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| Channels | |
|---|---|
| Branding | WJZ;WJZ News;CBS News Baltimore; CBS Baltimore (alternate) |
| Programming | |
| Affiliations |
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| Ownership | |
| Owner |
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| History | |
| Founded | May 1946[1] |
First air date | November 1, 1948 (76 years ago) (1948-11-01)[2] |
Former call signs | WAAM (1948–1957) |
Former channel numbers |
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Call sign meaning | Taken from the former WJZ radio, nowWABC |
| Technical information[3] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 25455 |
| ERP | 30 kW |
| HAAT | 305 m (1,001 ft) |
| Transmitter coordinates | 39°20′5″N76°39′2″W / 39.33472°N 76.65056°W /39.33472; -76.65056 |
| Links | |
Public license information | |
| Website | www |
WJZ-TV (channel 13) is atelevision station inBaltimore, Maryland, United States, serving as the market'sCBS outlet. It isowned and operated by the network'sCBS News and Stations division, and maintains studios and offices onTelevision Hill in theWoodberry section of Baltimore, adjacent to the transmission tower it shares with several other Baltimore broadcast outlets.
The station first signed on the air on November 1, 1948, as WAAM, becoming the third television station in Baltimore behindWBAL-TV (channel 11) andWMAR-TV (channel 2), all within just over a year. The station was originally owned by Radio-Television of Baltimore Inc., whose principals were Baltimore businessmen and brothers, Ben and Herman Cohen.[4][5] Channel 13 was originally an ABC affiliate, the network's fifth outlet to be located on theEast Coast.[6] It carried a secondary affiliation with theDuMont Television Network until its closure in 1956. Both affiliations moved from WMAR-TV, which became an exclusive CBS affiliate.[7]
On the station's second day of operations, WAAM broadcast the1948 presidential election returns and various entertainment shows, remaining on the air for 23 consecutive hours.[8] Channel 13 has been housed in the same studio facility, located nearDruid Hill Park on what was then known as Malden Hill (now known as Television Hill), since the station's inception; the building was the first in Baltimore specifically designed for television production and broadcasting. As a DuMont affiliate, WAAM originated manyBaltimore Colts games for the network'sNational Football League coverage.[9][10]
TheWestinghouse Electric Corporation purchased WAAM from the Cohen brothers in May 1957.[11] Westinghouse then took control of the station in August of that year, and the following month, the station changed its callsign to WJZ-TV.[12] The WJZ call letters had previously resided on ABC's flagship radio/television combination in New York City, which changed its calls toWABC-AM-FM-TV in 1953.[13] However, Westinghouse's history with that set of call letters went back even further, as it was the original owner of WJZ radio, the flagship station of NBC'sBlue Network, which would eventually become ABC.[14]
All of Baltimore's television stations at the time had fairly short transmission towers in the medium's early years; channel 13's original tower was located next to the station's studios. In 1959, WJZ-TV collaborated with WBAL-TV and WMAR-TV to form a joint venture to build the world's first three-prongedcandelabra tower.[15] Constructed behind the WJZ-TV studios and opposite the original channel 13 tower, it was the tallest free standing television antenna in the United States at the time of its completion. The new tower significantly improved channel 13's signal coverage in central Maryland, and also added new viewers inPennsylvania,Delaware,[15] Washington, D.C., andVirginia.[16]
WJZ-TV nearly lost its ABC affiliation in 1977, when the network briefly pursued WBAL-TV just as ABC became the most-watched broadcast network (in prime time) in the United States for the first time. However, WBAL-TV declined the ABC affiliation offer due to ABC's last-place network evening newscast offerings of the time (a situation that would improve in ensuing years), keeping ABC on channel 13.[17][18]
In June 1994, ABC agreed to an affiliation deal with the broadcasting division of theE. W. Scripps Company, which resulted in three of Scripps' television stations—WMAR-TV in Baltimore,WFTS-TV inTampa andKNXV-TV inPhoenix—becoming ABC affiliates. ABC agreed to the deal as a condition of keeping its affiliation on Scripps' two biggest stations,WXYZ-TV in Detroit andWEWS inCleveland. Both stations had been heavily courted by CBS, which was about to lose two of its longtime affiliates—WJBK andWJW—toFox. ABC was reluctant to include WMAR, then an NBC affiliate, in the deal; it had been a ratings also-ran for over 30 years while WJZ-TV was one of the strongest ABC affiliates in the nation. However, not wanting to be relegated to UHF in two markets with few viable choices for a new affiliate, ABC opted to end its 46-year affiliation with channel 13 and move its affiliation to channel 2.[19]
Group W felt betrayed by ABC after so many years of loyalty, as channel 13 had been ABC's longest-tenured affiliate at the time (a distinction that now belongs toWJLA-TV in Washington). As a safeguard, it began to shop for an affiliation deal of its own. In the early summer of 1994, the station was approached by NBC to negotiate an affiliation agreement with the network to replace WMAR as its Baltimore affiliate. Channel 13 station management would later turn the offer down.[20] Instead, one month later, Westinghouse agreed to a long-term affiliation contract with CBS, resulting in WJZ-TV, as well asWBZ-TV in Boston andKYW-TV in Philadelphia, switching to CBS (Westinghouse's two other television stations,KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh andKPIX-TV in San Francisco, were already CBS affiliates).[21] The affiliation switch, the second in Baltimore television history, occurred early on the morning of January 2, 1995.[22] Though ABC's affiliation contract with channel 13 did not expire until January 1995, starting in 1994, all CBS programs preempted by WBAL-TV would air on WJZ-TV.[23] The last ABC prime time program to air on channel 13 was themade-for-TV movieA Dangerous Affair, which was broadcast at 9 p.m.Eastern Time on January 1,[24] and the final overall ABC program to air on channel 13 was the January 2 edition ofABC World News Now.[25] As a result, channel 13 became the third station in Baltimore to affiliate with CBS. The network had originally affiliated with WMAR-TV in 1948 before moving to WBAL-TV in 1981. Almost by default, the 1995 switches saw the NBC affiliation return to WBAL-TV after a 14-year absence.[26]
CBS' move to WJZ immediately resolved several scheduling issues the network had with WBAL-TV. The station had picked up half of its Saturday morning programming, as well as an hour of daytime programming. WJZ-TV also picked up theLate Show with David Letterman, which had aired onWNUV (channel 54) after WBAL passed on it (one of the few CBS affiliates to do so).[27] Westinghouse then bought CBS on November 24, 1995, making WJZ-TV a CBSowned-and-operated station. Notably, this marked the first time that CBS had wholly owned a television station in the Baltimore/Washington corridor; it had been minority owner of WTOP-TV in Washington (nowWUSA) from 1950 to 1955.
WJZ-TV used a stylized "13" logo, using a font face exclusive to Group W, from 1967 to 2023. It was the last remaining Group W/Westinghouse station to utilize the typeface. In 2002, theCBS eye was added, and in 2018, the station switched to a silver and gold-colored version (resembling logo styles used by its sister stations) with the WJZ call letters displayed below in squares.
CBS extended its usage of the WJZ call sign to radio on November 3, 2008, whenCBS Radio changed the call signs of two of its Baltimore stations, WHFS (105.7 FM) and WJFK (1300 AM), toWJZ-FM andWJZ in reflection of their connection to WJZ-TV; the changes coincided with the move of WJFK's localsports radio programming, including a program co-hosted by WJZ-TV sports anchor Mark Viviano, to WJZ-FM.[28] On February 2, 2017, CBS Radio announced that it would spin off fromCBS Corporation and merge with Entercom (nowAudacy, Inc.), effectively separating WJZ-TV from the WJZ radio stations;[29] the transaction closed on November 17, 2017.[30]
WJZ-TV was the Baltimore area affiliate of theIt's Academic high schoolquiz competition, currently on hiatus looking for a TV station in Baltimore since its long time sponsor backed out.
Over the years, WJZ-TV frequently preempted ABC programming in favor of locally produced programs and syndicated content from Westinghouse's broadcasting division,Group W, such asThe Mike Douglas Show and the original version ofThe Merv Griffin Show; notably, the former ABC daytime soap operaDark Shadows was preempted during the mid-1960s. From 1970 to 1972, WJZ-TV droppedGeneral Hospital,The Newlywed Game, andThe Dating Game to make room forThe Mike Douglas Show, the three shows were seen instead on now-defunctWMET-TV, and not telecast in color. By 1972, WJZ-TV re-addedThe Newlywed Game to their schedule. During the mid-1970s, WJZ-TV re-addedGeneral Hospital, and stayed on the station until the switch to WMAR-TV in 1995. WJZ-TV airedThe Edge of Night in pattern from its December 1975 relocation from CBS to ABC until September 16, 1983; the following Monday, the soap opera was moved to a one-daydelay time slot of 11 am, where it remained until the series took a two-week hiatus in favor of ABC's coverage of the1984 Summer Olympics.[31] Despite the preemptions and delays, ABC was more than satisfied with channel 13, which was one of its strongest affiliates. Additionally, Baltimore viewers could watch ABC programs on Washington's WMAL-TV/WJLA-TV (channel 7), whose signal decently covers most of the Baltimore area.
From 1957 to 1964, one of the station's highest-rated programs wasThe Buddy Deane Show, an in-studio teen dance show similar to ABC'sAmerican Bandstand, which WJZ-TV also preempted in favor of the Deane program. Deane's program was the inspiration for theJohn Waters 1988 motion pictureHairspray and its subsequentBroadway musical version, which in turn has been made into afilm.
Since becoming a CBS affiliate, WJZ-TV has carried the network's lineup in pattern with virtually no preemptions except for breaking news emergencies andOrioles baseball games, as per an agreement between Group W and CBS. Prior to September 2019, WJZ-TV aired theCBS Evening News on ahalf-hour tape delay, due to an hour-long 6 p.m. newscast.
WJZ-TV has been thede facto broadcaster for theBaltimore Ravens of theNational Football League, airing a majority of the team's contests sinceCBS acquired rights to theAmerican Football Conference in1998, including theirSuper Bowl XXXV andXLVII appearances, both victories, at the end of the2000 and2012 seasons.
Channel 13 has also served two stints as the television home of the Baltimore Orioles baseball team, from1954 to1978 and from1994 until2017. It was one of the few "Big Three" stations to air baseball on a regular basis. As an ABC affiliate, WJZ-TV also broadcast select Orioles games viaABC's MLB broadcast contract from1976 to1989, including their1979 and1983 World Series appearances, the latter won by the team.
WJZ-TV presently broadcasts 44 hours, 55 minutes of locally produced newscasts each week (with 7 hours, 35 minutes each weekday, four hours on Saturdays and three hours on Sundays).
Soon after Westinghouse bought WJZ-TV, it significantly beefed up the station's news department. On October 12, 1957, WJZ-TV cameraman John Kelly filmed a motion picture of the final stage ofSputnik 1's rocket crossing the pre-dawn sky of Baltimore, featured in a half-hour special program on Sputnik, broadcast that evening by Westinghouse sister station WBZ-TV in Boston.[32] Within a few years, it passed WMAR-TV for second place. Like the other Group W stations, WJZ-TV adopted theEyewitness News format pioneered at Philadelphia sister station KYW-TV. By the early 1970s, WJZ-TV had passed WBAL-TV for first place—a lead it held for over 30 years. Around 2001, however, WBAL-TV passed WJZ-TV for first place in all evening timeslots, though WJZ-TV still placed a strong second. However, in the official November 2009Nielsen ratings sweeps period, the first since the debut ofThe Jay Leno Show (which aired on WBAL-TV), WJZ-TV returned to a dominant position at 11 p.m. for the first time since the early 2000s. Both stations spent the next two years in a virtual dead heat in the late news. Since the November 2011 Nielsen sweeps period, WJZ has regained the lead in all news time slots in both total households and the critical 25–54 demographic; however, WBAL remains a strong second. It has been one of CBS's strongest O&Os ever since the 1995 affiliation switch.
WJZ-TV was the first station in Baltimore to hire a full-time consumer reporter, as well as the first station to organize an investigative reporting team. In 1965, shortly after it adopted theEyewitness News format, Wiley Daniels became the first African-American anchor in Baltimore. He worked alongsideJerry Turner, one of the most popular anchormen in Baltimore television history.Al Sanders was paired with Turner in 1977; he and Turner were the top news team until Turner succumbed toesophageal cancer. Denise Koch succeeded Turner upon his death in 1988; she remains at the anchor desk. Vic Carter succeeded Sanders following the latter's death in 1995.
WJZ-TV is known as a legacy station and both on-air and off-air employees typically have decades of service. Koch holds the record as the longest-tenured TV news anchor in Baltimore history. She has anchored the station's 6 p.m. broadcast since 1988. The record for the longest-tenured anchor team in Baltimore TV history is also held by WJZ. The former anchor team of Don Scott and Marty Bass topped weekday morning newscast ratings from 1984 to 2014 as co-anchors ofEyewitness News Morning Edition andRise & Shine. Former WJZ weather anchor Bob Turk holds the title of the longest-tenured talent at a single station in Maryland TV. Turk forecast weather on weekday evenings for nearly 50 years, from 1973 until his dismissal in 2022. Former news director Gail Bending held her title from 1991 until her dismissal on March 31, 2023, also a record for the market.[citation needed]
In 1976,Oprah Winfrey was hired as Jerry Turner's co-anchor for the station's 6 p.m. newscast. By April 1977 she was moved anchor of morning cut-ins[33] and eventually helped to launch and co-hosted channel 13's local talk show,People Are Talking withRichard Sher. Winfrey co-hostedPeople Are Talking from August 14, 1978, until she left for Chicago in 1984. During that time, she and Sher would also co-anchorEyewitness News at Noon and in 1983 she teamed up with Marty Bass to launchEyewitness News Morning Edition.
On October 25, 2009, WJZ-TV became the third Baltimore station to begin airing newscasts inhigh definition. For several months after the upgrade, field reports were still presented in4:3standard definition until it switched over to the16:9widescreen format. As of September 2011, all of WJZ-TV's locally produced video footage, including remote field reports, are in HD, making it the first station in Baltimore to do so.
During the noon newscast on August 9, 2018, WJZ-TV unveiled a new set, and introduced the same on-air graphics scheme used by other CBS owned-and-operated stations (the last among the group to do so).[34] On August 20, 2018, WJZ-TV expanded its morning newscasts from 5–7 a.m. to 4:30–7 a.m., becoming the last station in Baltimore to start their morning newscasts at 4:30 am. On September 9, 2019, WJZ debuted a 7 p.m. newscast for the first time, and theCBS Evening News was moved to 6:30 p.m.
WJZ-TV launched a streaming news service, CBSN Baltimore (now CBS News Baltimore), a localized version of the nationalCBSN service) on August 23, 2021, as part of a rollout of similar services across the CBS-owned stations.[35]
In 2022, the station partnered withThe Baltimore Banner Articles from WJZ's website appear on the Banner's website, while Banner journalists appear on the station's 9 a.m. newscasts.[36]
The station's signal ismultiplexed:
| Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13.1 | 1080i | 16:9 | WJZ-TV | CBS |
| 13.2 | 480i | StartTV | Start TV | |
| 13.3 | Dabl | Dabl | ||
| 13.4 | FaveTV | Fave TV | ||
| 13.5 | Catchy | Catchy Comedy | ||
| 13.6 | Movies | Movies! |
WJZ-TV shut down its analog signal, overVHF channel 13, on June 12, 2009, the official date on which full-power television stations in the United Statestransitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transitionUHF channel 38 to VHF channel 13.[39][40] WMAR-TV took over the channel 38 allocation as it moved its digital signal from channel 52 as a result of the phaseout of channels 52–69.
The switch caused problems for some viewers due to reception issues related to the transition, but theFederal Communications Commission granted WJZ-TV a power increase that helps some people.[41]
As a part of therepacking process following the2016–2017 FCC incentive auction, WJZ-TV relocated to VHF channel 11 on July 3, 2020, usingvirtual channel 13.[42] WBAL-TV concurrently moved to channel 12.
Includes stations in out-of-state TV markets, but reaching a portion of Maryland and Washington, D.C. | ||
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