is the name of a
U.S. Television station broadcasting from
Chicago, Illinois on channel nine. It is currently the Chicago affiliate of the
WB television network.
WGN Television, like its sister
Radio station
WGN (720 kHz), is owned by
Tribune Company , owners of the ''
Chicago Tribune '' newspaper, whose slogan "World's Greatest Newspaper" was the basis for the
Call Letters used by both stations. WGN is notable both as an early example of
Media Conglomeration and as a pioneer in
Cable Television , where it was one of the first
Superstation s.
On
January 24 ,
2006 , the WB and
UPN networks announced that they would merge. The newly combined network would be called , the letters representing the first initial of its corporate parents
CBS (the parent company of UPN) and the
Warner Bros. unit of
Time Warner . The merger will take effect on-the-air in September 2006, and WGN-TV was announced as the Chicago affiliate.
WGN Television began test broadcasts in
February 1948 and began regular programing on
April 5 with the 2-hour special "WGN-TV Salute to Chicago" at 7:45 p.m.
Early on, WGN-TV was affiliated with the CBS (shared with WBKB, channel four) and
DuMont networks. As a sidebar to the February
1953 merger of
ABC and United Paramount Theatres, WGN lost its CBS affiliation. CBS had purchased the license to operate channel four in Chicago (now
WBBM-TV , which later moved to channel two), and moved all of its programming there, leaving channel nine with DuMont. When DuMont ceased operations in
1956 , WGN-TV became an
Independent Station . For much of its existence, WGN produced much of its own programming at its local studios. Notable WGN-produced programs include several incarnations of ''
Bozo's Circus '', ''
Ray Rayner and His Friends'', and ''
Garfield Goose And Friends .'' The station has also had a long association with the
Chicago Cubs Baseball team (currently also owned by Tribune Company), and has often broadcast games of other Chicago sports teams.
The station began broadcasting via
Satellite in
1978 . This signal was picked up by many fledgling pay-cable television systems as well as directly by
Satellite Dish owners. This continent-wide exposure elevated WGN to
Superstation status. Along with WOR-TV (now
WWOR-TV ) in New York and
WTBS in Atlanta, WGN was among the first local stations to become a superstation.
Until
1979 , WGN-TV was consistently the top rated independent station in
Chicago . At that time, the station offered
Old Movies ,
Sport s, off-network
Sitcoms ,
Cartoon s and
Drama s. For a while,
Phil Donahue 's syndicated talk program originated from WGN-TV.
- A---S---H_(TV_series)" class="copylinks">M---A---S---H '', '' Happy Days '', and '' All In The Family ''. As a result, WFLD (channel 32) finished ahead of WGN-TV in the ratings by the end of 1979 . WGN-TV continued with its format, acquiring top-rate programming and competing with WFLD even after additional independent stations signed on.
In
1990 , due to
SyndEx rules, Superstation WGN's national feed began running alternate programming about half the time. It was a similar situation at WWOR-TV and the national "WWOR-EMI Service".
''
In
1994 , the afternoon and morning cartoons were dropped, and ''Bozo'' was moved to Sunday mornings until
2001 , when the program was discontinued by WGN management. A weekday morning
Newscast was added in place of children's programming.
In
1995 , WGN-TV aired primetime WB network programming locally but ''
Kids' WB '' aired on
WCIU-TV (channel 26), which had dropped its Spanish-language
Univision affiliation for an English-language, general entertainment schedule. Nationally, Superstation WGN aired primetime WB network programming along with ''Kids' WB'' programming.
In
1999 , the Superstation WGN national feed stopped carrying WB network and ''Kids' WB'' programming. Locally, WB network programming remained on WGN-TV and ''Kids' WB'' remained on WCIU. In
2004 , WCIU dropped ''Kids' WB'' programming, so it was moved to the local WGN-TV.
Today, Superstation WGN offers its national programming across
North America without network programming. The station is available via satellite to
DirecTV and
Dish Network in the
United States ,
StarChoice in
Canada and
Cable Television subscribers in both countries.
Bell ExpressVu in
Canada carries the local Chicago feed. In the Chicagoland area, the Superstation is not available on cable or terrestrial digital, but is available to Chicagoland
DirecTV and
Dish Network viewers.
Whether or not the new CW network will be carried on the Superstation feed has not been officially announced, but this is doubtful since local affiliates in almost each market have been established after the discontinuation of the Superstation WB feed, and the addition of full-powered UPN stations in markets with either a low-power or cable WB affiliates.
WGN-TV locally carries WB network primetime programming, cartoons from ''Kids' WB'' recent off-network
Sitcoms , first-run
Talk Show s,
Game Show s, local
Newscasts , etc. Superstation WGN's national feed carries less local newscasts (it is claimed that the ''WGN Morning News'' was dropped from the superstation due to SyndEx rules on some segments) but still airs the Noon and 9 PM (Central Time) news, sitcoms,
Dramas and
Movies . The late local newscast is occasionally pre-empted due to special programming not allowed to air outside of the Chicago area, primetime sports cleared on the local channel but not the Superstation feed (crime drama reruns usually fill the news slot in this case), or if a movie on the Superstation runs long.
Both the local and national feeds feature select
Chicago Cubs and
Chicago White Sox MLB games and air a select amount of
Chicago Bulls NBA games, with the remainder of the 41 games on for Chicago audiences. On WGN-TV HD channel 9-1, Chicago White Sox, Chicago Cubs, and Chicago Bulls home games are broadcast in 1080i HD with Dolby Digital 5.1 audio
On
November 22 ,
1987 , during the ''9 O'Clock News'' sportscast, WGN-TV's analog broadcast signal was hijacked by an unknown person wearing a
Max Headroom mask for approximately 25 seconds. This was only the first incident of that night involving the interruption of a television station's broadcast signal. Approximately two hours later, Chicago
PBS station
WTTW (channel 11) had its broadcast interrupted by the same person. WGN-TV's analog transmitter is atop the
John Hancock Center and engineers were almost immediately able to thwart the video hacker by changing the studio-to-transmitter frequency, thus cutting the hacker off. Unfortunately for WTTW, its transmitter is atop
Sears Tower and it was unable to stop the hacker before enduring almost two minutes of the hacker's interruption.
