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WWJ-TV

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WWJ-TV ("CBS Detroit") is the CBS-owned and operated station in Detroit, Michigan. It is co-owned with Detroit's UPN station, WKBD-TV (channel 50), and the two stations share a studio in Southfield, a Detroit suburb. The station broadcasts from a 1073-foot antenna on a transmitter located in Oak Park, shared with WMYD (channel 20) and WTVS-DT (channel 43).

WWJ-TV can be viewed over-the-air on UHF channel 62. On cable, WWJ can be seen on channel 15 on both Comcast Detroit and Cogeco Windsor, and channel 14 on Bright House Livonia. The station is one of five local Detroit TV stations seen in Canada on the StarChoice satellite provider.

History

As WGPR-TV

Channel 62 signed on air September 29, 1975, as WGPR-TV (for "Where God's Presence Radiates"). It was owned by WGPR, Inc., formed by the International Free and Accepted Modern Masons, headquartered in Detroit. WGPR was the first African-American owned television station in the United States, and was marketed towards Detroit's urban viewers. At the time, WGPR's emergence was hailed as an advance for African-American enterprise, with the "color line" having been broken by the station's establishment. Station President William V. Banks, together with Jim Panagos and George White, sales and programming managers respectively of WGPR-FM radio, were the management team at the station's outset.

The station aired shows from NBC and CBS that were pre-empted by WWJ-TV/WDIV and WJBK-TV respectively, as well as older cartoons, a number of religious shows, brokered programs, programs aimed at the black community, R&B music shows, low-rated off-network dramas, and low-rated barter syndicated shows.

The socially laudatory aims of the station did not immediately translate into good business. During its tenure as an independent station, WGPR was one of the lowest-rated television stations in Detroit, with only a small niche audience. The owners did not reckon with the existence of several already marginal independent outlets available to southeastern Michigan viewers. Neither of these outlets had many choices for good syndicated programming after WKBD-TV and WXON (now WMYD) picked the best programs.

WGPR was also hampered by an inadequate signal. It only broadcast at 800,000 watts. By comparison, WKBD broadcast at 2.3 million watts and WXON broadcast at 1.5 million watts. Its signal was so weak that it could only be seen over the air in Detroit itself and the inner northern suburbs (Southfield, Redford, Warren, Royal Oak, Livonia etc.). The signal could not reach the outlying suburbs such as Howell, Clarkston, Lake Orion and Richmond.

During the early years, WGPR's most popular and well-known show was a Middle-Eastern variety show called Arab Voice of Detroit, which was broadcast late Saturday nights. Also popular was a nightly dance show titled The Scene, similar in content to the nationally syndicated Soul Train, that aired from October 13, 1975, to December 31, 1987. The station was also home to the horror show host Ron "The Ghoul" Sweed during the late 1970s.

By the 1990s, WGPR's on-air look had become very primitive. It was the only local station which still used art cards instead of CGI for its sponsor announcements and newscasts. Further, a character generator manufactured in the 1970s remained in use for some graphics for many years. By the early 1990s, WGPR aired infomercials for most of the day.

CBS affiliate

WGPR's situation changed in 1994, when New World Communications made an affiliation deal with Fox in which almost all of its stations switched their affiliations to Fox. One of those stations was Detroit's longtime CBS affiliate, WJBK-TV. CBS approached each of Detroit's four remaining major commercial stations -- WDIV, ABC affiliate WXYZ-TV, soon-to-be former Fox outlet WKBD, and WXON -- for an affiliation. None of these stations were interested. This left CBS with only two viable choices for a new Detroit affiliate: WGPR and another independent station, WADL-TV. WADL was thought to be the frontrunner at first, but CBS broke off negotiations after WADL's owner started making unreasonable demands. Out of desperation, CBS cut a deal with WGPR.

CBS was in a similar situation in Atlanta, when another longtime CBS affiliate owned by New World, WAGA-TV, also switched to Fox. While CBS was able to land on a higher-profile station in Atlanta, it was unable to do so in Detroit, and WGPR became Detroit's CBS affiliate on December 11, 1994. WGPR initially continued to air its religious, ethnic, and other paid programming outside of CBS programming.

CBS purchased WGPR on July 24, 1995, after a three-month court battle with Joel Ferguson, who unsuccessfully sued CBS/Westinghouse to gain control of the station. CBS changed the call letters to WWJ-TV after WWJ-AM (950 kHz.), which CBS has owned since 1989. The WWJ-TV calls had originally appeared on what is now WDIV from 1947 to 1978; the two stations are not related. All locally-produced programming was cancelled after CBS finalized its ownership.

WWJ-TV today

CBS initially made a large investment into WWJ-TV. The station moved into a state-of-the-art studio at Stroh River Place in downtown Detroit soon after CBS took control. It also resumed some limited original programming. In 1999, WWJ activated a new tower and transmitter in Oak Park, boosting its power to 5 million watts, the strongest signal in Detroit.

Viacom, which owned UPN affiliate WKBD (and a 50% stake in the network-eventually buying out the half owned by partner Chris-Craft Industries), merged with CBS in September 1999. WWJ-TV and WKBD merged their operations, and WWJ-TV moved into WKBD's studios in Southfield. WKBD is the senior partner in this duopoly since it was longer-established. The CBS affiliate is the senior partner in the other CBS/UPN duopolies. Since the Viacom-CBS merger, no one has actually worked for WWJ-TV; the station has essentially become a "pass through" for automated, computerized programming from CBS.

Newscasts

As WGPR-TV, the station produced a low budget newscast titled Big City News, which served as a launching pad for several news personalities, such as Amyre Makeupson (later the lead anchor and public affairs director at sister station WKBD). That news operation was shut down in the late 1980s.

In the fall of 1996, WWJ-TV presented a sort of local news "pilot" -- a news special on the annual "Devil's Night" fires in Detroit. There has been no further local programming produced by the station since the 1996 show aired.

In April 2001, WWJ launched 62/CBS News at 11, the only regular news program on the station. The stripped-down newscast was produced by WKBD, which had long produced its own newscast at 10 PM. Initial efforts tried to brand WKBD's newscast (known as UPN Nightside) as a younger, hipper program and WWJ's as a more straightforward, traditional major-network-owned newscast. However, WKBD and WWJ relied on the same pool of reporters and anchors, and even broadcast from the same studio. Similarly, resources such as ENG trucks, cameras, writers and editors were used on both broadcasts, although each broadcast generally had its own producer. Not surprisingly, the two newscasts came to mirror each other closely on most nights; a 2002 article from The Detroit News called the similar newscasts "attack of the clones".

Despite the link to WKBD's long-successful news department, WWJ never came even close to competing with WDIV, WJBK, and WXYZ. It was dropped in December 2002 after WKBD agreed to shut down its own news department and allow WXYZ to produce its newscasts. This move made WWJ-TV the only CBS O&O not to have a newscast. (In a sharp irony, co-owned WWJ-AM is the only all-news radio station in the Detroit area.) It is also the largest major-network affiliate (ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC) that has no newscast.

CBS Mandate and station branding

From 1995 to 2001, WWJ was branded as Detroit's 62/CBS. In 2002 it was rebranded as CBS Detroit - partly given the embarrassing nature - especially considering the size of the Detroit market - of being a CBS station on one of the highest channel numbers on the television dial. In similiarities to this irony, sister station KEYE-TV in Austin, Texas calls itself CBS 42 despite being a UHF station, but also uses K-EYE for station branding. As a CBS owned-and-operated station, WWJ-TV would theoretically be branded CBS 62 under the CBS Mandate.

The WWJ-TV [analog] 62/DT [digital] 44 designation was recently added below the current CBS Detroit branded logo.

Trivia

  • WWJ is only one of two CBS O&Os on the UHF dial (Austin's KEYE-TV is the other).
  • Detroit is the second largest market with a UHF station carrying an ABC, CBS or NBC affiliate, with the largest being Atlanta with counterpart CBS station WGCL-TV.
  • It was the only official CBS O&O station on the dial prior to the Viacom acquisition, being acquired by CBS directly.
  • It is also the largest of a group of major-network stations that don't have a newscast. This group also includes ABC affiliate KDNL-TV is St. Louis, Missouri, NBC affiliate WTWC-TV in Tallahassee, Florida and CBS affiliate WEVV in Evansville, Indiana, along with many others.

References

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