The station first signed-on February 28, 1970 as the second television station in the Utica market. Owned by Roy H. Park Communications at the outset, the channel originally sought to affiliate with CBS but was stopped by WHEN-TV (now WTVH) in Syracuse which claimed the Utica area in its market area. Although WHEN cited potential revenue losses as reasoning for its actions, a rivalry between the Syracuse-based Park and then-WHEN owner Meredith Corporation also may have played a factor. As a result, WUTR signed-on with ABC marking the only affiliate of that network owned by Park. For the next couple of decades, it stayed a distant but strong second behind dominant NBC affiliate WKTV. Until the 1980s, WUTR was also the default ABC affiliate for much of the Watertown market (also in the mid-1