, channel 9, is a
Television Station in
Chicago, Illinois . It has been owned by the
Tribune Company since its inception, and is currently the Chicago affiliate of the
The CW Television Network . WGN-TV's studios and offices are located in the
North Center neighborhood of Chicago, and the station transmits its analog signal from the
John Hancock Center and digital signal from
Sears Tower .
WGN Television is one of several flagship properties owned by the Tribune Company, which also operates radio station
WGN (720 kHz.) and publishes the ''
Chicago Tribune '', whose slogan ("orld's '''G'''reatest '''N'''ewspaper") was the basis for the
Call Letters used by both stations. Locally in Chicago, Tribune also operates cable news channel
Chicagoland Television (CLTV) , which shares resources from both WGN-TV and the ''Tribune''.
WGN-TV is also a pioneering
Superstation , and continues to program an alternate feed for cable and satellite subscribers in the United States, known as
Superstation WGN . WGN-TV also carries the
Digital Television music channel,
The Tube , on its second digital subchannel (9.2).
WGN Television began test broadcasts in February 1948 and began regular programming on
April 5 with a two-hour special, "WGN-TV Salute to Chicago", at 7:45 p.m.
Early on, WGN-TV was an affiliate of the
DuMont Television Network , and also cleared any
CBS programs turned down by WBKB, channel 4. As a sidebar to the
February 1953 merger of
ABC and
United Paramount Theatres , channel 9 lost its CBS affiliation. CBS had purchased the license to operate channel 4 in Chicago (now
WBBM-TV , which later moved to channel 2), and moved all of its programming there, leaving channel 9 with DuMont. When DuMont ceased operations in
1956 , WGN-TV became an
Independent Station .
After becoming a full-time independent, WGN-TV spent much of the next two decades as the top-rated independent station in Chicago, offering a variety of general-entertainment programs including movies, sports, off-network reruns, and children's shows. For much of its existence, channel 9 produced much of its own programming at its local studios. Notable WGN-TV productions included several incarnations of the immensely popular ''
Bozo's Circus '', ''
Ray Rayner and His Friends'', and ''
Garfield Goose And Friends .'' WGN-TV also telecasted performances of the
Chicago Symphony Orchestra , beginning in 1953, when
Fritz Reiner was the orchestra's music director. From 1974 until 1982,
Phil Donahue 's syndicated talk program originated from WGN-TV.
The station has also had a long association with the
Chicago Cubs baseball team, which has been aired on WGN-TV since the station's inception. (The Tribune Company purchased the
National League franchise in 1981.) During its history, WGN-TV has also been the over-the-air home of Chicago's
American League franchise, the
White Sox , the
NBA 's
Chicago Bulls , and the
NHL 's
Chicago Blackhawks , and has often broadcast football and basketball games of local college teams, such as
Northwestern University ,
DePaul University ,
Loyola University , and other teams of the
Big Ten Conference .
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-TV to
Superstation status. Along with WOR-TV (now
WWOR-TV ) in
New York City and
WTBS in
Atlanta , WGN-TV was among the first local stations to become a superstation.
- 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, WGN-TV launched a separate national feed with alternate programming about half the time. It was a similar situation at WWOR-TV and the national "WWOR-EMI Service".
In
1994 , weekday morning children's programming was replaced by ''
WGN Morning News .'' This was eventually dropped by the national feed, supposedly because certain segments of the newscast are not allowed to air outside the Chicago area. The national feed still airs the station's other newscasts, however. Also in 1994, the ''The Bozo Show'' was moved from weekday mornings to Sunday mornings until 2001, when the program was controversially discontinued by station management.
In
1995 , WGN-TV became a network affiliate once again, this time with the newly-launched
WB Television Network , which was operated by the
Warner Bros. Television division of
Time Warner , and of which the Tribune Company held a minority ownership. Channel 9 aired primetime WB network programming in the Chicago area but chose not to air ''
Kids' WB '', the network's block of children's programs. Those shows aired instead on
WCIU-TV (channel 26), which in the Fall of 1995 had dropped its Spanish-language
Univision affiliation for an English-language, general entertainment schedule. Initially, Superstation WGN aired WB primetime and children's programming nationally. This was done to make WB programming available in areas not yet served by a WB affiliate. In
1999 , at the network's request, Superstation WGN stopped carrying primetime WB and ''Kids' WB'' network programming.
In
2007 ., and also due to rights restrictions put in place by the National Basketball Association which limit Superstation WGN's national feed to air only fifteen Bulls games per season ''Chicago Professional Sports L.P. & WGN Continental Broadcasting Co. vs. National Basketball Association.'' 961 Fed. 2d 667 (7th Cir.
1992). The remaining games produced by WGN-TV are only carried on channel 9 in Chicago and WCIU-TV.
In 2004, WCIU-TV dropped ''Kids' WB'' programming and it was moved to WGN-TV's local signal.
In
January 2006 , The WB and
UPN announced that they would merge to form a new network,
The CW . On the same day the new network was announced, it also signed a 10-year affiliation agreement with most of Tribune's WB stations, including WGN-TV. The new network launched on
September 18 , 2006. The Superstation WGN feed does not carry any CW programming.
The Chicago area feed of WGN-TV is also available in
Canada to subscribers of the
Bell ExpressVu and
Star Choice satellite services, as well as most Canadian cable services. ExpressVu has always carried the Chicago area feed but Star Choice and cable services used to carry Superstation WGN. This situation changed on
January 17 ,
2007 when
Shaw Broadcast Services , the primary supplier of Superstation WGN in Canada, switched to the local Chicago area feed.
In since the rules went into effect in
1970 . However, Tribune's print and broadcast properties in the New York and Los Angeles markets (among others) were not. This dilemma may still face
Sam Zell , the Chicago investor who agreed to purchase the Tribune Company in
April 2007 and will take the company private.
See Also: Max Headroom pirating incident
On
November 22 ,
1987 , during ''The 9 O'Clock News'' sportscast, WGN-TV's analog broadcast signal was hijacked for approximately 25 seconds by an unknown person wearing a
Max Headroom mask. 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. These two stations are two of only three existing victims of what is called "
Broadcast Signal Intrusion ". Subscription television network
HBO is the other victim -- having its signal intercepted during a movie broadcast in
April 1986 .
The station's digital channel is multiplexed:
- Jackie Bange - 9 p.m. Weekend Anchor
- Robin Baumgarten - Morning Anchor
- Robert Jordan - 9 p.m. Weekend Anchor
- Micah Materre - Noon Anchor
- Tom Negovan - Noon Anchor
- Allison Payne - 9 p.m. Anchor
- Larry Potash - Morning Anchor
- Steve Sanders - 9 p.m. Anchor
- Antwan Lewis
- Dina Bair - medical
- Ana Belaval
- Jane Boal
- Muriel Clair
- Julian Crews
- Juan Carlos Fanjul
- Judie Garcia
- Holly Gregory
- Marcella Raymond
- Dean Richards - entertainment & in-house announcer
- Amy Rutledge (also anchors on CLTV)
- Julie Unruh
- Valerie Warner - traffic (also anchors weekdays 5-5:30 a.m.)
- Paul Konrad - Mornings
- Tom Skilling - Chief Meteorologist (12 p.m and 9 p.m.)
- Tim McGill - Fill in (also seen on CLTV)
- Jim Ramsey - Weekends (also seen on CLTV)
- Keenan Smith - Staff Meteorologist (also seen on CLTV)
- Rich King - WGN News at Nine (weekends)
- Dan Roan - Sports Director WGN News at Nine (weeknights)
- Pat Tomasulo - WGN Morning News
(D) - deceased
- In the 2005 film '' The Weather Man '', Nicolas Cage plays an egocentric TV Meteorologist who works for the fictional WCH-TV. It was actually filmed at the WGN-TV studios. At the time of the movie release, the station ran reports on its newscasts with Dean Richards showing some video of production and about Tom Skilling 's involvement with the movie production.
