The Empire State Building, currently the tallest building in New York City and one of the most well known buildings in the world, is mostly made up of office space. However, the building also serves as a major broadcasting station for New York City, which is the biggest media center in the U.S. Ever since the World Trade Center was destroyed in September 2001, most of the commercial television and FM radio broadcast stations have used the top of the Empire State Building to transmit their programs.
Broadcasting at the Empire State Building began in 1931, the year the building opened. Experimental broadcasts were conducted by RCA from an antenna that was on top of the building’s spire. RCA rented the 85th floor and built a lab. Later the 85th floor was used for RCA’s television operations. First it was an experimental TV station, W2XBS channel 1. In July 1941, this channel became commercial station WNBT, channel 1 (which is currently WNBC-TV channel 4). In 1940 WEAF-FM (currently WQHT), an NBC FM station, started to transmit from the antenna.
NBC had exclusive right to transmit from the top of the Empire State Building until 1950. At that time the FCC broke the exclusive deal because of consumer complaints that they had to constantly adjust their antennas when switching television channels. By this time New York had 7 television stations. They needed to broadcast from a common location so that viewers would not have to constantly adjust their antennas. A giant broadcasting tower was constructed. Other TV broadcasting stations moved into the Empire State Building with RCA up on the 81st, 82nd and 83rd floors, and often brought FM radio stations with them. Construction was completed on the new broadcasting tower in 1951 and multiple FM radio and TV transmissions began. Separate FM antennas were added in 1965 surrounding the 102nd floor observation deck.
Construction of the World Trade Center caused difficulties for the TV stations. Upon completion of the World Trade Center, most of the television stations moved there. At this point the transmitter facilities and antenna structure at the Empire State Building were renovated for the FM radio stations that were still there. Other FM and UHF TVs moved into the Empire State Building from other places in the New York metro area. When the World Trade Center was destroyed, a lot of changes had to made to the transmitter rooms and antennas to facilitate the move of many of the stations from the World Trade Center back to the Empire State Building.
Currently the Empire State Building houses 44 television and radio states, and both digital and analog signals. The building also contains the Western Hemisphere’s biggest FM combiner system. The Empire State Building also has over 100 antennas that provide data communication services and point-to-point radio services to telecommunication and utilities companies as well as public safety agencies. The lower levels of the building have antenna locations that are available for broadband and cellular users.