, channel two, is the flagship television station of the
CBS Television Network , located in
New York City . Its signal, currently broadcasting from the
Empire State Building , covers the three-state New York
Metropolitan Area . The station's studios are located within the
CBS Broadcast Center in midtown
Manhattan .
In the few areas of the eastern United States where viewers cannot 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 .
WCBS-TV was founded on
July 1 ,
1941 as , the second commercially-licensed television station in the United States. The call letters were changed to '''WCBS-TV''' in
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 two 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 . The station was also
Simulcasted 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.
While CBS was well-known for its precise branding standards in its glory days, WCBS-TV itself did not have a standard logo until
1986 . The station simply put the CBS Eye in front of a "2" in whatever font was available.
After the station began calling itself "CBS 2" on-air, the "2" became slightly slanted, with the Eye usually in yellow or gold. The "CBS" font changed from an italicized
Helvetica Condensed to a more standard
Bodoni in
2000 .
