WCWN (channel 45) is a television station licensed to Schenectady, New York, United States, serving the Capital District as an affiliate of The CW. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group alongside CBS affiliate WRGB (channel 6, also licensed to Schenectady). Both stations share studios on Balltown Road in Niskayuna, New York (with a Schenectady postal address), while WCWN's transmitter is located on the Helderberg Escarpment west of New Salem. WCWN brands as CW 15 after the cable channel position on Charter Spectrum and Verizon Fios. History WCWN originated as an independent station on December 3, 1984, under the call letters WUSV, after its owner, Union Street Video. Chattanooga, Tennessee-based Media Central, a company that helped sign on a handful of independent UHF stations during this time, helped Union Street Video build the station, and also provided services to WUSV. However, it made little headway against the market's original independent, WXXA-TV (channel 23). As with most independent stations in mid-sized markets during that period, it had difficulties from the outset in terms of getting programming with only afternoon cartoons and some reruns getting respectable ratings. Most of the stronger programming went to WXXA, perhaps due in part to one of its founding partners, longtime movie director Arthur Penn, having ties to Hollywood. Also hurting WUSV was the presence of New York City's three independent stations–WNEW-TV (now WNYW), WOR-TV (now WWOR-TV) and WPIX–and Boston's WSBK-TV on cable, which had been the case for more than a decade. When WXXA joined Fox as a charter affiliate in 1986 (displacing WNYW on cable systems), WUSV had some difficulty filling the void. The Capital District was just barely large enough at the time to support what were essentially two independent stations (WXXA, like other early Fox affiliates, was still programmed as an independent at the time), and there simply wasn't enough programming to go around. Due to continuing financial difficulties, Union Street Video finally gave up in 1987 and sold the station in a fire sale to WMHT Educational Telecommunications. Under WMHT's ownership, channel 45 became a secondary PBS member station under the calls WMHX. It was still licensed as a commercial station, but operated as a non-commercial broadcaster—much like Buffalo's WNED-TV (which received an educational license in 2000) and New York City's WNYC-TV (now Ion Television owned-and-operated station WPXN-TV) operated for many years. This arrangement lasted until 1991 when, due to financial difficulties,