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For broadcast stations that previously used the WCAU call sign, see WCAU (disambiguation)

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WCAU "NBC10" is the NBC owned and operated television station serving the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania market with its transmitter in the Roxborough neighborhood of Philadelphia. Its signal covers the Delaware Valley area including Philadelphia, parts of central and southern New Jersey, and Delaware.

History

The station signed on April 23, 1948 as Philadelphia's third television station. It was originally owned by the Philadelphia Bulletin and affiliated with CBS along with WCAU-AM 1210, one of CBS's charter affiliates when the network premiered in 1927. The station's headquarters, on Monument Road at City Avenue in Bala Cynwyd, has the distinction of being the first facility in the country built specifically to house a television station.

The Bulletin bought WGBI-TV in Scranton in 1957 and changed the calls to WDAU-TV to match WCAU. The FCC told the Bulletin that it couldn't keep both WDAU and WCAU, since there was so much signal overlap between the two CBS stations that under the rules of the time it constituted a duopoly. With this in mind, the Bulletin sold WCAU-AM-FM-TV to CBS in 1958. (WDAU is now WYOU-TV.) CBS had to get a waiver to keep WCAU because of signal overlap with WCBS-AM-FM-TV in New York City.

As the market's only longtime O&O, WCAU was the only Philadelphia-market station that didn't heavily preempt network programming with the exception of an hour of Sunday morning CBS cartoons from 1977 to 1979. In 1990, after CBS abruptly dropped the talk format on WCAU-AM in favor of oldies under the calls WOGL-AM, WCAU-TV became simply WCAU.

In 1994, CBS made a deal with the Westinghouse Electric Corporation and its broadcasting arm, Group W, owners of KYW-TV, NBC's first affiliate. Westinghouse/Group W converted all of its stations to CBS affiliates (and eventually merged with CBS in 1995), and as a result, CBS decided to sell WCAU. NBC saw a chance to get an O&O in Philadelphia, which it had wanted since the 1950s. However, it found itself in a bidding war for WCAU with Fox and New World Communications, which had recently partnered with Fox as a result of Fox winning the rights to the National Football Conference of the NFL. This meant that WCAU was to at least temporaily lose its status as the "home" station for the Philadelphia Eagles, which it had been since CBS began broadcasting NFL/NFC games in 1956. Fox was about to lose its original Philadelphia affiliate, Paramount-owned WTXF-TV, to the new United Paramount Network, which was then co-owned with Chris-Craft Industries. It had originally planned to buy WGBS-TV, but New World and Fox found the chance to have Fox programming on a VHF station in the 4th-biggest market too much to resist. However, Fox and New World had different plans for the station. New World planned to keep Fox Kids (now 4Kids TV) programming on WTXF, while Fox intended to move all of its programming to WCAU. Either way, WCAU would have retained its status as the Eagles' "home" station.

However, Paramount Stations Group opted to sell WTXF to Fox (and buy WGBS, now WPSG, in return), paving the way for NBC to purchase WCAU. On September 11, 1995, KYW and WCAU swapped network obligations in a complex deal involving stations in Miami (CBS-owned WCIX and NBC-owned WTVJ swap channels-with WCIX going to channel 4 and becoming WFOR, and WTVJ going to channel 6), Denver (NBC sells KCNC to Westinghouse) and Salt Lake City (NBC buys KUTV with intentions of selling to Westinghouse). This made KYW the third station in the city to affiliate with CBS (the first being WFIL-TV, now ABC-owned WPVI-TV) and gave NBC its long-coveted O&O in Philadelphia. CBS (who would later merge with Westinghouse, making KYW a CBS O&O) kept the former WCAU radio stations, WPHT (the former WCAU-AM) and WOGL (the former WCAU-FM), which are now owned by the CBS Radio group alongside WPHT's longtime rival, KYW-AM.

For much of the broadcasting era, Philadelphia had been the only top-five market where NBC didn't own a radio or television station. It briefly succeeded from 1956 until 1965, when it blackmailed Westinghouse into briefly selling KYW's predecessor, WPTZ, and KYW-AM in exchange for NBC's Cleveland cluster, radio's WTAM-AM-FM and television's WNBK. NBC threatened to yank its affiliation from WPTZ and Group W's other NBC affiliate, WBZ-TV in Boston if it didn't agree to the deal. The Philadelphia stations became WRCV-AM-TV, while the Cleveland stations became KYW-AM-FM-TV. However, the FCC and Justice Department forced the reversal of the swap. The Philadelphia stations then became KYW-AM-FM-TV, while the Cleveland stations became WKYC-AM-FM-TV. Thanks to various factors like pre-emptions of network programming, KYW had been NBC's weakest major-market affiliate in the 80s and 90s, which only made NBC want an O&O even more.

Logos and idents

• WCAU-TV ident from 1970 to 1983. The station used this logo with only minor changes until 1995.
• WCAU-TV ident from 1983 to 1984 WCAU-TV ident from 1983 to 1984
• WCAU-TV ident from 1985 to 1986 WCAU-TV ident from 1985 to 1986
• WCAU-TV ident from 1986 to 1991 WCAU-TV ident from 1986 to 1991
• WCAU-TV ident from 1991 to 1993 WCAU-TV ident from 1991 to 1993
• WCAU-TV ident from 1993 to 1995 WCAU-TV ident from 1993 to 1995
• WCAU-TV ident from January to September 1995 WCAU-TV ident from January to September 1995
• The present NBC 10 logo, used since 1995 The present NBC 10 logo, used since 1995
• WCAU ident from September 1995 to 1997 WCAU ident from September 1995 to 1997
• WCAU ident from 1997 to 2000 WCAU ident from 1997 to 2000
• WCAU ident from 2000 to 2005 WCAU ident from 2000 to 2005

News operation

WCAU's news operation was the ratings leader in Philadelphia for most of the time from the 1950s through the 1970s. John Facenda, who later gained fame as the voice of NFL Films, was the station's main anchorman from shortly after it signed onto 1973. WCAU remained unchallenged until the 1970s, when first KYW and then WPVI passed it. The station dragged through the late 1970s while most of its CBS sisters dominated the ratings, but has since recovered and has been runner-up to longtime leader WPVI for most of the last 20 years. WCAU did manage to pass WPVI in the 5 pm time slot for a time in the early 1980s with its original "Live at 5," anchored by Larry Kane and Deborah Knapp (now at KENS-TV in San Antonio). Since 2003, WCAU has waged a spirited battle with a resurgent KYW for second place behind WPVI.

WCAU used music based on "Channel 2 News," written for WBBM-TV in Chicago (the de facto official music for CBS' owned-and-operated stations) and variations on it from 1982 to shortly after NBC bought the station. It used the original 1975 version from 1982 to 1985, a synthesized version written by a local composer during the 1985-86 season, and the Palmer News Package from 1986 to 1995. Ironically, KYW has used variants on this theme in recent years.

However, in the past few years the newscasts have been becoming what some media watchers call "tabloid television"; adopting a newscast with some of the same features as many Fox affiliates. Critics say that such newscasts incorporate flashy graphics with sensationalistic stories, some with little or no local relevance. Additionally, the station places great emphasis on weather and has a very dramatic presentation, which to some observers almost borders on self parody.

Chris Blackman, the current news director, took over the job from the well-liked Steve Schiwald, who got the station to come closer to WPVI-TV than it ever had in a long time. Blackman does not seem to have the favor among this employees as his predecessor - the fact that his name was used alongside a picture of The Grinch during a Christmas newscast seems to support this (other staffers were simply pictured among objects such as holly). Many industry observers see Blackman as someone who can drive a station's news operations and ratings into the ground.

The station's weekday 5 PM newscast, which is part of a 4 PM to 6:30 PM news block (and revives the "Live at 5" moniker), has a more "active" approach to presentation - anchors Tracy Davidson and Vince DeMentri present the newscast from a variety of locations, including a chroma-key wall. They are never seen seated at the news desk. The weather is reported by Doug Kammerer on Thursdays in the summer, the weather is given in a viewer's backyard. This is known as "Backyard Weather". Traffic reports are given by John Ogden. Tracy Davidson also gives special Consumer Alert reports, while Cherie Bank gives health reports. WCAU took over production of WPHL-TV's news operations on December 10, 2005.

See also

• WCAU Personalities

External links

• NBC 10 website
• City Declares 'Bill Baldini Day' To Honor Reporter's 40 Years
• WCAU: A History Of Firsts
• WCBS Newsradio88 Appreciation Site
• Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia
• Template:TVQ

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