As a result of Fox's investment, New World agreed to switch the network affiliations of most of the company's stations, including WJBK, to Fox. Fox outbid CBS for the NFL broadcast rights on the condition that it would improve the network's affiliate coverage in the larger television markets. Fox made the investment to comply with their winning bid for the broadcast rights to the NFL's National Football Conference. In May 1994, News Corporation, then-parent of the Fox network, purchased a 20% ownership stake (amounting to a $500 million investment) in WJBK's owner New World Communications.
But in 1993, SCI was acquired by the film and television production company New World Communications.įurther information: 1994–1996 United States broadcast television realignment Scripps considered trading WXYZ back to ABC in order to bid for the Gillett stations as a group. The following year, in 1993, a few other station owners-Federal Broadcasting, owners of WWJ (AM)/ FM Group W and CBS-showed interest in the station. When Gillett went bankrupt in 1992, it reorganized the ownership of its television stations into SCI Television. KKR then sold all of the Storer broadcast assets, including WJBK, to Gillett Communications in 1987, after an attempt to sell the stations to Lorimar-Telepictures in 1986 failed. and Scripps-Howard Broadcasting Co., though Scripps-Howard would successfully acquire cross-town rival ABC owned and operated station WXYZ-TV in 1986 after the ABC-Capital Cities Communications merger was approved by federal regulators. Storer spurned offers from Knight-Ridder Newspapers, Tele-Communications, Inc. In 1985, the equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR) acquired Storer Communications, Incorporated in a leveraged buyout. The station went through a number of ownership and management changes with its parent companies in the 1980s and 1990s. The WJBK circle 2 logo, used from 1978 to 1983.
Like most studio facilities built by Storer during that time, it resembles a Southern antebellum mansion. In 1970, the station moved to its current broadcast facilities on West Nine Mile Road in Southfield. WJBK first broadcast in color around 1956. WJBK-TV would eventually become an exclusive CBS affiliate by 1955, when Windsor, Ontario-based CKLW-TV (channel 9, now CBC O&O CBET-DT) became a DuMont affiliate. The station originally operated from Detroit's Masonic Temple until 1956, when its operations were moved to a purpose-built studio facility on Second Avenue in Detroit's New Center section. Fort Industry, which would later be renamed Storer Broadcasting, also owned WJBK radio (1500 AM, now WLQV, and 93.1 FM, now WDRQ). Storer and then based in nearby Toledo, Ohio. It was originally owned by Fort Industry Broadcasting, owned by George B.
The station was originally an affiliate of both CBS and the DuMont Television Network. For this reason, WJBK was assigned the final VHF channel in Detroit.Īt sign on, the first program broadcast by WJBK was a presentation of Lucky Pup at 6:15 p.m. Despite Detroit being a major television market, it only accommodated three VHF allocations due to being shortspaced between Flint ( channel 12) and Saginaw ( channel 5) to the north Lansing (channels 6 and 10) to the west Toledo (channels 11 and 13) to the south and Cleveland (channels 3, 5 and 8) Windsor, Ontario ( channel 9) and London, Ontario ( channel 10) to the east. It was the third television station to sign-on in Detroit and Michigan, after WWJ-TV (channel 4, now WDIV-TV) and WXYZ-TV (channel 7)-all of which have signed on in a 14-month timeframe. WJBK-TV first signed on the air on October 24, 1948.
0 kommentar(er)
