('''''"Washington's ABC7"''''') is the local
ABC television affiliate in
Washington, DC , and is located on channel 7 (digital channel 39). Its transmitter is located in the
Tenleytown section of Washington.
The station is the flagship of the
Allbritton Communications Company , which also owns local cable station
News Channel 8 . The two stations share broadcast facilities in
Arlington, Virginia . Currently, it has the largest news team in the Washington area.
On
October 3 ,
1947 , channel 7 began broadcasting as WTVW, owned by the
Washington Star along with
WMAL radio. It was the first high-band VHF station (channels 7-13) in the United States. A few months later, the station renamed itself WMAL-TV.
In
1976 ,
Joseph L. Allbritton purchased the ''Star,'' along with WMAL-AM-FM-TV. He sold the Star to
Time, Inc. in
1978 , and kept the WMAL stations. He later sold the radio stations to ABC and renamed the television station WJLA, after his initials.
Rumors abounded in recent years that ABC may buy WJLA, thus reuniting it with its former radio sisters, WMAL-AM 630 and
WRQX -FM 107.3 (the former WMAL-FM). Had this happened, it was very likely that channel 7 would have become WMAL-TV once again. However, ABC recently announced it was selling most of its radio properties, including WMAL and WRQX, to
Citadel Communications , which means that WJLA would keep its call letters even if it is sold to ABC.
Since 1970, WMAL/WJLA has used a variation of the
Circle 7 Logo , which has long been associated with ABC affiliates. From 1970 to
2001 , WMAL/WJLA used its own version of the circle 7 logo, with the "7" modified to accomodate the circle. This version was probably the longest continuously used numeric logo in Washington's television history. The only real modification came in
1998 , after it began calling itself "ABC7" on-air and added the ABC logo to the left. In 2001, WJLA adopted the standard version of the circle 7 logo. Ironically, WJLA is the largest ABC affiliate to use the Circle 7 that is not an ABC
O&O . The only Circle 7 stations preceding WJLA in market rank are
WABC-TV in
New York City ,
KABC-TV in
Los Angeles ,
WLS-TV in
Chicago and
KGO-TV in
San Francisco .
Image:http://www.dcrtv.com/photo/90jla.jpg]]
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