WCBS-TV

Early years (1931–1951)

WCBS-TV's history dates back to CBS' opening of experimental station W2XAB on July 21, 1931, using the mechanical television system that had been more-or-less perfected in the late 1920s.[1][2] Its first broadcast featured New York Mayor Jimmy Walker, Kate Smith, and George Gershwin.[3] The station had the first regular seven-day broadcasting schedule in American television, broadcasting 28 hours a week. Among its early programming were Harriet Lee (1931), The Television Ghost (1931–1933), Helen Haynes (1931–1932), and Piano Lessons (1931–1932). Because W2XAB was broadcasting its video on 2750 kc and audio separately on W2XE at 6120 kc in the shortwave band in 1931,[4] the experimental station's signal could be received in nearby states beyond the New York metropolitan area, as far away as Boston and Baltimore.[1][2] In Allentown, Pennsylvania, some 80 mi distant, the local newspaper even listed W2XAB's daily program schedules, for example, as did the Ithaca Journal in upstate New York, 175 mi northwest.[4][5]

Announcer-director Bill Schudt was the station's only paid employee; all other staff were volunteers. W2XAB pioneered program development including small-scale dramatic acts, monologues, pantomime, and the use of projection slides to simulate sets. Engineer Bill Lodge[6] devised the first synchronized sound wave for a television station in 1932, enabling W2XAB to broadcast picture and sound on a single shortwave channel instead of the two previously needed. 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 the limited mechanical operation to an all-electronic system. W2XAB returned with an all-electronic system in 1939 from a new studio complex in Grand Central Station and a transmitter located at the Chrysler Building broadcasting on channel 2.[7] W2XAB transmitted the first color broadcast in the United States on August 28, 1940, although it was not black and white compatible.[8]

On June 24, 1941, W2XAB received a commercial construction permit and program authorization as WCBW. The station went on the air at 2:30 p.m. on July 1, one hour after rival WNBT (channel 1, formerly W2XBS), making it the second authorized fully commercial television station in the United States. The Federal Communications Commission (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 the "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 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 broadcast license, 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 as channel 3) 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 for the next 63 years until the end of analog full power television service in the late spring of 2009.

After the FCC allowed television stations owned by radio stations in the same city to use the same call letters as the radio station with the suffix "-TV",[9] the call letters were changed to WCBS-TV on November 1, 1946.[10] The change coincided with the renaming of CBS' New York radio stations, WABC (880 AM) and WABC-FM (101.1), as WCBS (now WHSQ) and WCBS-FM.[10]

Later analog years (1951–2008)

On February 26, 1951, WCBS-TV became the first station to broadcast a regularly scheduled feature film series, The Late Show. On August 11, 1951, WCBS-TV broadcast the first baseball game on color television, between the Brooklyn Dodgers and Boston Braves from Ebbets Field. 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. The CBS color system was scrapped after the FCC embraced the alternative RCA all-electronic dot sequential system, which was fully compatible with the existing monochrome television standard, late in 1953. However, CBS telecast few programs in color, either locally or through the network, until the mid-1960s when color television sets became more affordable to the American public.

In May 1997, the station adopted the "CBS 2" branding, along with sister stations KCBS-TV in Los Angeles and WBBM-TV in Chicago, while retaining a unique and distinctive logo.

WCBS-TV's over-the air signal was not affected by the September 11 terrorist attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center. Unlike its competitors, channel 2 had long maintained a full-powered backup transmitter at the Empire State Building after moving its main transmitter to the North Tower of the then-new World Trade Center in 1975. The station's coverage of the attacks was also simulcast nationally on Viacom

Digital era

WCBS-TV ended regular programming on its analog signal, over VHF channel 2, at 2 p.m. on June 12, 2009, as part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television.[11] The station moved its digital signal from its pre-transition UHF channel 56, which was among the high band UHF channels (52–69) that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition, to channel 33,[12] using virtual channel 2. Since the station qualified for the nightlight clause in the DTV Delay Act,[13][14] WCBS kept its analog signal on for one month to provide public service announcements, starting at 3 p.m. on June 12 and permanently shutting it down during the early morning hours of July 13, 2009; this possibly made it the last full power NTSC broadcast television station in the United States to discontinue analog transmissions.

Digital subchannel 2.2, branded as CBS New York Plus, was launched in November 2011 as a 24-hour news channel drawing upon the resources of WCBS-TV, WCBS radio (880 AM),

News operation

Currently, WCBS-TV presently broadcasts 33 hours, 35 minutes of local news programming a week (with 5 hours, 5 minutes each weekday; 3 hours, 35 minutes on Saturdays; and 4 hours, 35 minutes on Sundays).

Upon becoming commercial station WCBW in 1941, the station broadcast two daily news programs, at 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. weekdays, anchored by Richard Hubbell.[25] Most of the newscasts featured Hubbell reading a script with only occasional cutaways to a map or still photograph. When Pearl Harbor was bombed on December 7, 1941, WCBW (which was usually off the air on Sunday to give the engineers a day off), took to the air at 8:45 p.m. that Sunday with an extensive special report. The national emergency even broke down the unspoken wall between CBS radio and television. WCBW executives convinced radio announcers and experts such as George Fielding Elliot and Linton Wells to come down to the Grand Central Station studios during the evening and give information and commentary on the attack. The WCBW special report that night lasted less than 90 minutes. But that special broadcast pushed the limits of live television in 1941 and opened up new possibilities for future broadcasts. As CBS wrote in a special report to the FCC, the unscheduled live news broadcast on December 7 "was unquestionably the most stimulating challenge and marked the greatest advance of any single problem faced up to that time". Additional newscasts were scheduled in the early days of the war. In May 1942, WCBW (like almost all television stations) sharply cut back its live program schedule and the newscasts were canceled, since the station temporarily suspended studio operations, resorting exclusively to the occasional broadcast of films. This was primarily due to the fact that much of the staff had either joined the service or were redeployed to war-related technical research, and to prolong the life of the early, unstable cameras which were now impossible to repair due to the wartime lack of parts.

Subchannels

The station's signal is multiplexed: {{legend|#DFEBF6|Broadcast on behalf of another station}}

Translator

• 22 Riverhead