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2 ( VHF )
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News2 Louisiana
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13 (21 & 22 HDTV , VHF)
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ABC (secondary 1955-71, sole affiliate since 1977)
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April 14 , 1955
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Baton Rouge, Louisiana
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Louisiana Television Broadcasting, LLC
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'''W'''e're<br>'''B'''aton<br>'''R'''ouge<br>'''Z''' (randomly selected by Doug Manship, Sr, can also mean "2")
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NBC (1955-77)
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100 kW Analog<br>30 kW Digital STA<br>30 kW Digital CP
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www2theadvocatecom
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, channel 2, is an
ABC affiliate serving
Baton Rouge, Louisiana . It is owned by
Louisiana Television Broadcasting , which is run by the Manship family, who also publishes the Baton Rouge daily newspaper, ''
The Advocate .''
The station airs
Syndicated programming, like
The Tyra Banks Show ,
Extra ,
Wheel Of Fortune and
Jeopardy! . It also airs reruns of a former ABC program,
Mork And Mindy .
WBRZ signed on the air on
April 14 ,
1955 as a primary
NBC affiliate, sharing ABC with
WAFB . It dropped ABC in
1971 after WGBT (now
WVLA ) signed on. In
1977 , it swapped affiliations with WGBT and became an ABC affiliate.
About the call letters, at first they wanted to call the station , for '''B'''aton '''R'''ouge and The '''A'''dvocate. However, they looked at the call letters and concluded that the call letters would cause confusion and controversy at the same time, looking at "B-R-A" which spelled "bra". To avoid that setback, the station's founding president, Douglas L. Manship, Sr., decided to take the "B" and the "R" and lose the "A" and chose any random letter in the alphabet. With that in mind, he decided to call the station "WBRZ-TV", '''W''' '''B'''aton '''R'''ouge and the randomly chosen letter '''Z'''. He explained, "It was a good choice. 'Z' is a phonetically good sound on the air. It's distinctive." The "Z" later was expanded to mean "2" (a similar connection is noted with
WGRZ-TV in Buffalo), and the "W" was expanded to mean "We're".
In 1991, Manship's son Richard took over the station as its new president, and would later be named "Broadcaster of the Year" by the Louisiana Association of Broadcasters.
WBRZ began broadcasting in high definition on channel 13 on
April 22 ,
2002 .
During
Hurricane Katrina , the station paired up with
New Orleans ABC affiliate
WGNO (ABC26) to provide coverage of the storm and its aftermath.
- Louisiana Association of Broadcasters "Television Station of the Year" Award
: 1990 , 1991 , 1994 and 1997
- Louisiana Association of Broadcasters - Baton Rouge Branch "Community Station of the Year" Award
: 1996 , 2002 , 2005
- Louisiana Association of Broadcasters "Television Station of the Year" Prestige Award
: 1999
- Louisiana Association of Broadcasters "Promotion of the Year" Award
: 2000 - "Buckle Up for Tony"
- National Edward R. Murrow Award
: 2000
- Louisiana Association of Broadcasters "Community Service" Award
: 2001
- Outstanding Philanthropist Award
: 2001
Other Awards Won:
- Louisiana Association of Broadcasters Lifetime of Distinction Awards ( 2005 )
- Ad Fed's Pete Goldsby Award (2005)
- YWCA 's Women of Achievement Award (2005)
- American Women in Radio and Television's Broadcaster of the Year Award (2005)
- Baton Rouge Business Report's 25 Most Influential Women in Baton Rouge (2005)
- SME's Marketer of the Year Award (2005)
Won by Pat Cheramie, who retired after serving 39 years as General Manager of WBRZ-TV on
January 31 ,
2005 .
- Louisiana Association of Broadcasters Lifetime Achievement Award (2005)
Won by news anchor and reporter Andrea Clesi.
The Center for Media Democracy and Free Press, a nonpartisan media policy group, cite Baton Rouge's WBRZ as a culprit in a 10-month investigation of a national "fake news" epidemic. Specifically, the sting focused on corporate-sponsored videos passed off as news. Investigators found 77 TV stations, including WBRZ, actively disguising sponsored content from General Motors, Intel, Pfizer, Capital One and others to make it look like their own reporting. More than a third of the time, stations aired fake news in its entirety as their own, the report said.
Channel 2 was among six stations airing an optimistic news feature on ethanol plants earlier this year. The video was funded by Siemens AG, a global engineering firm doing business with two-thirds of U.S. ethanol plants. According to the report, the Baton Rouge station "blended the story into their newscast, replacing all visuals with network-branded graphics and introducing (the reporter/publicist) as if she were on their news team."
Chuck Bark, Channel 2 news manager, counters the report. He says the Siemens story was legitimate, provided information relevant to viewers and did not promote products. He says a story should be judged on its merit, and not be excluded just because it was generated by a corporation.
But the media watchdogs disagree with the use of corporate information as news. "It's shocking to see how product placement moves secretly unfiltered from the boardroom to the newsroom and then straight into our living rooms," says Dianne Farsetta, co-author of the report. "Local TV broadcasts, the most popular news source in the United States, frequently air (video news releases) without fact-checking, conducting their own reporting or disclosing that the footage has been provided and sponsored by big corporations." (Jeremy Alford)
- [http://www.2theadvocate.com WBRZ Homepage]
