CBS Television Stations

CBS's involvement in television dates back to the opening of experimental station W2XAB in New York City on July 21, 1931. On June 24, 1941, W2XAB received a commercial construction permit and program authorization as WCBW. WCBS-TV would ultimately be the only station (as of 2020) originally built and signed on by CBS. The rest of the stations would be acquired by CBS, either in an ownership stake or outright purchase.

In 1950, when rival NBC was dominant in television and black and white transmission was widespread, did CBS begin to buy or build their own stations (outside of New York City) in Los Angeles, Chicago, and other major cities. Up to that point, CBS programming was seen on such stations as KTTV in Los Angeles, in which CBS – as a bit of insurance and to guarantee program clearance in that market – quickly purchased a 50% interest, partnering with the Los Angeles Times. CBS then sold its interest in KTTV (now the West Coast flagship of the Fox network) and purchased outright Los Angeles pioneer station KTSL in 1950, renaming it KNXT (after CBS's existing Los Angeles radio property, KNX), later to become KCBS-TV. In 1953, CBS bought pioneer television station WBKB in Chicago, which had been signed on by former investor Paramount Pictures (and would become a sister company to CBS again decades later) as a commercial station in 1946, and changed that station's call sign to WBBM-TV, moving the CBS affiliation away from WGN-TV.

The network bought Washington, D.C. affiliate WOIC (now WUSA) in a joint venture with The Washington Post in 1950, only to sell its stake to the Post in 1954 due to tighter FCC ownership regulations. CBS would also temporarily rely on UHF technology by owning WXIX in Milwaukee (now CW affiliate WVTV) and WHCT in Hartford (now Univision affiliate WUVN), but as UHF was not viable for broadcasting at the time (due to the fact that most television sets of the time were not equipped with UHF tuners), CBS decided to sell those stations off and affiliate with VHF stations WITI and WTIC-TV (now WFSB). More long-term, CBS bought stations in Philadelphia (WCAU, now owned by NBC) and St. Louis (KMOX-TV, now KMOV), but would eventually sell these stations off as well; before buying KMOX-TV, CBS had attempted to purchase and sign on the channel 11 license in St. Louis, now KPLR-TV.[2]

CBS did attempt to sign on a station in Pittsburgh, as it was at the time the sixth-largest market but had just one commercial VHF station in DuMont-owned WDTV, while the rest were either on UHF (the modern-day WPGH-TV and WINP-TV) or public television (WQED). Although the FCC turned down CBS's request to buy the channel 9 license in nearby Steubenville, Ohio and move it to Pittsburgh (that station, initially CBS affiliate WSTV-TV, is now NBC affiliate WTOV-TV), CBS did score a major coup when Pittsburgh-based Westinghouse Electric, a co-founder of NBC with RCA, bought WDTV from struggling DuMont and opted to affiliate the now-recalled KDKA-TV with CBS instead of NBC (like KDKA radio) due to NBC extorting and coercing Westinghouse to trade KYW radio and WPTZ (now KYW-TV) for Cleveland stations WTAM, WTAM-FM (now WMJI), and WNBK (now WKYC); the trade ended up being reversed in 1965 by order of the FCC and the Department of Justice after an eight-year investigation.[3] Had CBS not been able to affiliate with KDKA-TV, it would have affiliated with eventual NBC affiliate WIIC-TV (now WPXI) once it signed on in 1957 instead.[4] This coup would eventually lead to a much stronger relationship between Westinghouse and CBS.

CBS then acquired Midwest Communications in 1992, which owned WCCO-TV in Minneapolis and WFRV-TV in Green Bay.[5]

In 1994, the Fox Broadcasting Company agreed to a multi-year, multi-station affiliation deal with New World Communications, resulting in 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.[6] This set off a chain of affiliation changes across the country and other multi-station affiliation deals for the next couple of years. The Westinghouse Electric Corporation, through its Westinghouse Broadcasting (Group W) division, sought an affiliation deal of its own, and after several months of negotiations with the other networks, Westinghouse agreed to affiliate its entire television unit with CBS.[7]

Among the Group W stations, KPIX in San Francisco and KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh were already CBS affiliates. WJZ-TV in Baltimore and WBZ-TV in Boston switched from ABC and NBC, respectively, to CBS, while WBAL-TV and WHDH-TV affiliated with NBC; WMAR-TV took on WJZ-TV's ABC affiliation. In Philadelphia, the Westinghouse affiliate deal resulted in a three-way transaction between Group W, CBS, and NBC in 1995. Group W's KYW-TV switched from NBC to CBS. CBS traded its previous Philadelphia station, WCAU-TV, to NBC in return for KCNC-TV in Denver and KUTV in Salt Lake City, while KUSA and KSL-TV affiliated with NBC. The swap in Philadelphia was delayed when CBS discovered it would face a massive capital gains tax bill if it sold WCAU to NBC outright.[8]

Westinghouse would then buy CBS outright, a transaction which closed in late 1995.[9] Following the completion of the CBS takeover, the former Westinghouse Broadcasting operations took on the CBS name and identity, though the Group W name survived until the end of the 1990s as a holding company within the merged entity's structure. In 1997, Westinghouse changed its name to CBS Corporation.

When CBS/Westinghouse began purchasing several broadcasting assets from Gaylord Entertainment during the late 1990s, these transactions included the acquisition of KTVT in Dallas.

On May 24, 2000, with the merger of Viacom and CBS Corporation, Viacom's Paramount Stations Group were combined with CBS's owned-and-operated stations division to form the Viacom Television Stations Group. At the time, Viacom owned the UPN network and the Paramount Stations Group controlled UPN's owned-and-operated stations.[10][11] The Viacom Television Stations Group was then rebranded to its current name on January 3, 2006, after Viacom split itself into two publicly traded companies, the second incarnations of CBS Corporation and Viacom, both of which remained controlled by National Amusements.[12]

On January 24, 2006, CBS Corporation and Time Warner announced that it would shut down UPN and competitor The WB to launch The CW later that September.[13][14] On the day of the network launch announcement, The CW immediately announced it had reached affiliation agreements with Tribune Broadcasting (who had owned a stake in The WB) and CBS Television Stations. Tribune originally committed 16 stations that were previously affiliated with The WB, while CBS committed 11 of its UPN stations. Both companies also owned several UPN and WB-affiliated stations that did not join The CW in overlapping markets; these stations either later affiliated with MyNetworkTV or another network or programming service, or became completely independent. As part of its affiliation agreement with the network, the Tribune Company agreed to divest its ownership interest in The WB (a move it made partly to avoid shouldering shutdown costs for The WB).[15] and did not acquire an equity stake in The CW.

In 2009 and 2010, three managers at its New York City station, WCBS-TV, were named CBS Television Stations executives while continuing to manage at the station. Station manager Peter Dunn was named CBS Television Stations President in November 2009.[12] Station creative services director Bruce Erik Brauer was named in June 2010 senior vice president of creative services for the group. WCBS news director David Friend became the group's senior vice president of news in August 2010.[16]

On October 21, 2014, CBS and Weigel Broadcasting announced the launch of a new digital subchannel service called Decades, scheduled to launch on all CBS owned and operated stations in May 2015.[17][1] The channel is co-owned by CBS and Weigel, with Weigel being responsible for distribution to stations outside CBS Television Stations. It airs programs from the extensive library of CBS Television Distribution, including archival footage from CBS News.[17] On July 18, 2018, CBS and Weigel announced that another new subchannel service, Start TV, would launch on September 4; the new service replaced Decades on the CBS-owned stations.[18] An additional CBS-owned subchannel service, Dabl, launched on September 9, 2019; this service, although carried on the CBS Television Stations, is run by CBS Television Distribution.[19]

The station group made a couple of content agreements in 2014 and 2015. The stations agreed in December 2014 for its content to be shown on Curb's Taxi TV.[1] In November 2015, the station group agreed to allow Health Media Network to air local news reports on its network in doctor’s waiting rooms.[20]

On August 1, 2018, CBS Television Stations and CBS Interactive announced plans to launch CBSN Local, a group of streaming news channels modeled on the national CBSN service.[21] The first of these services, CBSN New York, launched on December 13, 2018,[22] with the remaining services launching during 2019 and 2020.[23]

CBS and Viacom then merged for the second time, forming ViacomCBS, on December 4, 2019.[24]

Notes:

• (*) - indicates WCBS-TV as the only station that was built and signed-on by CBS.
• (+) - indicates a station that was owned by Westinghouse Broadcasting prior to its acquisition of CBS in 1995.
• (§) - indicates a station that was affected by a 1995 ownership swap between CBS/Westinghouse and NBC.
• (¤) - indicates a station that was owned by Gaylord Broadcasting prior to its sale to CBS in 1999.
• (#) - indicates a station that was owned by the original Viacom prior to its acquisition of CBS in 2000.

Note: This list also contains stations that were owned and operated by CBS prior to the founding of CBS Television Stations in 2000.

Other Notes:

• ¹ Co-owned with the Los Angeles Times in a joint venture (49% owned by CBS, 51% owned by the Times).
• ² Co-owned with the Washington Post in a joint venture (45% owned by CBS, 55% owned by the Post).
• ³ Operated by the original Viacom through its Paramount Stations Group via local marketing agreement (LMA) from 1997 until Viacom/CBS acquired the station outright in 2001.