| Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania | |
|---|---|
| Branding | KDKA (general) KDKA-TV News (newscasts) |
| Slogan | Your Home (general) Your Home for Local News (news) Your Steeler Station |
| Channels | Digital: 25 (UHF) Virtual: 2 (PSIP) |
| Affiliations | CBS (secondary until 1955) |
| Owner | CBS Corporation (CBS Broadcasting, Inc.) |
| First air date | January 11, 1949 |
| Call letters' meaning | taken from sister radio station KDKA |
| Sister station(s) | KDKA, KDKA-FM, WBZZ, WDSY-FM, WPCW |
| Former callsigns | WDTV (1949-1955) |
| Former channel number(s) | Analog: 3 (VHF, 1949-1952) 2 (VHF, 1952-2009) |
| Former affiliations | Primary: DuMont (1949-1955) Secondary: NBC (1949-1957) ABC (1949-1958) |
| Transmitter power | 1000 kW |
| Height | 311 m |
| Facility ID | 25454 |
| Website | Pittsburgh.CBSLocal.com |
KDKA-TV, channel 2, is an owned and operated television station of the CBS Television Network, located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. KDKA-TV broadcasts from a transmitter located in the Perry North neighborhood of Pittsburgh, and its studios are located in downtown Pittsburgh at Gateway Center. The facility also houses WPCW (channel 19, Pittsburgh's CW affiliate). Syndicated programming on the station includes Dr. Phil, Pittsburgh Today Live, Extra and The Insider.
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The station went on the air on January 11, 1949, as WDTV (W DuMont TeleVision) on channel 3, owned and operated by the DuMont Television Network. It was the 51st TV station in the U.S. and the third and last DuMont-owned station to go on the air, behind WABD (now WNYW) in New York City and WTTG in Washington, D.C.
To mark the occasion, a live television special aired that day from 8:30pm to 11pm EST on WDTV. The show began with a one-hour local program broadcast from Syria Mosque in Pittsburgh. The remainder of the show featured live segments from DuMont, CBS, NBC, and ABC with Arthur Godfrey, Milton Berle, DuMont host Ted Steele, and many other celebrities.[1] The station also represented a milestone in the television industry, providing the first "network" that included Pittsburgh and 13 other cities from Boston to St. Louis.[2] WDTV was one of the last stations to receive a construction permit before the Federal Communications Commission-imposed four-year freeze on new TV station licenses.
When the release of the FCC's Sixth Report and Order ended the license freeze in 1952, DuMont was forced to give up its Channel 3 allocation to alleviate interference with nearby stations broadcasting on the frequency. WDTV moved its facilities to Channel 2 on November 23, 1952. Not long after moving, WDTV became the first station in the country to broadcast 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.[3]
These stations were linked together via AT&T's coaxial cable feed with the sign-on of WDTV allowing the network to broadcast live programming to all the stations at the same time. Stations not yet connected to the coaxial cable received kinescope recordings via physical delivery.
Until the end of the freeze, WDTV's only competition came in the form of distant signals from stations in Johnstown, Altoona, Wheeling, West Virginia and Youngstown, Ohio. However, Pittsburgh saw two UHF stations launch during 1953 -- ABC affiliate WENS-TV (channel 16, later to become WINP-TV), and WKJF-TV (channel 53, later to become WPGH-TV), an independent. At the time, UHF stations could not be viewed without the aid of an expensive, set-top converter, and the picture quality was marginal at best with one. UHF stations in the area faced an additional problem because Pittsburgh is located in a somewhat rugged dissected plateau, and the reception of UHF stations is usually poor in such terrain. These factors played a role in both WKJF and WENS being short-lived.
Although Pittsburgh was the sixth largest market in the country (behind New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Washington-Baltimore), the other VHF stations in town were slow to develop. This was because the major cities in the Upper Ohio Valley are so close together that they must share the VHF band. After the FCC lifted the license freeze in 1952, it refused to grant any new commercial VHF construction permits to Pittsburgh in order to give the smaller cities in the area a chance to get on the air. As a result, WDTV had a de facto monopoly on Pittsburgh television. Like its sister stations WABD and WTTG, it was far stronger than the DuMont network as a whole. According to network general manager Ted Bergmann, WDTV brought in $4 million a year, which was more than enough to keep the network afloat. Owning the only readily viewable station in such a large market gave DuMont considerable leverage in getting its programs cleared in large markets where it didn't have an affiliate. As CBS, NBC and ABC had secondary affiliations with WDTV, this was a strong incentive to stations in large markets to clear DuMont's programs or risk losing valuable advertising in the sixth-largest market. WDTV aired all DuMont network shows live and "cherry-picked" the best shows from the other networks, airing them on kinescope on an every-other-week basis.
WDTV's sign-on was also significant because it was now possible to feed live programs from the East to the Midwest and vice versa. In fact, its second broadcast was the activation of the coaxial cable linking New York and Chicago. It would be another two years before the West Coast received live programming, but this was the beginning of the modern era of network television.
By 1954, DuMont was in serious financial trouble. Paramount Pictures, which owned a stake in DuMont, vetoed a merger with ABC who had merged with United Paramount Theaters, Paramount's former theater division, a year before. A few years earlier, the FCC had ruled that Paramount controlled DuMont and there were still lingering questions about whether UPT had actually broken off from Paramount. Paramount didn't want to risk the FCC's wrath.
Meanwhile, Pittsburgh-based Westinghouse Electric Corporation had been competing with local politicians to acquire the non-commercial channel 13 license from the FCC, as no other Pittsburgh-allocated VHF station would be signing on for the foreseeable future. After launching WBZ-TV in Boston in 1948 and purchasing two other TV stations, Westinghouse was growing impatient with not having a station in its own home market. Westinghouse later offered a compromise plan to the FCC, in which the Commission would grant Westinghouse the channel 13 license; Westinghouse would then "share" the facility with the educational licensee. Finding the terms unacceptable, Pittsburgh attorney Leland Hazard called Westinghouse CEO Gwilym Price to ask him if he should give up on his fight for public television. Price said that Hazard should keep fighting for it, giving Westinghouse backing for the station that would eventually become WQED.[5]
Westinghouse then turned its attention to WDTV, offering DuMont a then-record $10 million for the station in late 1954. Desperate for cash, DuMont promptly accepted Westinghouse's offer. While the sale gave DuMont a short-term cash infusion, it eliminated DuMont's leverage in getting clearances in other major markets. Within two years, the DuMont network was no more. After the sale closed in January 1955, Westinghouse changed WDTV's call letters to KDKA-TV, sistering it to Westinghouse's pioneering radio station KDKA (1020 AM; and later to 92.9 FM, now WLTJ). As such, it became one of the few stations east of the Mississippi with a "K" call sign.
As KDKA radio had long been an NBC affiliate (due to corporate ties between Westinghouse and NBC dating back to 1926, when Westinghouse was a co-founder of RCA, NBC's then-parent company), KDKA-TV hoped to become a primary affiliate of NBC television. But the network was seeking to purchase Westinghouse's Philadelphia stations, KYW radio and WPTZ-TV (now KYW-TV). When Westinghouse balked, NBC threatened to pull its programming from WPTZ and Boston's WBZ-TV unless Westinghouse agreed to swap its Philadelphia stations for NBC's WTAM-AM-FM and WNBK in Cleveland. The decision would lead to an acrimonious relationship between Westinghouse and NBC in later years. [6][7] Channel 2 became a primary affiliate of the higher-rated CBS network instead. KDKA-TV retained secondary affiliations with NBC until WIIC-TV (channel 11, now WPXI) signed on in 1957, and ABC until WTAE-TV (channel 4) signed on in 1958. KDKA-TV became the flagship station of Westinghouse's broadcasting arm, Group W.
The WDTV calls now reside on a CBS affiliate located 130 miles south in Weston, West Virginia, which is unrelated to the current KDKA-TV. That station, which signed on after KDKA-TV adopted its current call signs, did adopt those calls "in honor" of KDKA-TV. On November 22, 1963, newscaster Bill Burns provided almost 3 hours of live coverage after the shooting of President John F. Kennedy.[8]
Over the years, channel 2 pre-empted moderate amounts of CBS programming. At one point, from the mid to late 1970s, they were not clearing As The World Turns. At the same time, WTAJ in Altoona, Pennsylvania, did run the program and was viewable in the eastern part of the Pittsburgh market. Also, CBS affiliate WTRF in Wheeling, West Virginia was viewable in Pittsburgh and to the west. KDKA also preempted the 10 a.m. hour of game shows and reruns from CBS at various points. KDKA also produced plenty of local programs such as Evening Magazine, People Are Talking, and local news. KDKA TV also occasionally pre-empted primetime CBS programming for a syndicated movie, local news special, or at some points a sports event during the years they had broadcast rights to Pittsburgh Pirates baseball. Weekend pre-emptions included a small portion of Saturday morning cartoons in favor of syndicated children's programming. Like most CBS affiliates, KDKA never ran the Sunday morning hour of cartoons distributed by CBS as well or Sunday morning religious shows from CBS like Lamp Unto My Feet. As such, a large amount of network programming was not airing on KDKA. Westinghouse had similar practices at sister station KPIX San Francisco and NBC affiliates WBZ-TV Boston and KYW-TV Philadelphia. During the 1980s, KDKA began running CBS News Sunday Morning.
In 1993, KDKA stopped running CBS This Morning and instead ran Disney's syndicated cartoon block. Less than a year later, Westinghouse made a long-term deal with CBS to convert the entire five-station Group W television unit to a group-wide CBS affiliation. Part of this agreement included a deal to stop preempting any CBS Shows except for local news emergencies or local news events which would be effective in 1995. KDKA TV continued preempting moderate amounts of programming into 1995. In the fall of 1995, channel 2 began running the entire CBS lineup in pattern, as it, and sister station KPIX-TV in San Francisco, were already affiliated with the network.
In early 1996, Westinghouse acquired CBS, making KDKA-TV a CBS owned-and-operated station, after four decades as being simply a CBS affiliate. In 1997, Westinghouse became CBS Corporation, which would then merge with Viacom (ironically Paramount's parent since 1994) in 2000, making KDKA a sister station with Pittsburgh UPN (now The CW) affiliate WNPA-TV (now WPCW). Five years later Viacom became CBS Corporation and spun off a new Viacom.
In 2001, KDKA-TV began producing a 10 p.m. newscast on UPN Pittsburgh. In 2005, it added a two-hour morning newscast in 2005 on WNPA.
On September 1, 2010, KDKA-TV debuted the same graphics and music package that WCBS-TV, KYW-TV and KCBS-TV have.
KDKA-TV is also available on cable in the Johnstown, Altoona, and Wheeling areas, as well as several other out-of-market cable systems in northwestern Pennsylvania, northwestern Maryland, northeastern Ohio, and North-Central West Virginia. The furthest south KDKA is carried on cable is in Beverly, West Virginia. This is not far from the Virginia state line near Monterrey.
In August 2007, KDKA-TV revealed a new image campaign, entitled Your Home, with music and lyrics performed by singer-songwriter Bill Deasy. The promo features scenes of Pittsburgh and its surrounding areas, as well as three of the station's personalites. In September 2007, the station unveiled another promo featuring the Joe Grushecky song "Coming Home." Later, a third spot was introduced, called "Long Way Home," and features the voice of Kelsey Friday.[9]
| Virtual Channel |
Physical RF Channel |
Video | Aspect | Programming |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2.1 | 25.1 | 1080i | 16:9 | main KDKA-TV programming / CBS HD |
KDKA-TV and sister station WPCW do not make use of its digital subchannels.
As part of the analog television shutdown and digital conversion, KDKA-TV shut down its analog transmitter on Friday, June 12, 2009, during the Late Show with David Letterman.
On Tuesday June 16, 2009, KDKA-TV launched in HD during its noon broadcast, with a new set and weather center. Like rival WTAE, only the in-studio cameras are in HD while most of the content, including field reports and video footage, are in pillarboxed 4:3 standard definition.
In July 2009 the station applied to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to have two repeater signals: channel 31 in Morgantown, West Virginia and channel 40 in Johnstown.[10] The Morgantown signal is expected to reach into Forward Township while the Johnstown signal is expected to penetrate Irwin.
KDKA-TV presently offers seven-and-a-half hours of live news each weekday, collectively, on channels 2 and 19 (WPCW). On Saturdays, news is broadcast four-and-a-half hours per day, and there is 90 minutes of news each Sunday.
In January 2009 KDKA-TV celebrated 60 years on being on the air.
As of May 2010, KDKA-TV is the most watched news station in the hours of noon, 4 p.m., 5 p.m., 6 p.m., and 11 p.m. However, WPXI is the most watched news program in the Pittsburgh area in the hours of 5 a.m., 6 a.m. and their 10 p.m. show on WPGH-TV.[11]
Due to the CBS network having a broadcast contract with the NFL to show games involving AFC teams, KDKA-TV has been the official broadcaster of most Pittsburgh Steelers games since 1998, and serves as the team's flagship station. The team's preseason games that are not nationally televised are also shown on KDKA.
KDKA began its relationship with the Steelers in 1962, when CBS first started the leaguewide television package. The Steelers are one of three AFC teams that predate the AFC's basis league, the American Football League, and so KDKA, and not WTAE-TV or WIIC-TV (now WPXI), carried Steelers road games (home games were blacked out locally under all circumstances until 1973, when sold-out home games began to be allowed on local television) - the AFL had TV contracts with ABC, and later, NBC.
Due to the NFL rules of the time, after the AFL-NFL merger, KDKA did not broadcast any Steelers games from 1970-72. Beginning 1973, KDKA was allowed to air any Steelers games in which they hosted a team from the National Football Conference, which contained most of the old-line National Football League teams. Since the Steelers have sold out every home game starting in 1972, no blackouts have been required. In the meantime, from 1970-97, channel 11 aired most Steelers games.
When the NFC package moved from CBS to Fox in 1994, WPGH-TV aired the Steelers games that had before aired on KDKA, leaving the senior station without Steelers games for four years.
Today, and in general since 1970, the only exceptions to all the above are when the Steelers play at night. Their Monday Night Football games have always aired locally on WTAE, first when the ABC network had the rights, and since 2006, on ESPN. WTAE also aired simulcasts of their games aired as part of ESPN Sunday Night Football from 1987 to 2005. The NFL requires games on cable channels be simulcast over-the-air in the markets of the participating teams (again with the home team's broadcast subject to blackout). WTAE has simulcast ESPN-aired games because ESPN is 20% owned by WTAE's owners, Hearst Corporation - their ABC stations have right of first refusal for these simulcasts. Games on TNT and NFL Network have aired on various stations in the area.
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