WKBD-TV,
Virtual channelIn telecommunications, a logical channel number , also known as virtual channel in North America, is a channel designation which differs from the actual radio channel or frequency on which the signal travels....
50 (
digitalDigital Terrestrial Television is the technological evolution and advance from analogue terrestrial television, which broadcasts land based signals...
channel 14), (branded as
CW 50) is an owned-and-operated station of the
CW Television NetworkThe CW Television Network is a television network in the United States launched at the beginning of the 2006–2007 television season. It is a joint venture between CBS Corporation, the former owners of United Paramount Network , and Time Warner's Warner Bros., former majority owner of The WB...
, based in
DetroitDetroit is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the seat of Wayne County. Detroit is a major port city on the Detroit River, in the Midwest region of the United States. Located north of Windsor, Ontario, Detroit is the only major U.S. city that looks south to Canada. It was founded...
,
MichiganMichigan is a Midwestern state of the United States of America. It was named after Lake Michigan, whose name is a French adaptation of the Ojibwe term mishigama, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
. The station is owned and operated by the
CBS CorporationCBS Corporation is an American media conglomerate focused on broadcasting, publishing, billboards, and television production, with most of its operations in the United States. The President and CEO of the company is Leslie Moonves. Sumner Redstone, owner of National Amusements, is CBS's majority...
, and is one-half of a
duopolyIn United States broadcast television and radio, duopoly is a term used to describe a single company which owns two or more stations in the same city or community....
with sister station
WWJ-TVWWJ-TV, digital channel 44 is the CBS-owned and operated station in Detroit, Michigan. It is co-owned with Detroit's CW station, WKBD-TV , and the two stations share a studio in Southfield, Michigan, a Detroit suburb....
(channel 62). Its studios and transmitters are located in
Southfield, MichiganSouthfield is a city in Oakland County of the U.S. state of Michigan. It is a suburb of Detroit and is part of the Metro Detroit area. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 78,296. Southfield Township is adjacent to the city on the north side...
. It currently operates with a power of 180 kW but has filed an application to increase it to 370 kW.
History
WKBD first went on the air on January 10, 1965, under the ownership of
Kaiser BroadcastingKaiser Broadcasting was the name of an entity that owned and operated broadcast television stations in the United States from 1958 to 1977.- History :...
, the broadcasting arm of Kaiser Aluminum. It started as an all-sports station, predating
ESPNESPN is an American cable television network dedicated to broadcasting and producing sports-related programming 24 hours a day....
by almost 14 years. It eventually became a typical UHF independent station running cartoons, sitcoms and old movies; WKBD also was an affiliate of the short-lived
United NetworkThe Overmyer Network was the product of a failed attempt to create a fourth national television network in the United States. Self-made millionaire Daniel H. Overmyer built five UHF stations from 1965-67, including Toledo's WDHO-TV , which signed on the air on May 3, 1966...
in 1967. For many years it had an afternoon movie hosted by Detroit legend
Bill KennedyWillard "Bill" Kennedy was an American actor, voice artist, and host of the long-running Detroit based television show Bill Kennedy at the Movies. Kennedy's voice is heard doing the opening narration of the television series Adventures of Superman....
. WKBD also produced a controversial weekly talk show,
Lou Gordon Program, which was seen during the late 1960s and most of the 1970s on all Kaiser stations (and a few non-Kaiser ones), until Gordon's death in 1977. However, sports remained a central part of WKBD's schedule, and it was the over-the-air home of the
Detroit Red WingsThe Detroit Red Wings is a professional ice hockey team based in Detroit, Michigan. They are members of the Central Division of the Western Conference of the National Hockey League , and are one of the Original Six teams of the NHL....
and
PistonsThe Detroit Pistons is a team in the National Basketball Association based in the Detroit metropolitan area. The team's home arena is The Palace of Auburn Hills.-From Fort Wayne to Detroit:...
for many years, as well as the
TigersThe Detroit Tigers are a Major League Baseball team based in Detroit, Michigan. One of the American League's eight charter franchises, the club was founded in Detroit in . The Tigers have won four World Series championships and have won the American League pennant 10 times...
for a decade. WKBD also was the first station in the Detroit market to air
Japanis an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese
animeis animation originating in Japan. The world outside Japan regards anime as "Japanese animation". Anime originated about 1917.Anime, like manga , has a large audience in Japan and high recognition throughout the world...
, including
Speed RacerSpeed Racer is an English adaptation name of the Japanese manga and anime, which centered on automobile racing. Mach GoGoGo was originally serialized in print form in Shueisha's 1958 Shōnen Book, and was released in tankōbon book form by Sun Wide Comics, re-released in Japan by Fusosha...
,
Kimba the White Lion, known in the United States as Kimba the White Lion, is a Japanese anime series from the 1960s. Created by Osamu Tezuka and based on his manga of the same title which began publication in 1950, it was the first color animated television series created in Japan. The entire series of manga was first...
and
Astro Boy.
Field CommunicationsField Communications was a division of Field Enterprises, which owned the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Daily News. The company owned independent television stations in the United States, with WFLD-TV in Chicago as its largest-market station.-History:The broadcasting arm of Field Enterprises...
, which owned WFLD-TV in
ChicagoChicago is the largest city in the U.S. state of Illinois, and with more than 2.8 million people, the 3rd largest city in the United States...
, bought a minority interest in Kaiser in 1972. Field bought the remainder of Kaiser's shares in 1977. Two years later, the station added the
-TV suffix to its legal call sign.
Over the years, WKBD was the leading independent in Detroit, running a typical schedule of cartoons, off network sitcoms and old movies. Channel 50 was carried on cable systems throughout Michigan, even deep into the Upper Peninsula. At one point in the early 1980s, WKBD was the only independent station running a full time schedule of entertainment.
In 1982, Field put all its stations up for sale. However, Field had a difficult time selling WKBD-TV for the amount of money it wanted. As a result Field was forced to hold onto channel 50, which at the time was one of the country's top-rated independents. In late 1983,
Cox EnterprisesCox Enterprises is the successor to the publishing company founded in Dayton, Ohio, by James Middleton Cox, who began with the Dayton Daily News. He was the Democratic candidate for the President of the United States in the election of 1920...
offered to buy the station. On January 30, 1984, Cox acquired the station. Shortly thereafter, the station dropped the
-TV suffix, becoming simply WKBD once again. The programming remained the same as before, with one notable exception: in the late 1980s WKBD began airing
Late Night with David LettermanLate Night with David Letterman is a nightly hour-long comedy talk show on NBC hosted by David Letterman. It premiered in 1982 and went off the air in 1993, after Letterman left NBC and moved to The Late Show on CBS. Late Night with Conan O'Brien then filled the time slot...
when
NBCThe National Broadcasting Company is an American television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices in Burbank,California...
affiliate WDIV (channel 4) refused to clear it.
The station retained its title as the leading independent station in the Detroit market until 1986, when it became a charter affiliate of the
FoxThe Fox Broadcasting Company , commonly referred to as Fox , is an American television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, from 2004 to 2009 Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the 18–49 demographic...
network, later adopting the name
Fox 50. Channel 50 was later sold to the
Paramount Stations GroupParamount Stations Group was a television broadcasting company that was renamed from the TVX Broadcast Group in 1991 after Paramount Pictures gained full ownership of the group. At the time, it owned several Fox affiliates and independent stations...
in June 1993.
Even though WKBD was one of Fox's strongest affiliates, it lost the Fox affiliation to WJBK-TV (channel 2), Detroit's longtime CBS affiliate, on December 11, 1994. This was a result of WJBK's owner,
New World CommunicationsNew World Pictures was an independent motion picture and television production company, and later television station owner in the United States from the late 1980s to the mid-1990s. News Corporation became a major investor in 1994 and purchased the company outright in 1997; the alliance with News...
, making a group deal with Fox to switch the affiliation of nearly all of its stations to Fox.
WKBD briefly went independent again until January 1995, when it became Detroit's UPN
Owned-and-operated stationIn the broadcasting industry , an owned-and-operated station usually refers to a television station or radio station that is owned by the network with which it is associated...
through Paramount's stake. (It was the first network O&O in Detroit in ten years since ABC sold off
WXYZ-TVWXYZ-TV, Channel 7, is the ABC affiliated television station in Detroit. It is owned by The E.W. Scripps Company and is the media company's largest TV station. WXYZ-TV is among the highest-rated ABC stations in the United States. The station's operations and transmitter are located at Broadcast...
to Scripps; WKBD's O&O network status predated the sale of WGPR (now
WWJ-TVWWJ-TV, digital channel 44 is the CBS-owned and operated station in Detroit, Michigan. It is co-owned with Detroit's CW station, WKBD-TV , and the two stations share a studio in Southfield, Michigan, a Detroit suburb....
) to CBS and Fox to WJBK-TV.) Its programming from its days as a Fox affiliate was unchanged except for prime time programming. Eventually, the older sitcoms were replaced with more first-run
syndicatedIn broadcasting, syndication is the sale of the right to broadcast radio shows and television shows to multiple individual stations, without going through a broadcast network. It is common in countries where television is scheduled by networks with local affiliates, particularly in the United States...
talk or reality shows.
Fox KidsFox Kids was the Fox Broadcasting Company's American children's programming division and brand name from September 8, 1990 until September 7, 2002...
stayed on WKBD until 1998, when it moved to
WADLWADL, channel 38 is a full-power, commercially licensed broadcast television station in the Midwestern United States. As an independent television station licensed to the town of Mount Clemens, Michigan, the station serves the entire Detroit metropolitan area. The station also serves most of the...
(channel 38). WKBD continued to maintain a morning cartoon block that became the
"UPN Kids DisneyWalt Disney Television was the television production division of The Walt Disney Company with Walt Disney name. It was formed in 1983, as Walt Disney Pictures Television Division, the name was later shortened to Walt Disney Television in the mid-1980s....
Block."
In 2000, Paramount's parent
ViacomViacom , short for "Video & Audio Communications", is an American media conglomerate with various worldwide interests in cable and satellite television networks , and movie production and distribution with Paramount Motion Pictures Group. Paramount is also the distributor of movie studio DreamWorks...
acquired CBS, a move that united channel 50 with
WWJ-TVWWJ-TV, digital channel 44 is the CBS-owned and operated station in Detroit, Michigan. It is co-owned with Detroit's CW station, WKBD-TV , and the two stations share a studio in Southfield, Michigan, a Detroit suburb....
(which CBS acquired in 1995 in the wake of losing its contract with WJBK). After the merger, WWJ-TV moved from its facilities in downtown Detroit to WKBD's
SouthfieldSouthfield is a city in Oakland County of the U.S. state of Michigan. It is a suburb of Detroit and is part of the Metro Detroit area. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 78,296. Southfield Township is adjacent to the city on the north side...
studios.
UPN ended cartoons in the Fall of 2003. Today, WKBD has a format primarily of first-run syndicated talk, courtroom, and reality shows, some recent off-network sitcoms, CW first-run programming, and some drama shows.
On January 24, 2006, the UPN and
WBThe WB Television Network, or simply The WB, was a television network in the United States that was launched on January 11, 1995 as a joint venture of Warner Bros. and Tribune Broadcasting. As a replacement, on January 24, 2006, CBS Corporation and Warner Bros...
networks announced they would merge into a single network called
the CWThe CW Television Network is a television network in the United States launched at the beginning of the 2006–2007 television season. It is a joint venture between CBS Corporation, the former owners of United Paramount Network , and Time Warner's Warner Bros., former majority owner of The WB...
, to be owned jointly by CBS and the
Warner Bros. TelevisionWarner Bros. Television is the television production and distribution arm of Warner Bros. Entertainment, itself part of Time Warner. Alongside CBS Television Studios, it serves as a television production arm of The CW Television Network , though it also produces shows for other networks, such as...
unit of
Time WarnerTime Warner Inc. is the world's largest entertainment conglomerate , as well as the world's fourth largest media conglomerate, headquartered in the Time Warner Center in New York City...
. WKBD was chosen as the CW's Detroit affiliate, and the station continued to carry UPN programming until September 15, 2006. The CW commenced operations on September 18, 2006.
Effective July 9, 2009, the station's legal call sign became WKBD-TV once again.
Digital television
WKBD was first licensed for its
digitalDigital Terrestrial Television is the technological evolution and advance from analogue terrestrial television, which broadcasts land based signals...
facility in January, 2001. On June 12, 2009, which was the
national deadlineThe DTV transition in the United States is the switchover from analog to exclusively digital broadcasting of free over-the-air television programming...
to shut off most
analogAnalog television encodes television picture and sound information and transmits it as an analog signal: one in which the message conveyed by the broadcast signal is a function of deliberate variations in the amplitude and/or frequency of the signal...
TV signals, WKBD shut off its analog signal which had been broadcasting on channel 50 for 44 years and began broadcasting exclusively on its digital signal. WKBD's digital broadcast continues on pre-transition channel number, 14. However, through the use of
PSIPThe Program and System Information Protocol is the protocol used in the ATSC digital television system for carrying metadata about each channel in the broadcast transport stream of a TV station and for publishing information about television programs so that viewers can select what to watch by...
, digital television receivers will display WKBD's
virtual channelIn telecommunications, a logical channel number , also known as virtual channel in North America, is a channel designation which differs from the actual radio channel or frequency on which the signal travels....
as 50.
Newscasts
For much of its existence, WKBD produced a single newscast, at 10 p.m. (for a brief time, it also had a noon newscast). In December 2002, the newscast was cancelled after nearly 15 years on the air. Afterwards, the station's 10 p.m. newscast was produced by
WXYZ-TVWXYZ-TV, Channel 7, is the ABC affiliated television station in Detroit. It is owned by The E.W. Scripps Company and is the media company's largest TV station. WXYZ-TV is among the highest-rated ABC stations in the United States. The station's operations and transmitter are located at Broadcast...
, Detroit's ABC affiliate. The station hired some of the former WKBD staff, but many simply lost their jobs. As of 2005, the station is no longer broadcasting news. It was replaced with mostly off-network syndicated shows, such as repeats of sitcoms like
The King Of QueensThe King of Queens is an American sitcom that ran for nine seasons, from 1998 to 2007, on CBS.The show was produced by Hanley Productions and CBS Productions , CBS Paramount Television in association with Columbia TriStar Television , and Sony Pictures Television...
and
According to JimAccording to Jim is an American sitcom television series, starring Jim Belushi in the title role as a suburban father of five children. It originally ran on ABC from October 3, 2001 to June 2, 2009.-Synopsis:...
.
Tara WallTara Wall is a columnist and deputy editorial page editor for The Washington Times. She is also a CNN political contributor. Tara is a former newscaster, Republican National Committee senior advisor and George W. Bush appointee....
, a spokeswoman for the
Republican National CommitteeThe Republican National Committee provides national leadership for the Republican Party of the United States. It is responsible for developing and promoting the Republican political platform, as well as coordinating fundraising and election strategy. It is also responsible for organizing and...
, is a former WKBD news reporter and former host of the public affairs program "Street Beat".
Under Field Communications ownership, WKBD aired a brief newscast at various times of the day (typically called
Newscene (or alternately
News Scene)), similar to that of other Field-owned stations at the time, such as
WFLDWFLD channel 32.1 is an owned-and-operated television station of the News Corporation-owned Fox Broadcasting Company, based in Chicago, Illinois. WFLD is co-owned with WPWR-TV , Chicago's MyNetworkTV flagship station...
in Chicago.
Former anchors
- Kelly Jackson, (Now at KXTV
KXTV, channel 10, is an ABC affiliate in Sacramento, California. It is owned and operated by the Gannett Company. Its transmitter tower is located in Walnut Grove, California, and studios are located on Broadway, just south of Business Loop 80 at the south edge of downtown Sacramento...
-10 ABC in Sacramento, CA since Apr. '07)
- Amyre Makupson
Amyre Makupson is a former news anchor and Director of Public Affairs at WKBD in Detroit.Makupson held positions at WSM-TV in Nashville and WRC-TV in Washington, D.C. before moving back to Detroit in 1975 to work as director of public relations for Head Start, the Michigan Health Maintenance...
- Pallas Hupé, (Now at KOVR
KOVR, channel 13, is a CBS owned-and-operated television station licensed to Stockton, California, and serving the Sacramento-Stockton television market. The station is co-owned with CW affiliate KMAX-TV , and the two stations share facilities in West Sacramento...
-13 CBS in Sacramento, CA since Feb. '06)
- David Scott
- Tara Wall
Tara Wall is a columnist and deputy editorial page editor for The Washington Times. She is also a CNN political contributor. Tara is a former newscaster, Republican National Committee senior advisor and George W. Bush appointee....
- Rich Fisher, (Formerly of WXYZ-TV and WJBK-TV)
- Harry Hairston, (Now at WCAU
WCAU, channel 10, is an owned-and-operated television station of the NBC Television Network, located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. WCAU has its studios on the border between Philadelphia and Bala Cynwyd, and transmitter in the Roxborough neighborhood...
-10 NBC in Philidelphia, PA since Jan. '04)
- Kristin Smith - now with KSA
Sports
WKBD produced and broadcast
Detroit Red WingsThe Detroit Red Wings is a professional ice hockey team based in Detroit, Michigan. They are members of the Central Division of the Western Conference of the National Hockey League , and are one of the Original Six teams of the NHL....
hockey telecasts from 1965 to 2003, with a 2-year hiatus in the '80s when they were on another station.
Detroit TigersThe Detroit Tigers are a Major League Baseball team based in Detroit, Michigan. One of the American League's eight charter franchises, the club was founded in Detroit in . The Tigers have won four World Series championships and have won the American League pennant 10 times...
baseball games were broadcast on the station from 1994 to 2005, while
Detroit PistonsThe Detroit Pistons is a team in the National Basketball Association based in the Detroit metropolitan area. The team's home arena is The Palace of Auburn Hills.-From Fort Wayne to Detroit:...
basketball games were broadcast from 1972 to May 2004.
Detroit LionsThe Detroit Lions are an American football team based in Detroit, Michigan. They are members of the North Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League , and play their home games at Ford Field in downtown Detroit....
preseason football was broadcast 1992 to 1996 and again from 2004 to 2007. The station also produced occasional Pre- and Post-game shows for all four professional teams. WKBD aired special coverage of the Red Wings' Stanley Cup Celebration and parade ceremonies in 1997 and 1998, as well as carrying the final Tigers game played at Tiger Stadium on September 27, 1999. WMYD held the rights to the Pistons from 2004-2008, and WJBK occasionally aired Tigers games from 2004-2007. All 3 teams are now exclusively on
Fox Sports DetroitFox Sports Detroit , is a regional sports network that covers local sports teams in the state of Michigan and an owned and operated affiliate of Fox Sports Net. It is available on cable television in all of Michigan, Northeastern Indiana, Northwest Ohio, some portions of northeastern Wisconsin and...
. Coincidentally, WKBD was Detroit's first
FOXThe Fox Broadcasting Company , commonly referred to as Fox , is an American television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, from 2004 to 2009 Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the 18–49 demographic...
affiliate, from 1986-1994.
On occasion (and regularly during preseason games), WKBD produced broadcasts of
Detroit LionsThe Detroit Lions are an American football team based in Detroit, Michigan. They are members of the North Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League , and play their home games at Ford Field in downtown Detroit....
football games, as well as
Detroit PistonsThe Detroit Pistons is a team in the National Basketball Association based in the Detroit metropolitan area. The team's home arena is The Palace of Auburn Hills.-From Fort Wayne to Detroit:...
basketball games, until the late 1980s when the Pistons decided to produce and distribute the games itself, with WKBD responsible for advertising. Both were simulcasted to other stations across Michigan, on a select list of affiliate stations.
On April 16, 2008, it was announced that its sister station, CBS O&O WWJ TV, will be the new home of The Detroit Lions exhibition games. The departure of long time sports producer Toby Cunningham (a part of CBS' budget cuts at all its O&Os) closes the book on the storied history of sports coverage by WKBD. WKBD is seen to hold the CBS programing on nights when
WWJ-TVWWJ-TV, digital channel 44 is the CBS-owned and operated station in Detroit, Michigan. It is co-owned with Detroit's CW station, WKBD-TV , and the two stations share a studio in Southfield, Michigan, a Detroit suburb....
is holding the Detroit Lions games.
Syndex, and Statewide Coverage on Cable
Outside of the Detroit area, however, most programming on WKBD is subject to Syndex territorial restrictions placed on cable systems by the local TV rights holders. During the affected programming, cable systems either switch to another channel, or place a text notice on the screen that says something like:
"This channel is being blacked out due to FCC regulations."
In 1994, when Fox switched in Detroit from WKBD to WJBK, many Michigan cable systems outside the Detroit area replaced WKBD with
WGKIWFQX-TV is the FOX-affiliated television station for the northern Lower and eastern Upper Peninsulas of Michigan. Licensed to Cadillac, the station broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 32 from a transmitter southeast of Cadillac. As with other network affiliates in this vast...
from Cadillac, in order to keep Fox available in the Upper Peninsula. However, in areas where Fox was already available locally, mainly in the southern and central Michigan markets (especially the Tri-Cities), much of WGKI's programming was blacked out. In 1996, some systems that dropped WKBD for WGKI brought WKBD back.
Following the launch of The CW, WKBD began to be dropped from cable systems outside of the Detroit market, in favor of local or nearest CW or MyNetworkTV affiliates.
WKBD is available on many cable systems in
Southeast MichiganSoutheast Michigan, also called Southeastern Michigan, is a region in the Lower Peninsula of the U.S. state of Michigan that is home to a majority of the state's businesses and industries as well as slightly over half of the state's population, most of whom are concentrated in Metro Detroit...
,
Southwestern OntarioSouthwestern Ontario is a subregion of Southern Ontario in the province of Ontario, centred on the city of London. It extends north to south from the Bruce Peninsula on Lake Huron to the Lake Erie shoreline, and east to south-west roughly from Kitchener to Windsor. These three urban centres make up...
, and
Northwest OhioNorthwest or northwestern Ohio consists of multiple counties in the northwestern corner of the US state of Ohio. This area borders Lake Erie, southern Michigan, and eastern Indiana. Some areas in northwestern Ohio are also considered the Black Swamp area. The Toledo metropolitan area is also part...
.
Coverage on cable systems outside the Detroit / Windsor market may be subject to
syndexSyndication exclusivity is a federal law in the United States designed to protect a local television station's rights to syndicated television programs by granting exclusive rights to the station for that program in the local market, usually defined by a station's Nielsen DMA...
and network
blackoutsIn broadcasting, a blackout is when certain programming, usually sports, cannot be televised in a certain media market.The purpose is theoretically to generate more money by obliging certain actions from fans, either by making them buy tickets or watch other games on TV...
in the United States.
Former newscasts
- TV-50 Newscene (1970's-1980's)
- TV-50 Ten O' Clock News (1980's-1995)
- UPN 50 Ten O' Clock News (1995-2002)
- UPN Detroit Nightside (2002)
- UPN Detroit Action News [Produced by WXYZ-TV
WXYZ-TV, Channel 7, is the ABC affiliated television station in Detroit. It is owned by The E.W. Scripps Company and is the media company's largest TV station. WXYZ-TV is among the highest-rated ABC stations in the United States. The station's operations and transmitter are located at Broadcast...
] (2002-2004)
Former slogans
- The Choice Is Yours (1978-1983; Same slogan used for Field Communications' O&Os)
- Your Ten O’ Clock News Station (1996-1997)
- Straight To The Point [Only used for news opens] (1998-2004)
- You’ll Find Your Friends (1998-2000)
- It’s One Hot Number (2000-2001)
- Big (2001-2002)
- It’s All About U (2004-2005)
- U Got It! (2005-2006)
- Free To Be (also the slogan for The CW) (2006-2007)
- Contagious Watching (2007-2009)
External links