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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.
News operation
WCAU's news operation was the ratings leader in Philadelphia until the early 1970s. 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 KYW and later WPVI passed it. WCAU has since recovered somewhat and has been runner-up to WPVI for much of the last 30 years.
WCAU used the 1975 WBBM-TV News Theme and its later variant the Palmer News Package as their news music packages, as did other CBS O&Os, during the 1980s and early 1990s. Ironically, a variant of that package can now be heard on the current CBS affilliate, KYW-TV.
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 such as WNYW-TV. 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 almost borders on self parody. One WNBC-TV employee remarked, "When I am in Philadelphia, I don't watch the news." Despite this WCAU has been waging a strong battle for second place in the ratings with a rebounding KYW.
As further indication of WCAU's slipping commitment to real news, on May 22 2005 they did not air a New Jersey Governor's Republican Primary debate which was produced by sister stations WNBC-TV and WNJU-TV. In the past WCAU has aired such debates.
External Link
- NBC 10 website
- Slideshow: Rare Photos Of WCAU In 50s and 60s
- City Declares 'Bill Baldini Day' To Honor Reporter's 40 Years
- WCAU: A History Of Firsts