KDKA-TV

KDKA-TV is the CBS owned and operated television station in Pittsburgh. Its transmitter is located in Pittsburgh. It broadcasts its analog signal on VHF channel 2, and its digital signal on UHF channel 25.

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As WDTV

KDKA-TV went on the air on January 11, 1949 as WDTV, owned and operated by the DuMont Television Network. It originally broadcast on channel 3, moving to channel 2 in 1952 to alleviate interference with WNBK in Cleveland (now WKYC-TV). No other commercial VHF stations signed on in Pittsburgh until 1957.

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At the time, Pittsburgh was the sixth-largest market in the country (behind New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Washington), and its only competition came from UHF stations. At the time, UHF stations were unviewable without a very expensive converter, and even with a converter the pictures from those stations weren't very clear. As a result, WDTV had a de facto monopoly on Pittsburgh television. Owning the only viewable station in such a large market gave DuMont considerable leverage in getting its programs cleared in large markets where it didn't have an affiliate. As CBS, NBC and ABC had secondary affiliations with WDTV, this was a strong incentive to stations in large markets to clear DuMont's programs or risk losing valuable advertising in the sixth-largest market.

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WDTV's sign-on was also significant because it was now possible to feed live programs from the East to the Midwest and vice versa. In fact, its second broadcast was the activation of the coaxial cable linking the two regions. It would be another two years before the West Coast received live programming, but this was the beginning of the modern era of network television.

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By 1954, DuMont was in serious financial trouble. Paramount, which owned a stake in DuMont, vetoed a merger with ABC. Desperate for cash, DuMont was forced to sell WDTV to Westinghouse Electric Corporation for $6.75 million. While the sale gave DuMont much-needed cash, it eliminated DuMont's leverage in getting clearances in other major markets. Within a year, the DuMont network was no more. Westhinghouse changed WDTV's calls to KDKA-TV, after KDKA-AM, the station widely considered to be the first commercial radio station in the world. The station became a primary CBS affiliate, retaining secondary affiliations with NBC until 1957 (when WIIC-TV, now WPXI, signed on) and ABC until 1958 (when WTAE-TV signed on). It became the flagship station of Westinghouse's broadcasting arm, Group W.

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(The WDTV calls now reside on a television station in Weston, West Virginia, and is unrelated to the current KDKA-TV.)

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As KDKA-TV

As a CBS affiliate, KDKA-TV dominated the ratings. The station was known from the 1960s through the 1990s to pre-empt CBS programs that received low ratings, usually replaced by locally produced shows and high-rated syndicated programming.

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Starting in 1992, KDKA stopped running CBS This Morning and instead ran syndicated Disney cartoons. As such, Pittsburgh became the largest market with a network affiliate running cartoons during the week.

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In 1994 Westinghouse made a deal with CBS to convert the entire Group W television unit--which included KDKA, KYW-TV in Philadelphia, WBZ-TV in Boston, WJZ-TV in Baltimore and KPIX-TV in San Francisco to CBS affiliates. The conversion was complete by the fall of 1995. Starting in the fall of 1994, KDKA began to run the entire CBS lineup with no pre-emptions, as mandated in Westinghouse's deal with CBS. In 1995, Westinghouse merged with CBS, making KDKA-TV a CBS O&O station after four decades as being simply a CBS affiliate. Viacom merged with CBS in 2000, making KDKA a sister station with Pittsburgh UPN affiliate WNPA-TV.

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Today, KDKA-TV is owned by CBS, while KDKA Radio is owned by Infinity Broadcasting. Both CBS and Infinity are owned by Viacom.

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On September 12th, KDKA will premiere a new-on air look and a modified set.

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CBS: CBS (Columbia Broadcasting System) is a major television network and radio broadcaster in the United States. One of the pioneer radio networks, from its earliest days CBS established a reputation for quality; prior to the fracturing of the market under cable television, CBS's television network was...

Owned and operated: REDIRECT Owned-and-operated station...

Television station: A television station is a type of broadcast station that broadcasts video and usually audio to television receivers in a particular area. Traditionally, TV stations made their broadcasts by sending specially-encoded radio signals over the air, called terrestrial television. Individual television s...

KDKA-TV related Images and Photos (experimental)

90210 (TV)	Castle (TV)	Archer (TV)	Episodes (TV)
Shameless (TV)	TV-B-Gone	Possessed, The (1977/TV) (DVD)	Dummy (1979/TV)
Probe (1972/TV)	TV-B-Gone Pro	Revolver (1992/TV)	TV On DVD: TV Episode Fun Pack (Volume 2) DVD