| Baton Rouge, Louisiana | |
|---|---|
| Branding | News 2 Louisiana |
| Slogan | Balanced. Fair. Accurate. |
| Channels | Digital: 13 (VHF) Virtual: 2 (PSIP) |
| Subchannels | 2.1 ABC - HD 2.2 WBRZ News Rebroadcast 2.3 WBRZ Weather |
| Affiliations | American Broadcasting Company |
| Owner | Louisiana Television Broadcasting, LLC (Manship family) |
| First air date | April 14, 1955 |
| Call letters' meaning | We're Baton Rouge's Z (2) |
| Sister station(s) | KBTR-CA |
| Former callsigns | WBRZ (1955-1981) |
| Former channel number(s) | Analog: 2 (VHF, 1955-2009) |
| Former affiliations | Primary: NBC (1955-1977) Secondary: ABC (1955-1971) |
| Transmitter power | 30 kW |
| Height | 515 m |
| Facility ID | 38616 |
| Website | www.wbrz.com |
WBRZ, virtual channel 2 (digital channel 13), is an ABC affiliate television station serving Baton Rouge, Louisiana, south-central and southeastern Louisiana and southwestern Mississippi. It is owned by the Manship family, who also publishes the Baton Rouge daily newspaper, The Advocate. Its transmitter is located in Sunshine, Louisiana. The station is seen via satellite through DirecTV and Dish Network and on cable Cox Communications and AT&T U-verse.
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WBRZ signed on the air on April 14, 1955 as a primary NBC affiliate, sharing ABC with WAFB.
At first, the Manships wanted to call the station WBRA-TV, for Baton Rouge Advocate. However, they concluded that the call letters would cause confusion and controversy, as the letters "B-R-A" spelled "bra". Station founder Douglas L. Manship, Sr. still wanted "BR" in the station's calls, and decided to go to the other end of the alphabet for the fourth letter, picking "Z." He explained, "It was a good choice. 'Z' is a phonetically good sound on the air. It's distinctive." The "Z" was later expanded to mean "2" (similar to WGRZ-TV in Buffalo, New York), and the "W" was expanded to mean "We're". However, the WBRA call letters are currently used on the PBS member station in Roanoke, Virginia. Until 1989, WBRZ was a sister station to WJBO-AM and WYNK-FM, until the Manships sold both radio stations. As a matter of fact, from the late 1960s until the late 1970s, WYNK was considered an affiliate of WBRZ.[1]
It dropped ABC in 1971 after WRBT-TV (now WVLA) signed on. This made WBRZ a sole NBC affiliate. Because ABC was seeking out new affiliates with stronger signal coverage at the time, WBRZ swapped affiliations with WRBT and became an ABC affiliate again on September 5, 1977. In that same timeframe NBC sunk to third and last place while ABC moved up to first place in the ratings.
In July 1987, the station started broadcasting 24 hours a day, except on Sundays. In September 1988, the station became the first in Louisiana to close-caption its newscasts. In 1991, Manship's son Richard took over the station as its new president, and would later be named "Broadcaster of the Year" by the Louisiana Association of Broadcasters. In 1993, WBRZ joined approximately 50 ABC affiliates in not airing the pilot episode of NYPD Blue due to local protests; the station decided on a week-by-week basis, at first, to air or not air episodes but eventually settled with airing episodes (including a rerun of the pilot). WBRZ began broadcasting in high definition on channel 13 on April 22, 2002.
In November 2004, WBRZ, along with many other ABC affiliates in the country, opted not to air the movie Saving Private Ryan when the network broadcast it uncut on Veterans Day. During Hurricane Katrina, the station worked with New Orleans ABC affiliate WGNO (channel 26) to provide coverage of the storm and its aftermath.
In late Summer 2007, the Manships acquired a low-powered, independent television station, KBTR-CA, from Veritas Broadcasting Company.
WBRZ launched its own Web site, WBRZ.com, on the week of September 14, 2009. Prior to that, WBRZ and The Advocate shared a website, 2TheAdvocate.com.
The station is a funding partner in The Cinderella Project of Baton Rouge, a charity that provides free prom dresses to public high school students who cannot otherwise afford them. The charity held its third annual prom dress giveaway in 2010.
As of midnight, April 30, 2008, WBRZ was removed from Dish Network's local channel lineup for Baton Rouge.[2]
The relationship between WBRZ and the Dish Network began to deteriorate in the fall of 2007, when WBRZ realized that fees collected from Baton Rouge subscribers had not been paid to the station since the inception of Dish Network’s local-into-local service in May 2006, in violation of the carriage agreement.
WBRZ asked for a raise of compensation to under five percent of what Dish charges for local channels - it had been previously two percent. This amount, less than a penny per subscriber per day, is significantly smaller than the 20 cents/subscriber/day rate WBRZ charges local cable companies.
In July 2009, after more than a year, Dish Network and WBRZ reached a new agreement, and WBRZ once again became part of Dish Network's Local Channels package for Baton Rouge area customers.[3]
As of January 20, 2011 a notice on satellite receivers channel 2.1 says that the channel is in danger of being discontinued.
The station's digital channel is multiplexed:
Digital channels
| Channel | Name | Programming |
|---|---|---|
| 2.1 | WBRZ-DT | Main WBRZ Programming / ABC |
| 2.2 | WBRZ-DT2 | WBRZ News Rebroadcast |
| 2.3 | WBRZ-DT3 | WBRZ Weather |
WBRZ-TV shut down analog transmissions on June 12, 2009. [4] The station remained on its current pre-transition channel 13. [5] However, through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display WBRZ-TV's virtual channel as 2.
The station airs syndicated programming, like Live with Regis and Kelly, Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy!, the latter of which however, aired on CBS affiliate WAFB (channel 9) prior to 1995. It also airs reruns of former prime-time network shows, such as the ABC sitcom Mork and Mindy and the classic CBS hit M*A*S*H. In September 2006, it began airing Dr. Phil. The station aired The Oprah Winfrey Show until 2002, and the Rosie O'Donnell Show. Other syndicated programming WBRZ aired in the past included: The Arsenio Hall Show (which preempted Nightline from 1989 until WGMB acquired the rights to Arsenio in April 1993), Who's the Boss, The Jerry Springer Show (now on WBRL), Dear John, Inside Edition (now on WBXH, and American Journal. Prior to the launch of LPB in 1975, WBRZ aired episodes of Sesame Street in the mornings. On Sundays, it airs the services from the Healing Place Church, a local Christian megachurch.
WBRZ currently airs all of ABC network programming in high definition and most of its syndicated programming such as Live with Regis & Kelly, Dr. Phil, Jeopardy!, Wheel of Fortune, The Insider and Comics Unleashed with Byron Allen in HD.
In 2004, the station dropped its twenty year slogan of "On Your Side" and started describing their news as "Balanced. Fair. Accurate," which was inspired by Fox News's "Fair and Balanced" slogan.
As of July 29, 2008, WBRZ morning show 2une In and its noon, 4, 5, 6 and 10 p.m. newscasts can now be viewed in high-definition. WBRZ is the second station in the Baton Rouge area and the fourth in Louisiana to broadcast their newscasts in high definition.
WBRZ was Baton Rouge's "news leader" in the ratings for much of its early history until the mid-1990s. The station experienced a ratings decline when Ed Buggs, the first African-American anchor in Baton Rouge, left the station. This allowed CBS affiliate WAFB to overtake the lead in local news ratings[6].
WBRZ has been the recipient of numerous awards from the Louisiana Association of Broadcasters, a National Edward R. Murrow Award in 2000, plus other local awards:
George Ryan won the award for "Silent Trust," a series that exposed student-on-student sexual misconduct at the Louisiana School for the Deaf in Baton Rouge, La.
Other awards won:
Won by Pat Cheramie, who retired after serving 39 years as General Manager of WBRZ-TV on January 31, 2005.
Won by news anchor and reporter Andrea Clesi.
Anchors
TrueView Weather Team
Sports team
Reporters
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