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WCAU ("NBC10") is the NBC station serving the Philadelphia area, owned by NBC-Universal, with transmitter in Roxborough. Its signal covers the Delaware Valley area including Philadelphia, New Jersey, and Delaware.
History
The station was originally owned by the Philadelphia Bulletin and affiliated with CBS along with WCAU-AM, one of CBS' charter affiliates when the network premiered in 1928. The Bulletin sold WCAU-AM-FM-TV to CBS in 1957. Due to the network ownership, channel 10 was the only Philadelphia-market station that did not preempt network programming.
In 1994, CBS made a deal with Westinghouse, owners of rival KYW-TV. Westinghouse converted all of its stations to CBS affiliates, forcing CBS to sell WCAU-TV. Fox, who was originally to have their network programming bumped off of Paramount's WTXF channel 29 in favor of UPN, and NBC entered a bidding war for the station. Fox backed out when Paramount opted to sell WTXF to them. This automatically gave channel 10 to NBC. NBC had wanted an O&O station in Philadelphia since the 1950s, and even blackmailed Westinghouse into briefly selling what became KYW before the FCC forced the reversal of the swap. On September 11, 1995, channels 3 and 10 traded network affiliations. CBS kept the former WCAU radio stations, WPHT (ex-WCAU) and WOGL (ex-WCAU-FM), which are now owned by sister company Infinity Broadcasting.
WCAU's news operation was the ratings leader in Philadelphia until the early 70s. John Facenda, who later gained fame as the voice of NFL Films, was the station's main anchorman from shortly after it signed on until 1973. WCAU wasn't seriously challenged for the lead until the 1970s, when first KYW and then WPVI passed it. WCAU has since recovered somewhat and has been runner-up to WPVI for much of the last 30 years.