WWL TV: История новоорлеанского телеканала CBS

CBS affiliate in New Orleans

WWL TV (channel 4) is a television station in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States, affiliated with CBS. It is owned by Tegna Inc. alongside Slidell licensed MyNetworkTV affiliate WUPL (channel 54). The two stations share studios on Rampart Street in the historic French Quarter district; WWL TV's transmitter is located on Cooper Road in Terrytown, Louisiana. WWL TV formerly served as the CBS affiliate of record for the Gulf Coast region of Mississippi, until ABC affiliate WLOX (channel 13) in Biloxi launched a CBS affiliated digital subchannel in 2012.

The station first signed on the air on September 7, 1957. Coincidentally, it was the fourth television station (and the third commercial station) to sign on in the New Orleans media market, behind WDSU TV (channel 6), WJMR TV (channel 61, now WVUE DT on channel 8) and non commercial WYES TV (channel 8, now on channel 12)—all signing on in under a timeframe of nine years. It was originally owned by Loyola University of the South (now Loyola University New Orleans; it was one of a very few handful of commercial TV stations owned by a university), which also owned radio station WWL (870 AM). WWL TV has been an affiliate of the CBS television network since its inception, as WWL radio had been (and still is) an affiliate of the CBS Radio Network (now CBS News Radio) since 1935. Channel 4 competed head to head with NBC affiliate WDSU for first place during the 1960s and 1970s. However, after Edgar B. Stern Jr. sold WDSU to South Carolina based Cosmos Broadcasting in 1972, it began deemphasizing local features in favor of its highly regarded newscasts. By comparison, WWL TV, as the only locally owned station, heavily stressed its local roots. By the early 1980s, WWL TV had emerged as the market's ratings leader. In 1988, WWL TV and Cox Cable, the major cable provider serving areas of Greater New Orleans located south of Lake Pontchartrain, entered into a joint venture to form a cable only news channel called NewsWatch 15 (named after the cable slot on Cox where the channel is carried). It debuted on October 20, 1989. NewsWatch 15 was one of the first regional cable news channels in the United States at the time. The channel airs rebroadcasts and live simulcasts of local newscasts seen on WWL TV, along with breaking news coverage that does not necessarily warrant extended coverage on channel 4. In 1989, Loyola sold its media properties to different owners. WWL radio and its FM sister station, WLMG (101.5) were purchased by Keymarket Communications, while WWL TV's employees formed a group called Rampart Broadcasting (named after the road, Rampart Street, where the station's studio facility is located). Led by general manager J. Michael Early and longtime news director and station editorialist Phil Johnson, the employees group bought the station, with the deal closing on August 27, 1990. It was the first (and thus far, only) time that an employee investor group acquired a U. S. television station. (CHEK TV in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, was similarly acquired by an employee led group in 2009, which narrowly prevented the station's shutdown.) In 1990, WWL TV began running one of the most successful station image campaigns in the United States with the debut of its "Spirit of Louisiana" promotions. The one minute spots focus on the region's musical and cultural heritage, and also showcase life in southeastern Louisiana. Many of the ads in the campaign, which continues to this day, feature well known area musicians and singers.

The station's local ownership came to an end in 1994, when the station was bought by the Dallas based Belo Corporation. That year, channel 4's status as the unofficial "home" station of the New Orleans Saints came to an end after CBS lost the broadcast rights to the National Football Conference television package to Fox in December 1993. WWL TV had aired most of the Saints' games since the team's inception in 1966, when CBS was the broadcast rightsholder for the pre merger NFL, and continued upon the merger of the American Football League and the National Football League in 1970 with CBS becoming the NFC rightsholder. After CBS lost the NFC broadcast rights, the Saints telecasts moved to then Fox affiliate WNOL TV (channel 38) for the 1994 and 1995 seasons, before moving again to WVUE TV (channel 8) upon that station's switch from ABC to Fox in January 1996. Today, WWL TV only carries select games televised by CBS, primarily those in which the Saints play host to an AFC opponent at the Caesars Superdome although NFL cross flexing procedures established in 2014 now allow for road games or NFC home games to be carried by CBS. The station also aired the Saints' victory in Super Bowl XLIV. WWL also provided local coverage of five New Orleans hosted Super Bowls, including IV and VI which were played at local Tulane Stadium, as well as Super Bowls XII, XXIV, and XLVII which were played at the Superdome. In 2005, Viacom—which owned UPN station WUPL TV (channel 54, now a MyNetworkTV affiliate) at the time through its Paramount Stations Group subsidiary—had made an offer to acquire WWL TV, which would have created a duopoly with WUPL and turned channel 4 into a CBS owned and operated station (Viacom owned CBS from its 1999 merger with the network, which ironically traces the former company's history back to its existence as a syndicator of CBS programming, until December 2005, when shared parent National Amusements decided to split Viacom and CBS into two separate companies; they would remerge in 2019). However, after Belo rejected Viacom's purchase offer for WWL, Viacom instead reached a deal to sell WUPL to Belo in July of that year for $14.5 million. The deal was slated to close by the end of 2005, but was placed on hold when Hurricane Katrina devastated the Greater New Orleans area in late August. As a result, on February 9, 2006, CBS filed a breach of contract lawsuit against the Belo Corporation over the failure to finalize the sale of WUPL to Belo. The litigation was later settled on February 26, 2007, with Belo announcing that it would complete its purchase of WUPL. The deal had already received Federal Communications Commission approval, and was finalized on February 26, 2007; Belo moved WUPL's operations into WWL's Rampart Street studio facility in mid April 2007.

Two days prior to Hurricane Katrina's landfall, WWL TV began 24 hour continuous coverage of the storm on August 27, 2005, from its Rampart Street facility. Following a meeting between chief meteorologist Carl Arredondo and then news director Sandy Breland on enacting a plan to evacuate station staff, at 10:45 p. m. on August 28, as well as a duPont–Columbia Award in 2007; it was also recounted in an episode of The Weather Channel documentary series Storm Stories.

After Hurricane Katrina, some of the station's most visible talent—including weekend anchor/reporter Josh McElveen and reporter Stephanie Riegel—left channel 4 to pursue other opportunities. 10 p. m. anchor Karen Swensen also left WWL to work at Boston based regional news channel New England Cable News; meteorologists David Bernard and John Gumm also left the station (Bernard was already scheduled to leave the station before the storm struck). Following the storm, WWL TV brought back a station editorial segment. Modeled after the editorials presented for many years until the 1990s by longtime news director and station manager Phil Johnson, editorials seen in the present day (which air during the station's 6 p. m. newscast on Tuesday nights) are read via script by WWL TV political analyst Clancy Dubos, who discusses current political issues related to the post Katrina redevelopment of New Orleans. In 2004, WWL TV and Belo announced plans to construct a new multimillion dollar broadcasting facility for the station and WUPL at 700 Loyola Avenue in downtown New Orleans. The complex—to have been named the J. Michael Early Broadcast Center, after the station's former general manager—was originally scheduled to be completed in late 2007 or early 2008. Groundbreaking of the new facility occurred on July 25, 2005 (just over one month before Katrina hit on August 29); however, its construction has been delayed (as of recently, the site is still a parking lot). As a result, WWL TV and WUPL will remain at the existing Rampart Street studio location for the foreseeable future. WWL TV celebrated its 50th anniversary of broadcasting on September 7, 2007; it observed its 55th anniversary half a decade later, in 2012; its 60th in 2017, and its 65th in 2022.

The same agreement for the use of Louisiana Public Broadcasting's studio facilities and the simulcast on LPB's stations statewide that was enacted following Hurricane Katrina was also utilized for coverage of Hurricane Gustav, when the storm hit southern Louisiana in early September 2008. WWL TV's coverage also carried on the second digital subchannels of fellow Belo sister stations WFAA TV in Dallas and KHOU TV in Houston for the convenience of evacuees who relocated to Texas to avoid the storm.

On June 13, 2013, the Gannett Company announced that it would acquire Belo's television properties, including WWL TV and WUPL, for $1.5 billion. The sale received FCC approval on December 20, and was formally completed on December 23, 2013. On June 29, 2015, Gannett split in two with one side specializing in print media and the other side specializing in broadcast and digital media. WWL TV and WUPL were both retained by the latter company, named Tegna.

WWL TV carries the majority of the CBS network schedule, although the station splits the CBS Dream Team block over two days (the first two hours of the block air on Saturday mornings, while the final hour airs on Sundays). WWL TV preempted moderate amounts of CBS programming from the 1960s to the 1980s—including most notably, programs that the network aired weekdays during the 9 a. m. hour, as well as CBS' late night lineup, prior to the debut of Late Show with David Letterman in 1993. During the 1970s, WWL TV preempted the last hour of the network's Saturday children's programming, between noon and 1 p. m., with local programming. Prior to 2015, WWL TV would air The Late Late Show on a half hour delay at 12:07 a. m., with syndicated programming (including The Insider) filling the program's 11:37 p. m. network timeslot on weeknights. Since then, WWL TV airs what is currently After Midnight in its current 11:37 p. m. slot after The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. On September 1, 1986, WWL TV dropped the CBS Morning News and began airing a two hour morning newscast from 6 to 8 a. m., along with then CBS affiliate WAGA in Atlanta. It was the first New Orleans station whose morning newscast ran past 7 a. m., predating the launch of WVUE's morning newscast by about 15 years. WWL TV's morning news was followed by Live with Regis and Kathie Lee. The station eventually expanded its weekday morning newscast, Eyewitness Morning News, into the 8 a. m. hour. CBS reached agreements with other area stations to carry its morning shows: Cox Cable carried the program in the late 1980s using a microwave relay from WAFB, followed by short lived then independent station WCCL. LeSEA owned and operated station WHNO (channel 20) picked up This Morning in 1998; its successor, The Early Show, moved from WHNO to WUPL in January 2005. Despite preempting the weekday edition, WWL TV did air the Saturday edition. On December 5, 2016, WWL TV began carrying CBS This Morning (now CBS Mornings) weekdays for the entire two hours (likely due to a corporate mandate from Tegna in order to satisfy their CBS affiliation agreements), while WUPL now carries the 7–9 a. m. block of Eyewitness Morning News.

WWL TV presently broadcasts 27 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with 4 1/2 hours each weekday, 2 1/2 hours on Saturdays and two hours on Sundays). In addition, the station produces the half hour sports highlight and discussion program 4th Down on 4, which airs Sunday nights at 10:35 p. m. The station also operates a Northshore bureau located on North Causeway Boulevard in suburban Mandeville. The station implemented the Eyewitness News format on February 26, 1968, having rebranded its newscasts from the Evening News title it had been using for the previous two years. WWL TV has been the top rated station among the New Orleans market's local newscasts for nearly 30 years, according to Nielsen Media Research. During the November 2007 sweeps period, the first major ratings period in New Orleans reported to Nielsen since Hurricane Katrina, the results affirmed that WWL TV continued to lead its nearest competitors, WDSU and WVUE, by a wide margin. In March 2006, WWL TV began producing a half hour newscast called I News, featuring more in depth reporting on topics important to viewers. The program also featured live interviews with local, state and national officials. The newscast aired weekday evenings on the station's website, WWLTV. com, after its 6 p. m. newscast and was rebroadcast on channel 4. (The webcast has since been canceled.) On June 4, 2007, WWL TV began producing a half hour prime time newscast each Monday through Friday evening at 9 p. m. for MyNetworkTV affiliated sister station WUPL. Titled My54 Eyewitness News at 9, it was anchored by Lucy Bustamante and Mike Hoss—who also anchored the station's 10 p. m. newscast, Eyewitness News Nightwatch—until Bustamante departed WWL TV for sister station WVEC in Norfolk on October 1, 2010. Bustamante was replaced by Karen Swensen—whom Bustamante replaced as evening co anchor—as anchor of the 9 p. m. newscast on WUPL and the 10 p. m. newscast on channel 4 on February 24, 2011; in the interim, Hoss anchored the newscast on WUPL with a rotating series of co anchors. The 9 p. m. newscast on WUPL was discontinued on April 26, 2013, as a result of consistently low ratings. Since the anchor changes, WWL TV has lost its significant ratings lead over WDSU, WVUE and WGNO, according to Nielsen Media reports, but its newscasts remain the highest rated among the New Orleans market's news producing stations. WWL TV had once doubled the ratings of each of its competitors in every time period, but its lead gradually declined, reaching as close a margin as one household rating point ahead of second place WDSU (in the 6 p. m. timeslot) during the July 2011 sweeps period. At 5 p. m., WWL TV led WDSU by only two ratings points, while claiming ratings wins in key demographics at both 5 and 6 p. m.—marking the first time in about 25 years that a station other than WWL TV had placed first in the 25 54 demographic. At 10 p. m., WWL TV led WVUE by 1.9 ratings points. Newscasts in less competitive time periods of 4:30 a. m. and 4 p. m. also scored wins in key demographic categories, as well as in household ratings. In April 2010, WWL TV became the second station in the market to install an HD based weather system. Former WDSU morning anchor Melanie Hebert joined channel 4 in January 2012, however she did not appear on air until that July due to a non compete clause in her previous WDSU contract. (Hebert left WWL TV in July 2013, after a year at the station.) In September 2010, WWL TV began broadcasting its local newscasts in 16:9 widescreen standard definition; the WUPL newscast was included in the upgrade. Then WWL TV switched to full HD on October 1, 2014. Presently, WGNO and WDSU continue to broadcast their local newscasts in widescreen SD rather than in true high definition; (the first news producing station in the market to have upgraded their news production to HD was WVUE, which had broadcast its local news programming in the format since April 2007). On October 25, 2012, WWL TV introduced a new state of the art news set designed by FX Group that includes the station's first full size weather center to be integrated with the main set (it replaced a set that debuted in 1997, which had been refreshed a few times during its lifespan). On August 9, 2014, WWL TV debuted hour long weekend editions of its Eyewitness Morning News broadcasts on Saturdays at 8 a. m. and Sundays at 6 a. m. On September 9, the station restored an evening newscast on WUPL's schedule with the debut of a half hour 6:30 p. m. newscast on weeknights.

WWL TV shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 4, on June 12, 2009, the official date on which full power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal continued to broadcast on its pre transition UHF channel 36, using virtual channel 4. As part of the SAFER Act, WWL TV kept its analog signal on the air until July 12 to inform viewers of the digital television transition through a loop of public service announcements from the National Association of Broadcasters.