRO-TV.
[42] In 1965, Harold C. Arcaro became the majority owner of Channel 16 of Rhode Island; he acquired the Rehoboth facility well as an adjoining 10 acres (4.0 ha) of land.
As a result, in early August, the FCC notified Channel 16 of Rhode Island that the permit was possibly in jeopardy because of what it called the permittee's voluntary decision not to build the station due to "economic and other considerations".
[45] Channel 16 of Rhode Island alleged to the FCC that it should be allowed to wait until resolution in another hearing of a Providence cable company's proposal to import signals from Boston and Worcester, Massachusetts.
In a unanimous decision, the court declared that the FCC had acted "arbitrarily, capriciously, and without rational basis" and noted that the commission had to resolve the larger cable TV issue.
The court ruling also highlighted the efforts made by Channel 16 of Rhode Island to keep the station in potential operating condition over a 13-year period including paying taxes, maintenance and repair, and tower painting and lighting costs.
[53] The Golden West deal never came to pass; the Pay Television Corporation received the rights to program the STV system on channel 64, as well as an option to buy 80 percent of the station, in November 1980 as part of a court settlement.
[44] Channel 64 went back on the air at the end of 1981 as a test, intending to broadcast as a part-time subscription TV station;[55][56] it operated from the original WNET studio building.