KDKA-TV

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

History

As WDTV

The station 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, which for several years was a sister station to KDKA-TV).

For much of the 1950s, 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. In fact, no other commercial VHF stations signed on in Pittsburgh until 1957. 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. WDTV cleared the key DuMont network shows and rotated the other three networks' programming through its schedule, frequently on an every-other-week basis.

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.

By 1954, DuMont was in serious financial trouble. Paramount Pictures, which owned a stake in DuMont, vetoed a merger with ABC. ABC had merged with United Paramount Theaters, Paramount's former theater division, a year before. Since the FCC had ruled that Paramount controlled DuMont and there were still lingering questions about whether UPT had actually broken off from DuMont, Paramount didn't want to risk the FCC's wrath. 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.

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

As KDKA-TV

As a CBS affiliate, KDKA-TV dominated the ratings. It was not uncommon for newscasts anchored by Pittsburgh legend Bill Burns to draw a 50 percent share of audience (or higher). 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.

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.

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. KDKA and KPIX were already CBS affiliates; while KYW and WBZ were NBC stations and WJZ was an ABC station. 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 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. Ironically, a few years earlier Viacom had bought Paramount, which figured so prominently in DuMont's collapse.

In 2001, KDKA began producing a 10 p.m. newscast on WNPA. In 2005, KDKA launched a two-hour morning newscast on WNPA, now known as UPN Pittsburgh.

Today, KDKA-TV is owned by CBS Television Stations, while KDKA Radio is owned by CBS Radio. Both companies are subsidiaries of the CBS Corporation.

KDKA-TV used the distinct "Group W" font for its logo for some years after it became a CBS O&O, dropping it in 2003 in favor of a plainer "2." Its radio sister still uses the font.

Station trivia

  • KDKA was also the home of early work by comedian and Pittsburgh native Dennis Miller, who in the early '80s hosted a local weekend entertainment show that was produced by KDKA.
  • KDKA is credited with the first "network" TV feed in world history.
  • The station had the world's first father-daughter broadcast team. Beginning in the 1970s, a noon news broadcast anchored by veteran Pittsburgh anchorman Bill Burns and his daughter Patti Burns, often referred to as the "Patti and Daddy show."

Station Images

Mailing address

KDKA-TV
One Gateway Center
Pittsburgh, PA 15222

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