WJZ-TV
- This article is about the television station in Baltimore, Maryland. For the former WJZ-TV located in New York City, see WABC-TV.
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WJZ-TV, channel 13, is an owned and operated television station of the CBS Television Network, located in Baltimore, Maryland. WJZ-TV's studios and offices are located on Television Hill in the Woodberry section of Baltimore, adjacent to the transmission tower it shares with four other Baltimore television stations.
History
Baltimore's third television station started on November 2, 1948 as WAAM-TV, owned by brothers Ben and Herman Cohen. Its first broadcast was the 1948 presidential election returns. Its studio was the first in Baltimore specifically designed for television. Ironically, it was the only station in Baltimore without ties to a radio station.
Channel 13 was a primary affiliate of ABC, and was that network's second primary affiliate. The station also carried a secondary affiliation with the DuMont Television Network until that network's demise in 1956, and originated many Baltimore Colts games for the network.
The Westinghouse Electric Corporation purchased WAAM-TV in 1957 and renamed it WJZ-TV. The WJZ calls had previously resided on ABC's flagship radio/television combination in New York City, which changed its calls to WABC in 1953. However, Westinghouse's history with that set of call letters went back even further, as it was the original owner of WJZ radio, the flagship station of NBC's Blue Network, which would eventually become the American Broadcasting Company.
In 1959, WJZ-TV built the world's first three-antenna candelabra tower, shared with WMAR-TV and WBAL-TV. The 730-foot tower significantly improved the station's coverage in central Maryland, and also added new viewers in Pennsylvania and Delaware. It still operates from this 730-foot tower today, which can be seen from Interstate 83 in Baltimore.
Over the years, WJZ-TV frequently pre-empted ABC programming in favor of local shows and syndicated content from Westinghouse's broadcasting division, Group W. However, ABC was more than satisfied with channel 13, which was one of the network's strongest affiliates. Additionally, Baltimore viewers could watch ABC programs on Washington, D.C.'s WMAL-TV/WJLA-TV, whose signal decently covers most of the Baltimore area.
From 1957 to 1964, one of the station's highest-rated programs was The Buddy Deane Show, an in-studio teen dance show modeled after ABC's American Bandstand. Deane's program was the inspiration for the John Waters 1988 motion picture Hairspray and its subsequent Broadway musical version.
In 1976, Oprah Winfrey became an anchor for the station's 6:00 p.m. newscast. She also co-hosted channel 13's local talk show, People Are Talking with Richard Sher, which premiered on August 14, 1978, and ran until she left for Chicago in 1983. The segment continues to run on the morning newscasts.
In 1994, ABC agreed to an affiliation deal with the broadcasting division of the E.W. Scripps Company, which called for three of Scripps' television stations to become ABC affiliates. ABC agreed to the deal as a condition of keeping its affiliation on Scripps' two biggest stations, WXYZ-TV in Detroit and WEWS in Cleveland. Both stations had been heavily wooed by CBS, which was about to lose its longtime Detroit and Cleveland affiliates to Fox. One of the stations due to switch was Baltimore's then-NBC affiliate, WMAR-TV.
Westinghouse Broadcasting was very upset at how channel 13 had been treated after so many years of loyalty to ABC. In retaliation, Westinghouse and CBS agreed to a longterm affiliation contract. As a result, WJZ-TV and sister stations in Philadelphia and Boston became CBS affiliates (Westinghouse's two other television stations, in Pittsburgh and San Francisco, were already CBS affiliates).
The affiliation switch, the second in Baltimore television history, occurred on January 2, 1995, ending WJZ-TV's 47-year link with ABC. As a result, channel 13 became the third station in Baltimore to affiliate with CBS. The network had originally affiliated with WMAR-TV in 1948 before moving to WBAL-TV in 1981. Westinghouse then bought CBS in early 1996, making WJZ-TV a CBS owned-and-operated station.
WJZ-TV has used its current "Stylized 13" logo, using a font face exculsive to Westinghouse Broadcasting, since 1967. Even though it added the CBS Eye to its logo in 1997, it does not call itself "CBS 13" under the CBS Mandate, but instead continues to use its call letters on-air.
WJZ-TV is the Baltimore-area affiliate of the It's Academic high school quiz competition. Channel 13 has also served two stints as the television home of the Baltimore Orioles baseball team, and has been the over-the-air home of the Orioles since 1994. It is one of the few "Big Three" stations that airs baseball on a regular basis.
Newscasts
Soon after Westinghouse bought WJZ-TV, it significantly beefed up the station's news department. Within a few years, it passed WMAR-TV for second place. Like the other Group W stations, WJZ-TV adopted the Eyewitness News format pioneered at sister station KYW-TV in Philadelphia. By the early 1970s, WJZ-TV had passed WBAL-TV for first place--a lead it held for over 30 years. In recent years, however, WBAL-TV has taken over the top spot at 5, 6 and 11 p.m., though WJZ-TV is still a strong second.
WJZ-TV was the first station in Baltimore to hire a full-time consumer reporter, as well as the first station to organize an investigative reporting team. In 1965 -- shortly after it adopted the Eyewitness News format -- Wiley Daniels became the first African-American reporter in Baltimore. He was joined two years later by Jerry Turner, one of the most popular anchormen in Baltimore television history. Between 1977 and 1987, Jerry Turner and Al Sanders were the top news team until Turner's death. Denise Koch took over afterwards; she remains at the anchor desk alongside Vic Carter, who succeeded Sanders following the latter's death in 1995. Like other CBS-owned stations, channel 13 offers a web only newscast, "WJZ At Your Desk", shown weekdays.
Personalities
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