WBBM-TV
WBBM-TV is a television station in Chicago, Illinois, United States, serving as the market's CBS network outlet. Owned and operated by the network's CBS News and Stations division, the station maintains studios on West Washington Street in the Loop, and it transmits from atop the Willis Tower.
History
Early history (1940–1953)
WBBM-TV traces its history to 1940 when Balaban and Katz, a subsidiary of Paramount Pictures, signed on experimental station W9XBK, the first all-electronic television facility in Chicago. Balaban and Katz was already well known for owning several movie theaters in the Chicago area. To establish the station, the company hired television pioneer William C. "Bill" Eddy away from RCA's experimental station W2XBS in New York City. When World War II began, Eddy used the W9XBK facilities as a prototype school for training Navy electronics technicians. While operating the Navy school, Eddy continued to lead W9XBK and wrote a book that defined commercial television for many years.On September 6, 1946, the station received a commercial license as WBKB on VHF channel 4, becoming the first commercial station located outside the Eastern Time Zone; it was also the sixth commercial TV station in the United States behind WNBT, WCBW, WABD all in New York City; WRGB in Schenectady, New York; and WPTZ in Philadelphia. WBKB aired some of the earliest CBS programs, including the 1947 debut of Junior Jamboree. Channel 4 originally operated as an independent station, since at the time it was not clear that it would be an affiliate of either CBS or the DuMont Television Network; eventually, KSD-TV in St. Louis became the first television station west of the Eastern Time Zone to affiliate with a major network. One of the station's early highlights was its telecast of the National Football League's championship game between the Chicago Cardinals and the Philadelphia Eagles on December 28, 1947.
In December 1948, WBKB began sharing the market's CBS affiliation with WGN-TV, after that station affiliated with the network. In 1949, Balaban and Katz became part of United Paramount Theatres, after Paramount Pictures was forced to divest its chain of movie theaters by order of the United States Supreme Court.
WBKB played an indirect role in DuMont's demise. At the time, Paramount Pictures owned a stake in DuMont. The Federal Communications Commission ruled that Paramount's holdings were large enough that the studio effectively controlled DuMont. Paramount also owned KTLA in Los Angeles; since DuMont already owned WABD in New York City, WTTG in Washington, D.C., and WDTV in Pittsburgh, the FCC's decision meant neither Paramount nor DuMont could acquire any more television stations. Paramount even launched a short-lived programming service, the Paramount Television Network, in 1949, with KTLA and WBKB as its flagship stations; however, the service never gelled into a true television network.
As a CBS owned-and-operated station (since 1953)
In February 1953, United Paramount Theaters merged with the American Broadcasting Company, which already owned WENR-TV. As the newly merged entity could not keep both stations since FCC regulations enforced during that time forbade the common ownership of two television stations licensed to the same market, WBKB was sold to CBS for $6.75 million. On February 12, one day after the merger was finalized, the station changed its call letters to WBBM-TV, after WBBM radio, which CBS had owned since 1929. The WBKB call letters were subsequently assumed by channel 7. While the old WBKB's talent remained with the new WBBM-TV under the radio station's longtime general manager, H. Leslie Atlass, the UPT-era management of the old WBKB moved to channel 7.As a result of WBBM-TV's purchase by CBS, it picked up all CBS programming previously carried by WGN-TV, after a two-month cancellation clause in channel 9's affiliation contract with CBS; this left channel 9 with the quickly crumbling DuMont as its sole network affiliation.
In accordance with the VHF channel allocation realignments imposed by the FCC in its issuance of the Sixth Report and Order, WBBM-TV relocated to channel 2 on July 5, 1953, to eliminate interference with WTMJ-TV in Milwaukee and WHBF-TV in the Quad Cities. WTMJ-TV concurrently moved to VHF channel 4—from channel 3—to avoid interference with fellow CBS affiliate WKZO-TV in Kalamazoo, Michigan, which itself broadcast on channel 3. The channel 2 allocation was coincidentally freed up at the same time as the state capital of Springfield was forced to let the allocation relocate to St. Louis, where the allocation was assigned to KTVI. The reshuffling also forced Zenith to shut down KS2XBS, an experimental station on channel 2 in Chicago that the company maintained for its pioneering pay-per-view service Phonevision.
In 1956, CBS consolidated its Chicago operations into the former Chicago Arena, a renovated, three-story building at 633 North McClurg Court in the Streeterville neighborhood; the property was built in 1924 as a horse stable, and had operated as an ice rink and bowling alley prior to CBS' approximately $1.3 million purchase of the building.
That year, an episode of What's My Line? originated from the WBBM studios, airing one day prior to the start of the 1956 Democratic National Convention. Between the late 1940s and early 1970s, Columbia Records housed an office and recording studio in the building. On September 26, 1960, WBBM's McClurg Court studios served as the site of the first televised presidential debate between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. WBBM-TV also served as production home to the syndicated programs Donahue and Siskel & Ebert.
In October 1987, Center City Communications—a locally based investor group led by attorney Brenda Minor—filed a challenge to the FCC's renewal of WBBM-TV's station license. However, in asking the agency not to renew the station's license through 1992, Center City never detailed any specific objections to the station's license renewal, although it had been speculated that the challenge may have been related to the then-recent boycott by Operation PUSH surrounding the lack of diversity with the station's staff and allegations that WBBM's hiring practices were not fair towards Blacks; Minor later cited that the station did not fulfill obligations to public affairs programming. Center City dropped its challenge three months later in July, after reaching a settlement agreement with CBS in which Center City agreed not to challenge the license renewal of any CBS station for a five-year period, in return for a $187,500 payment by CBS. The challenge sparked calls for the FCC to reform its comparative renewal process, which certain broadcasters claim was used solely for the purpose of "extort" large cash settlements from stations.
The station was brought back under common ownership with Paramount Pictures when Viacom—which acquired the studio from Gulf and Western in 1994—merged with CBS Corporation in a $36 billion deal in February 2000. This union was broken up again in December 2005 when Viacom became CBS Corporation and spun off Paramount Pictures and Viacom's cable networks into a separate company that assumed the Viacom name.
In 2003, WBBM signed a lease agreement with Chevy Chase, Maryland–based developer Mills Corporation to build a "media center" for the station in the "Block 37" developments in the Loop business district, with plans to include a street-level studio that would overlook Daley Plaza. WBBM had earlier considered selling the McClurg Court facility with the intent to relocate into a new studio complex in 1998 ; however, the plans were postponed due to transition to high-definition broadcasting.
On September 21, 2008, WBBM-TV moved to new facilities in the "Block 37" studio at the corner of Dearborn and Washington streets, with a LED screen that adorns the lower facade of the 17-story building. This move coincided with the upgrade of channel 2's newscasts to high definition, making WBBM the fourth television station in the Chicago market to begin broadcasting their newscasts in the format ; in early 2006, the WBBM radio stations moved into new studio facilities within Two Prudential Plaza on North Stetson Avenue. The former McClurg Court facility building was demolished over a two-month period from February to April 2009. WBBM-TV moved its news set upstairs to a more traditional studio in September 2017 after an obligation to maintain its main studio in the streetside space for ten years was fulfilled, with CBS eventually removing the LED screen and putting the space up for retail lease in 2019, though with no interest coming in during the COVID-19 pandemic, WBBM-TV returned to using it late in 2020 to allow for wider social distancing of station workspaces.
WBBM-TV shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 2, on June 12, 2009, the official date on which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal moved from pre-transition VHF channel 3 to the current, post-transition VHF channel 12, using virtual channel 2.
On October 21, 2014, CBS and locally based Weigel Broadcasting announced that they would partner to launch Decades, a digital multicast network. The network soft launched in the Chicago market on WBBM digital channel 2.2, when that subchannel launched on February 1, 2015, with the network making its formal national debut four months later on May 25. Decades moved to WCIU-DT4 on September 3, 2018, with WBBM-DT2 becoming the home of a second Weigel/CBS concept network known as Start TV, which specializes in airing procedural dramas with women in the lead roles.
On February 2, 2017, CBS agreed to sell CBS Radio to Entercom, currently the fourth-largest radio broadcasting company in the United States. The sale was completed on November 17, 2017, and was conducted using a Reverse Morris Trust so that it was tax-free. While CBS shareholders retained a 72% ownership stake in the combined company, Entercom was the surviving entity, with WBBM radio and its sister stations now separated from WBBM-TV.
In August 2018, Jeff Harris took up the helm as news director of WBBM-TV. Long-time evening anchor Rob Johnson was let go in March 2019, replaced by Brad Edwards. Edwards joined Irika Sargent in the 5, 6, and 10 p.m. newscasts. Edwards shifted to the morning newscast in May 2022 as part of a talent adjustment when former WGN-TV and inaugural NewsNation anchor Joe Donlon took over his former position, months after inaugural NewsNation news director Jennifer Lyons became WBBM's president and general manager after a shift in that network's news philosophy the two disagreed on carrying forward for Nexstar.