Everything about Wgn-tv totally explained
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
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.
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 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 (1948-67, 1981, and 1990-present), the
NBA's
Chicago Bulls, and the
NHL's
Chicago Blackhawks (which will return to the station in the 2008-09 season). It 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.
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
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, and also due to rights restrictions put in place by the National Basketball Association which limit Superstation WGN's national feed to fifteen Bulls games per season . The remaining Bulls games produced by WGN-TV are split between the station's Chicago area signal and WCIU-TV. All Blackhawks games on WGN-TV are exclusive to the station's Chicago area signal. All games airing on WGN-TV are produced in
high definition.
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 announced that they'd 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 Superstation WGN feed doesn't 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 had been the only Chicago commercial television station to have never been involved in an ownership transaction.
WGN-TV is expected to add
LATV as a digital subchannel to its digital broadcast, as part of a deal between Tribune Broadcasting's three stations (
KDAF and
WPIX being the other two) and LATV.
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.
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.
Keenan Smith - Staff Meteorologist (also seen on CLTV)
Sports
Rich King - Weekends; also anchors Instant Replay
Dan Roan - Sports Director/Weeknights
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)
Amy Rutledge (also seen on CLTV)
Julie Unruh
Valerie Warner- Also Traffic
Notable alumni
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 |
Further Information
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