#kdka
Here are other entries about Pittsburgh’s legendary KDKA Radio.
It looks like Johnny Boyer enjoyed a career in sports broadcasting. Here’s a 1954 picture of him interviewing Jackie Robinson. It’s hard to find much about him. Do you know anything about Boyer?
Read more about KDKA-AM in Pittsburgh and its historic first broadcast. CBS Radio now owns KDKA.
Here are earlier entries about Pittsburgh’s KDKA-TV.
KDKA-TV started as DuMont Television Network’s WDTV in 1949. In 1954, Westinghouse bought the station from DuMont, renaming after Westinghouse’s legendary radio station, KDKA-AM. The new owner made KDKA-TV a primary CBS affiliate in 1955.
After carrying secondary affiliations with NBC and ABC, it became a full-time CBS affiliate in 1957.
Here’s an earlier entry about the history of Pittsburgh’s KDKA-TV.
Here’s an ad touting the reach of Westinghouse’s radio stations.
Also known as Group W, the Westinghouse Broadcasting Company started with the sign on Pittsburgh’s KDKA in 1920, the oldest surviving commercial radio station in the country. Over the decades, Westinghouse expanded into television and became one of the most respected broadcast operators in the country.
Westinghouse acquired CBS in 1995 and its broadcast properties took on the CBS name. Westinghouse changed its name in 1997 to CBS Corporation. The company was merged into Viacom in 2000.
Source: Wikipedia (Westinghouse Broadcasting)
A couple of days ago, this blog featured a great wartime ad from Nashville’s WSM. Here’s another fascinating one from Westinghouse Radio Stations, touting wartime security measures to fight sabotage at its radio transmitters:
At KDKA, high on a commanding hill, visitors are challenged by a searchlight, a directionally amplified voice, and a gun, and they state their business into a microphone before they come near the tower.
The fledgling DuMont Television Network signed WDTV Channel 3 on the air in 1949 from Pittsburgh. WDTV was PIttsburgh’s only TV station and picked the most popular programs from its parent DuMont Network, along with NBC, ABC and CBS.
The FCC froze new TV licenses for four years. When it began issuing licenses again in 1952, WDTV moved to Channel 2 to prevent interference with other stations. That year, WDTV became the nation’s first 24/7 TV station, as touted in this ad.
WDTV briefly lost its monopoly on Pittsburgh television in 1953 when two UHF stations, WENS and WKJF, signed on the air. The problems surrounding early UHF stations, including Pittsburgh’s topography, killed the two stations fairly quickly.
PIttsburgh was a large TV market, but the FCC was slow to add new VHF channel allotments. As Pittsburgh’s only VHF station, WDTV was a huge money maker for DuMont.
But as the TV business changed, DuMont was bleeding money. Westinghouse wanted to add a TV station to it’s pioneering KDKA-AM radio station in Pittsburgh. In 1954, Westinghouse offered DuMont a then-record $9.75 million for WDTV. DuMont needed the money and sold the station to Westinghouse.
But in losing WDTV, DuMont lost its foothold in the sixth-largest TV market in the country. This had an impact on clearing DuMont shows in other major cities, and the network folded within two years.
Westinghouse changed the station’s call letters to match radio sister KDKA. The company wanted Channel 2 to be a primary NBC affiliate, as KDKA Radio had been since 1926. But NBC wanted to buy Westinghouse’s Philadelphia TV and radio station. Westinghouse refused, and NBC threatened to pull its affiliation from the company’s Philadelphia and Boston TV stations unless it agreed to swap the Philadelphia stations for NBC properties in Cleveland. The dispute led to a difficult relationship between Westinghouse and NBC for years.
Westinghouse decided to make KDKA-TV a CBS primary affiliate. The station had secondary affiliations with NBC and ABC until WIIC-TV and WTAE-TV signed on in the late 1950s.
KDKA became Westinghouse’s flagship station, carving a reputation for strong local programming and news.coverage.
Westinghouse acquired CBS in 1996, making KDKA-TV a CBS-owned-and-operated station.
Sources: Wikipedia (KDKA-TV), Post-Gazette article
