Everything about Wcbs-tv totally explained
WCBS-TV, channel 2, is the
flagship station of the
CBS television network, located in
New York City. The station's studios are located within the
CBS Broadcast Center in midtown
Manhattan and its transmitter is atop the
Empire State Building.
In the few areas of the eastern United States where viewers can't receive CBS programs over-the-air, WCBS-TV is available on satellite to subscribers of
Dish Network and
DirecTV, which also provides coverage of the station to
Latin America and
JetBlue's
LiveTV inflight entertainment system.
History
WCBS-TV's history dates back to CBS' opening of experimental station
W2XAB on
July 31,
1931. Its initial broadcast featured
New York Mayor Jimmy Walker,
Kate Smith and
George Gershwin. The station boasted the first regular seven-day broadcasting schedule in American television, broadcasting 28 hours a week. On
November 8,
1932, W2XAB broadcast the first television coverage of presidential election returns. The station suspended operations on
February 20,
1933; it returned on
September 3,
1940 with the first color broadcast in the United States.
On
June 24,
1941 W2XAB received a commercial license as
WCBW. It went on the air at 2:30 pm on
July 1, an hour after rival WNBT (formerly W2XBS and now
WNBC-TV), making it the second licensed commercial television station in the United States. Its first broadcast was the first local newscast aired on a commercial station in the country. Regular operations began on
October 29, and it received a full license on
March 10,
1942. The call letters were changed to
WCBS-TV on
November 1,
1946. In 1997, it adopted the
CBS 2 name along with sister stations
KCBS-TV in
Los Angeles and
WBBM-TV in
Chicago, while retaining a unique and distinctive logo. The practice of CBS-owned stations placing the network identity ahead of their local identity would end up being known as the
CBS Mandate.
During the
September 11, 2001 attacks, channel 2 stayed on the air. Unlike most of the other major New York television stations, it had long maintained a full-powered backup transmitter at the Empire State Building after moving its main transmitter to the North Tower of the
World Trade Center in
1975. The station was also
simulcast nationally on
Viacom (which at the time owned CBS) cable network
VH1 that day. In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, the station lent transmission time to the other stations who had lost their transmitters until they found suitable backup equipment and locations. The backup transmitter had been put into operation once before, when the
World Trade Center bombing of
February 26,
1993 knocked most of the area's stations off the air for a week.
Logos
While CBS was well-known for its precise branding standards in its glory days, WCBS-TV itself didn't have a standard logo until 1985. The station simply put the CBS Eye in front of a "2" in whatever font was available back on
New Year's Day 1973. In February 1996 it became a
violet circle with the CBS Eye (located at the tip of the "2") and "2" in gold, located inside the circle. This was used until May 1997.
In May 1997, after the station began calling itself "CBS 2" on-air, it went to a blue
parallelogram and the "2" was changed to a slightly different font which is used today, with the Eye usually in yellow or gold. In 2000 the parallelogram became a rectangle, and the "CBS" font changed from an italicized
Helvetica to the proprietary CBS
Didot font (used exclusively by CBS Corporation and CBS affiliates) in 2000.
Digital Television
| Channel |
Programming |
| 2.1 / 56.1 |
main WCBS-TV/CBS programming |
Post-analog shutdown
After the analog television shutdown and digital conversion, which is tentatively scheduled to take place on February 17, 2009, WCBS-TV will move its digital broadcasts to channel 33. However, through the use of
PSIP, digital television receivers will display WCBS-TV's
virtual channel as 2.
News operation
WCBS-TV housed one of the highest-rated news operations in New York from the mid-1960s until the early 1980s. Broadcast news pioneer
Robert Trout did double duty as a CBS correspondent and as channel 2's main anchor for many years. In
1965, he left for a new assignment in
Europe and was succeeded by
Jim Jensen. Jensen had only come to WCBS-TV a year earlier, but was already well-known for his coverage of
Robert F. Kennedy's
1964 campaign for the
United States Senate. His gravelly voice and demeanor were very similar to that of
Walter Cronkite, and he was reportedly the model for the character of Jim Dial (played by
Charles Kimbrough) on the CBS sitcom
Murphy Brown. The station was known in the New York area as a
hard news station, with lots of investigative reports and features. Like sister station WBBM-TV, which took a similar approach, it was one of the most respected local news operations in the country.
WCBS-TV surged past WNBC-TV into first place in the news ratings, and stayed there for most of the time until the mid-1980s. WCBS-TV's other well-known personalities during this era included anchors
Dave Marash,
Carol Martin,
Rolland Smith,
Michele Marsh and
Vic Miles;
meteorologists
Dr. Frank Field and
Irv "Mr. G." Gikofsky; reporters
Meredith Vieira,
Randall Pinkston,
Tony Guida,
John Stossel and
Arnold Diaz; and sportscaster
Warner Wolf. Vieira, Pinkston and Guida later moved to the CBS network.
Channel 2 first faced real competition after
WABC-TV introduced
Eyewitness News to New York. For most of the 1970s, WCBS-TV went back and forth in first place with channel 7. In the early 1980s, WABC-TV lost some momentum, but WCBS-TV faced a new challenger when WNBC-TV became the first station to run a successful newscast at 5 p.m. (
Live at Five). However, channel 2 scored a major coup when it lured Field from WNBC (
News 4 New York) in 1984. For much of the early 1980s, New York's "Big Three" stations went back and forth in first place. During this time, three of the longest-tenured anchor teams in New York -- Jensen and Smith, WABC-TV's
Roger Grimsby and
Bill Beutel, and WNBC-TV's
Chuck Scarborough and
Sue Simmons -- went head-to-head with each other.
In 1987, WABC-TV surged past WCBS-TV for the lead and has stayed in first more or less ever since, while channel 2's ratings went into rapid decline. One of management's more controversial responses was to take Jensen off the anchor desk in late 1994 and demote him to host of a Sunday morning public-affairs show,
Sunday Edition. He also hosted a few episodes of the regular "Sports Update" show on Sunday nights at 11:30. At the time, Jensen had served as an anchor longer than anyone in New York television history (he has since been passed by WABC-TV's Beutel and WNBC's Scarborough). The move was roundly criticized by many in New York, especially since WCBS-TV had supported him after he went into
drug rehabilitation in 1988. Another controversy involved an exchange between Jensen and co-anchor
Bree Walker, whose fingers and toes are fused together (the condition is known as
ectrodactyly). After Walker did a report about her experience with the condition, Jensen asked Walker, on the air, if her parents would have aborted her had they known she'd have been born with the condition. Although Walker kept her composure on air, she was obviously disturbed by the question, and soon left the station. This incident took place shortly before Jensen's entry to drug rehabiliation. Station management came under more fire in 1995 when Jensen was forced to retire shortly after the
Westinghouse Electric Corporation announced it was buying CBS. By the end of 1995, channel 2 had crashed into last place for the first time in its history, and remained there for more than a decade.
1996 "massacre"
On
October 2,
1996, the station executed an unprecedented mass firing without any advance warning, citing the need to shake up its news operation. Seven people were fired: anchors
John Johnson, Michele Marsh and Tony Guida; sports anchor
Bernie Smilovitz; and reporters
Reggie Harris,
Roseanne Colletti, and
Magee Hickey. The firings came after the 6 p.m. newscast. Johnson and Marsh had anchored the 5:00 newscasts and signed off at 6:00 saying, "We'll see you at 11," but never got a chance to say goodbye on the air.
"The massacre," as it has come to be known, was part of a move to boost ratings, although it came at a time when CBS was under pressure to boost revenues, having been merged with Westinghouse. It was also part of a major reconstruction of the newscast, culminating in the May 1997 rebranding to
News 2.
WCBS-TV news in the 2000s
In 2000,
Joel Cheatwood, creator of the
7 News format at
WSVN in
Miami, came in as news director. At his suggestion, the news department rebranded itself from
News 2 to
the CBS 2 Information Network, using "content partners" such as
U.S. News & World Report and
VH1. He also gave the newscasts more of a
tabloid feel. While considerably watered down compared to
Fox flagship
WNYW and to Cheatwood's work at WSVN -- and even compared to WSVN's sister station,
WHDH-TV in
Boston -- it was much flashier than had previously been seen on New York's "Big Three" affiliates. It didn't work, and Cheatwood was gone by 2002 in favor of New York veteran news director
Dianne Doctor. The station became simply
CBS 2, and gradually phased out the tabloid elements. In its place, Doctor introduced a "news for the people" approach similar to that of her previous employer, WNBC.
After Doctor's arrival, channel 2 placed a revived emphasis on hard news, while attempting to revive some elements of its glory days. For instance, in 2003 Arnold Diaz rejoined the station to revive "Shame on You," an Emmy-winning series of investigative segments. He had previously worked at the station from 1973 to 1995. In December 2005, Diaz once again departed, this time leaving for WNYW. Another segment was "Eat at Your Own Risk," which highlighted unsafe conditions at New York-area restaurants. Ironically, the cafeteria at the CBS Broadcast Center was cited for violations by the
New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Violations included the presence of rats and roaches, as well as food temperature issues. .
Despite this and other attempts at fixes, the ratings didn't significantly improve under Doctor's watch. Doctor was criticized for airing "Shame on You" and "Eat at Your Own Risk" segments ahead of major stories. She also came under fire when channel 2 led its 11 p.m. newscast of
May 24,
2005 with a story and exclusive video of actor
Burt Reynolds slapping a CBS producer, while rivals WABC-TV and WNBC-TV led with an important vote in the
U.S. House on
stem cell research.
On
May 27,
2004, Doctor fired popular sports anchor
Warner Wolf, three months before his contract expired, without giving Wolf a chance to say goodbye on air. This incident was widely panned by several newspapers, including the New York
Daily News, and the move alienated and angered many viewers. Wolf was replaced by the much younger
Chris Wragge, who was brought in from NBC affiliate
KPRC-TV in
Houston.
On
June 1,
2005 Jim Rosenfield rejoined the station to anchor the 5 and 11 p.m. newscasts with
Roz Abrams, who joined channel 2 the previous year after an 18-year run at WABC-TV. Rosenfield previously worked at the station from 1998 to 2000, before moving to WNBC (to anchor
Live at Five) after a contract dispute with channel 2. Rosenfield replaced
Ernie Anastos, who moved to WNYW in July.
On
August 22,
2005, WCBS-TV launched its new Doppler radar named "Live Doppler 2 Million". It has one million watts of power, and is live, compared to other dopplers in the market which are delayed by about 15 minutes. "Live Doppler 2 Million" was the punch line of a joke on an episode of
Jimmy Kimmel Live and also was ridiculed on the popular
Opie and Anthony radio show. The station renamed the radar in 2006 to "Live Doppler". The station also uses a VIPIR radar. Coincidentally, transportation reporter
Arthur Chi'en was fired from the station three months earlier after mistakenly using expletives live on the air in response to someone from Opie and Anthony disrupting his live report as part of their "Assault on the Media" contest.
On
April 14,
2006, Dianne Doctor left WCBS-TV. The station decided to move its news department in a new direction under new general manager
Peter Dunn, who axed "Shame on You" and "Eat at Your Own Risk". Doctor reportedly didn't agree with the new plans, and opted to leave. The station has since overhauled its graphics and anchor lineup, winning praise from media observers.
Like other CBS-owned stations, WCBS-TV offers a web only newscast called "CBS 2 at Your Desk", available weekdays at 9 a.m. (anchored by Maurice DuBois or Kate Sullivan). Also, you can see streamlined news casts of the noon, 5 and 6 p.m, and the 11 P.M. newscasts (anchored by Kristine Johnson, Chris Wragge, Dana Tyler, and Jim Rosenfield). There is also a "LoHud Report" edition of "At Your Desk", operated by WCBS-TV and
LoHud.com
, the website for
The Journal News, a
Gannett Company-owned newspaper covering
Westchester County and other areas of the lower
Hudson River valley.
The Journal News has a partnership with the station where WCBS-TV uses their offices for their Westchester Bureau, and
The Journal News gets a 30-second promotion during the 6:00 pm newscast for the next day's top story.
In early September 2006, WCBS-TV's weather department entered into a partnership with
The Weather Channel, with meteorologists from the cable service often appearing on-air with existing WCBS-TV meteorologists. WCBS-TV also receives information from the Weather Channel in addition to using their radars and satellite imagery.
On
November 6, 2006, WCBS-TV made a personnel change on its Noon and 5 p.m. newscasts. Former sports director and anchor Chris Wragge became co-anchor of both aforementioned programs, along with newly-hired
Kristine Johnson. Wragge and Johnson replaced Roz Abrams and
Mary Calvi on those shows; Abrams' contract was allowed to lapse, and Calvi was reassigned to weekends as the sole evening anchor. More changes came in early 2007, as
John Elliot was introduced as the new morning and noon meteorologist, replacing
Audrey Puente, who left the station to become the new chief meteorologist at
WWOR-TV. WCBS-TV has also hired
Lonnie Quinn, previously a weatherman in
Miami. On
June 25, 2007, anchors Chris Wragge and Kristine Johnson were promoted as the station's new 5 and 11 p.m. anchors, trading places with Dana Tyler and Jim Rosenfield on the Noon program; Tyler and Rosenfield continue to co-anchor the 6 p.m. newscast. There is speculation that the veteran anchors will leave WCBS-TV once their contracts expire.
In the February 2007 ratings period, WCBS-TV finished second behind WABC-TV from sign-on to sign-off — its best showing in 16 years, although most of its newscasts still finished in third place at that time. By the November 2007 sweeps period, channel 2's local evening newscasts had overtaken WNBC for second place (mainly due to declining ratings at WNBC). It was channel 2's best news performance in 12 years, but it still trailed WABC-TV by a fairly wide margin.
On
April 11,
2007, WCBS-TV began broadcasting their newscasts in
high-definition, becoming the third New York City television station to do so.
WCBS-TV cooperates with sister station
KYW-TV in Philadelphia in the production and broadcast of statewide
New Jersey political debates. When the two stations broadcast a statewide office debate, such as for
Governor or
United States Senate, that'll pool resources and have anchors or reporters from both stations participate in the debate. Additionally, the two stations cooperate in the gathering of news in New Jersey where their markets overlap; sharing reporters, live trucks, and helicopters.
Personalities
Anchors
Weather
John Elliott - weekday mornings and Noon
Elise Finch - weekend evenings
Megan Glaros - weekend mornings
Lonnie Quinn - chief weathercaster/weeknights
Sports
John Discepolo - weekday mornings
Ducis Rodgers - weekday evenings
Sam Ryan - weekends
Reporters
Tony Aiello (Westchester County)
Dave Carlin
Kirstin Cole (consumer affairs)
Jay Dow (New Jersey)
Deborah Garcia
Dr. Max Gomez
Pablo Guzmán
Sean Hennessey
Magee Hickey
Cindy Hsu (family features)
Marcia Kramer (politics)
Katie McGee (morning traffic)
Jennifer McLogan (Long Island)
Dr. Holly Phillips (medical)
Scott Rapoport
Hazel Sanchez
John Slattery
Christine Sloan (New Jersey)
Tony Tantillo (food and produce)
Lou Young
Notable alumni
Newscast titles
News of the Night (1950s)
The Six O'Clock Report/The Eleven O'Clock Report (1960–1964)
Channel 2 News (1964–1996)
Channel 2 News: Six O'Clock Report/Eleven O'Clock Report(Update) (1976–1982)
WCBS-TV News (alternate branding, 1967–1972)
2 News (1996–1997)
News 2 (1997–2001)
The News on the CBS 2 Information Network (2001-2002)
CBS 2 News (2002–present)Further Information
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