| New York City, New York | |
|---|---|
| Branding | CBS 2 HD (general) CBS 2 News (newscasts) |
| Slogan | Bringing it Home 2 You |
| Channels | Digital: 33 (UHF) Virtual: 2 (PSIP) |
| Subchannels | 2.1 CBS |
| Translators | 22 (UHF) Plainview, New York (construction permit) |
| Affiliations | CBS |
| Owner | CBS Corporation (CBS Broadcasting, Inc.) |
| First air date | July 1, 1941 |
| Call letters' meaning | W Columbia Broadcasting System (former legal name of CBS) |
| Sister station(s) | WCBS, WCBS-FM, WFAN, WINS, WWFS, WXRK |
| Former callsigns | W2XAB (1931-1941) WCBW (1941-1946) |
| Former channel number(s) | Analog: 2 (VHF, 1941-2009) Digital: 56 (UHF, 1999-2009) |
| Transmitter power | 349 kW |
| Height | 397 m (1,302 ft) |
| Class | DT (Digital Television) |
| Facility ID | 9610 |
| Website | NewYork.CBSLocal.com |
WCBS-TV, channel 2, is the flagship station of the CBS television network, located in New York City. The station's studios are located within the CBS Broadcast Center and its transmitter is atop the Empire State Building, both in Midtown Manhattan.
In the few areas of the eastern United States where viewers cannot receive CBS programs over-the-air, WCBS-TV is available on satellite to subscribers of DirecTV, which also provides coverage of the station to Latin America and major U.S. air carriers via the LiveTV inflight entertainment system. WCBS-TV is also available to Dish Network customers as part of All American Direct's distant network package.
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The station's signal is multiplexed as follows:
| Channel | Video | Aspect | Name | Programming |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2.1 | 1080i | 16:9 | WCBS-TV | Main WCBS-TV programming / CBS |
| 2.2 | TBA | TBA | CBSNY+ | Future 24-hour news channel |
While WCBS-TV does not currently provide any additional digital subchannels, it plans to launch a 24-hour news channel, branded as CBS New York Plus, by the end of 2011; programming will draw upon the resources of WCBS-TV, WCBS radio (880 AM), WINS (1010 AM), and WFAN (660 AM). Similar channels will eventually be rolled out to CBS' other owned-and-operated stations.[1]
On June 12, 2009 at 3 p.m., WCBS-TV discontinued regular analog programming on channel 2.[2] The station moved its digital broadcasts to channel 33, due to its pre-transition digital channel 56 being out of the core digital channel allotment. [3] PSIP is used to display WCBS-TV's virtual channel as 2.
WCBS-TV was one of two stations in New York City that participated in the "Analog Nightlight" program, and did so until the early morning hours of July 13, 2009, possibly making it the last full power NTSC broadcast television station in the United States to discontinue analog transmissions.[4]
WCBS-TV currently has a construction permit for a digital fill-in translator on channel 22 in Plainview, New York. This translator will serve portions of eastern and central Long Island where WCBS-TV's signal is affected by the presence of WFSB, a CBS affiliate in Hartford, Connecticut which also broadcasts on channel 33.[5]
WCBS-TV's history dates back to CBS' opening of experimental station W2XAB on July 31, 1931, using the mechanical television system that had been more-or-less perfected in the late 1920s. Its initial broadcast featured New York Mayor Jimmy Walker, Kate Smith, and George Gershwin. The station boasted the first regular seven-day broadcasting schedule in American television, broadcasting 28 hours a week. On November 8, 1932, W2XAB broadcast the first television coverage of presidential election returns. The station suspended operations on February 20, 1933 as monochrome television transmission standards were in flux, and in the process of changing from a mechanical to an all-electronic system. It returned on September 3, 1940 with the first color broadcast in the United States.
On June 24, 1941 W2XAB received a commercial construction permit and program authorization as WCBW. It went on the air at 2:30 pm on July 1, an hour after rival WNBT (formerly W2XBS and now WNBC-TV), making it the second authorized fully commercial television station in the United States, although the FCC issued permits to CBS and NBC at the same time and intended WNBT and WCBW to sign on simultaneously on July 1 so no one station could claim to be "first". WCBW's initial broadcast was the first local newscast aired on a commercial station in the country. Its assigned frequency was 60-66 MHz, now known as Channel 3 but then referred to as Channel 2 in the old 1940-46 alignment of the VHF band. Program schedules were irregular through the summer and early fall of 1941. Regular daily operations began on October 29 and WCBW received a full license to cover its construction permit and commercial program authorization on March 10, 1942. After the war, the FCC re-allocated the television and FM bands. WCBW closed down its operation on the old Channel 2 at the end of February 1946 (the 60-66 mHz band had been re-allocated to WPTZ in Philadelphia) in order to move to a new channel 2 at 54-60 MHz. It quickly began operation on the new frequency, where it remained from the spring of 1946 until the end of analog full power television service in the late spring of 2009.
The call letters were changed to WCBS-TV on November 1, 1946 after the FCC allowed TV stations owned by radio stations in the same city to use the same call letters as the radio station with the suffix -TV. This allowed the station to reflect its corporate ownership by CBS. It is the only station in the CBS television station group to have been built from the ground up by the network.
On August 11, 1951, WCBS broadcast the first baseball game on color television. This was the Brooklyn Dodgers vs. Boston Braves from Ebbets Field. The Braves beat the Dodgers 8–1. As were all color programs at the time, it was transmitted via a field-sequential color system developed by CBS. Signals transmitted this way could not be seen on existing black-and-white sets.
In May 1997, the station adopted the CBS 2 name along with sister stations KCBS-TV in Los Angeles and WBBM-TV in Chicago, while retaining a unique and distinctive logo. The practice of CBS-owned stations placing the network identity ahead of their local identity would end up being known as the "Viacom Mandate" (later the "CBS Mandate").
During the September 11, 2001 attacks channel 2 was the only major New York television station to stay on the air. Unlike its competitors, it had long maintained a full-powered backup transmitter at the Empire State Building after moving its main transmitter to the North Tower of the World Trade Center in 1975. The station was also simulcast nationally on Viacom (which at the time owned CBS) cable network VH1 that day. In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, WCBS-TV was briefly one of two full-coverage over-the-air television services operating in New York City (the other being WXTV), although the station lent transmission time to other stations who had lost their transmitters until they found suitable backup equipment and locations.
The backup transmitter had been put into operation once before, when the World Trade Center bombing of February 26, 1993 knocked most of the area's stations off the air for a week. It would once again become the main transmitter through the end of the analog era. From 2003-2005, promos for CBS 2 This Morning featured Avenue 2, with puppet-made news personalities based on Avenue Q.
In New Jersey, WCBS is carried in all of Mercer County for Comcast, Cablevision and Verizon FioS subscribers. In Pennsylvania, the Lehigh Valley from Allentown to Easton carries WCBS. In Connecticut, it is carried in the New Haven area.
During the CATV era of the 1970s and 1980s, WCBS had coverage in much of southern New Jersey. This included Burlington, Atlantic, Cumberland and Cape May counties. As WCBS was once carried in Cumberland County, it also carried WMAR-TV (channel 2) out of Baltimore as well.[6]
Upon becoming WCBW in 1941, the station broadcast two daily news programs, at 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. weekdays, anchored by Richard Hubbell. Most of the newscasts featured Hubbell reading a script with only occasional cutaways to a map or still photograph. Shortly after the war began, WCBW (like virtually all television stations) sharply cut back its program schedule and the newscasts were canceled. After the war, a once-or-twice weekly news program returned to the WCBS-TV schedule, first anchored by Milo Boulton, and later by Douglas Edwards. Edwards' nightly news broadcast became The CBS Evening News with Douglas Edwards when CBS opened network TV operations early in 1948 and made Edwards' newscast its regular network news offering.
In the 1950s through the mid-1960s, WCBS-TV's local newscasts were anchored by CBS News correspondent Robert Trout. In 1965, Trout left for a new assignment in Europe and was succeeded by Jim Jensen. Jensen had only come to WCBS-TV a year earlier (he previously was at WBZ-TV Boston), but was already well-known for his coverage of Robert F. Kennedy's 1964 campaign for the United States Senate. His gravelly voice and demeanor were very similar to that of Walter Cronkite, and he was reportedly the model for the character of Jim Dial (played by Charles Kimbrough) on the CBS sitcom Murphy Brown.
During the 1960s, WCBS-TV battled WNBC-TV (channel 4) for the top-rated news department in New York. After WABC-TV (channel 7) introduced Eyewitness News in the late 1960s, WCBS-TV went back and forth in first place with Channel 7. This rivalry continued through the 1970s. For much of the early 1980s, New York's "Big Three" stations took turns in the top spot. During this time, three of the longest-tenured anchor teams in New York—Jensen and Rolland Smith, WABC-TV's Roger Grimsby and Bill Beutel, and WNBC-TV's Chuck Scarborough and Sue Simmons—went head-to-head with each other.
WCBS-TV had many well-known personalities during this era: anchors Dave Marash, Carol Martin, Marilyn Salenger, Rolland Smith, Michele Marsh and Vic Miles; meteorologists Dr. Frank Field, John Coleman and Irv "Mr. G." Gikofsky; reporters Meredith Vieira, Randall Pinkston, Tony Guida, John Stossel, Chris Borgen and Arnold Diaz and sportscaster Warner Wolf. Vieira, Pinkston and Guida later moved to the CBS network, and Viera eventually moved to NBC where she co-hosted the early morning Today show.
In 1987, WABC-TV surged to first place. As the 1990s began, channel 2 found itself losing increasing ratings share to WNBC. One of management's more controversial responses was to take Jensen off the anchor desk in late 1994 and demote him to host of a Sunday morning public-affairs show, Sunday Edition. He also hosted a few episodes of the regular "Sports Update" show on Sunday nights at 11:30. At the time, Jensen had served as an anchor longer than anyone in New York television history (he has since been passed by WABC-TV's Beutel and WNBC's Scarborough). The move was roundly criticized by many in New York, especially since WCBS-TV had supported him after he went into drug rehabilitation in 1988.
Another controversy involved an exchange between Jensen and co-anchor Bree Walker, whose fingers and toes are fused together (the condition is known as ectrodactyly). After Walker did a report about her experience with the condition, Jensen asked Walker, on the air, if her parents would have aborted her had they known she would have been born with the condition. Although Walker kept her composure on air, she was obviously disturbed by the question, and soon left the station ([3]). This incident took place shortly before Jensen's entry to drug rehabiliation. Station management came under more fire in 1995 when Jensen was forced to retire shortly after the Westinghouse Electric Corporation announced it was buying CBS. By the end of 1995, Channel 2 had crashed into last place for the first time in its history while WNBC surged to a strong second place--a pecking order that would remain in place for more than a decade.
On October 2, 1996, the station executed an unprecedented mass firing without any advance warning, citing the need to shake up its news operation. Seven people were fired: anchors John Johnson, Michele Marsh and Tony Guida; sports anchor Bernie Smilovitz; and reporters Reggie Harris, Roseanne Colletti, and Magee Hickey.[7] The firings came after the 6 p.m. newscast. Johnson and Marsh had anchored the 5:00 newscasts and signed off at 6:00 saying, "We'll see you at 11," but never got a chance to say goodbye on the air.
"The massacre," as it has come to be known, was part of a move to boost ratings, although it came at a time when CBS was under pressure to boost revenues, having just merged with Westinghouse. It was also part of a major reconstruction of the newscast, culminating in the May 1997 rebranding to News 2.
In 2000, Joel Cheatwood, creator of the 7 News format at WSVN in Miami, came in as news director. At his suggestion, the news department rebranded itself from News 2 to the CBS 2 Information Network, using "content partners" such as U.S. News & World Report and VH1. He also gave the newscasts more of a tabloid feel. While considerably watered down compared to Fox flagship WNYW and to Cheatwood's work at WSVN—and even compared to WSVN's sister station, WHDH-TV in Boston -- it was much flashier than had previously been seen on New York's "Big Three" affiliates. It didn't work, and Cheatwood was gone by 2002 in favor of New York veteran news director Dianne Doctor. The station became simply CBS 2, and gradually phased out the tabloid elements. In its place, Doctor introduced a "news for the people" approach similar to that of her previous employer, WNBC.
After Doctor's arrival, WCBS placed a revived emphasis on hard news, while attempting to revive some elements of its glory days. For instance, in 2003 Arnold Diaz rejoined the station to revive "Shame on You," an Emmy-winning series of investigative segments. He had previously worked at the station from 1973 to 1995, leaving to serve a similar investigative role at ABC News. In December 2005, Diaz once again departed, this time leaving for WNYW. Another segment was "Eat at Your Own Risk," which highlighted unsafe conditions at New York-area restaurants. Ironically, the cafeteria at the CBS Broadcast Center was cited for violations by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Violations included the presence of rats and roaches, as well as food temperature issues.[8][9][10]
Despite this and other attempts at fixes, the ratings did not significantly improve under Doctor's watch. Doctor was criticized for airing "Shame on You" and "Eat at Your Own Risk" segments ahead of major stories. She also came under fire when channel 2 led its 11 p.m. newscast of May 24, 2005 with a story and exclusive video of actor Burt Reynolds slapping a CBS producer, while rivals WABC-TV and WNBC-TV led with an important vote in the U.S. House on stem cell research.
On May 27, 2004, Doctor fired popular sports anchor Warner Wolf, three months before his contract expired, without giving Wolf a chance to say goodbye on air. This incident was widely panned by several newspapers, including the New York Daily News, and the move alienated and angered many viewers. Wolf was replaced by the much younger Chris Wragge, who was brought in from NBC affiliate KPRC-TV in Houston.[11]
On June 1, 2005 Jim Rosenfield rejoined the station to anchor the 5 and 11 p.m. newscasts with Roz Abrams, who joined channel 2 the previous year after an 18-year run at WABC-TV.[12] Rosenfield previously worked at the station from 1998 to 2000, before moving to WNBC (to anchor Live at Five) after a contract dispute with channel 2. Rosenfield replaced Ernie Anastos, who moved to WNYW in July.
On August 22, 2005, WCBS-TV launched its new Doppler weather radar named "Live Doppler 2 Million". It has one million watts of power, and is live, compared to other dopplers in the market which are delayed by about 15 minutes. "Live Doppler 2 Million" was the punch line of a joke on an episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live and also was ridiculed on the popular Opie and Anthony radio show. The station renamed the radar in 2006 to "Live Doppler". The station also uses the VIPIR radar processing software. Coincidentally, transportation reporter Arthur Chi'en was fired from the station three months earlier after mistakenly using expletives live on the air in response to someone from Opie and Anthony disrupting his live report as part of their "Assault on the Media" contest.
On April 14, 2006, Dianne Doctor left WCBS-TV. The station decided to move its news department in a new direction under new general manager Peter Dunn, who axed "Shame on You" and "Eat at Your Own Risk". Doctor reportedly did not agree with the new plans, and opted to leave. The station has since overhauled its graphics and anchor lineup, winning praise from media observers.
Like other CBS-owned stations, WCBS-TV offers a web only newscast called "CBS 2 at Your Desk", available weekdays at 9 a.m. Also, available are streamlined news casts of the noon, 5 and 6 p.m, and the 11 p.m. newscasts. There is also a "LoHud Report" edition of "At Your Desk", operated by WCBS-TV and LoHud.com, the website for The Journal News, a Gannett Company-owned newspaper covering the lower Hudson Valley. The Journal News has a partnership with the station where WCBS-TV uses their offices for their Westchester Bureau, and The Journal News gets a 30-second promotion during the 6:00 pm newscast for the next day's top story.
In early September 2006, WCBS-TV's weather department entered into a partnership with The Weather Channel, with meteorologists from the cable service often appearing on-air with existing WCBS-TV meteorologists. WCBS-TV also receives information from the Weather Channel in addition to using their radars and satellite imagery. The Weather Channel checked in with WCBS for New York's weather on its "Evening Edition" program with one of the WCBS meteorologist, and CBS 2 said before every forecast "Now time for your exclusive forecast from CBS 2 and the Weather Channel." On July 7, 2008, this partnership officially ended when it was announced that The Weather Channel had been sold to competitor NBC Universal.
On November 6, 2006, WCBS-TV made a personnel change on its noon and 5 p.m. newscasts. Former sports director and anchor Chris Wragge became co-anchor of both aforementioned programs, along with newly-hired Kristine Johnson.[13] Wragge and Johnson replaced Roz Abrams and Mary Calvi on those shows; Abrams' contract was allowed to lapse, and Calvi was reassigned to weekends as the sole evening anchor, and currently she anchors weekend evening solely and mornings with various co-anchors. More changes came in early 2007, as John Elliot was introduced as the new morning and noon meteorologist, replacing Audrey Puente, whose abrupt breach-of-contract demotion led to her being allowed to become the new chief meteorologist at WWOR-TV less than two weeks later. WCBS-TV also hired Lonnie Quinn, previously a weatherman in Miami, as they phased out John Bolaris who had rejoined WCBS in 2002. On June 25, 2007, anchors Chris Wragge and Kristine Johnson were promoted as the station's new 5 and 11 p.m. anchors, trading places with Dana Tyler and Jim Rosenfield on the noon program; Tyler and Rosenfield continued to co-anchor the 6 p.m. newscast. Rosenfield left WCBS in May 2008, being replaced with recently hired weekend anchor Don Dahler.
In the February 2007 ratings period, WCBS-TV finished second behind WABC-TV from sign-on to sign-off — its best showing in 16 years, although most of its newscasts still finished in third place at that time. By the November 2007 sweeps period, Channel 2's local evening newscasts had overtaken WNBC for second place (mainly due to declining ratings at WNBC). It was Channel 2's best news performance in 12 years, but it still trailed WABC-TV by a fairly wide margin. On April 11, 2007, WCBS-TV began broadcasting their newscasts in high-definition, becoming the third New York City television station to do so.
In May 2008, WCBS still led WNBC by an even wider margin. However, its longtime number 1 noon newscast's ratings fell behind WABC, the only other station to offer a noon newscast in the New York area. This has been attributed to the anchor switch with Dana Tyler and Jim Rosenfield replacing Chris Wragge and Kristine Johnson, specifically to the serious personalities of Tyler and Rosenfield (and now Dahler) compared to the relaxed personalities of Wragge and Johnson, which is more traditional for a lunchtime broadcast.
WCBS has been unable to regain the lead at noon since, although they are still second in New York in the evening broadcasts. WCBS elected to change the noon anchors again after approximately a year and put the noon broadcast in the hands of the morning news team; the then-current anchors were Maurice DuBois and Mary Calvi with John Elliott providing weather forecasts. DuBois has since switched to anchoring the weeknight 5 and 11 p.m. newscasts with Johnson (with Wragge being moved to The Early Show, he would later return to WCBS) while Calvi is now partnered with former weekend anchor Rob Morrison weekday mornings and noon.
WCBS-TV cooperates with sister station KYW-TV in Philadelphia in the production and broadcast of statewide New Jersey political debates. When the two stations broadcast a statewide office debate, such as for Governor or United States Senate, they will pool resources and have anchors or reporters from both stations participate in the debate. Additionally, the two stations cooperate in the gathering of news in New Jersey where their markets overlap; sharing reporters, live trucks and helicopters.
In the February 2011 Nielsen sweeps period, WCBS-TV's 11 p.m. newscast unseated WABC-TV's 11 p.m. newscast for first place in total households. WABC continues to lead in the key demographics at 11 p.m. and also continues to dominate other time slots.
On October 20, 2011, WCBS-TV debuted a new set on their noon newscast. The final day in their former set, which was used for 10 years, was on September 29 and moved into a temporary set after the final newscast. The final newscast used in the temporary set was the October 20, 2011 broadcast of "CBS 2 News: This Morning". The new set features a clean, modern new look includes a projection screen which changes the background for each newscast (morning, noon and night) behind the anchors with blurred glass panels on both sides and the weather center includes additional blurring panels, plenty of monitors, an L-shaped desk and dimensional letter along the top of the set. [14] In the October 2011 Nielsen sweeps period, WCBS-TV's 11 p.m continue its lead from WABC and continue to dominate in the morning newscasts and early-afternoon slots.
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