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Group W, also known as the Westinghouse Broadcasting Company, was a division of Westinghouse Electric Corporation. The company adopted the Group W moniker in 1963, and it handled Westinghouse's television and radio operations, owning several stations across the United States and distributing television shows for syndication. Westinghouse Broadcasting was headquartered along with its parent company in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, though it maintained offices in New York City and Los Angeles as well.

The stations are best known for the distinctive font (closely, but not accurately mimicked in Ray Larabie's freeware font "Anklepants") they adopted in the late 1960s. Group W fonts had been used on some non-Group W stations as well.

History

The Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Corporation entered into broadcasting with the November 2, 1920 sign-on of KDKA radio in Pittsburgh. KDKA, which bills itself as the world's first commercially-licensed radio station, was an outgrowth of experimental station 8XK, a 75-watt station that was located in the Pittsburgh suburb of Wilkinsburg, and founded in 1916 by Westinghouse employee Frank Conrad.

Westinghouse launched three more radio stations in 1921: WJZ, originally licensed to Newark, New Jersey, in September; WBZ, first located in Springfield, Massachusetts, in October; and KYW, originally based in Chicago, in November. WBZA in Boston, a station which shared WBZ's frequency and simulcasted WBZ's programming, signed-on in November 1924.

Westinghouse was one of the founding owners of the Radio Corporation of America in 1919, and in 1926 RCA established the National Broadcasting Company, a group of 24 radio stations that made up the first radio network in the United States. Through its association with RCA, all of Westinghouse's stations became affiliates of NBC's Blue Network when it was launched on January 1, 1927. Most of the Blue Network's programming originated at WJZ, which in 1923 had its licensed moved to New York City, and its ownership transferred to RCA.

In 1931, Westinghouse switched the call letters of its two Massachusetts stations, with WBZA moving to Springfield and WBZ going to Boston. The two stations had suffered from interference problems, though the Boston facility was the more powerful of the two. In 1934, KYW was moved from Chicago to Philadelphia following a Federal Communications Commission-dictated frequency realignment. Westinghouse's next station was its first purchase: WOWO in Fort Wayne, Indiana joined the group in August 1936. The Westinghouse group survived the split of NBC's radio division in 1940, leaving NBC with only the Red Network. WBZ/WBZA, KDKA, and KYW became affiliates of NBC-Red after the split, while WOWO, which had a secondary affiliation with NBC-Blue, fell back on its primary relationship with CBS. The 1941 North American Radio Broadcasting Agreement saw all of Westinghouse's stations move to their current dial positions, and all but one were granted clear channel allocations, WBZA being the only exception. Despite the assignments which resulted from NARBA, WBZA became a daytime-only operation as it continued to share frequencies with WBZ.

Later in the 1940s, Westinghouse moved on to develop FM and television stations as the FCC began to issue permits for those services. Westinghouse built FM sister stations for WBZ/WBZA, KDKA, KYW, and WOWO, all of which were on the air by the end of the decade. FM radio was, initially, an unsuccessful venture for Westinghouse, and the company would sell all of their FM stations (with the exception of WBZ-FM, which was sold in 1981) by the end of the 1950s.

WBZ-TV in Boston, which signed-on in June 1948, is the only television station to have been built by the company. The remainder of Westinghouse's expansion into television was made through purchases, starting with WPTZ-TV in Philadelphia, in 1952. KPIX in San Francisco was bought in 1954; WDTV (now KDKA-TV) in Pittsburgh was added in 1955; and WAAM-TV (now WJZ-TV) in Baltimore was purchased in 1957.

Moving back to AM radio, Westinghouse returned to Chicago with its 1956 purchase of WIND. In 1962, Westinghouse re-entered the New York market when it bought WINS, then a local Top-40 powerhouse. That same year, the company also agreed to buy another top-rated music station, KFWB in Los Angeles. However, the FCC ordered Westinghouse to sell one of its existing AM stations, as they reached the then-limit of seven AM stations per owner. Westinghouse decided to shut down WBZA and return its license to the FCC later in 1962. However, Westinghouse didn't close on the KFWB deal until 1966.

On April 19, 1965, WINS dropped music and instituted the world's first 24-hour all-news format. KYW also went all-news on September 12. KFWB would adopt the format on March 11, 1968. All three stations went on to success in their markets. During the 1970s, WIND also tinkered with a part-time news format, though it had little success against the dominant all-news station in Chicago, CBS-owned WBBM.

Over the next quarter-century, Westinghouse would purchase several other radio stations, including KFBK in Sacramento, California; WMAQ in Chicago, WNEW-FM in New York, and WMMR-FM in Philadelphia. WOWO was sold to other interests in 1982, and WIND was spun-off in 1988 after Group W bought WMAQ from NBC. During this time, Group W's only other television station purchase was in Charlotte, North Carolina, where it operated WRET-TV (later WPCQ and now WCNC-TV) from 1980 until 1986.

It also purchased cable TV system operator TelePrompTer in 1981, which it renamed Group W Cable the following year. However, Group W would leave the cable TV system business in 1986.

The 1956 trade with NBC

During 1955, Westinghouse announced that they would sell their Philadelphia stations -- KYW radio and WPTZ-TV -- to NBC. In exchange, Westinghouse received NBC's Cleveland stations, WTAM-AM-FM and WNBK television. After the deal was approved in February 1956, Westinghouse moved the KYW call letters to its new Cleveland cluster, while NBC renamed the Philadelphia stations WRCV-AM-TV. However, the ink had barely dried on the deal when Westinghouse complained to the FCC and the U.S. Justice Department, claiming that NBC had extorted it into agreeing to the deal. It turned out that NBC had threatened to pull its television programming from WPTZ-TV and WBZ-TV unless Westinghouse agreed to the swap. Following a thorough investigation which lasted several years, the FCC and the Justice Department ordered the swap reversed without NBC realizing any profit on the deal. Westinghouse regained control of the Philadelphia stations on June 19, 1965; Westinghouse restored the KYW calls to the radio station and renaming the television station KYW-TV.

Merger with CBS

Throughout its history as an operator of television stations, Westinghouse Broadcasting had relationships with all three major networks: KYW-TV, WPCQ, and WBZ-TV were NBC affiliates, KPIX and KDKA-TV were aligned with CBS, and WJZ-TV was an ABC station. All of Group W's stations were located within the top thirty television markets. The five stations that comprised the core of Group W's television unit for most of its existence were strong performers in their respective markets, usually ranking first or second in the ratings. However, a series of surprising events that occurred in the course of a year ended Westinghouse's uniqueness among station operators.

In 1994, the Fox Broadcasting Company agreed to a multi-year, multi-station affiliation deal with New World Communications, resulting most of New World's stations switching to Fox. Among these stations were longtime CBS affiliates WJBK-TV in Detroit and WJW-TV in Cleveland. To replace these outlets, CBS pursued longtime ABC affiliates WEWS in Cleveland and WXYZ-TV in Detroit. Both stations were owned by the E.W. Scripps Company, who used this leverage to strike an similar affiliation deal of its own with ABC. Unwilling to risk losing two of its strongest and longest-standing affiliates, ABC agreed to the deal, which called for three of Scripps' stations to join ABC. One of them was Baltimore's then-NBC affiliate, WMAR-TV, which would displace that city's longtime ABC affiliate, Group W-owned WJZ-TV.

Westinghouse was upset at how ABC had treated WJZ-TV after many years of loyalty, and sought an affiliation deal of its own. Eventually, it agreed to affiliate its entire television unit with CBS. This deal resulted in a three-way deal involving CBS, NBC and Westinghouse that unfolded during 1995:

• On January 2, WJZ-TV and WBZ-TV switched from ABC and NBC, respectively, to CBS.
• On September 10, KYW-TV switched from NBC to CBS. KCNC-TV in Denver and KUTV in Salt Lake City, two former NBC-owned stations, also became CBS affiliates. The Group W/CBS partnership assumed control of the three stations, with Group W as majority owner.
• On September 12, CBS-owned WCIX in Miami swapped channel locations with NBC-owned WTVJ. CBS and NBC traded their Miami broadcasting facilities to compensate each other for the loss of stations. WCIX changed its call letters to WFOR-TV, and CBS sold controlling interest in the station to Westinghouse.

Westinghouse bought CBS outright in 1996, and the Group W name faded into broadcasting history as the Westinghouse Broadcasting operations took on the CBS name and identity. As a condition of the merger, CBS had to sell recently-acquired WPRI-TV in Providence, Rhode Island, due to a significant signal overlap with WBZ-TV. WPRI's city-grade signal covers most of the Boston area. At the time, the FCC did not allow common ownership of stations with overlapping city-grade signals.

A few of the former Westinghouse radio stations (now owned by CBS Radio) still use the former Group W font today (eg. KDKA, KYW, and WINS). WOWO, now owned by Inner City Broadcasting, and two television stations, WJZ-TV and KPIX, continue to use this font as well. The other stations retired the font early in the 21st century.

Syndicated programs

Some of their best-known programs were syndicated and seen in primetime, through its syndication division, Group W Productions; many were talk/variety, during the 1960's and sold internationally.

Late night talk/variety shows

• PM East (with Mike Wallace and Joyce Davidson)/PM West (with Terrence O'Flaherty) (1961–1962)
• The Steve Allen Show (1962–1964)
• That Regis Philbin Show! (1964–1965)
• The Merv Griffin Show (1965–1969)
• The David Frost Show (1969–1972)

Daytime shows

• The Mike Douglas Show (1963–1980)
• The John Davidson Show (1980–1982)
• Hour Magazine, hosted by Gary Collins (1980-1990)

Group W also syndicated and franchised the program Evening Magazine (alternatively titled PM Magazine on stations not owned and operated by Group W) to local stations.

Animated series

• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
• The Filmation library (He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, She-Ra: Princess of Power, Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, The Ghost Busters, BraveStarr, among other titles)

First-run syndicated shows

• Martha Stewart Living (1993-2004)

After the merger in 1996, Group W Productions was renamed Eyemark Entertainment. Today, the Group W and Eyemark libraries are owned by King World Productions, following the latter company's acquisition by CBS in 2000.

Television stations formerly owned by Group W

This list does not include KCNC-TV in Denver, KUTV in Salt Lake City and WFOR-TV in Miami. These stations were taken over by Group W in the interim period before the completion of CBS's acquisition by Westinghouse.

AM Radio Stations Owned

Unless otherwise noted, all stations are currently owned by CBS Radio.

* KYW-AM was sold to NBC in 1956 and renamed WRCV, but was sold back to Group W in 1965 at the FCC's order.

Cable networks

• The Nashville Network (TNN) (then co-owned with Gaylord Enertainment; Gaylord later bought Group W's stake in the channel; later owned by Viacom's MTV Networks as Spike TV)
• The Disney Channel (then co-owned with The Walt Disney Company; Disney later bought Group W's 50% stake)
• Home Team Sports (now Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic (Baltimore\Washington network) and FSN Southwest (Dallas network))
• Satellite News Channel (co-owned with ABC; Network went defunct after a year and transponder space was sold to Ted Turner, who used it to start CNN Headline News)
• Showtime (50% stake with Viacom from 1981 when Group W acquired TelePrompter, until they sell their half of Showtime back to Viacom in 1982)
• Wisconsin Sports Network (co-owned with the Milwaukee Time Warner Cable franchise from April 1996-1998, then merged into CBS Cable's Midwest Sports Channel (MSC). Later bought by Fox in 2000 and became FSN North)

• Broadcasting companies of the United States
• Defunct broadcasting companies
• Defunct companies of the United States
• CBS Corporation subsidiaries