# WPIX & KPIX



## Link (Feb 2, 2004)

I know that New York's WB is WPIX 11. I believe the station used to use the slogan New York Alive or 11 Alive in the 80s when it was an independent without WB. San Francisco's CBS is KPIX 5, now owned by Viacom and previously Group W which became CBS owned in the 90s.

Since the stations have the same call letters WPIX--KPIX, does anyone know if there was anything historical in broadcasting that links the two stations??


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## FTA Michael (Jul 21, 2002)

KPIX's official history (http://cbs5.com/about/history/) mentions nothing about a link with the New York station.

My uninformed opinion is that PIX is a natural extension for a pioneering TV station. Ya see, it's just like radio but with _pictures_.


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## Mike Richardson (Jun 12, 2003)

What would have been clever to do is back when you could get a 3 letter call sign, to have registered "WTV" or "KTV".


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## Link (Feb 2, 2004)

I like how the owned stations are WABC, KABC, WCBS, KCBS, WNBC, and KNBC for the New York and LA Flagship stations. I figured WNYW and KTTV would have changed to WFOX and KFOX by now.


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## mattb (Apr 29, 2002)

Link said:


> I like how the owned stations are WABC, KABC, WCBS, KCBS, WNBC, and KNBC for the New York and LA Flagship stations. I figured WNYW and KTTV would have changed to WFOX and KFOX by now.


It's been talked about before, WNYW is legendary calls.. They will probally stay with Ch5...


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## Link (Feb 2, 2004)

mattb said:


> It's been talked about before, WNYW is legendary calls.. They will probally stay with Ch5...


It is?? It was WNEW in the 1980s, so it hasn't been used that long really. I think KTTV has always been KTTV.


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## Paul Secic (Dec 16, 2003)

Link said:


> I know that New York's WB is WPIX 11. I believe the station used to use the slogan New York Alive or 11 Alive in the 80s when it was an independent without WB. San Francisco's CBS is KPIX 5, now owned by Viacom and previously Group W which became CBS owned in the 90s.
> 
> Since the stations have the same call letters WPIX--KPIX, does anyone know if there was anything historical in broadcasting that links the two stations??


The stations have never had a link. Group W was a subsidary of CBS. Actually Viacom, which was broken up by the Feds. owned KPIX when it first came on. WPIX was WNEW which was owned by Metromedia. Out here in the Bay Area Metromedia bought CH 32 and had the call letters KNEW-TV. Metromedia syndicated a kid's show called Wonderama, which was produced at WNEW. The credits said: this program was produced by WNEW in NYC.


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## mattb (Apr 29, 2002)

Link said:


> It is?? It was WNEW in the 1980s, so it hasn't been used that long really. I think KTTV has always been KTTV.


It has some ploy, I remeber reading somewhere on a message baord that FOX did not want to give up those calls "WNYW" even when they had an option of getting the WFOX calls for their station in NYC.


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## Geronimo (Mar 23, 2002)

When was Viacom broken up by the feds? I missed that.


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## Link (Feb 2, 2004)

mattb said:


> It has some ploy, I remeber reading somewhere on a message baord that FOX did not want to give up those calls "WNYW" even when they had an option of getting the WFOX calls for their station in NYC.


Actually I read Fox had tried to get rights to the call letters WFOX, but a radio staiton in the south had the rights to it. Now that station has changed owners so no word on whether Fox/WNYW will try once again for the rights.


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## Mike Richardson (Jun 12, 2003)

WFOX-FM is a radio station in Atlanta owned by Cox radio.
KFOX-TV is the FOX affiliate in El Paso.

On a related note...
WUPN is the UPN affiliate in Winston-Salem, NC.
KUPN was the UPN affiliate in Las Vegas until 1998 when it curiously flipped over to the WB network and changed it's call letters.

KPBS is the PBS affiliate in San Diego and WPBS is the affiliate in "St. Lawrence Valley", wherever that is.


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## Doug E (Jul 6, 2002)

The Fox affilliate in LA now owned by Fox, KTTV channel 11, was originally owned by the LA Times newspaper and was "called" Times Television.


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## Link (Feb 2, 2004)

Doug E said:


> The Fox affilliate in LA now owned by Fox, KTTV channel 11, was originally owned by the LA Times newspaper and was "called" Times Television.


WTTV is in Indianapolis, now Tribune's WB 4. It remains one of Indiana's most popular stations available on many cable systems throughout the state.


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## bills976 (Jun 30, 2002)

Mike Richardson said:


> KPBS is the PBS affiliate in San Diego and WPBS is the affiliate in "St. Lawrence Valley", wherever that is.


The St. Lawrence Valley refers to the St. Lawrence Seaway/Thousand Islands region of Upstate New York. It's the river that leads from Lake Ontario to the Atlantic. WPBS is the affiliate for the Watertown/Potsdam/Canton, NY region.


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## RJS1111111 (Mar 23, 2002)

The original "WB". :grin:


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## Link (Feb 2, 2004)

RJS1111111 said:


> The original "WB". :grin:


What were the original Group W stations? I remember they started Evening Magazine/PM Magazine in the 80s.


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## TheRatPatrol (Oct 1, 2003)

Don't know about other areas of the country, but here they don't really even use call letters anymore, instead they just say " 3 TV, CBS 5, FOX 10, NBC 12, ABC 15, UPN 45, WB 61" which maybe easier to roll off the tongue.


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## MikeW (May 16, 2002)

I've got the distant Chicago package. I still don't know what the actual channel number is for Fox. They only refer to themselves as "Fox Chicago".


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## jimisham (Jun 24, 2003)

MikeW said:


> I've got the distant Chicago package. I still don't know what the actual channel number is for Fox. They only refer to themselves as "Fox Chicago".


They are on channel 32. I had gotten the impression that Fox stations were identifying themselves by "Fox, followed by the channel. The South Bend Fox station identifies itself as Fox 28.


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## Link (Feb 2, 2004)

jimisham said:


> They are on channel 32. I had gotten the impression that Fox stations were identifying themselves by "Fox, followed by the channel. The South Bend Fox station identifies itself as Fox 28.


WFLD in Chicago never uses their "32" channel ID. I think because its a UHF channel and on cable systems its on 6 I think. Fox bought Chicago's UPN station WPWR a few years ago and they no longer use UPN 50, its now UPN Chicago. But you're right most do use Fox + the channel number for identification now. The station call letters are rarely used anymore.


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## TonyM (Aug 14, 2003)

in Minneapolis, some use their call sign, some use a moniker

WB 23
UPN 29
Fox 9

KARE 11 (KARE is call sign)
KSTC TV 45 (Ind)


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## djlong (Jul 8, 2002)

Boston's WBZ-TV, Channel 4 was a Group W (Westinghouse) station and an NBC affiliate from WAY back. When they swapped around, they became a CBS affiliate and only this year decided to promote "CBS 4" since people were still calling them up looking for the Tonight Show and wondering why Letterman was on.


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## Link (Feb 2, 2004)

djlong said:


> Boston's WBZ-TV, Channel 4 was a Group W (Westinghouse) station and an NBC affiliate from WAY back. When they swapped around, they became a CBS affiliate and only this year decided to promote "CBS 4" since people were still calling them up looking for the Tonight Show and wondering why Letterman was on.


Really? That has been 10 years ago now when WHDH became NBC and WBZ became CBS.

All the Chicago stations go by CBS 2, NBC 5, ABC 7, Fox Chicago, UPN Chicago, but WGN stays WGN-Chicago's WB. They don't use WB 9.


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## Paul Secic (Dec 16, 2003)

Geronimo said:


> When was Viacom broken up by the feds? I missed that.


In the early 60s I think. They sold Viacom Cable in the 80's so they could buy CBS back.


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## Paul Secic (Dec 16, 2003)

Link said:


> What were the original Group W stations? I remember they started Evening Magazine/PM Magazine in the 80s.


They also produced The Mike Douglas Show from KYW in Philly (CBS). All the Group W stations were CBS O&Os.


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## Geronimo (Mar 23, 2002)

They were NBC affiliates for the most part.


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## Geronimo (Mar 23, 2002)

Group W was owned by Westinghouse. Not sure how VIACOm was involved at all. It started life as a division of CBS that was spun off. It did not own CBS or Group W. Westinghouse bought CBS---then independent----merged the two broadcast groups and spun them off as CBS. VIACOM came into the picture then.

Here isa link to a history of VIACOM

http://www.campusprogram.com/reference/en/wikipedia/v/vi/viacom.html


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## Mike Richardson (Jun 12, 2003)

theratpatrol said:


> Don't know about other areas of the country, but here they don't really even use call letters anymore, instead they just say " 3 TV, CBS 5, FOX 10, NBC 12, ABC 15, UPN 45, WB 61" which maybe easier to roll off the tongue.


Usually you only see independents refer to themselves by their call letters, but I have noticed KPRC in Houston and maybe other channels here using their call letters when referring to syndicated non-network content that they air (For example: "Dr. Phil, coming up next on KPRC Channel 2.")

A lot of channels don't want to use their channel number to identify themselves because it is often not the channel they are on cable companies. Usually VHF channels will be on the same cable channel as their VHF channel but UHF channels are usually given a lower number on the cable system to make it easier to offer the lifeline tier.


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## Link (Feb 2, 2004)

Mike Richardson said:


> Usually you only see independents refer to themselves by their call letters, but I have noticed KPRC in Houston and maybe other channels here using their call letters when referring to syndicated non-network content that they air (For example: "Dr. Phil, coming up next on KPRC Channel 2.")


Isn't KPRC and the rest of the Post-Newsweek station group going by "Local with their channel number" like Local 2 in Houston, Local 4 in Detroit, Local 8 in San Diego. I don't really care for that ID much.

One thing I thought was stupid was the Nashville ABC station WKRN 2 used to use News 2 for everything. It made no sense to say for example, "Wheel of Fortune tonight at 6:30 on News 2. It made it sound like Wheel was going to be on the news.


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## homeskillet (Feb 3, 2004)

KSHB-41 in Kansas City changed from "NBC 41" to "NBC Action News" w/o any channel information a couple years ago.


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## Mike Richardson (Jun 12, 2003)

Link said:


> Isn't KPRC and the rest of the Post-Newsweek station group going by "Local with their channel number" like Local 2 in Houston, Local 4 in Detroit, Local 8 in San Diego. I don't really care for that ID much.


Yeah, they changed from saying "News2Houston" and "Channel 2" to "Local 2 News" and "Local 2". I don't like the "Local" moniker either.

However KPRC still uses their call letters in things like promos for Dr. Phil and stuff. Perhaps they just haven't taped new promos.


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## Link (Feb 2, 2004)

I don't know if they still use it today, but we used to get Miami's ABC station WPLG 10 on satellite. They used to brand themselves "The One and Only Channel 10." I wanted to write them to say there are many other channel 10s in Florida and around the country. You are not the one and only. I thought it was a stupid slogan to use.


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## Paul Secic (Dec 16, 2003)

Geronimo said:


> Group W was owned by Westinghouse. Not sure how VIACOm was involved at all. It started life as a division of CBS that was spun off. It did not own CBS or Group W. Westinghouse bought CBS---then independent----merged the two broadcast groups and spun them off as CBS. VIACOM came into the picture then.
> 
> Here isa link to a history of VIACOM
> 
> http://www.campusprogram.com/reference/en/wikipedia/v/vi/viacom.html


I rememmber hearing something on CNBC about an anti trust case against Viacom. However I remember stations breaks in the 50's & 60's: "this is KPIX GROUP W, Westinghouse Broadcasting".


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## Nick (Apr 23, 2002)

djlong said:


> ...people were still calling them up looking for the Tonight Show and wondering why Letterman was on.


I've been wondering the same thing for some time. :lol:


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## Geronimo (Mar 23, 2002)

Well at that time Group W was not affiliated with either CBS or VIACOM.


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## Paul Secic (Dec 16, 2003)

Paul Secic said:


> In the early 60s I think. They sold Viacom Cable in the 80's so they could buy CBS back.


I remember before Metromedia bought channel 32 it was owned by a family from Fresno owned KSAN-TV and they microvaved KICU'S programming up to San Francisco, local Fresno advertising. It came on at 4PM and went off about 9. The signal was very bad, really snowy and the sound went in & out. The aux tower must have been out in the boonies. That channel has been sold many times. KMPT as its known today still has signal problems, even on Dish! It broadcast various Italian, Chinese programs and ARTS Showcase.


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## Link (Feb 2, 2004)

What parent company owned CBS during the 80s? The CBS owned stations in New York, LA, and Chicago all were low rated with poor local news quality and ratings. In fact while other ABC and NBC stations were expanding their own local morning news programs in the early 90s, CBS owned stations still didn't have even a half hour newscast. I remember Chicago's WBBM had Rush Limbaugh at 6am and the CBS Morning News at 6:30 until 1993 or 1994 which was ridiculous since WMAQ and WLS had 1 hour newscasts from 6-7am, later expanding to 90 minutes, then 2 hours from 5-7am, and CBS owned stations wonder why its taking them so long to launch a local news audience.

Some CBS owned stations are strong news leaders, but these stations are the ones that were acquired through Group W and Viacom mergers, not originally owned by the network.


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## jimisham (Jun 24, 2003)

According to this Lawrence Tisch and Loew's, Inc took over CBS in 1986. http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/M/htmlM/mergersanda/mergersanda.htm


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## kc1ih (May 22, 2004)

Paul Secic said:


> All the Group W stations were CBS O&Os.


That is not true. If they were owned by Group W (Westinghouse), how could they also be owned by CBS? It was only after Westinghouse bought CBS that the stations became O&O's.


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## Link (Feb 2, 2004)

kc1ih said:


> That is not true. If they were owned by Group W (Westinghouse), how could they also be owned by CBS? It was only after Westinghouse bought CBS that the stations became O&O's.


That's right. In the beginning all Westinghouse (Group W) stations became CBS affiliates as part of the deal. Some Group W stations were already CBS and didn't have to swap affiliation. Then Westinghouse merged with CBS and the Group W stations becames network owned stations, then Viacom bought CBS/Westinghouse making the Viacom station group consisting of both CBS, UPN, and independent stations.


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## Geronimo (Mar 23, 2002)

I am not even sure I follow that Link. But the former Group W stations went from being NBC affilaites for the most part, to being CBS O&Os.

Again westinghouse bought CBS,. Then they combined all the broadcast properties and spun them off as CBS. That is what VIACOM bought.


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## Link (Feb 2, 2004)

Geronimo said:


> I am nott evens ure I follow that Link. But the former Group W sttiosn went from being NBC affilaites for the most part, to being CBS O&Os.
> 
> Again westinghouse bought CBS,. Then they combined all the broadcast properties and spun them off as CBS. That is what VIACOM bought.


Does anyone recall the original CBS O&Os in the 1980s before the Westinghouse deal and before Viacom of Today?

I know that WCBS, KCBS, and WBBM were all O&Os as well as WCIX-TV 6 in Miami (which became WFOR-TV 4 in the 90s).

What group was the Westinghouse stations? I was thinking they consisted of KPIX San Francisco, KYW Philadelphia, WBZ Boston, KDKA Pittsburgh, and WJZ Baltimore.


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## Geronimo (Mar 23, 2002)

The Westinghouse list sounds right. At one time you were limited to 5 stations. The CBS group is largely correct. Tody's KCBs was once known as KNXT. Not sure what city ewas the fifth.


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## Paul Secic (Dec 16, 2003)

Geronimo said:


> I am not even sure I follow that Link. But the former Group W stations went from being NBC affilaites for the most part, to being CBS O&Os.
> 
> Again westinghouse bought CBS,. Then they combined all the broadcast properties and spun them off as CBS. That is what VIACOM bought.


I think Link is right.


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## Paul Secic (Dec 16, 2003)

Paul Secic said:


> I think Link is right.


Heres a history of Westinghouse:

http://www.ketupa.net/westinghouse2.htm


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## Geronimo (Mar 23, 2002)

Paul Secic said:


> I think Link is right.


About what?


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## Guest (Oct 25, 2004)

Paul Secic said:


> They also produced The Mike Douglas Show from KYW in Philly (CBS). All the Group W stations were CBS O&Os.


If all the Group W stations were CBS O&O's then Westinghouse would have had to own CBS. That was not the case originally. The Group W stations might have been CBS affilliates, but they definitly were not owned by Columbia Broadcasting INC.

There used to be a "Group W" station here in Cleveland when I was a kid. KYW-3 was the NBC affilliate fron 1955 (the year I was born) until 1965. There is an interesting story behind this station. Prior to 1955, NBC had an O&O on Channel 4 WNBK. There also was a channel 4 in Detroit. As the story goes (remember I was not born yet) there was interference between the two ch 4's, so WNBK had to move to channel 3 (a similar situation happened on ch 9 which became ch 8). Westinghouse owned a station in Philadelphia which also happened to be on ch 3 (as well as an AM/FM IIRC). Anyway NBC and Westinghouse swapped stations with NBC in 1955 (NBC wanted to have a Philadeplhia O&O). Ten years later the FCC (or was it the Justice Dept.?) put the kabash on the deal and the two had to be swaped back (Philly was too close to NYC where the "flagship" NBC station was). Cleveland ended up with an NBC O&O WKYC (they had an identity with "KY" on the AM top-40 station) which later was sold and is now a Gannett station. Westinghouse bought CBS (which is why in later years all "Group W" stations were CBS O&O's) and then Viacom bought Westinghouse.


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## Guest (Oct 25, 2004)

mattb said:


> It's been talked about before, WNYW is legendary calls.. They will probally stay with Ch5...


The legendary call letters of NYC's ch 5 was WABD (as in Allen B. DuMont).


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## swing (Aug 13, 2004)

Michael P said:


> Ten years later the FCC (or was it the Justice Dept.?) put the kabash on the deal and the two had to be swaped back (Philly was too close to NYC where the "flagship" NBC station was).


The Philly - New York overlap issue was always mentioned in FCC reports (it was even mentioned in 1995 when NBC bought WCAU), but the broadcast networks (ABC, NBC and CBS) were always given the permitted waivers by the FCC to own a Philadelphia station. Remember in, 1958, CBS-TV bought WCAU-TV from the Evening Bulletin, a daily Philadelphia newspaper, and CBS owned WCBS2 and WCAU10 for many years, with overlapping coverage in Central NJ. By the 70s, ABC had both WABC7 and WPVI6. And much later in 1994, Fox bought WTXF29 from Paramount, giving them both 5 and 29. Guess it wasn't that big an issue, if the FCC easily permitted it with a waiver.

The reversal of KYW, though, was due to years of unhappiness between Westinghouse and NBC. From what I've read (sorry, wasn't alive to experience it) NBC forced Westinghouse to sell the Philadelphia station, in order for Westinghouse to keep NBC radio format affiliations in other markets. Westinghouse thought it was illegal (NBC was the network and the big bully), and a decade later won back the Philadelphia CH.3.

Interestingly, when Westinghouse owned KYW in the 50s, they didn't like Wilmington,Delaware to have its own NBC affiliate, as it was too close to Philadelphia.

I think this had a much greater impact long-term, as Delaware TV market would be different place if CH.12 had remained commercial.

WDEL lost its NBC network affiliation, the owner didn't want to keep an independent station (the FCC had stricter ownership cap at the time), and the station was given back to the government like a foreclosure, and later reallocated as noncommercial. Today, CH.12 is the primary PBS station in the market. Delaware lost its only network station and VHF commercial station, at it too. There is WPPX (PAX 61) but being a small UHF station signing on years after broadcast tv became less important (and now PAX) it doesn't really do anything Delaware oriented.


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## Link (Feb 2, 2004)

swing said:


> The Philly - New York overlap issue was always mentioned in FCC reports (it was even mentioned in 1995 when NBC bought WCAU), but the broadcast networks (ABC, NBC and CBS) were always given the permitted waivers by the FCC to own a Philadelphia station. Remember in, 1958, CBS-TV bought WCAU-TV from the Evening Bulletin, a daily Philadelphia newspaper, and CBS owned WCBS2 and WCAU10 for many years, with overlapping coverage in Central NJ. By the 70s, ABC had both WABC7 and WPVI6. And much later in 1994, Fox bought WTXF29 from Paramount, giving them both 5 and 29. Guess it wasn't that big an issue, if the FCC easily permitted it with a waiver.
> .


I remember sometime in the 1990s, that CBS had to sell WPRI 12 in Providence, RI because of overlap with WCBS 2 in the New York DMA. How did CBS end up with WCBS and WPRI both if it was not acceptable to begin with?

Also, why was NBC allowed to own a Providence station WJAR 10 along with New York's WNBC 4??

Do FCC rules state that a company can own 2 stations in a market just not affiliates with 2 major networks??


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## Mike Richardson (Jun 12, 2003)

Link said:


> I remember sometime in the 1990s, that CBS had to sell WPRI 12 in Providence, RI because of overlap with WCBS 2 in the New York DMA. How did CBS end up with WCBS and WPRI both if it was not acceptable to begin with?
> 
> Also, why was NBC allowed to own a Providence station WJAR 10 along with New York's WNBC 4??
> 
> Do FCC rules state that a company can own 2 stations in a market just not affiliates with 2 major networks??


This is legal. In Houston, FOX Broadcasting owns the FOX affiliate and the UPN affiliate. In some markets, they also have a FOX/UPN duopoly, in others, it's FOX/WB. A few markets, they own FOX and an independent station.


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## Guest (Oct 27, 2004)

Duopolies are a relitivly new thing. 40 years ago the same ownership group would have had a problem owning stations in neighboring markets just because the signals has a slight overlap. Storer Broadcasting had stations in Cleveland, Toledo and Detroit. I believe they had to divest the Toledo station but were allowed to keep the Detroit & Cleveland (the overlap was over Lake Erie, so unless you had a TV on a boat...) 

BTW: The Cleveland & Detroit stations (WJW & WJBK) eventually were sold to New World Communications who later were taken over by FOX in the great FOX swap of 1994, where mainly CBS affilliates were converted to FOX in an effort to get FOX on more VHF channels. The "New World" stations are now considered FOX O&O's (in fact WJW is the #1 FOX O&O in the country) yet they still show a New World Communications copyright notice at the end of every FOX 8 newscast.


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