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WJLA-TV

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WJLA-TV ("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. As the flagship station, WJLA provides national news headlines for other Allbritton owned stations.

History

On October 3, 1947, channel 7 began broadcasting as WTVW, a CBS affiliate owned by the Washington Star along with WMAL-AM 630. 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.

WMAL had long been an ABC Radio affiliate, dating to its days as the NBC Blue Network. Due to this long relationship, WMAL-TV took over the ABC affiliation when WOIC-TV (now WUSA-TV) signed on in 1949.

In 1976, Joe 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 the mid 1990s that ABC might buy WJLA, thus reuniting it with its former radio sisters, WMAL-AM and WRQX-FM 107.3 (the former WMAL-FM). However, ABC recently announced it was selling most of its radio properties, including WMAL and WRQX, to Citadel Communications, and there is virtually no likelyhood that ABC will purchase the station. Even so, WJLA is still an ABC affiliate to this day under Allbritton because the conglamerate has had a unique contract with ABC since 1997 for all its stations to carry the network.

Logos and idents

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 accommodate 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, fueling speculation that ABC would buy the station. Ironically, WJLA is the largest ABC affiliate to use the Circle 7 that is not an ABC O&O; also, its Allbritton sibling KATV has used the standard Circle 7 since the 1960's, longer than all WJLA versions combined. 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.


Key Personalities

Main article: WJLA news team

News Programs

Main article: WJLA local programs

News Music

Package Composer Years Used Other Notes
Move Closer To Your World Mayoham Music 1974-1980
Tap Root Manuscript: The African Suite Neil Diamond 1980-1982
So Good To Turn To Gari Communications 1982-1985 First station to commission package
This Is Your News Gari Communications 1995-1999
News One 615 Music 1999-2001 Used Mini version
Metropolis Stephen Arnold Music 2001-Present

See also

External links

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Broadcast television in the National Capitol Region (DMV)
This region includes the following cities: Washington, D.C.
Landover/Bethesda/Frederick, MD
Arlington/Fairfax/Fredericksburg/Winchester, VA
Martinsburg, WV
McConnellsburg, PA
Reception may vary by location and some stations may only be viewable with cable television
Full power
Low power
ATSC 3.0
Cable
Outlying areas
Dover, DE
Hagerstown, MD
Winchester, VA
Martinsburg, WV
WHSV-TV (3.1 ABC, 3.2 NBC, 3.3 Ion, 3.4 MNTV/MeTV, 3.5 CBS)
W08EE-D (24.1 PBS/WVPB, 24.2 World, 24.3 PBS Kids)
WWPX-TV (60.1 Ion, 60.2 Bounce, 60.3 Court, 60.4 Laff, 60.5 Mystery, 60.6 Ion+, 60.7 Scripps, 60.8 HSN)
Defunct
  • Nominally a low-power station; shares spectrum with full-power WRC-TV.
Virginia broadcast television areas by city
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Washington, D.C.
Pennsylvania broadcast television
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Harrisburg/Lancaster/Lebanon/York (Susquehanna Valley)
Johnstown/Altoona/State College (Happy Valley)
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See also
Maryland TV
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