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WBBM-TV
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| WBBM-TV | |
|---|---|
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| Chicago, Illinois | |
| Branding | CBS2 Chicago |
| Slogan | Just turn to 2. |
| Channels | Analog: 2 (VHF) Digital: 3 (VHF), moving to 12 (VHF) in 2009 |
| Affiliations | CBS |
| Owner | CBS Corporation |
| Founded | July 1, 1946 |
| Call letters meaning | World's Best Battery Maker (referring to H. Leslie Atlass, founder of WBBM radio) also for: We Broadcast Better Music (former alternate slogan of radio sister) |
| Former callsigns | WBKB (1946-1953) |
| Former channel number(s) | 4 (1946-1953) |
| Transmitter Power | 26.4 kW/455 m (analog) 3.7 kW/448 m (digital) |
| Website | www.cbs2chicago.com |
WBBM-TV, officially branded as CBS2 Chicago, is an American television station in Chicago, Illinois owned and operated by CBS. Currently broadcasting from 630 North McClurg Court in downtown Chicago near The Loop, WBBM-TV transmits from the John Hancock Center. It is expected to move into new office and broadcasting facilities in The Loop at 108 North State Street, also known as Block 37.
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WBBM traces its history to 1940, when Balaban and Katz, a subsidiary of Paramount Pictures, opened experimental station W9XBK. Balaban and Katz was already well known for owning several theaters in Chicago. On July 1, 1946, it received a commercial license as WBKB-TV (meaning Balaban and Katz Broadcasting) on channel 4, the first commercial station outside the Eastern Time Zone, airing some of the earliest CBS programing, including the debut in 1947 of Junior Jamboree (renamed Kukla, Fran and Ollie after moving to NBC in 1948). Starting in 1948, WBKB shared the CBS affiliation in Chicago with WGN-TV. Balaban & Katz was renamed United Paramount Theatres (UPT) in 1950 after Paramount was forced to divest it. The Balaban and Katz trademark is now owned by the Balaban and Katz Historical Foundation.
WBKB played an indirect role in the demise of the DuMont Television Network. Paramount owned a stake in DuMont, and the FCC considered WBKB a DuMont O&O even though WGN-TV was Chicago's DuMont affiliate. Paramount also owned KTLA-TV in Los Angeles. As DuMont already owned WABD (now WNYW) in New York, WTTG in Washington and WDTV in Pittsburgh, the FCC's decision meant DuMont could not acquire any more stations. Paramount even launched a short-lived "Paramount Television Network" in 1949, with KTLA and WBKB-TV as its flagship stations.[1][2] The programming service never gelled into a true television network.
In 1953, UPT merged with ABC, who already owned WENR-TV on channel 7. ABC couldn't keep both stations under FCC regulations of the time, so it decided to keep WENR and sell WBKB to CBS for $6.75 million.
On February 12, one day after the merger took effect, a complex deal took place. WBKB-TV was renamed WBBM-TV (after WBBM-AM, which CBS has owned since 1929), while WENR-TV was renamed WBKB-TV. The talent stayed on channel 4 while the management moved to channel 7. In addition, all CBS programming that had been airing on WGN-TV was moved to WBBM-TV, leaving WGN-TV with the quickly crumbling DuMont as its only network affiliation. As a further condition of the merger, WBBM moved to channel 2 on July 5 to eliminate interference with WTMJ-TV in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In 1956, WBBM-AM-FM-TV moved to a renovated arena on North McClurg Court, where the television station remains to this day (Early in 2006, the radio stations moved into new studios within Two Prudential Plaza). The WBKB-TV call letters currently reside on channel 11 in Alpena, Michigan, which is also a CBS affiliate.
On April 6, 2005, the station announced that it had reached an agreement to move its facilities to the vacant "Block 37" near the Daley Center in downtown Chicago. The new facility will be an all-digital HD facility with a street-level windowed studio, similar to that of sister station KYW-TV in Philadelphia. On January 18, 2006, the station announced that it had purchased new Sony XDCAM HD optical-disk cameras and recorders for news acquisition, which were to be delivered in March 2006. CBS Corporation has announced that the station will launch its newscasts in HDTV once it moves to its new facilities in the "Block 37" studio, which is slated to occur around fall to Christmas of 2007 (delayed due to construction delay with building, now slated for spring 2008).
In May 2007 WBBM-DT filed a last-minute request with the FCC to broadcast with high power on channel 12, after analog shutdown in February, 2009. The station has filed a request to run 13.8 kw at 520 m above ground level from Sears Tower.
Digital channels
| Channel | Programming |
|---|---|
| 2.1 / 3.1 | Main WBBM programming / CBS HD |
- "Nobody Does It Better" (1977, not to be confused with the Carly Simon song of the same name)
- "Chicago's #1 News"
- "Chicago's News Team"
- "CBS 2 Works for You" - This was also a short-lived image campaign composed by Joe Hogue with a theme performed by R&B singer Debelah Morgan.
- "Just Turn to 2"
In the late 1970s, WBBM surged past WMAQ-TV for first place in the Chicago news race. It became one of the most respected local news operations in the country and was considered a bastion of serious journalism. Led by anchors Bill Kurtis and Walter Jacobson, weatherman John Coughlin and sports director Johnny Morris, WBBM dominated the news ratings in the late 1970s and early 1980s. At one point, its dominance was so absolute that it called its 10 pm newscast simply The Ten O'Clock News.
In 1975, Chicago jingle composer Dick Marx wrote a theme for WBBM based on an old folk song, "I Love Chicago, Chicago My Home." This theme, known simply as "Channel 2 News," became very popular in Chicago during WBBM's glory days. WBBM has used this theme and several variations on it for all but six years since then. The tune has also been adopted by several other stations across the country, mostly CBS stations. It has become the de facto official local news theme music for CBS's O&Os. Since 2002, WBBM has used an updated version called The CBS Enforcer Music Collection by Frank Gari. It was especially written for the station, and was previously used from 1994 to 1997, and from 2000 to 2001. It is a synthesized version of the original theme. Since 2005, it has used an updated version of the theme, composed by Frank Gari's son Christian.
Kurtis and Jacobson were first teamed together in 1973 by general manager Robert Wussler and news director Van Gordon Sauter, who introduced a hard-news format and began using the newsroom as the set for all newscasts. Kurtis became known for his "Focus Unit" in-depth reports, Jacobson for his "Perspective" commentaries. Among the others who were known for their work with WBBM-TV in this period were film critic Gene Siskel, police and crime reporter John "Bulldog" Drummond, women and consumer issues reporter Susan Anderson, feature reporter Bob Wallace, investigative reporter Pam Zekman, medical reporter Roger Field, political reporter Mike Flannery and reporter/weekend news anchor Mike Parker. Bob Sirott and Phil Ponce, later hosts of the WTTW program Chicago Tonight, were also reporters for WBBM-TV during this period. Zekman, Flannery and Parker are still on WBBM-TV, and Drummond also still contributes occasional reports.
In 1982, Kurtis left WBBM-TV to anchor the CBS Morning News in New York and was replaced by Don Craig, formerly of WMAQ-TV. When Kurtis returned three years later, he was teamed with Craig for the hour-long 6 p.m. news, and Harry Porterfield, who had been the co-anchor of that newscast for several years, was demoted to a weekend shift. Porterfield later left for WLS, but the Rev. Jesse Jackson began a boycott of WBBM-TV after Porterfield, who is African-American, was demoted. WBBM-TV later hired African-American news anchorman Lester Holt, later of MSNBC to replace Porterfield. Kurtis left WBBM permanently in 1996.
In March 1986, WLS, which had been a strong third for many years, overtook WBBM for the lead. In 1990, WBBM hired Bill Applegate, who had taken WLS to first place as news director, as general manager. Applegate took Jacobson off the anchor desk (Jacobson eventually left for WFLD in 1993) and made the newscasts much flashier than they had previously been. The reporting staff during this time was impressive. It included Elizabeth Vargas now at ABC news, Rob Stafford, now at NBC, Jim Avila, now at NBC, Larry Mendte, now a main anchor at CBS in Philadelphia and Dawn Stensland, now a main anchor at Fox in Philadelphia. They were on the streets in addition to Jay Levine, Mike Parker and Pam Zekman. It was enough for a rebound to a first-place tie with WLS by 1993. The momentum did not last as Vargas, Aliva, Mendte, Stafford and Stensland all left the station within a short time. By the mid-1990s, WBBM had crashed to last place. For most of the next decade, WLS and WMAQ fought it out for first, while WBBM's once-proud news division often trailed syndicated reruns on WFLD.
The station has gone through several different on-air branding schemes—from its longtime brand of Channel 2 News to 2 News, News 2 Chicago, The News on CBS 2 Chicago, and finally the present CBS 2 News. A good example of this is in 2002, when the station eliminated its year-old computer-intensive graphics and "newsplex" studio in favor of a simpler studio and corresponding graphics set.
Since 2002, however, WBBM has recovered some of its former glory. That year, it signed Diann Burns, who had recently departed from WLS, and hired Antonio Mora from Good Morning America. Burns and Mora became WBBM's new main anchor team. In January 2006, WBBM passed WMAQ for second place at 5 p.m. While still far behind WLS, it was WBBM's best finish at 5 p.m. in 13 years. It is still in last place at 10 p.m., but was the only late newscast to gain audience share in the first month of the new year. WBBM also finished second sign-on to sign-off (from 6 a.m. to 2 a.m.), leapfrogging from fourth for its best monthly performance in 23 years. That performance was short-lived, however: In August 2006, WBBM added Rob Johnson as co-anchor of the 5:00 p.m. newscast alongside Diann Burns, while Antonio Mora still co-anchored with Burns at 6 and 10. Johnson has previously worked at WLS-TV as weekend anchor since 1998. In May 2007, WBBM slipped to fourth overall (from sign-on to sign-off) behind WLS, CW affiliate WGN-TV and NBC station WMAQ (in descending ratings order), and just barely ahead of Fox station WFLD. And in the July 2007 ratings period, WBBM's reporting of the Amy Jacobson fiasco resulted in the station's newscasts falling further behind in the Nielsen ratings.
CBS 2 made more anchor changes this past summer replacing Antonio Mora on the 10:00 p.m. newscast with Rob Johnson. Mora still co-anchors the 6:00 p.m. newscast and hosts Eye on Chicago. The station has been heavily promoting Rob & Diann at 10:00 p.m. with no mention of them anchoring together at 5:00 p.m. The 5:00 and 10:00 newscasts have dropped by 30% in ratings since the anchor changes.
The most notable of many changes WBBM has made to its news operation occurred in 2000, when it revamped its 10 p.m. newscast by ditching the traditional news format in favor of in-depth "hard news" features, a staple of its glory days. Anchored by Carol Marin, former longtime anchor at WMAQ, the newscast was hailed as a return to quality in-depth journalism in the best CBS tradition at a time when tabloid journalism and "soft news" were becoming the norm in broadcast news. However, plummeting ratings led to the newscast's cancellation in October after being on the air for only nine months.
In 1960, WBBM was the site of the first televised presidential debate between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon.
WBBM-TV's investigative reporter Pam Zekman, police reporter John Drummond,chief correspondant Jay Levine, and then evening anchor/reporter Lester Holt appeared in the final scenes of the 1993 film The Fugitive, playing themselves. Holt also briefly appeared in the 1998 sequel U.S. Marshals.
The first hosts of Access Hollywood were Larry Mendte and Giselle Fernandez, both former reporters at WBBM-TV.
- Channel 2 News (1961-1995)
- CBS2 News (1995-present)
- The Team to Watch (1980)
- Just Turn To 2 (1995-present)
- WBBM-TV: History of CBS 2 (2005). CBS2Chicago.com.
- Changing Local News - WBBM Revisited (February 7, 2001). Online NewsHour.
- WBBM-TV: Press Release on New Studio location (April 6, 2005). CBS2Chicago.com.
- CBS 2 Achieves Strongest Finish In 23 Years (February 2, 2006). CBS2Chicago.com.
- WBBM CBS Elects to take VHF Channel 11 in Agreement with WTTW.
- WBBM CBS moves to HD Newsgathering Press Release.
- The Magic Door (Jewish children's series that originated from WBBM)
- WBBM-TV CBS 2
- Original version of WBBM's theme (.mp3)
- Photos of WBBM's news set
- 108 North State Street - Location of WBBM's new facilities
- WBKB Balaban & Katz Television
- Query the FCC's TV station database for WBBM-TV
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Local television stations Local cable television channels Past local cable television channels Defunct aerial pay television channels |
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| See also: ABC, CW, Fox, MyNetworkTV, NBC, PBS and Other Stations in Illinois |
