of a general entertainment station, and changed the station's callsign to WTVG in 1977. WTVG acquired the rights to some programs such as Lassie, Mister Ed, Green Acres and Speed Racer. However, due to high program costs in the New York City market, and the presence of six existing commercial VHF stations—including then-independents WNEW-TV (channel 5, now WNYW), WOR-TV (channel 9, now WWOR-TV), and WPIX (channel 11)—WTVG was at too much of a disadvantage to grow into a major player. In the fall of 1977, Wometco launched a national over-the-air subscription television service called Wometco Home Theater, and opted to use WTVG as its flagship station. On July 16, 1979, the station's calls were changed to WWHT to match the program service (the WTVG call letters are now used by the ABC affiliate and one-time network O&O in Toledo, Ohio). Viewers who subscribed to WHT were given set-top converter boxes which descrambled the channel 68 signal. In a twist of irony, the converter boxes were manufactured by Blonder-Tongue Laboratories, thus fulfilling their original ambitions for the station they launched only three years earlier. By 1980, WWHT's program lineup consisted of a mixture of religious shows (such as The PTL Club) during mornings and middays and general entertainment programs (including a one-hour business news show) in late afternoon and early evenings. WHT programming aired during late mornings, primetime and late nights. On weekends, the station ran children's, religious and ethnic brokered programs, with the subscription service beginning in late afternoons. Around this same time, Wometco purchased Smithtown-based WSNL-TV (channel 67, now WFTY-DT), which began simulcasting WWHT. In the spring of 1981, WWHT dropped afternoon programming and began running Financial News Network from 9 to 10 a.m. and from 1 to 5 p.m. In the spring of 1983, WHT began offering programming 24 hours a day. By this time, WWHT only ran some religious programming from 7 to 10 a.m. weekdays and Sundays, and WHT programming the rest of the time. FNN, brokered shows and the few entertainment shows it had were dropped, with the Uncle Floyd Show moving to the New Jersey Network. In 1984, a year after Wometco's founder Mitchell Wolfson died, WWHT/WSNL and the other Wometco stations were sold to investment firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, which also bought the Storer Broadcasting group of stations. By 1985 WHT folded, due to huge losses as a result of the expansion of