WGN-TV
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| WGN-TV | |
|---|---|
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| Chicago, Illinois | |
| Branding | Chicago's Very Own WGN-TV |
| Channels | Analog: 9 (VHF) |
| Affiliations | The CW |
| Owner | Tribune Company (WGN Continental Broadcasting Company) |
| Founded | April 5, 1948 |
| Call letters’ meaning | World's Greatest Newspaper (referring to its owner, the Chicago Tribune) |
| Sister station(s) | WGN (AM) |
| Former affiliations | CBS (1948-1953) DuMont (1948-1956) Independent (1956-1995) The WB (1995-2006) |
| Transmitter Power | 110 kW (analog) 645 kW (digital) |
| Height | 415 m (analog) 453 m (digital) |
| Facility ID | 72115 |
| Transmitter Coordinates | (analog) (digital) |
| Website | wgntv.trb.com |
WGN-TV, channel 9, is a television station in Chicago, Illinois. It has been owned by the Tribune Company since its inception, and is an affiliate of The CW Television Network. WGN-TV's studios and offices are located in the North Center neighborhood of Chicago, and the station transmits its analog signal from the John Hancock Center and digital signal from the Sears Tower.
WGN Television is one of several flagship properties owned by the Tribune Company, which also operates radio station WGN (720 kHz.) and publishes the Chicago Tribune, whose slogan ("World's Greatest Newspaper") was the basis for the call letters used by both stations. The Tribune Company also operates Chicago area cable news channel Chicagoland Television (CLTV), which shares resources from both WGN-TV and the Chicago Tribune.
WGN-TV is also a pioneering superstation, and continues to program an alternate feed for cable and satellite subscribers throughout the United States and Canada, known as WGN America (formerly Superstation WGN). Its longtime slogan, "Chicago's Very Own", was the basis for a popular image campaign of the 1980s and 1990s, as performed by Lou Rawls.
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[edit] History
WGN Television began test broadcasts in February 1948 and began regular programming on April 5 with a two-hour special, "WGN-TV Salute to Chicago", at 7:45 p.m.
Early on, WGN-TV was affiliated with the CBS and DuMont networks, sharing both with WBKB (channel 4). As a sidebar to the February 1953 merger of ABC and United Paramount Theatres, channel 9 lost its CBS affiliation. CBS had purchased the license to operate channel 4 in Chicago (now WBBM-TV, which later moved to channel 2), and moved all of its programming there, leaving channel 9 with DuMont. When DuMont ceased operations in 1956, WGN-TV became an independent station.
After becoming a full-time independent, WGN-TV spent much of the next two decades as the top-rated independent station in Chicago, offering a variety of general-entertainment programs including movies, sports, off-network reruns, and children's shows. For much of its existence, channel 9 produced a large amount of its own programming at its own studios. Notable WGN-TV productions included several incarnations of the immensely popular Bozo's Circus, Ray Rayner and His Friends, and Garfield Goose and Friends (which was hosted by Frazier Thomas). WGN-TV also telecasted performances of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, beginning in 1953, when Fritz Reiner was the orchestra's music director. From 1974 until 1982, Phil Donahue's syndicated talk program originated from WGN-TV.
The station began broadcasting via satellite in 1978. This signal was picked up by many fledgling pay-cable television systems, as well as directly by satellite dish owners. This continent-wide exposure elevated WGN-TV to superstation status. Along with WOR-TV (now WWOR-TV) in New York City and WTBS (now WPCH-TV) in Atlanta, WGN-TV was among the first local stations to become a superstation.
But as WGN-TV gained national exposure, the station became vulnerable in the Chicago area and underestimated WFLD-TV's ability to buy top-rate shows like M*A*S*H, Happy Days and All in the Family. As a result, WFLD (channel 32) finished ahead of WGN-TV in the ratings by the end of 1979. WGN-TV continued with its format, acquiring top-rate programming and competing with WFLD even after additional independent stations signed on.
In 1990, due to "SyndEx" rules, WGN-TV launched a separate national feed with alternate programming about half the time. It was a similar situation at WWOR-TV and the national "WWOR-EMI Service".
In 1994, weekday morning children's programming was replaced by WGN Morning News. This was eventually dropped by the national feed because certain segments of the newscast are not allowed to air outside the Chicago area under SyndEx rules. The national feed still airs the station's other newscasts. Also in 1994, the The Bozo Show was moved from weekday mornings to Sunday mornings until 2001, when the program was controversially discontinued by station management.
In 1995, WGN-TV became a network affiliate once again, this time with the newly-launched WB Television Network, which was operated by the Warner Bros. Television division of Time Warner, and of which the Tribune Company held a minority ownership. Channel 9 aired primetime WB network programming in the Chicago area but chose not to air Kids' WB, the network's block of children's programs. Those shows aired instead on WCIU-TV (channel 26), which had dropped its Spanish-language Univision affiliation at the start of 1995 for an English-language, general entertainment schedule. Initially, Superstation WGN aired WB primetime and children's programming nationally. This was done to make WB programming available in areas not yet served by a WB affiliate. In 1999, at the network's request, Superstation WGN stopped carrying primetime WB and Kids' WB network programming.
In 2004, WCIU-TV dropped Kids' WB programming and it was moved to WGN-TV's Chicago area signal.
In January 2006, The WB and UPN networks announced that they would merge to form a new network, The CW Television Network. On the same day the new network was announced, it also signed a 10-year affiliation agreement with most of Tribune's WB stations, including WGN-TV. The new network launched on September 18, 2006. The WGN America national feed does not carry any CW programming.
Although WGN America continues to be distributed in Canada, the Chicago area feed of WGN-TV is also carried by Bell ExpressVu and Star Choice satellite services, as well as most Canadian cable services. Bell ExpressVu has always carried the Chicago area feed but Star Choice and many cable services that carried Superstation WGN switched on January 17, 2007 when Shaw Broadcast Services, a primary supplier of Superstation WGN in Canada, switched to the Chicago area feed.
On April 2, 2007, Chicago-based investor Sam Zell announced plans to purchase the Tribune Company, with intentions to take the firm private. The deal was completed on December 20, 2007. Prior to the close of the sale, WGN-TV was one of two Chicago commercial television stations to have never been involved in an ownership transaction (WCIU was the other, having been owned by Weigel Broadcasting since its launch in 1964).
[edit] Max Headroom pirating incident
On November 22, 1987, during The 9 O'Clock News sportscast, WGN-TV's Chicago area signal was hijacked for approximately 25 seconds by an unknown person wearing a Max Headroom mask. This was only the first incident of that night involving the interruption of a television station's broadcast signal. Approximately two hours later, Chicago PBS station WTTW (channel 11) had its broadcast interrupted by the same person. WGN-TV's analog transmitter is atop the John Hancock Center and engineers were almost immediately able to thwart the video hacker by changing the studio-to-transmitter frequency, thus cutting the hacker off. Unfortunately for WTTW, its transmitter is atop Sears Tower and it was unable to stop the hacker before enduring almost two minutes of the hacker's interruption. These two stations are two of only three existing victims of what is called "broadcast signal intrusion". Subscription television network HBO is the other victim -- having its signal intercepted during a movie broadcast in April 1986.
[edit] Digital television
| Channel | Programming |
|---|---|
| 9.1 / 19.1 | main WGN-TV/CW programming |
[edit] Analog-to-digital conversion
After the analog television shutdown and digital conversion, which is tentatively scheduled to take place on February 17, 2009 [1], WGN-TV will remain on its current pre-transition channel number, 19. [2] However, through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers will display WGN-TV's virtual channel as 9.
Later in 2008, WGN-TV is expected to add LATV as a subchannel to its digital broadcast, as part of a deal between three Tribune Broadcasting stations (KDAF in Dallas and WPIX in New York City being the other two) and LATV. [3]
[edit] Sports programming
Throughout its history, WGN-TV has had a long association with Chicago sports. Perhaps with the exception of the NFL's Chicago Bears, each of the city's major professional sports franchises, along with several area collegiate teams, have had its games televised over channel 9.
The station's relationship with the Chicago Cubs goes back to its inception in 1948, and was further cemented in 1981 when the Tribune Company purchased the National League franchise. At the same time, channel 9 was also broadcasting games of Chicago's American League team, the White Sox. Jack Brickhouse, the longtime sports director (and later vice president of sports programming) for the WGN stations, handled home game play-by-play duties for both teams until 1967, when the White Sox ended their first stint on WGN-TV, and continued to call Cubs games until his retirement from broadcasting in 1981. With both teams, Brickhouse called over 5,000 baseball games during his career, sharing the booth with announcers such as Milo Hamilton, Lou Boudreau, Vince Lloyd, and Lloyd Pettit.
The White Sox returned to WGN-TV for one season in 1981, during which Harry Caray was introduced into the WGN family. The following year, Caray was recruited from the South Side to replace Brickhouse as the Cubs' lead TV voice. For the next 16 years, primarily working with analyst Steve Stone, Caray further established his place among Chicago's most-beloved personalities. Like Brickhouse, Caray was known for displaying an unapologetic, home team-oriented enthusiasm to his game calls, punctuated with memorable signature catchphrases for big plays (such as Caray's "Holy Cow!" and Brickhouse's "Hey-hey!"). Caray also brought his unique rendition of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" during the seventh-inning stretch to the channel 9 broadcast booth. With WGN-TV's prominence as a national superstation in the 1980s and '90s, Caray's fan base -- and that of the Cubs -- grew beyond Chicago and the Midwest.
After moving their games to WFLD-TV in 1982 for an eight-year-long run, the White Sox came back to WGN-TV in 1990 when co-owner Jerry Reinsdorf agreed to long-term deals with the station for both the Sox and his NBA franchise, the Chicago Bulls. The Bulls returned to WGN-TV at the start of the 1989-90 season, just in time for the Bulls' dominance of the NBA during the Michael Jordan era. The team had been on channel 9 previously from their inception in 1966 until 1985; Jack Brickhouse, Milo Hamilton, and a young Bob Costas were among those assigned to work as Bulls play-by-play announcers.
The NHL's Chicago Blackhawks were carried by the station from 1961 until 1975. WGN-TV's broadcasts were limited to away games only, as Blackhawks owner Bill Wirtz had long prohibited televised coverage of his team's home games. Following Bill Wirtz' death in September 2007, his son and successor Rocky Wirtz ended the home TV blackout, and announced on April 1, 2008 that channel 9 would become the Blackhawks' new broadcast home. The station will air 20 games per season through a three-year contract starting with the 2008-2009 campaign. ([1])
In November 1999, WGN-TV and WCIU-TV entered into a programming arrangement involving sports coverage. Selected Bulls and White Sox games, and a handful of Cubs games, produced by and contracted to air on WGN-TV are broadcast on WCIU-TV for the Chicago market only. This is due to network affiliation contracts limiting the number of programming preemptions per year [4], and also due to rights restrictions put in place by the NBA which limit the WGN America feed to fifteen Bulls games per season [5]. The remaining Bulls games produced by WGN-TV are split between the station's Chicago area signal and WCIU-TV. Blackhawks games on channel 9 will be exclusive to the Chicago market. All games airing on WGN-TV are (and will be, in the case of hockey) produced in high definition.
Along with its coverage of professional teams, WGN-TV formerly broadcast football and basketball games of Chicago area college teams, such as Northwestern University, DePaul University, Loyola University, and other teams of the Big Ten Conference.
[edit] Current personalities
- Anchors
- Jackie Bange - Weekend co-anchor
- Robin Baumgarten - WGN Morning News
- Robert Jordan - Weekend co-anchor
- Micah Materre - Weekdays Noon
- Tom Negovan - Weekdays Noon
- Allison Payne - Weeknight co-anchor
- Larry Potash - WGN Morning News
- Steve Sanders - Weeknight co-anchor
- Weather
- Paul Konrad - WGN Morning News
- Tim McGill - Staff Meteorologist (also seen on CLTV)
- Jim Ramsey - Weekends (also seen on CLTV)
- Tom Skilling - Chief Meteorologist/Weekdays Noon and 9:00 p.m.
- Sports
- Rich King - Weekends (Friday-Saturday)
- Dan Roan - Sports Director/Weeknights (Monday-Thursday) and "Instant Replay" on Sunday
- Pat Tomasulo - WGN Morning News
- Dave Eanet - Fill in Sports Anchor
- Reporters
- Antwan Lewis
- Dina Bair (medical)- Fill-in anchor
- Ana Belaval
- Jane Boal
- Muriel Clair
- Julian Crews
- Lourdes Duarte
- Judie Garcia
- Holly Gregory
- Marcella Raymond
- Dean Richards (Entertainment & In-House Announcer)
- Julie Unruh
- Valerie Warner- Also Traffic
[edit] Notable alumni
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[edit] Logos
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| c. mid 1950s | c. mid 1960s-1970s | 1967 - 1977 | c. mid 1970s-1980s |
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| 1977 - 1981 | 1981 - 1983 | 1983 - 1988 | 1988 - 1993 |
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| 1993 - 1995 | 1995 - 2003 | 2003 - 2006 | 2006 - present |
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- WGN-TV Website
- WGN America
- Streaming video of CBS Evening News coverage of the Max Headroom pirate incident
- Query the FCC's TV station database for WGN-TV
[edit] References
- ^ http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-06-1082A2.pdf
- ^ http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/ws.exe/prod/cdbs/forms/prod/cdbsmenu.hts?context=25&appn=101231326&formid=387&fac_num=72115
- ^ LATV, Tribune Ink Affiliate Deal.
- ^ Confirmed by WGN-TV "WGN-TV Contact Page". Accessed June 8, 2007.
- ^ Chicago Professional Sports L.P. & WGN Continental Broadcasting Co. vs. National Basketball Association. 961 Fed. 2d 667 (7th Cir. 1992)
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