WGN-TV

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

WGN-TV
Chicago, Illinois
Branding	WGN
Slogan	Chicago's Very Own Chicago's CW (locally)
Channels	9 (VHF) analog, 19 (UHF) (9.1 and 9.2 through PSIP) digital
Affiliations	CW
Owner	Tribune Company
Founded	April 5, 1948
Call letters meaning	World's Greatest Newspaper (referring to its owner, the Chicago Tribune)
Former callsigns	None
Former affiliations	DuMont (1948-1956) CBS (1948-1953) Independent (1956-1995) WB (1995-2006)
Transmitter Power	110 kW/415 m (analog) 645 kW/453 m (digital)
Website	wgntv.trb.com

WGN-TV is a television station broadcasting from Chicago, Illinois on channel nine. It is currently the Chicago affiliate of the CW television network. WGN-TV was affiliated with the WB network from January 1995 to September 2006. The Tube, a digital music channel, broadcasts on WGN-DT digital channel 9.2.

WGN Television, from the station's inception, is the television flagship of the Tribune Company, which also owns radio station WGN (720 kHz.). Tribune also publishes the Chicago Tribune, whose slogan "World's Greatest Newspaper", was the basis for the call letters used by both stations. WGN is notable both as an early example of media conglomeration and as a pioneer in cable television, where it was one of the first superstations. See Article: Superstation WGN

Tribune also operates cable news channel Chicagoland Television, better known as "CLTV". CLTV offers continuous weather updates from WGN-TV meteorologists.

Contents 1 History 1.1 Potential Sale 1.2 Hijack 1.3 Logos 2 Newscasts 2.1 Weekdays 2.2 Saturdays 2.3 Sundays 3 Personalities 3.1 Current On-Air Staff 4 Past News Personalities 5 Trivia 6 See Also 7 External links

[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 (shared with WBKB, channel four) and DuMont networks. As a sidebar to the February 1953 merger of ABC and United Paramount Theatres, WGN lost its CBS affiliation. CBS had purchased the license to operate channel four in Chicago (now WBBM-TV, which later moved to channel two), and moved all of its programming there, leaving channel nine with DuMont. When DuMont ceased operations in 1956, WGN-TV became an independent station. For much of its existence, WGN produced much of its own programming at its local studios. Notable WGN-produced programs include several incarnations of the immensely popular Bozo's Circus, Ray Rayner and His Friends, and Garfield Goose and Friends.

The station has also had a long association with the Chicago Cubs baseball team, which has been aired on WGN-TV since the station's inception. (The Tribune Company purchased the National League franchise in 1981.) During its history, WGN-TV has also been the over-the-air home of Chicago's American League franchise, the White Sox, the NBA's Chicago Bulls, and the NHL's Chicago Blackhawks, and has often broadcast football and basketball games of local college teams, such as Northwestern University, DePaul University, Loyola University, and other teams of the Big Ten Conference.

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 to superstation status. Along with WOR-TV (now WWOR-TV) in New York and WTBS in Atlanta, WGN was among the first local stations to become a superstation.

Until 1979, WGN-TV was consistently the top-rated independent station in Chicago. At that time, the station offered classic movies, sports, off-network sitcoms, cartoons and dramas. From 1974 until 1982, Phil Donahue's syndicated talk program originated from WGN-TV.

In 1978, the station became vulnerable 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, Superstation WGN's national feed began running 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 and The Bozo Show was moved to Sunday mornings until 2001, when the program was controversially discontinued by WGN management.

In 1995, WGN-TV aired primetime WB network programming in the Chicago area but Kids' WB aired on WCIU-TV (channel 26), which had dropped its Spanish-language Univision affiliation for an English-language, general entertainment schedule. Nationally, Superstation WGN aired primetime WB network programming along with Kids' WB programming.

In 1999, the Superstation WGN national feed stopped carrying WB network and Kids' WB programming. In the Chicago area, WB network programming remained on WGN-TV and Kids' WB remained on WCIU. In 2004, WCIU dropped Kids' WB programming, so it was moved to the Chicago area WGN-TV.

On January 24, 2006, the WB and UPN networks announced that they would merge. The newly combined network would be called The CW, the letters representing the first initial of its corporate parents CBS (the parent company of UPN) and the Warner Bros. unit of Time Warner. On September 18, 2006, WGN-TV became The CW's Chicago affiliate.

The Chicago area feed of WGN-TV is also available in Canada to subscribers of the Bell ExpressVu satellite service. Other Canadian cable and satellite subscribers who receive WGN receive Superstation WGN. This situation will change in December 2006, when Shaw Broadcast Services, the primary supplier of Superstation WGN in Canada, will be switching to the WGN Chicago area feed. After that point, all ExpressVu and Star Choice viewers, as well as most Canadian cable viewers, will see the Chicago area feed.

[edit] Potential Sale

In early November 2006, the Los Angeles Times reported that Tribune Company is seeking potential buyers for its stations in New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago. Tribune owns newspapers in all three cities. In New York and Los Angeles, they are operating under a temporary waiver but with the stations coming up for license renewal, the report claimed Tribune is seeking potential buyers in case they can't get a permanent waiver.

[edit] Hijack

(See Max Headroom Pirating Incident)

On November 22, 1987, during The 9 O'Clock News sportscast, WGN-TV's analog broadcast signal was hijacked by an unknown person wearing a Max Headroom mask for approximately 25 seconds. 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 of 1986.

[edit] Logos

WGN-TV logo from 1952 to 1960	WGN-TV and Radio logo from 1960 to 1970	WGN-TV and Radio logo from 1970 to 1993	WGN-TV logo from mid-1970s to early 1980s
WGN-TV logo from 1983 to 1993	WGN-TV logo from 1993 to 1995	WGN-TV logo from 1995 to 2002	WGN-TV logo, used from 2002 to 2006
WGN-TV's current logo

[edit] Newscasts

[edit] Weekdays

• WGN Morning News: 5:00-9:00 a.m. (airs only in Chicago area)
• WGN News at Noon: Noon-1:00 p.m. CT
• WGN News at Nine: 9:00-10:00 p.m. CT

[edit] Saturdays

• WGN News at Nine: 9:00-10:00 p.m. CT

[edit] Sundays

• WGN News at Nine: 9:00-9:40 p.m. CT
• Instant Replay (sports wrap-up): 9:40-10:00 p.m. CT

[edit] Personalities

[edit] Current On-Air Staff

WGN NEWS ANCHORS

• Jackie Bange, Weekend Anchor
• Robin Baumgarten, Morning Anchor
• Robert Jordan, Weekend Anchor
• Micah Materre, Noon Anchor
• Tom Negovan, Noon Anchor
• Allison Payne, Evening Anchor
• Larry Potash, Morning Anchor
• Steve Sanders, Evening Anchor

WGN NEWS REPORTERS

• Dina Bair, Medical Watch Reporter
• Ana Belaval, Around Town Reporter
• Julian Crews, General Assignment Reporter
• Juan Carlos Fanjul, General Assignment Reporter
• Marcella Raymond, General Assignment Reporter
• Dean Richards, Entertainment Reporter/Critic
• Fred Shropshire, General Assignment Reporter
• Julie Unruh, General Assignment Reporter
• Valerie Warner, Traffic Reporter

WGN WEATHER TEAM METEOROLOGISTS

• Paul Konrad, Morning Meteorlogist
• Tom Skilling, Noon and Weekday Evening Chief Meteorlogist
• Tim McGill, Fill-in Meteorlogist, also seen on CLTV
• Jim Ramsey, Weekend Meteorlogist
• Keenan Smith, Staff Meteorologist, also seen on CLTV

WGN SPORTS ANCHORS/REPORTERS

• Rich King, Weekend Sports Anchor
• Dan Roan, Weekday Evening Sports Anchor
• Pat Tomasulo, Morning Sports Anchor

[edit] Past News Personalities

• Mike Barz, Sports
• Jack Brickhouse, Sports
• Denise Cannon, Anchor
• Jim Conway, Anchor
• John Drury, Anchor 1967-1970 and 1979-1984
• Joan Esposito, Anchor
• Pat Harvey, Anchor 1986-1989, now at KCAL-TV in Los Angeles
• Ned Locke, Weather
• Marty McNeeley, Anchor
• Gary Park, Anchor
• Rick Rosenthal, Anchor
• Jim Ruddle, Anchor
• Wendell Smith, Sports
• Roger Triemstra, Weather
• Jack Taylor, Anchor
• Harry Volkman, Weather
• Bill Weir, Sports

[edit] Trivia

• In the 2005 film The Weather Man, Nicolas Cage plays an egocentric TV meteorologist who works for the fictional WCH-6 Chicago. It was actually filmed at the WGN-TV Studios. At the time of the movie release, the station ran reports on the 9pm news with Dean Richards showing some video of production and about Tom Skilling's involvement with the movie production.

• Two other Tribune-owned stations and one formerly owned by the company have call letters named after WGN. These are: KWGN in Denver, WGNO in New Orleans and formerly owned WGNX in Atlanta (now WGCL).

• Unlike TBS, WGN often aired commercials aimed at Chicago viewers to its satellite customers.

[edit] See Also

• Superstation WGN
• Dish Network Channel Grid
• List of DirecTV channels

[edit] External links

• WGN-TV
• Superstation WGN
• Streaming video of CBS Evening News coverage of the Max Headroom pirate incident

• Query the FCC's TV station database for WGN-TV

Broadcast television in the Chicago market (Nielsen DMA #3)
WBBM 2 (CBS) - W04CQ 4 (Silent) - WMAQ 5 (NBC) - WLS 7 (ABC) - WGN 9 (The CW) (The Tube on DT2) - WTTW 11 (PBS, Create on DT.2) - WOCK-CA 13 (Azteca América) - W13BQ 13 (DW) - W18AT 18 / W54BK 54 (LeSEA) - WYCC 20 (PBS) - W64CQ 22 (TBN) - WWME-CA 23 (Ind) - WHVI-LP 24 (LeSEA) - WCIU 26 (Ind) - WSPY-LP 30 (A1) - WFLD 32 (Fox) - WEDE-CA 34 (Ind) - WWTO 35 (TBN) - WCPX 38 (i) - WOCH-CA 41 (Ind) - WSNS 44 (TEL) - WFBT-CA 48 (Ind) - WPWR 50 (MNTV) - W54BE 54 (Edu. Ind) - WLFM-LP 55 (Ind) - WYIN 56 (PBS) - WXFT 60 (TFT) - WCHU-LP 61 (MTV3) - WJYS 62 (Ind) - WGBO 66 (UNI)
Local cable television channels
CLTV - Comcast SportsNet Chicago

Superstations in North American markets
United States: KTLA | KWGN | WAPA | WGN / US feed | WKAQ | WPIX | WSBK | WTBS | WWOR / EMI
Mexico: XEW | XHAW | XHCNL | XHDF | XHGC | XHIMT
See Also: American networks | List of American Over-The-Air Networks | Local American TV Stations (W) | Local American TV Stations (K) | Canadian networks | Local Canadian TV Stations | Mexican networks | Local Mexican TV Stations | Superstations | North American TV | List of local television stations in North America