title: WGN-TV

text: On January 24, 2006, the Warner Bros. Entertainment division of Time Warner and CBS Corporation announced the formation of The CW, a network that would initially feature a mix of programs originating on The WB and UPN—which Time Warner and CBS, respectively, would shut down in concurrence with The CW's launch—as well as new series developed specifically for the CW schedule. In conjunction with the launch announcement, Tribune signed a ten-year agreement involving sixteen of the group's 19 WB affiliates (including WGN-TV), which would join eleven UPN stations owned by CBS to form The CW's initial group of charter affiliates. Because The CW primarily chose its original affiliates based on the highest overall viewership in each market among the pool of existing WB and UPN affiliates, WGN-TV was chosen as its Chicago affiliate over WPWR-TV, as Channel 9 had been the higher-rated of the two stations dating to WPWR's sign-on. On February 22, Fox announced that WPWR and nine other non-Fox-O&O stations (eight UPN stations, consisting of four in other major markets where The CW chose to align with a Tribune station and four based in non-Tribune markets, and one independent station) would become the initial charter outlets of MyNetworkTV, a joint venture between Fox Television Stations and Twentieth Television meant to fill the two weeknight prime time hours that would be opened up on UPN- and WB-affiliated stations that were not chosen to become CW charter outlets. The CW did not commission the WGN national feed—which became known as Superstation WGN in November 2002 and then as WGN America in August 2008—to act as a national default feed for the network, as it was able to maintain sufficient national coverage at launch through conventional over-the-air and digital multicast affiliates in the 100 largest markets as well as supplementary coverage in the remaining 110 markets through The CW Plus, a small-market feed comprising primary and subchannel-only over-the-air affiliates as well as cable-only affiliates that were part of the predecessor WB 100+ service.


title: WGN-TV

text: Channel 9 remained an affiliate of The WB until the network ceased operations on September 17, 2006; it became a charter affiliate of The CW when that network debuted the following day on September 18. WPWR, meanwhile, had disaffiliated from UPN on September 4 and began carrying MyNetworkTV programming upon that network's September 5 launch. As a CW affiliate, WGN-TV had been one of the network's higher-rated affiliates in terms of overall viewership, often drawing more viewers than Fox-owned WFLD—even in prime time, despite the latter's Fox programming. Channel 9 carried the entire CW schedule from the network's launch, including its children's program blocks (Kids' WB, The CW4Kids/Toonzai, Vortexx and One Magnificent Morning); however, from September 2013 to September 2016, WGN had aired the network's daytime talk show block—which had been reduced to one hour (from two) in September 2011—one hour earlier (at 2:00 p.m.) than other CW affiliates in the Central Time Zone, aligning with the block's East Coast airtime. WGN-TV gradually evolved its programming slate during the late 2000s and 2010s, adopting a news-intensive format (expanding its newscast production to 70 hours per week by 2016), and shifting its weekday daytime lineup towards mainly first-run talk and game shows during the daytime hours; as fewer film packages were offered on the syndication market, its weekend schedule also began relying less on feature films and shifted to incorporate local lifestyle and tourism programs as well as additional first-run and off-network syndicated shows.


title: WGN-TV

text: On April 1, 2007, Chicago-based real estate investor Sam Zell announced plans to purchase the Tribune Company in an $8.2-billion leveraged buyout that gave Tribune employees stock and effective ownership of the company. The transaction and concurring privatization of the company was completed upon termination of Tribune stock at the close of trading on December 20, 2007. Prior to the sale's closure, WGN-TV was one of two commercial television stations in the Chicago market, not counting network-owned stations, to have never been involved in an ownership transaction (along with WCIU-TV, which has been owned by Weigel Broadcasting since its February 1964 sign-on). On December 8, 2008, Tribune filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, citing a debt load of around $13 billion—making it the largest media bankruptcy in American corporate history—that it accrued from the Zell buyout and related privatization costs as well as a sharp downturn in revenue from newspaper advertising. After a protracted four-year process, on December 31, 2012, Tribune formally exited from bankruptcy under the control of its senior debt holders, Oaktree Capital Management, JPMorgan Chase and Angelo, Gordon & Co. On July 10, 2013, Tribune announced plans to split off its broadcasting and newspaper interests into two separate companies. WGN-TV and WGN Radio would remain with the original entity, which was renamed Tribune Media and was restructured to focus on the company's broadcasting, digital and real estate properties; the newspaper division—which, in addition to the "Chicago Tribune", included publications such as the "Los Angeles Times", the "South Florida Sun-Sentinel" and the "Baltimore Sun"—was spun off into the standalone entity Tribune Publishing (known as Tronc from June 2016 until the company reverted to its former name in October 2018). The split was completed on August 4, 2014, ending the "Tribune"s joint ownership with WGN-TV and WGN Radio after 66 and 94 years, respectively. However, WGN-TV continues to maintain a content partnership with the "Tribune".


title: WGN-TV

text: On December 13, 2014, Tribune converted the WGN America national feed into a conventional cable channel that would focus on acquired and original programs, containing significantly more domestic and internationally acquired programming than the channel did prior to its separation from WGN-TV, and switched from a royalty to a retransmission consent revenue model. As a result, WGN America immediately ceased simulcasts of WGN-TV's Chicago-originated local programming (which was limited to its weekday noon and [until that simulcast was dropped the previous February] nightly 9:00 p.m. newscasts, select news specials, public affairs programs, special events and sports telecasts, alongside a limited number of off-network syndicated reruns, religious programs and feature films acquired for the Chicago feed). Starting with its addition to Comcast Xfinity's Chicago-area systems on December 16, the changeover allowed cable and IPTV subscribers within the market—as local satellite viewers had been able to do for about two decades—to receive WGN America for the first time. (As a result of the October 2007 separation of TBS from its Atlanta parent WTBS, WGN America had been the last remaining national superstation to be distributed to cable, IPTV, fiber optic "and" satellite television providers, whereas the other six remaining superstations are distributed outside their home regions mainly on satellite.) Due to the separation of the local and national feeds, WGN-TV did not carry WGN America's original drama series (such as "Salem" and "Manhattan") outside of preview promotions, limiting the local availability of these programs to subscribers of DirecTV and Dish Network and through WGN America's streaming agreement with Hulu. WGN-TV would regain national availability in the spring of 2015, when Channel Master included the Chicago feed among the initial offerings of its LinearTV over-the-top streaming service.


title: WGN-TV

text: On May 23, 2016, after a year of protracted negotiations pertaining to financial terms (including the share of reverse compensation that Tribune would pay to keep CW programming on those stations), Tribune Broadcasting and CW managing partner CBS Corporation reached a five-year agreement that allowed twelve of Tribune's thirteen CW-affiliated stations to remain with the network through 2021. Tribune exempted WGN-TV from the renewed agreement, intending to free up its schedule to offer an increased schedule of Chicago Cubs, White Sox, Bulls and Blackhawks games in prime time during the calendar year, thereby giving WGN over-the-air exclusivity over all sporting events it is contracted to broadcast for the first time since 1993. The WB and The CW each contractually limited the number of network program preemptions, other than those caused by long-form breaking news coverage, that could occur on an annual basis; in compliance with these restrictions, WGN-TV purchased airtime on CLTV (from 1993 to 2002), WCIU-TV (from 1999 to 2015) and WPWR-TV (from 2015 to 2016) to carry certain game telecasts that the station was contracted to produce (totaling roughly 30 per year). WB and CW network programs subjected to sports-induced displacements on their regular nights were shown on a tape-delayed basis later in the week (usually in a graveyard slot or on a weekend evening timeslot not occupied by a scheduled game telecast, as neither The WB nor The CW has ever aired prime time programs on Saturdays and as The CW had embargoed providing programs on Sundays from September 2009 until October 2018).


title: WGN-TV

text: Concurrently, Fox announced that WPWR would take over as Chicago's CW affiliate (marking the second time that Fox Television Stations had owned a CW-affiliated station, as, under an existing contract that was already scheduled to expire before that station's conversion into a Fox O&O was announced, Charlotte sister station WJZY continued to carry the network's programming for about 3½ months after its purchase by Fox was finalized in April 2013). The final CW program to air on WGN-TV was "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" at 8:30 p.m. Central Time on August 31, 2016, leading into that night's edition of "WGN News at Nine". Channel 9 reverted to independent status—marking the first time in 21 years that it was not affiliated with a major broadcast network—on September 1, filling timeslots previously occupied by CW network shows mainly with additional syndicated programs on weekdays and an expanded weekend morning newscast, station-produced lifestyle programs and syndicated educational programs on weekends. Beginning with that day's airing of "The Bill Cunningham Show", all CW programming concurrently moved to WPWR-TV (resulting in the weeknight-only MyNetworkTV schedule being shifted to air on a three-hour delay from 10:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m.). As such, WPWR displaced WLVI in Boston as the largest CW station that is not owned by either Tribune or CBS Corporation. (The CW would eventually move to WCIU-TV on September 1, 2019, marking the first time that channel 26—which had maintained part-time affiliations with the Spanish International Network and successor Univision, NetSpan/Telemundo, and The WB [by way of Kids' WB] at various points between 1968 and 2004—had ever served as a full-time network affiliate.)


title: WGN-TV

text: Sinclair Broadcast Group announced their purchase of Tribune Media on May 8, 2017, for $3.9 billion, a deal publicly met with consternation among station employees due to concerns about the influence the conservative-leaning group could potentially have on WGN's news content. In order to meet regulatory compliance, Sinclair opted to divest WGN-TV to a limited liability company controlled by Baltimore-based automotive dealer Steven Fader—who has acted as a business associate to Sinclair executive chairman David Smith—for $60 million. Under the terms of the deal, Sinclair planned to operating the station through programming and sales service agreements, and would hold an option to repurchase with eight years. Following public criticism of the proposed deal with Fader by FCC chairman Ajit Pai, Sinclair abandoned the deal and disclosed it would instead acquire WGN-TV directly. Despite this, the FCC instead voted to bring the merger up for a hearing by an administrative law judge, prompting Tribune Media to terminate the deal on August 9, 2018, and file a breach of contract lawsuit.


title: WGN-TV

text: Following the collapse of the Sinclair merger, Nexstar Media Group agreed to acquire Tribune's assets on December 3, 2018, for $6.4 billion in cash and debt. The transaction received approval by the FCC on September 16, 2019, and finalized three days later.


title: WGN-TV

text: Channel 9 became known for its heavy schedule of local programs during the period from the 1950s through the 1980s, including some influential programs:


title: WGN-TV

text: In addition, Channel 9 broadcasts several local events including the Chicago Thanksgiving Parade (which has aired since 2007, under an agreement with the Chicago Festival Association in which the WGN national feed—which continues to carry the parade despite WGN America's December 2014 programming separation from WGN-TV—was given national simulcast rights), the Chicago St. Patrick's Day Parade (which aired from 1949 to 2002), the Chicago Auto Show (from 1952 to 1992 and again since 1999) and the Philadelphia-based Mummers Parade (by arrangement with sister station WPHL-TV). Local events that WGN-TV aired in previous years have included the Bud Billiken Parade (from 1978 to 2011, with WCIU-TV obtaining primary rights to the broadcast beginning in 2012, before shifting exclusively to WLS-TV—which had been a partial rightsholder for the parade since 1984—in 2014).


title: WGN-TV

text: The station's Bradley Place studios, in addition to housing a large number of its own programs, have also served as the production facilities for nationally syndicated programs, including "Donahue" (which shifted production from the Dayton, Ohio studios of WLWD [now WDTN] to the WGN-TV facilities in Chicago in 1974, where production of the daytime talk show remained before moving to WBBM-TV's Streeterville studios in January 1982), "U.S. Farm Report" (which originated from the Bradley Place facility from the agriculture program's national syndication debut in 1975 until production moved to South Bend, Indiana after "Farm Journal"s production unit assumed distribution rights from the defunct Tribune Entertainment in 2008), and "At the Movies" (which was produced from the facility from 1982 until 1990, three years after Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert left the program amid a 1986 contract dispute with Tribune Entertainment to develop "Siskel & Ebert & the Movies" with Buena Vista Television, which was produced out of WLS-TV's North State Street studios).


title: WGN-TV

text: Channel 9 formerly served as the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA)'s "Love Network" station for Chicago, carrying the charity's annual telethon on Labor Day and the preceding Sunday night each September from 1973 to 2012 (in its original 21½-hour format that existed until 2010, the six-hour evening format used in 2011 and the three-hour prime-time-only format used in 2012). For most of its run on the station (except in 1994, due to the Major League Baseball strike that year), WGN-TV would preempt portions of the telethon on Labor Day to carry Chicago Cubs or White Sox games held during the afternoon of the holiday. Through its national distribution, beginning with the 1979 event, donations to the WGN-produced local segments of the telethon were also pledged by viewers in other parts of the United States and Canada. The broadcast moved from syndication to ABC in September 2013 (by then reduced to a two-hour special), airing thereafter by association on WLS-TV until the final telecast of the retitled "MDA Show of Strength" in August 2014.


title: WGN-TV

text: WGN-TV served as the originating station for the Illinois Lottery beginning at its July 1974 inception. Live drawings initially aired as a half-hour Thursday night broadcast (then hosted by Ray Rayner) held at its Bradley Place studios. Channel 9 shared the drawing rights with WSNS-TV from March to May 1975 and again from September 1975 until August 1977, when WGN gained exclusivity over the telecasts. With the introduction of the Daily Game (now Pick 3) in February 1980, drawings began airing on the station at 6:57 p.m. nightly. After a three-year run on WFLD (which assumed drawing rights in January 1984), the Lottery migrated the drawing telecasts back to WGN-TV in January 1987. In August 1992, the Lottery awarded the telecast rights to its drawings and game show to CBS-owned WBBM—which beat out competing offers from WGN and WLS-TV, and saw the move as a way to help improve viewership for its third-place-ranked 10:00 p.m. newscast—effective December 28. WBBM's bid was chosen for its offers to hold the drawings during its late newscast (which ultimately produced no beneficial ratings impact) and agreed to handle promotional responsibilities and production costs. Citing in part the station's statewide cable distribution (which, after the SyndEx rules were implemented, would occasionally subject the evening drawings to preemption associated with that of the delayed 9:00 p.m. newscast when sports clearance restrictions applied to the WGN national feed), the Lottery moved its telecasts back to WGN on January 1, 1994; with this move, citing declining revenues under the WBBM contract partly under the later drawing timeslot, the live evening results were shifted to 9:22 p.m. Midday drawings for Pick 3 and Pick 4 were added upon their introduction on December 20, 1994. (The 12:40 p.m. drawings were shown during WGN's noon newscast on weekdays, while the Saturday drawing was usually not shown live nationally because of programming substitutions.)


title: WGN-TV

text: In addition to the live drawing results, WGN also carried two lottery-produced weekly game shows. From September 16, 1989, to December 19, 1992, and from January 8 to July 2, 1994, the station aired "$100,000 Fortune Hunt". It was originally hosted by Jeff Coopwood, with co-host Linda Kollmeyer, and subsequently with Mike Jackson as host. The program saw six contestants selected from a preliminary scratch-off entry ticket drawing choose panels from a numbered 36-panel game board containing various dollar amounts. The player with the highest prize amount after five rounds won $100,000 and their two chosen at-home partners won $500 each; the remaining on-air contestants kept their existing winnings, with their partners receiving $100. (Initially, each on-air contestant was given the option of keeping their winnings or trading them for other prizes.) Its successor, "Illinois Instant Riches" (retitled "Illinois' Luckiest" in 1998), ran from July 9, 1994, to October 21, 2000, with Mark Goodman and Kollmeyer as co-hosts. Produced in conjunction with Mark Goodson Productions (later Jonathan Goodson Productions), it featured a similar drawing format as its predecessor, but had individual contestants chosen randomly by a wheel spun by Kollmeyer each round (which was hooked to lights above each contestant's seat) play various mini-games.


title: WGN-TV

text: In September 1996, the station began carrying The Big Game multi-state drawing (replaced by Mega Millions in May 2002) each Tuesday and Friday; Powerball drawings were eventually added upon Illinois joining that multi-state lottery in January 2010. WGN America ceased carrying the drawings nationally on December 12, 2014; the Lottery ceased televising its daily drawings outright and moved the results for the Pick 3, Pick 4, Lotto with Extra Shot and Lucky Day Lotto (formerly Little Lotto until 2011) games exclusively to its website on October 1, 2015, upon switching to a random number generator structure.


title: WGN-TV

text: Throughout its history, WGN-TV has had a long association with Chicago sports, with most of the city's major professional sports franchises—particularly the Chicago Cubs, White Sox, Bulls and Blackhawks—and several local and regional collegiate teams (including the Illinois Fighting Illini, the Northwestern Wildcats, the DePaul Blue Demons and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish as well as various Big Ten Conference universities) having regularly televised their games over channel 9.


title: WGN-TV

text: The Cubs and White Sox were the first teams to be carried on the station, when on April 23, 1948, WGN aired a crosstown rivalry game that the Sox won, 4–1. (The Tribune Company wholly owned the Cubs from 1981 until 2008, and retained a minority interest in the team until January 2019.) Over the years, the number of Cubs and White Sox games on WGN had gradually decreased (down to about 70 per season for each team by 2008) as a result of the two Major League Baseball clubs—as well as the NBA's Bulls—migrating some of their local game telecasts to cable-originated regional sports networks, Fox Sports Net Chicago (later FSN Chicago) from 1999 until 2003 and then Comcast SportsNet Chicago (now NBC Sports Chicago) beginning in 2004. Beginning in 2015, WGN-TV began sharing the over-the-air rights to Cubs games with WLS-TV, resulting in Channel 9 reducing its coverage schedule to 45 games per season as part of a four-year contract involving the two stations. WGN carried the White Sox until 1972, before returning to the station for one season in 1981; the White Sox moved its local telecasts to WGN-TV after an eight-year absence in 1990.


title: WGN-TV

text: The Bulls began carrying their games with its inaugural season in 1966; after airing their games on WFLD for four years, the Bulls returned to WGN-TV for the 1989–90 season, overlapping with the start of the team's NBA championship dynasty during Michael Jordan's tenure with the team. WGN initially carried Blackhawks NHL games (which, per prohibitions on televised home games imposed by then-owner Bill Wirtz in order to sustain ticket sales, were restricted to away games) from 1961 until 1975. The Blackhawks returned to the station during the 2008–09 season, with a package of both home and away games (the result of Rocky Wirtz's decision to end the home game television blackout after taking over the franchise's ownership following his father's death). WGN-TV carried Chicago Bears regular season football games as a DuMont affiliate during the 1951 NFL season, after which the team moved their telecasts to ABC (and by association, ABC O&O WBKB-TV [now WLS-TV]) under a limited contract; the Bears aired their first game on WGN in 55 years on October 1, 2012, when the station carried the team's "Monday Night Football" matchup against the Dallas Cowboys. (NFL rules require national games aired by cable networks to be syndicated to broadcast stations in the participating teams' home markets.) Although WLS-TV has right of first refusal to "MNF" due to its corporate parent The Walt Disney Company's majority ownership of ESPN, WLS passed on carrying the game in order to air that night's live broadcast of ABC's "Dancing with the Stars".


title: WGN-TV

text: From November 1978 until October 2014, WGN America frequently simulcast WGN Sports broadcasts (mostly Cubs, White Sox and Bulls games) nationwide, when permitted under the station's sports contracts. (Tribune's President and CEO at the time, Peter Liguori, cited the limited viewership and advertising revenue generated from televising sports on a national basis relative to their contractual expense for its decision to stop carrying WGN's sports telecasts over WGN America after the 2014 MLB season.) In addition, until it ceased offering sporting events in September 2019, WGN-TV also distributed its White Sox and Bulls telecasts to television stations in Illinois, Indiana and Iowa that are within their respective broadcast territories (including CW affiliate WISH-TV in Indianapolis and the subchannels of WGN sister stations WHO-DT in Des Moines and WQAD in Davenport, Iowa). WGN-TV's Cubs and White Sox game broadcasts also were often carried on the MLB Extra Innings feeds available to DirecTV subscribers, sometimes including local commercials and station promotions that were not shown during the WGN America telecasts from the imposition of the SyndEx rules until the 2014 separation of the national and local feeds. (This also was the case for WGN-produced games shown on WPWR-TV, as well as WLS-TV's Cubs broadcasts.)


title: WGN-TV

text: On January 2, 2019, the White Sox, Bulls and Blackhawks agreed to an exclusive multi-year deal with NBC Sports Chicago to take effect that fall. This was followed on February 13 by the announcement of the formation of the Marquee Sports Network, a joint venture between the Cubs and Sinclair Broadcast Group that launched in the spring of 2020. As a consequence of the four teams electing to move their local game telecasts off broadcast television completely in favor of airing them exclusively over regional sports networks, WGN wound down its local sports coverage throughout the spring and summer of 2019—beginning with the April 1 game between the Blackhawks and the Winnipeg Jets, and continuing with its final game telecasts involving the Bulls (an away game against the New York Knicks on April 9) and the Cubs (an away game against the rival St. Louis Cardinals on September 27)—as the station's contracts with all four teams gradually expired. WGN-TV's final sports telecast involving any of the station's four legacy professional sports broadcast partners was the second game of a White Sox–Detroit Tigers doubleheader at Guaranteed Rate Field on September 28, 2019. However, on February 19, 2020, Chicago Fire FC announced a multi-year agreement with WGN-TV to broadcast their Major League Soccer (MLS) telecasts on the station, beginning with its March 7 match against the New England Revolution, returning regular sporting events to Channel 9 after a seven-month hiatus. Those games will move to Apple TV+ beginning in 2023, and without any NFL-style syndication rights, the 2022 season was the final season for Fire broadcasts on any television channel. The deal also marks the first time in the station's 74-year history that Channel 9 will not have any sports programming on the station.


title: WGN-TV

text: , WGN-TV presently broadcasts 72½ hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with 12½ hours each weekday, 5½ hours on Saturdays and 4½ hours on Sundays); in regards to the number of hours devoted to news programming, it is the highest newscast output of any television station in the Chicago market and the state of Illinois, and the sixth-highest newscast output in the United States behind WAGA-TV in Atlanta, WHDH in Boston, KTVK in Phoenix, WISH-TV in Indianapolis, and WGN-TV's sister station KTLA in Los Angeles. In addition to its conventional local newscasts, the station produces two late-evening sports news programs: "GN Sports", a half-hour sports highlight and interview program (airing nightly at 10:30 p.m.), which is co-anchored by longtime sports director Dan Roan (who joined WGN as a weekend sports anchor and sports reporter in 1984) and Jarrett Payton (son of late Chicago Bears Hall of Famer Walter Payton, and brother of former "Chicago's Best" host and current WFLD anchor Brittney Payton, who joined the station in 2015 as the 4:00 p.m. sports anchor for the "WGN Evening News"); and "Instant Replay", a 20-minute Sunday evening highlight program (airing during the final 20 minutes of the 9:00 p.m. newscast), which is solo anchored by Roan.


title: WGN-TV

text: Until regular sports telecasts on WGN-TV ended in September 2019, the station's midday, early and late evening newscasts were subject to (at least, partial) preemption or delay due to local sports telecasts overrunning into that time period; from July 8, 2010, onward, CLTV had served as an alternate broadcaster of WGN-TV newscasts that were preempted by the latter's sports broadcasts and aired live half-hour editions of "WGN News at Nine" on nights when Channel 9 carried a sports event being held on the West Coast that started locally at 9:00 p.m. (An additional half-hour live newscast followed the game telecast on WGN-TV, which had originally been titled under the "WGN News at Nine" brand prior to the 2016 launch of its 10:00 p.m. newscast.) The WGN-TV weather staff also provides local weather updates for WGN Radio under an agreement that began on October 13, 2008, at the conclusion of The Weather Channel's ten-year content partnership with the radio station.


title: WGN-TV

text: Although sports has been a major part of WGN-TV's identity, the station has also been well known in the Chicago area for its news programming, which, through its former co-ownership with the "Chicago Tribune", has played an important role since its launch. WGN's news department—which shared operations and management with WGN Radio until the news division was split into separate departments maintained by the respective properties in 1983—began operations along with the station on April 5, 1948, with the launch of its first regular news program, the "Chicagoland Newsreel", which was the first television newscast in the Chicago market to consist entirely of filmed coverage. The 15-minute broadcast—which originally aired weeknights at 6:45 p.m., with a midday edition at 11:30 a.m. being added in September 1949—was anchored by news director Spencer Allen (who had been a reporter and news writer for WGN Radio since 1938) and used a large staff of photographers and technicians, many of whom had previously worked for the "Tribune"; Allen also anchored a 15-minute midday news program for Channel 9, "Spencer Allen and the News", from 1951 to 1953.


title: WGN-TV

text: From 1948 to 1965, WGN also produced an additional 15-minute-long newscast at 6:30 p.m., with Austin Kiplinger (to be replaced by Allen in 1953 and then by Lloyd Pettit in 1956) reading the news summary and Frann Weigel as the weather anchor; the program was expanded to a half-hour in September 1955, when "Newsreel" was discontinued in favor of an amended sports news segment (anchored originally by Vince Lloyd). Under Allen's leadership, WGN-TV's newscasts evolved from a "police blotter/fire alarm-type of news operation" to incorporating more in-depth and investigative reports. WGN-TV also was the first Chicago television station to televise a local appearance by a U.S. President (carrying Harry S. Truman's 1948 visit to Chicago) and provided mobile coverage of Gen. Douglas MacArthur's visit to the city (in April 1951); it has also provided coverage of the Republican and Democratic presidential conventions each election cycle since 1952, and provided extensive pool coverage of Pope John Paul II's Mass at Grant Park in 1979.


title: WGN-TV

text: In September 1951, Channel 9 began carrying a 15-minute late night edition of "Chicagoland Newsreel" that followed its late evening movie presentations (which began at 10:00 p.m. at the time). By 1967, the program had evolved into "Night Beat", a 30-minute overnight newscast that—until it was discontinued in 1983—featured the main anchor (which had included, among others, Greyson, McNeeley, Cliff Mercer and Jack Taylor) presenting a summary of local and world news headlines as well as a brief weather forecast summary. In February 1955, the station installed a coaxial cable link from the city room of the "Chicago Tribune" (originally done for the early newscast, "First Edition", which aired from 1954 to 1956) to allow "Tribune" reporters and contributors to provide information on developing stories being covered by the newspaper and the WGN news department. After WGN-TV became an independent station in August 1956, the evening newscast was moved to 7:00 p.m.—becoming the market's first prime time newscast and often being subjected to sports-induced preemptions—before settling at 10:00 p.m. in September 1959, originally under the title "10th Hour News" (known in later years as "The Park-Ruddle News" and "[Jack Taylor/John Drury and] NewsNine"). In May 1960, the late newscast (which, by that point, was anchored by Jim Conway, who also hosted a self-titled daytime talk show at the time) became the first local television news program in the U.S. to expand to a half-hour broadcast. Standard news updates presented by various on-staff anchors—under the title "WGN Newsbreak"—also ran during the late morning, early afternoon and prime time hours in-between programs.


title: WGN-TV

text: In 1965, WGN appointed the first dual-anchor team ever employed in Chicago television news, as Gary Park (who came to the station from KCRA-TV in Sacramento) and Jim Ruddle (who previously worked at WTVT in Tampa) took the helm of the evening newscasts. On January 9, 1967, WGN shifted the 10:00 edition of the newscast by 15 minutes (concurrently reducing it to that length) in an attempt to improve viewership by placing the telephone quiz show "The Name Game" in the timeslot, reducing competition with late newscasts on WLS-TV, WMAQ-TV and WBBM-TV. (This experiment ended in May 1967, when WGN reverted to carrying the late newscast in its former 10:00 p.m. slot and expanded it to 25 minutes.) The Park-Ruddle combination was broken up in June 1967, when Ruddle left to join NBC-owned WMAQ-TV, to be followed two years later by Park taking a prime time anchor role at fellow independent KTVU (now a Fox owned-and-operated station) in San Francisco. Also in 1965, WGN premiered its first attempt at a morning news show with "Top 'o' the Morning"; Orion Samuelson—then a farm reporter for WGN Radio, who would eventually host the syndicated "U.S. Farm Report" starting in 1975—and Harold Turner (later replaced by Max Armstrong) provided agricultural news and weather. The program was replaced in May 1984 by a traditional morning newscast, "Chicago's First Report", which was canceled due to low viewership that December.


title: WGN-TV

text: The WGN news department has long been one of the most respected local television news operations in the United States and has earned several journalism awards throughout its history, including Emmy, Associated Press, United Press International and duPont-Columbia Awards. The station has also long established top-drawer talent for its newscasts, many of whom have worked at WGN-TV for more than ten years, including Jack Taylor (anchor/reporter, 1954–1984, whose run included a stint as primary weeknight anchor from 1970 to 1979), Carl Greyson (anchor, reporter and staff announcer, 1955–1980), Marty McNeeley (anchor/reporter, 1969–1986), Robert Jordan (anchor/reporter, 1973–1978 and 1980–2016), Muriel Clair (assignment reporter, 1978–present, part-time since December 2011), and Steve Sanders (anchor/reporter, 1982–2020). John Drury joined WGN-TV in 1967 for what would be a three-year stint as anchor of its 10:00 p.m. news as well as occasionally serving as anchor of "Night Beat". After working for WLS-TV for nine years, Drury returned to his former role at WGN in 1979, displacing Jack Taylor as 10:00 p.m. "NewsNine" anchor. During his second stint at WGN, Drury took on an expanded role doing assignment and investigative reporting (often producing the reports with investigative reporter Alex Burkholder). In 1982, then-Mayor Jane Byrne, accompanied by members of her public relations and cabinet staff, tried to talk Drury into shelving a report on Byrne's use of public funds towards city festivals designed to promote her administration in relation to her stint residing in the Cabrini-Green housing project. Drury went forward with the investigative report, which aided in Byrne's loss to Harold Washington in the 1983 Democratic mayoral primary and would help earn Drury a Chicago Emmy Award for Individual Excellence (the first of four Emmys during his career).


title: WGN-TV

text: Another mainstay of WGN-TV has been Tom Skilling, who joined WGN in August 1978 to succeed Harry Volkman (who had two stints at the station, first from 1967 until 1970 and again from 1974 until the summer of 1978) as the station's main evening meteorologist. Skilling—who is rumored to be the highest paid local television meteorologist in the United States—would become known for presenting his on-air forecasts with detailed but fairly easy-to-understand analysis and striking accuracy (most noted by his predictions of the Groundhog Day blizzard two weeks before it created paralyzing effects on the Chicago area in late January and early February 2011), and with routine usage of ensemble computer models to illustrate expected weather scenarios. Skilling has also occasionally hosted half-hour documentary specials explaining extreme weather phenomenon and advancements in forecasting technology (including 1991's "It Sounded Like a Freight Train", focusing on the science of and the Chicago area's climatological history with tornadoes, and 1992's "When Lightning Strikes", centering on the science and dangers of lightning), which have earned several Chicago Emmy nominations and award wins, as well as a weekly feature on the 9:00 p.m. newscast, "Ask Tom Why", in which Skilling answers viewer-submitted weather questions (and which served as the basis for a similarly formatted column featured in the "Tribune"s weather page). Under Skilling, WGN also coordinated the centralization of its weather operations to encompass WGN-TV, WGN Radio, CLTV and the "Tribune", and, in May 2007, became a broadcast partner in the WeatherBug real-time automated weather observation network (the largest station member by market size). Skilling holds the record as the longest-serving television meteorologist at a single station in the Chicago market, having served as chief meteorologist at WGN-TV for 42 years . (Volkman holds the record as Chicago's longest-serving television meteorologist overall, having worked in the market from 1959 until his retirement from broadcasting in 2004, including other stints at WMAQ-TV and WFLD as well as an 18-year run as chief meteorologist at WBBM-TV.)


title: WGN-TV

text: The late newscast was moved into prime time on March 10, 1980, concurrently becoming known as "The Nine O'Clock News" (later retitled "WGN News at Nine" in May 1993, as part of a uniform retitling of its newscasts under the ""WGN News"" moniker used in some promotions and report sign-offs since 1981). The shift to the 9:00 p.m. hour briefly made it the first hour-long prime time newscast in the Midwest and, for its first seven years in that slot, it was the Chicago market's only local television newscast at 9:00. Initially airing five nights a week for one hour, the revamped weeknight-only newscast was first anchored by the prior "NewsNine" team of Drury, Skilling, sports anchor Bill Frink and commentator Len O'Connor. On June 9 of that year, the program switched to a hybrid local-national format that incorporated the "Independent Network News" ("INN")—a Tribune-syndicated nightly news program originating from New York sister station WPIX, which was later retitled "INN: The Independent News" in September 1984 and "USA Tonight" in January 1987—in place of the locally produced segments that had occupied the 9:30 p.m. half-hour since the March format change. After briefly being relegated to weeknights following the shift to prime time, half-hour weekend editions of the 9:00 p.m. broadcast were added on October 4, 1980, anchored originally by Larry Roderick and Robert Jordan. By 1985, Drury (who returned to his previous role as main co-anchor at WLS-TV in late 1984) and Denise Cannon (who became the former's co-anchor in 1981 and departed at the end of 1984) were succeeded as principal anchors by Rick Rosenthal and Pat Harvey.


title: WGN-TV

text: Since the reformatting as a prime time newscast, WGN-TV has been the ratings leader in the 9:00 p.m. timeslot, with or without news competition in the arena and even at times when weaker-rated shows led into the newscast, and typically holds a larger audience than the 10:00 p.m. newscast on WBBM-TV. The 9:00 p.m. newscast's dominance was to such an extent that, from 1984 until 1989 (when it was unseated by KTVU in San Francisco), it had the largest viewership of any prime time local newscast in the United States. Legitimate competition sprang up for "The Nine O'Clock News" on November 16, 1987, when Fox O&O WFLD consolidated the half-hour 7:00 and 11:00 p.m. newscasts that launched its full-scale news operation three months earlier into a single broadcast at 9:00. Although WFLD aggressively marketed its fledgling newscast towards younger audiences as having a fresher style compared to WGN's more traditional news format, viewer loyalty has continued to propel Channel 9 to No. 1 in the ratings at 9:00 to the present day (with one of the only exceptions being a tie with Channel 32 in the May 1996 sweeps period), even with the WFLD newscast having the Fox prime time lineup as its lead-in. For this reason, WFLD moved its newscast back to its original 7:00 p.m. timeslot in September 1988, only to return it to 9:00 the following year to accommodate the planned expansion of Fox's prime time lineup. A sports highlight and interview program, "Instant Replay", which has been hosted since its debut by sports director Dan Roan, began accompanying the Sunday edition of the newscast in August 1987. WGN re-expanded its prime time newscast to one hour on June 4, 1990, after Tribune discontinued production of "USA Tonight" under a collaborative agreement between Tribune and Turner Broadcasting in which the Tribune stations were granted access to CNN Newsource content and began feeding video footage to the CNN video wire service.


title: WGN-TV

text: WGN began programming long-form news outside its established 9:00 p.m. slot on September 19, 1983, when it debuted "Midday Newscope", which grew out of the three-minute-long local news segments that had aired during the "INN Midday Edition" (which followed the newscast until that program's September 1985 cancellation) since January 1983. Originally anchored by Rick Rosenthal (who was replaced by Steve Sanders, after Rosenthal replaced Drury as 9:00 p.m. co-anchor in 1984), the newscast—a local version of Telepictures and Gannett Broadcasting's short-lived syndicated format, "Newscope"—featured a hybrid of local news headlines and weather forecasts and in-depth consumer, financial, entertainment and lifestyle features. The program was reformatted into a more traditional newscast, retitled "Chicago's Midday News", on September 17, 1984, and later expanded to an hour in September 1985. The midday newscast—which concurrently rebranded from "WGN News at Noon" to the "WGN Midday News" with the expansion—would eventually expand to 90 minutes (moving to an 11:30 a.m. start) on September 15, 2008; it was subsequently expanded to two hours (moving to 11:00 a.m.) on October 5, 2009. On September 19, 1988, WGN became the first Chicago television station to closed caption its newscasts for the hearing impaired.


title: WGN-TV

text: On January 25, 1992, the station debuted hour-long 8:00 a.m. newscasts on Saturdays and Sundays. To accommodate the launch of "Chicago's Weekend Morning News" (which marked the first major weekend morning news attempt in Chicago television and one of the only instances of a television station carrying a morning newscast on weekends without already having a weekday equivalent) and the concurring moves of "Charlando" and "People to People" to Sundays, WGN dropped three long-running religious programs—"What's Nu" (produced by the Chicago Board of Rabbis), "Heritage of Faith" (produced by Protestant group Greater Chicago Broadcast Ministries) and "Mass for Shut-ins" (produced by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago)—from its Sunday morning lineup, a move that was criticized by the Council of Religious Leaders of Metropolitan Chicago and other religious groups on grounds that the programs catered to diverse religious audiences in fulfillment of the station's public service programming obligations. (The latter two programs were subsequently acquired by WGBO-TV, under an agreement which allowed them to continue to be produced out of the WGN-TV studios.) The Sunday edition was discontinued after the September 4, 1994, broadcast; the Saturday edition would follow suit four years later on December 19, 1998, with then-news director Steve Ramsey citing the need to provide more resources for its weekday morning newscasts. Weekend morning newscasts returned on October 2, 2010, with the debut of hour-long editions at 6:00 a.m. (shifted to a two-hour block at 7:00 a.m. on September 10, 2016, following Channel 9's disaffiliation from The CW, and expanded to a third hour on Saturdays until 10:00 a.m. on January 11, 2020.).


title: WGN-TV

text: Morning news programming was extended to weekdays on September 6, 1994, with the "WGN Morning News" debuting as a one-hour broadcast from 7:00 to 8:00 a.m., anchored originally by Dave Eckert, Sonja Gantt and meteorologist Paul Huttner. In an effort to improve viewership, the program—which replaced children's programs (including "The Bozo Show", which displaced the Sunday edition of the morning newscast) that had previously aired in that time period—was soon reformatted from a more traditional newscast to feature a mix of straight news and entertainment and lifestyle features that use a looser style similar to morning radio programs. This reformatting helped the "Morning News" to eventually begin beating competing local and national morning news programs—including its closest initial competitor, WFLD's "Fox Thing in the Morning" (now "Good Day Chicago")—in the 25–54 age demographic and in total viewers. (The program would expand to two hours, extending until 9:00 a.m., on January 8, 1996, with a later hour-long expansion [to 10:00 a.m.] on September 3, 2013.) An hour-long 6:00 a.m. ""Early Edition"" of the newscast debuted on August 5, 1996; this block of the newscast would gradually expand to three hours, beginning with the addition of a 5:30 a.m. half-hour in January 2001 and ending with its July 11, 2011, extension to 4:00 a.m. (The "WGN Morning News" became the first WGN-TV newscast to be denied clearance on the national feed in September 1996, with its forced removal reportedly being due to self-imposed exclusivity restrictions concerning the newscast's paid segments and rate charges that the station's sales department would have to pay if the segments aired nationally; simulcasts of the "WGN Morning News" temporarily returned to WGN America on February 3, 2014, when it began airing the 4:00 a.m. hour.)


title: WGN-TV

text: In July 1996, WGN-TV began using a Eurocopter AS350 B2 helicopter for newsgathering, "Skycam 9," which is used for certain breaking news events and traffic reporting. In October 1999, freelance reporter Jane Boal made headlines when she was hit from behind while trying to move away from a car attempting to drive away from an accident with another vehicle during a live midday report about a carbon monoxide leak that forced the evacuation of a school in the Rogers Park neighborhood; Boal (who was laid off by the station in May 2009) suffered cartilage and ligament injuries to both of her legs after being pinned between the car involved in the accident and a WGN live truck, but was able to resume work in early November. In 2000, WGN-TV constructed a new newsroom covering two floors on the eastern portion of its studio facility, increasing the building's size to approximately ; the original newsroom was renovated for use by the station's weather department.


title: WGN-TV

text: WGN scored a major coup in April 2008, when it persuaded veteran WMAQ-TV and WFLD anchor Mark Suppelsa—who turned down a contract with the latter station due to a proposed salary cut—to take over as lead anchor of the 9:00 p.m. newscast, replacing Steve Sanders (who was moved to the midday newscast and was later joined in September 2009 by his former co-anchor on the 9:00 p.m. broadcast from 1993 until Suppelsa's appointment, Allison Payne, after Micah Materre moved to the prime time newscasts full-time). Suppelsa remained a main co-anchor of the weeknight newscasts until his retirement from broadcasting in December 2017, and was replaced two months later by Joe Donlon (who served a similar role at KGW in Portland, Oregon, and would himself depart WGN-TV in June 2020 to become main co-anchor of sister network WGN Americas fledgling prime time newscast "NewsNation"). On July 19, 2008, beginning with that night's edition of the 9:00 p.m. newscast, WGN-TV became the third television station in the Chicago market to begin broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition. Video from remote and field equipment was initially broadcast in 480p standard definition following the transition; high definition cameras began to be used for field reports in July 2010, a move which made WGN-TV the first station in the market to broadcast all locally originated portions of its newscasts (including live field reports) in HD.


title: WGN-TV

text: Starting under the direction of now-former news director Greg Caputo, WGN-TV spearheaded a major expansion of its news programming. In addition to the expansions of its existing newscasts, WGN first launched an early-evening newscast on September 15, 2008, when the "WGN Evening News" premiered as a half-hour weeknight broadcast at 5:30 p.m. The newscast expanded to one hour (starting at 5:00 p.m.) on October 5, 2009, with Saturday and Sunday editions being added on July 12, 2014. The weekday editions of the newscast were later expanded to include a second hour (starting at 4:00 p.m.) on September 8, 2014, and then to three hours (extending it to the 6:00 p.m. hour) on April 4, 2017. (The superstation feed did not clear any of the expanded newscasts up until the conversion of WGN America into a conventional cable channel.) In 2009, WGN-TV began streaming its weekday midday and 5:00 p.m. newscasts live on its website. On February 22, 2010, WGN-TV became the first television station in the Chicago market to allow iPhone users to watch live streams of its newscasts; the 6:00 to 9:00 a.m. block of the "WGN Morning News", the midday and 5:00 p.m. newscasts were initially available for streaming to iPhone users. (At present, all newscasts are streamed through the station's website and on Apple devices, though sports segments are blacked out—presented only with the audio feed—due to streaming restrictions on sports highlights imposed by the major sports leagues.)


title: WGN-TV

text: On October 5, 2015, the station restored a 10:00 p.m. newscast—originally only airing Monday through Friday nights—to its schedule after a 35-year absence; weekend editions of the 10:00 broadcast were added on January 11, 2020. A secondary live sports news show, "GN Sports", premiered on January 28, 2020, as the lead-out program for the weeknight 10:00 p.m. newscasts; co-hosted by Dan Roan and Jarrett Payton, the program focuses on sports news and highlights, feature segments and in-studio interviews in a similar format as "Instant Replay", as well as including sports gaming and fantasy sports analysis. (Payton formerly co-hosted the similar CLTV program "Sports Feed"—alongside WGN sports reporter Josh Frydman, who serves as a "GN Sports" contributor—from 2015 until Nexstar shut down the cable news channel in December 2019.) Weekend editions of "GN Sports" were added on August 14, 2021, with the Sunday broadcast replacing the cuisine and tourism program "Chicago's Best" (which had aired on WGN for ten years from January 2011 until August 8, 2021).


title: WGN-TV

text: WGN-TV began transmitting a digital television signal on UHF channel 19 on January 4, 2001, operating from a transmitter located atop the Sears Tower. (Incidentally, WGN-TV was one of six, originally eight, Chicago television stations that declined offers to move their analog transmitters to the Sears Tower antenna farm ahead of the building's 1973 completion.) The station shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 9, on June 12, 2009, the official date in which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The WGN-TV digital signal continued to broadcast on its pre-transition UHF channel 19, with digital television receivers continuing to display WGN-TV's PSIP virtual channel as its former VHF analog channel 9. As a consequence, WGN-TV permanently ceased transmissions from the John Hancock Center's west antenna tower, establishing its existing digital facilities at the Sears Tower digital antenna as its main transmitter.


title: WGN-TV

text: Though not a participant in the SAFER Act, WWME-CA carried simulcasts of WGN-TV's 9:00 p.m. newscast—except in the event of sports delays—and WMAQ-TV's morning and early evening newscasts until July 12 to provide an analog "lifeline" for viewers that were unprepared for or who had reception issues following the digital transition.


title: WGN-TV

text: In April 1985, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) approved eligibility for the signals of WGN-TV and fellow American superstations WTBS, WOR-TV and WPIX to be retransmitted as foreign services by multichannel television providers within Canada. Under CRTC linkage rules first implemented in 1983 that require providers to offer U.S.-based program services in discretionary tiers tied to Canadian services, WGN-TV/WGN America and other authorized U.S. superstations typically have been sold to prospective subscribers of one or more domestic premium services—such as Crave (formerly First Choice and The Movie Network), Starz (formerly Moviepix and The Movie Network Encore), Super Channel, Super Écran and Western Canada-based regional pay services Movie Central (the original user of the Superchannel name, now defunct) and Encore Avenue (also now defunct). However, some providers have chosen to offer WGN in a specialty tier under a related rule that allows for an eligible superstation of the provider's choice to be carried on a non-premium tier. (Although KWGN-TV has also been authorized for carriage by the CRTC since that point, the Denver sister station is not carried on any multichannel television providers within Canada.)


title: WGN-TV

text: After United Video began offering a separate national feed of WGN upon the stateside implementation the Syndex rules in January 1990, most Canadian cable providers began to replace the Chicago signal with the superstation feed as well. (Among the country's satellite providers, Star Choice [now Shaw Direct] began carrying the national feed upon the satellite provider's 1994 launch; Bell ExpressVu [now Bell Satellite TV] began distributing the Chicago-area signal when it commenced operations in 1996.) As a network affiliate, WGN-TV provided WB and CW programs to areas of Canada distant from the Canadian–U.S. border that could not receive over-the-air signals of other WB/CW affiliates from American cities. The WGN local feed was subjected to fewer sports blackouts than WGN America had been subjected to prior to the separation of the national and local feeds, as blackouts of programming to which Canadian broadcasters hold domestic rights apply only to imported U.S.-based specialty channels. However, simultaneous substitution rules have applied to certain CW programs that were also carried by Canadian-based terrestrial networks (such as Global, Citytv and CTV Two). The WGN-TV feed had also previously been available as part of the NHL Centre Ice sports package, primarily for simulcasts of Chicago Blackhawks games that WGN-TV aired until the 2018–19 season.


title: WGN-TV

text: On January 17, 2007, WGN's main Canadian uplink carrier, Shaw Broadcast Services, switched its distributed feed of the station to the Chicago signal, a decision believed to have resulted from increased licensing fees for the then-superstation feed; despite this, some providers (including MTS TV and Cogeco Cable) continued to carry the superstation feed in place of or in conjunction with the Chicago signal. Despite this, some providers continued to carry the national WGN channel in lieu of or—as was the case with providers such as MTS TV and Cogeco Cable—in tandem with the Chicago feed, resulting in the duplication of CW network and many syndicated programs that are available within the country on other networks (such as fellow superstations KTLA and Boston-based WSBK-TV). While the CRTC had approved the Chicago station's broadcast signal "and" its national cable feed for carriage on any domestic multichannel television provider (including cable, satellite, IPTV and MMDS services), because of the conversion of WGN America from a superstation into an independent general-entertainment service and its resulting programming separation from WGN-TV, on December 15, 2014, Tribune Broadcasting sent notice that it would terminate all Canadian distribution rights for WGN America, effective January 1, 2015; the move was likely done to comply with CRTC genre protection rules in effect at the time, which prohibited the utilization of general entertainment programming formats by domestic or foreign cable channels. The WGN-TV Chicago feed, however, remains authorized for domestic distribution as a superstation. It is carried on Bell Satellite TV channel 1232 across Canada.


title: Prima Donnas

text: Prima Donnas () is a Philippine television drama series broadcast by GMA Network. Directed by Gina Alajar, it stars Jillian Ward, Althea Ablan and Sofia Pablo in the title roles. It premiered on August 19, 2019, on the network's Afternoon Prime line up replacing "Bihag". The series concluded on April 30, 2022 with a total of 2 seasons and 311 episodes. It was replaced by "Apoy sa Langit" in its timeslot.


title: Prima Donnas

text: Principal photography was halted in March 17, 2020 due to the enhanced community quarantine in Luzon caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. On September 25, 2020, Sofia Pablo left the show due to community quarantine guidelines. Filming was continued on September 28, 2020. The series resumed its programming on November 9, 2020.


title: Prima Donnas

text: Principal photography for the second season commenced on September 27, 2021. Aiko Melendez left the series in October 2021, to pursue her political career in Quezon City.


title: Prima Donnas

text: According to AGB Nielsen Philippines' Nationwide Urban Television Audience Measurement People in television homes, the final episode of the first season of "Prima Donnas" scored a 14.2% rating.


title: Liver bird

text: The liver bird is a mythical creature which is the symbol of the English city of Liverpool. It is normally represented as a cormorant, and appears as such on the city's arms, in which it bears a branch of laver seaweed in its beak as a further pun on the name "Liverpool".


title: Liver bird

text: King John founded the borough of Liverpool by royal charter in 1207. The borough's second charter, granted by Henry III in 1229, gave the townspeople the right to form a guild with the privileges this came with, including the right to use a common seal. Liverpool's ancient seal probably dated from this time, though the earliest surviving impression (kept in the British Museum) is from 1352. The seal depicted a generic bird with a plant sprig in its beak, together with a scroll inscribed (in shaky letters) "JOHIS" - an abbreviation for "Johannis", Latin for "John's". The bird was almost certainly intended to be an eagle, the symbol of John the Evangelist, who was both the namesake and the patron saint of King John. The plant sprig is interpreted as broom ("planta genista" in Latin), a badge of the Plantagenet dynasty. Also visible on the seal is a star and crescent, one of King John's personal badges.


title: Liver bird

text: The shoddy draughtsmanship of the seal has given rise to other theories. Richard Brooke, a 19th-century Liverpudlian antiquary, surmised that the bird was a dove with an olive branch, and that the scroll read "NOBIS" or "VOBIS".


title: Liver bird

text: By the 17th century the bird's real identity had been forgotten: it began to be interpreted either as a cormorant, a common bird in the area, or as a "lever". In 1611 the municipal records describe the mayor receiving a plate "marked with the Cormorant, the Townes Armes", while in 1668 the Earl of Derby gifted the town a silver-gilt mace engraved with a "leaver". In his 1688 work "The Academie of Armorie", Randle Holme records the arms of Liverpool as a blue "lever" upon a silver field. Holme takes this word to be an adaptation of the German "loffler" or Dutch "lepler/lefler", both referring to the spoonbill. It is possible that these continental words were adopted for the bird in Liverpool's arms as they made a fitting allusion to the name "Liverpool". Around the same time the broom sprig in the bird's beak was reinterpreted as a branch of laver, also on account of the similarity of the word to the city's name.


title: Liver bird

text: In August 1796 Mayor Clayton Tarleton wrote to the College of Arms to request an official grant of arms to the city. His letter called the bird "a lever or sea cormorant". Arms were duly granted on 22 March 1797 by Sir Isaac Heard, Garter King of Arms, and George Harrison, Norroy King of Arms; however the grant described the bird only as a "cormorant".


title: Liver bird

text: In addition to the arms and crest, Garter granted supporters on 23 March. These consist of Neptune, the god of the sea, and his son and herald Triton. The motto is "Deus nobis haec otia fecit"—a quotation from Virgil's "Eclogues" translating to "God hath granted us this ease" or "God has bestowed these blessings upon us".


title: Liver bird

text: Representations of the bird can be found throughout Liverpool, most numerously on the heritage lamp standards in the town centre on which small versions sit as a top piece. The two most famous stand atop the clock towers of the Royal Liver Building at Liverpool's Pier Head, overlooking the Mersey. Their names are Bertie and Bella. The male, Bertie looks over the city and the female, Bella looks to the sea. The building, headquarters to the Royal Liver Assurance, was opened in 1911. The metal cormorant-like birds were designed by Carl Bernard Bartels and constructed by the Bromsgrove Guild of Applied Arts.


title: Liver bird

text: There are two less well-known liver birds in the city. A third metal bird is on the nearby Mersey Chambers office building, adjacent to the Church of Our Lady and St Nicholas, the parish church of the city of Liverpool. The fourth, a bird carved in stone, topped the St. John's Market building of 1822 until its demolition in 1964. The stone liver bird is now displayed at the Museum of Liverpool.


title: Liver bird

text: Though nowadays the bird is inseparable in the public mind with Liverpool F.C., the first club to use it as a symbol was Everton. It was replaced in the 1930s with the Everton Lock-Up, another Liverpudlian icon. Some fans believe it should be reinstated, arguing that as a symbol of the whole city it rightfully belongs to both clubs.


title: Liver bird

text: The modern popularity of the symbol largely dates to 1911, when the Liver Building was built. This prominent display of two liver birds rekindled the idea that the liver was a mythical bird that once haunted the local shoreline. According to popular legend, they are a male and female pair: the female looking out to sea, watching for the seamen to return safely home, and the male looking in to the city, watching over the seamen's families (or "making sure the pubs are open", as a jocular version has it). Local legend also holds that the birds face away from each other, for if they were to mate and fly away, the city would cease to exist.


title: Liver bird

text: Another popular story told about them is that they are chained down, for if they were to fly away the River Mersey would burst its banks and flood the city of Liverpool. This is somewhat similar to the mating story.


title: Liver bird

text: An all female rock group from Liverpool called The Liverbirds was active in the '60s. They moved to Hamburg in 1964, where they were billed as "die weiblichen Beatles" (the female Beatles).


title: Liver bird

text: During the 1970s, "The Liver Birds" was the name of a popular British sitcom dealing with two young women in Liverpool, a play on the British slang term "bird" meaning a young woman.


title: Liver bird

text: The crest of Sir Paul McCartney is a calling liver bird holding a guitar, in reference to his profession and native city.


title: Liver bird

text: The birds are central to the plot of the 2022 novel Red Bird. Unlike other depictions, the birds are here depicted as murderous and carnivorous jackdaw like creatures.


title: Liver bird

text: In November 2008, Liverpool Football Club filed an application with the UK Intellectual Property Office to register the version of the liver bird shown on the club badge as its trademark. The deputy council leader, Flo Clucas, responded that "The Liver bird belongs to all the people of Liverpool and not one company or organisation."


title: Liver bird

text: Liverpool FC finally acquired a registration covering a trademark incorporating a liver bird in September 2010, after coming to an agreement with the city council. Liverpool FC obtained a trademark registration from the European trademark office and the council obtained its own registration from the UK IPO covering a trademark incorporating a liver bird. This was done to protect its use by companies in Liverpool, but also for the football club to protect itself against counterfeit products.


title: Warez scene

text: The Warez scene, often referred to as The Scene, is a worldwide, underground, organized network of pirate groups specializing in obtaining and illegally releasing digital media for free before their official sale date. The Scene distributes all forms of digital media, including computer games, movies, TV shows, music, and pornography. The Scene is meant to be hidden from the public, only being shared with those within the community. However, as files were commonly leaked outside the community and their popularity grew, some individuals from The Scene began leaking files and uploading them to filehosts, torrents and ed2k.


title: Warez scene

text: The Scene has no central leadership, location, or other organizational conventions. The groups themselves create a ruleset for each Scene category (for example, MP3 or TV) that then becomes the active rules for encoding material. These rulesets include a rigid set of requirements that warez groups (shortened as "grps") must follow in releasing and managing material. The groups must follow these rules when uploading material and, if the release has a technical error or breaks a rule, other groups may "nuke" (flag as bad content) the release. Groups are in constant competition to get releases up as fast as possible. First appearing around the time of BBSes, The Scene is composed primarily of people dealing with and distributing media content for which special skills and advanced software are required.


title: Warez scene

text: The warez scene started emerging in the 1970s, used by predecessors of software cracking and reverse engineering groups. Their work was made available on privately run bulletin board systems (BBSes). The first BBSes were located in the United States, but similar boards started appearing in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and mainland Europe. At the time, setting up a machine capable of distributing data was not trivial, and required a certain amount of technical skill; this was usually taken on as a technical challenge. The BBSes typically hosted several megabytes of material, with the best boards having multiple phone lines and up to one hundred megabytes of storage space, a considerable expense at the time. Releases were mostly games and later software.


title: Warez scene

text: As the world of software development evolved to counter the distribution of material, and as the software and hardware needed for distribution became readily available to anyone, The Scene adapted to the changes and turned from simple distribution to actual cracking of copying restrictions and non-commercial reverse engineering. As many groups of people who wanted to do this emerged, a requirement for promotion of individual groups became evident, which prompted the evolution of the artscene, which specialized in the creation of graphical art associated with individual groups. The groups would promote their abilities with ever more sophisticated and advanced software, graphical art, and later also music (demoscene).


title: Warez scene

text: The subcommunities (artscene, demoscene, etc.), which were doing nothing illegal, eventually branched off. The programs containing the group promotional material (coding/graphical/musical presentations) evolved to become separate programs distributed through The Scene and were nicknamed Intros and later Cracktros.


title: Warez scene

text: When releasing material, groups must first encode properly so as not to be nuked, which shows up as a cautionary flag to potential users. After encoding, they upload the files to a topsite, an FTP server with a large amount of bandwidth where all the files originate. When the upload is complete, they execute a command that causes the name and category of the release to be announced in the topsite's IRC channel using a IRC bot hosting an IRC script which keeps track of activity. This FTP server and IRC are hidden and closed to the public. New releases are also announced 0sec (meaning seconds to minutes after official scene pre) on various public websites. This is called a "pre" release. Once this is done, all other releases for the same material are nuked as duplicates ("dupes"). However, if there is a technical error or the file breaks the ruleset for the category, the original "pre" release will be nuked. Other groups then encode the same material and release it with a "PROPER" tag in the filename. The same group may re-encode the file, with the new release marked as "REPACK". If the issue was with something other than the main content, the same group can release a "fix", labelled "DIRFIX", "NFOFIX", etc. as appropriate. Release groups are exempt from FTP Share ratios in most cases, while "racers" in Topsite IRC channels will be given a ratio. Racers use FXP software and custom auto-trading software to transfer releases from one FTP to other FTP's and FTP Site-Rings (group of dedicated servers linked together) around the world. IRC site channels will use modes such as +s (secret) +p (private) and +i (invite only) to avoid detection.


title: Warez scene

text: Each release in The Scene consists of a folder containing the material (sometimes split into RAR pieces), plus an NFO and SFV file. The NFO is a text file which has essential information about the files encoded, including a reason for the nuke if the file is a PROPER or REPACK release. A robust NFO file may contain a group's mission statement, recruitment requirements, greetings, and contact info; many groups have a standard ASCII art template for the file, with the most prolific exhibiting elaborate artistic examples. The SFV file uses checksums to ensure that the files of a release are working properly and have not been damaged or tampered with. This is typically done with the aid of an external executable like QuickSFV or SFV Checker. Failure to include an NFO or SFV file in the release will generally result in a nuke, as these are essential components of the warez standard to which The Scene adheres.


title: Warez scene

text: In 2012, the Scene had over 100 active groups releasing material. Over 1,000 releases are made each day, with a cumulative total of more than five million releases through 2012.


title: Warez scene

text: Cracking has been the core element of The Scene since its beginning. This part of The Scene community sometimes referred to as the crack scene specializes in the creation of software cracks and keygens. The challenge of cracking and reverse engineering complicated software is what makes it an attraction. The game cracking group SKIDROW described it as follows in one of their NFO files:


title: Warez scene

text: David Grime, former DrinkOrDie member, describes the motivation of the warez scene as follows: "It's all about stature. They are just trying to make a name for themselves for no reason other than self-gratification."


title: Jack O'Halloran

text: Jack O'Halloran (born April 8, 1943) is an American actor and former boxer. O'Halloran fought in 57 professional boxing matches (including fights with future heavyweight champions George Foreman and Ken Norton), but he is best known for acting in such films as "Superman", "Superman II", "Dagon: Troll World Chronicles" and "Dragnet".


title: Jack O'Halloran

text: O'Halloran was born in Philadelphia, and was raised by his mother, Mary, and stepfather, Peter Paul Patrick O'Halloran; in his book "Family Legacy", he claimed to be the illegitimate son of mafia hitman Albert Anastasia. He lived in Runnemede, New Jersey. Fighting as "Irish" Jack O'Halloran from Boston, he was a heavyweight boxing contender active from 1966 to 1974. The 6'6" O'Halloran was undefeated in his first 16 professional fights.


title: Jack O'Halloran

text: During his boxing career, O'Halloran defeated former title contenders Cleveland Williams and Manuel Ramos. He also defeated Danny McAlinden, who won a bronze medal in boxing at the 1966 British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Kingston, Jamaica and later became the British and Commonwealth Heavyweight Champion. O'Halloran's losses included defeats to Joe Roman (twice), Joe Bugner, Ron Lyle, and future heavyweight champions George Foreman and Ken Norton.


title: Jack O'Halloran

text: In 1973, O'Halloran was close to attaining a match against Muhammad Ali when he was knocked out by Jimmy Summerville. This ended his chances to fight Ali. Although O'Halloran went on to defeat Summerville by K.O. in a rematch, with only three more wins and five losses he was never again a serious heavyweight contender.


title: Jack O'Halloran

text: The California Boxing Hall of Fame has listed O'Halloran as one of its inductees of the 2009 HOF class.


title: Jack O'Halloran

text: Retiring from boxing in 1974 with a record of 34-21-2 (17 knockout victories), O'Halloran turned to a career as an actor. He first won the role of ex-convict Moose Malloy in the 1975 film "Farewell, My Lovely", featuring Robert Mitchum as private eye Philip Marlowe.


title: Jack O'Halloran

text: After "Farewell, My Lovely" O'Halloran was offered other roles, some of which he turned down, including the role of Jaws in "The Spy Who Loved Me" which went to Richard Kiel.


title: Jack O'Halloran

text: He acquired other roles as tough henchmen which culminated in the role he is best known for, Non, the menacing but mute member of the trio of Kryptonian supervillains banished to the Phantom Zone by Jor-El (Marlon Brando) in "Superman" (1978) and inadvertently released by Superman in "Superman II" (1980).


title: Jack O'Halloran

text: O'Halloran once stated in an interview that it was his idea to make Non a childlike character, having difficulty adjusting to his newfound powers and making sounds in the absence of voice. O'Halloran criticized Alexander and Ilya Salkind, the producers of the "Superman" films, for their mishandling of the franchise, believing that their firing of director Donner was a huge blow to the series and the cause of its downturn in quality, a sentiment that was shared by Gene Hackman, who refused to reprise his Lex Luthor role in the third film, and by Margot Kidder who played Lois Lane.


title: Jack O'Halloran

text: In an interview with "Starlog Magazine" in 2006, O'Halloran stated that he and Christopher Reeve did not get along during the making of "Superman II". On one occasion, he had Reeve against a wall, but Richard Donner intervened and dissuaded him from hitting Reeve. He later discussed this incident on the "How Did This Get Made?" podcast's Episode 24.1. Despite the clash between them, O'Halloran stated that his heart went out to Reeve after his 1995 accident, and commended him for helping others with spinal cord injuries.


title: Jack O'Halloran

text: O'Halloran has also played supporting roles in "King Kong" (1976), "March or Die" (1977), "The Baltimore Bullet" (1980), "Dragnet" (1987), "Hero and the Terror" (1988), "Mob Boss" (1990), "The Flintstones" (1994) and "Dagon Troll World Chronicles" (2019).


title: Jack O'Halloran

text: In 2008, O'Halloran announced plans to enter into a partnership with veteran Hollywood executive Jay Samit to create Long Beach Studios, a chain of film studio facilities throughout the United States.


title: Jack O'Halloran

text: In 2010, O'Halloran released "Family Legacy". The book also outlines O'Halloran's relationship with his alleged father, a former boss of the Gambino crime family, Albert Anastasia.


title: I. S. Johar

text: Inder Sen Johar(16 February 1920 – 10 March 1984), better known as I. S. Johar, was an Indian actor, writer, producer and director, who excelled in comedic roles.


title: I. S. Johar

text: Inderjeet Singh Johar was born on 16th February, 1920 in Talagang City, Talagang Tehsil, Jhelum District, Punjab Province, British India (now within modern-day Chakwal District, Punjab, Pakistan). He did an MA degree in Economics and Politics before completing his LLB. In August 1947, during the Partition of India, Johar was visiting Patiala with his family for a wedding when serious rioting broke out in Lahore, resulting in the Shah Alami Bazaar, once the largely Hindu quarter of the Walled City, being entirely burnt down.


title: I. S. Johar

text: Johar never returned to Lahore. For a period he worked in Jalandhar while his family remained in Delhi, before he eventually moved to Bombay, where he made his acting debut in the 1949 Hindi comedy action film "Ek Thi Ladki".


title: I. S. Johar

text: Johar acted in numerous Hindi films from the 1950s through to the early 1980s and appeared in international films such as "Harry Black" (1958), "North West Frontier" (1959), "Lawrence of Arabia" (1962) and "Death on the Nile" (1978), besides acting in "Maya" (1967), a US TV series. He also appeared in Punjabi films, including "Chaddian Di Doli" (1966), Nanak Nam Jahaz Hai (1969) with Prithviraj Kapoor, and "Yamla Jatt" with Helen.


title: I. S. Johar

text: I. S. Johar also wrote and directed films, including the partition-based Hindi movie "Nastik" (1954), "Johar Mehmood in Goa" and "Johar Mehmood in Hong Kong", in which he co-starred with comedian Mehmood. These were inspired by comedy films of the Bob Hope-Bing Crosby style "Road to..." series. Johar was a unique and idiosyncratic individual, a lifelong liberal who poked fun at institutionalised self-satisfied smugness – an attitude which did not endear him to the essentially hierarchical and conservative Indian establishment, and led to difficulties finding finance for his unconventional screenplays. In many of his films, both those he directed and those he acted in, Sonia Sahni was the leading lady, most notably in "Johar Mehmood in Goa", 1964.


title: I. S. Johar

text: He also starred in films with his own surname in the title such as "Mera Naam Johar", "Johar in Kashmir" and "Johar in Bombay", which is a testament both to his immense egotism, as well as his popularity with the common masses – for whom a movie with the Johar name was a guarantee of easy laughs, as well as subtle ironic or frankly sarcastic jibes at Indian customs, mores, superstitions and institutions. His film "Nasbandi" (Vasectomy) was a spoof on Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's failed policy of population control by coerced vasectomies during the period of Emergency and was "banned" when it was first released. In the plays written by him too, Johar attacks those in power. In a play on Bhutto, he writes about Pakistan's Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto as well as Gen Mohammed Zia-ul-Haq. Yash Chopra started his film career as an assistant director with I. S. Johar.


title: I. S. Johar

text: In 1963 he starred as "Gopal" in two Italian films directed by Mario Camerini: "Kali Yug, la dea della vendetta" (Kali Yug, Goddess of vengeance) and "Il Mistero del tempio indiano" (The secret of the Hindu temple).


title: I. S. Johar

text: Johar married Ramma Bains in 1943 in Lahore. The couple became parents to two children, a son named Anil and a daughter named Ambika. Both his children worked in a handful of films in the late 1970s, including "Nasbandi" (1978) and "5 Rifles" featuring both of them. Ramma Bains herself acted in small roles in a couple of films, most notably as Balraj Sahni's cunning sister in "Garam Hawa."


title: I. S. Johar

text: Johar and Ramma were divorced; theirs was one of the earliest legal divorces in the country. After this divorce, Johar married and divorced no less than four more women (five marriages in all, and as many divorces). One of his later wives was the actress Sonia Sahni, who had made her film debut in Johar's production "Johar-Mehmood in Goa (1965)". None of Johar's later marriages was blessed with children.


title: Enniskillen

text: Enniskillen ( , from , 'Ceithlenn's island') is the largest town in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. It is in the middle of the county, between the Upper and Lower sections of Lough Erne. It had a population of 13,823 at the 2011 Census. Enniskillen Castle was built in the 15th century as a stronghold of the Maguires, before coming under English control in the early 17th century. The castle and town were expanded during the Plantation of Ulster. It was the seat of local government for the former Fermanagh District Council, and is the county town of Fermanagh.


title: Enniskillen

text: The town's name comes from the . This refers to Cethlenn, a figure in Irish mythology who may have been a goddess. Local legend has it that Cethlenn was wounded in battle by an arrow and attempted to swim across the River Erne, which surrounds the island, but she never reached the other side, so the island was named in reference to her. It has been anglicised many ways over the centuries – "Iniskellen", "Iniskellin", "Iniskillin", "Iniskillen", "Inishkellen", "Inishkellin", "Inishkillin", "Inishkillen" and so on.


title: Enniskillen

text: The town's oldest building is Enniskillen Castle, built by Hugh (Maguire) the Hospitable who died in 1428. An earthwork, the Skonce on the shore of Lough Erne, may be the remains of an earlier motte. The castle was the stronghold of the junior branch of the Maguires. The first watergate was built around 1580 by Cú Chonnacht Maguire, though subsequent lowering of the level of the lough has left it without water. The strategic position of the castle made its capture important for the English in 1593, to support their plans for the control of Ulster. The castle was besieged three times in 1594–95. The English, led by a Captain Dowdall, captured it in February 1594. Maguire then laid siege to it, and defeated a relieving force at the Battle of the Ford of the Biscuits at Drumane Bridge on the Arney River. Although the defenders were relieved, Maguire gained possession of the castle from 1595 to 1598 and it was not finally captured by the English until 1607.


title: Enniskillen

text: This was part of a wider campaign to bring the province of Ulster under English control; the final capture of Enniskillen Castle in 1607 was followed by the Plantation of Ulster, during which the lands of the native Irish were seized and handed over to planters loyal to the English Crown. The Maguires were supplanted by William Cole, originally from Devon, who was appointed by James I to build an English settlement there.


title: Enniskillen

text: Captain Cole was installed as Constable and strengthened the castle wall and built a "fair house" on the old foundation as the centre point of the county town. The first Protestant parish church was erected on the hilltop in 1627. The Royal Free School of Fermanagh was moved onto the island in 1643. The first bridges were drawbridges; permanent bridges were not installed before 1688.


title: Enniskillen

text: By 1689 the town had grown significantly. During the conflict which resulted from the ousting of King James II by his Protestant rival, William III, Enniskillen and Derry were the focus of Williamite resistance in Ireland, including the nearby Battle of Newtownbutler.


title: Enniskillen

text: Enniskillen and Derry were the two garrisons in Ulster that were not wholly loyal to James II, and it was the last town to fall before the siege of Derry. As a direct result of this conflict, Enniskillen developed not only as a market town but also as a garrison, which became home to two regiments.


title: Enniskillen

text: The current site of Fermanagh College (now part of the South West College) was the former Enniskillen Gaol. Many people were tried and hanged in the square during the times of public execution. Part of the old Gaol is still used by the college. Enniskillen Town Hall was designed by William Scott and completed in 1901.


title: Enniskillen

text: The town's name (with the archaic spelling) continues to form part of the title to The Royal Irish Regiment (27th (Inniskilling) 83rd and 87th and Ulster Defence Regiment). Enniskillen Castle features on the cap badge of both regiments.


title: Enniskillen

text: Enniskillen was the site of several events during The Troubles, the most notable being the Remembrance Day bombing in which 11 people were killed. Bill Clinton opened The Clinton Centre in 2002 on the site of the bombing. The Provisional Irish Republican Army claimed responsibility for the attack.


title: Enniskillen

text: In 2019, at least nine men reported to the police and the press and said in public forums that, in the 1980s and 90s, when they were children, they were repeatedly molested and raped by a paedophile ring of at least 20 men in the Enniskillen area. Investigations are continuing.


title: Enniskillen

text: On Census day (27 March 2011) there were 13,823 people living in Enniskillen (5,733 households), accounting for 0.76% of the NI total and representing an increase of 1.6% on the Census 2001 population of 13,599. Of these:


title: Enniskillen

text: Enniskillen has a maritime climate with a narrow range of temperatures and rainfall. The nearest official Met Office weather station for which online records are available is at Lough Navar Forest, about northwest of Enniskillen. Data has also more recently been collected from Enniskillen/St Angelo Airport, under north of the town centre, which should in time give a more accurate representation of the climate of the Enniskillen area.


title: Enniskillen

text: The absolute maximum temperature is , recorded during July 2006. In an 'average' year, the warmest day is and only 2.4 days a year should rise to or above. The respective absolute maximum for St Angelo is


title: Enniskillen

text: The absolute minimum temperature is , recorded during January 1984. In an 'average' year, the coldest night should fall to . Lough Navar is a frosty location, with some 76 air frosts recorded in a typical year. It is likely that Enniskillen town centre is significantly less frosty than this. The absolute minimum at St Angelo is , reported during the record cold month of December 2010.


title: Enniskillen

text: The warmest month on record at St Angelo was August 1995 with a mean temperature of (mean maximum , mean minimum , while the coldest month was December 2010, with a mean temperature of (mean maximum , mean minimum .


title: Enniskillen

text: Rainfall is high, averaging over 1500 mm. 212 days of the year report at least 1 mm of precipitation, ranging from 15 days during April, May and June, to 20 days in October, November, December, January and March.


title: Enniskillen

text: The Köppen climate classification subtype for this climate is "" (Marine West Coast Climate/Oceanic climate).


title: Enniskillen

text: The town has two association football teams called Enniskillen Rangers and Enniskillen Town United F.C.


title: Enniskillen

text: Enniskillen Rangers are the current holders of the Irish Junior Cup, defeating Hill Street 5–1 on Monday, 1 May 2017. The match was played at the National Football Stadium at Windsor Park in Belfast. They play their home games at the Ball Range.


title: Enniskillen

text: Enniskillen Town United F.C. currently play in the Fermanagh & Western 1st Division. Their most notable former player is Michael McGovern who currently plays for Norwich City F.C. At the moment, Enniskillen Town play their home games at The Lakeland Forum playing fields in Enniskillen.


title: Enniskillen

text: Enniskillen Rugby Football Club was founded in 1925 and plays their home games at Mullaghmeen. The club currently fields 4 senior men's teams, a senior ladies teams, a range of male and female youth teams, a vibrant mini section and a disability tag team called The Enniskillen Elks. Enniskillen XV won the Ulster Towns Cup in the 2018/19 season, defeating Ballyclare 19–0. The team currently play in Kukri Ulster Rugby Championship Division 1.


title: Enniskillen

text: The rugby club was formed on 28 August 1925, when 37 attended a meeting in Enniskillen Town Hall. The name Enniskillen Rugby Club was agreed and the club adopted the rules of the Dublin University Football Club. The first match was played on 30 September 1925 against Ballyshannon in County Donegal.


title: Enniskillen

text: Enniskillen Gaels is a Gaelic Athletic Association club founded in 1927. It is based at Brewster Park, Enniskillen. The club has had success in both Gaelic football and hurling winning in both county and provincial competitions.


title: Enniskillen

text: Enniskillen was the venue of the 39th G8 summit which was held on 17 and 18 June 2013. It was held at the Lough Erne Resort, a five-star hotel and golf resort on the shore of Lough Erne. The gathering was the biggest international diplomatic gathering ever held in Northern Ireland. Among the G8 leaders who attended were British Prime Minister David Cameron, United States President Barack Obama, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and Russian President Vladimir Putin.


title: Enniskillen

text: In the past, Enniskillen has hosted an array of international events, most notably stages of the World Waterski World Cup, annually from 2005 to 2007 at the Broadmeadow. Despite its success, Enniskillen was not chosen as a World Cup Stop for 2008.


title: Enniskillen

text: In January 2009, Enniskillen hosted the ceremonial start of Rally Ireland 2009, the first stage of the WRC FIA World Rally Championship 2009 Calendar.


title: Enniskillen

text: Enniskillen has hosted the Happy Days arts festival since 2012, which celebrates "the work and influence of Nobel Prize-winning writer Samuel Beckett" and is the "first annual, international, multi-arts festival to be held in Northern Ireland since the launch of the Ulster Bank Belfast Festival at Queen's in 1962".


title: Enniskillen

text: There are numerous schools and colleges in and around the Enniskillen area, from primary level to secondary level, including some further education colleges such as the technical college.


title: Enniskillen

text: Railway lines from Enniskillen railway station linked the town with Derry from 1854, Dundalk from 1861, Bundoran from 1868 and Sligo from 1882. By 1883 the Great Northern Railway (Ireland) absorbed all the lines except the Sligo, Leitrim and Northern Counties Railway, which remained independent throughout its existence. In October 1957 the Government of Northern Ireland closed the GNR line, which made it impossible for the SL&NCR continue and forced it also to close.


title: Enniskillen

text: The nearest railway station to Enniskillen is Sligo station which is served by multiple trains to Dublin Connolly and is operated by Iarnród Éireann. The Dublin-Sligo railway line has a two-hourly service run by Iarnród Éireann. A connecting bus from Sligo via Manorhamilton to Enniskillen is operated by Bus Éireann.


title: Enniskillen

text: Bus service to Enniskillen is provided by both Ulsterbus and Bus Éireann, from Enniskillen bus station. Number 261, 261b and X261 Goldline buses run from Belfast to Enniskillen. Bus Éireann Route 30 runs from Donegal to Dublin Airport/Dublin City via Enniskillen.


title: Enniskillen

text: Enniskillen has a World War II-era airport, Enniskillen/St Angelo Airport. The airport had scheduled flights in the past but now serves mainly private traffic.


title: Enniskillen

text: The town is on the main A4/N16 route linking Belfast and Sligo, and on the main Dublin to Ballyshannon route, the N3/A46/A509.


title: Enniskillen

text: Enniskillen was originally twinned with Brackwede – a Bielefeld suburb – where the Inniskilling Dragoon Guards were stationed in the late 1950s when the twinning was initiated; however, this suburb was incorporated into Stadt Bielefeld in 1973, the city with which Enniskillen is now officially twinned.


title: Enniskillen

text: Though the twinning arrangements are still operational, at a meeting of the Regeneration and Community Committee, in February 2018, it was agreed that the twinning arrangements would be formally terminated at the end of the Council term in June 2018. However, Fermanagh and Omagh District Council still have plans to send representatives to Brackwede for the 60th anniversary celebrations of the twinning. Therefore, the future of the twinning is now somewhat unclear.


title: Krasnopol (weapon system)

text: The 2K25 "Krasnopol" is a Soviet 152/155 mm cannon-launched, fin-stabilized, base bleed-assisted, semi-automatic laser-guided, artillery weapon system. It automatically 'homes' on a point illuminated by a laser designator, typically operated by a drone or ground-based artillery observer. Krasnopol projectiles are fired mainly from Soviet self-propelled howitzers such as the 2S3 Akatsiya and 2S19 Msta-S and intended to engage small ground targets such as tanks, other direct fire weapons, strong-points, or other significant point targets visible to the observer. It can be used against both stationary and moving targets (providing these remain within the observer's field of view).


title: Krasnopol (weapon system)

text: The weapon system was developed in the Tula-based KBP Instrument Design Bureau under the supervision of A.G. Shipunov. Work on the project was initiated in the 1970s. In February 1986 the "Krasnopol" system was adopted by the Soviet Army under the designation 30F39, and began mass production in "Izhmash" and "Izhmeh" factories. Since 2002, it is augmented by the 120- and 122 mm Kitolov-2 laser-guided system.


title: Krasnopol (weapon system)

text: A 155 mm variant of the project was also developed to access the commercial markets, which can be fired from howitzers such as the G6 and M109A6. Besides Russia, the Krasnopol is also manufactured by Chinese defence industry conglomerate Norinco.


title: Krasnopol (weapon system)

text: On July 28 2022 Russian news agency TASS reported that Kalashnikov Group is working on an modernization of Kraznopol with increased range, better at striking small-size target, enhanced warhead and raise the efficiency during clouds and strong wind.


title: Krasnopol (weapon system)

text: The "2K25 Krasnopol" system consists of the 30F39 guided shell, a 1D22, 1D20, or 1D15 laser target designator (LTD), and the 1A35 shot synchronization system. The laser designation system has a range of , while the projectile itself has a range of and a target seeker radius of . The two-part projectile is divided into the following sections: target seeker, guidance module, warhead and rear compartment. The seeker and guidance module are stored as a single component in sealed container, as is the rear section with warhead; this allows the oversized projectile to be loaded and transported inside existing ammunition containers in legacy self-propelled howitzers. The two components are joined immediately prior to firing.


title: Krasnopol (weapon system)

text: The system functions as follows. The observer determines the target location (e.g. map coordinates or bearing and distance from their own position), ensures that their laser target designator can 'mark' the target and requests or orders a fire mission against the target using Krasnopol. A gun is then aimed at the target location and a guided shell is fired. The firing unit uses their 1A35K command device to send a signal via a communications link confirming the firing of the projectile to the 1A35I observation post device with the observer. The laser target designator is then used to illuminate the target and the in-flight projectile detects the radiant laser energy reflected by the target and the navigation system steers the shell towards the point of greatest incident energy—the designated target with top attack pattern. The iris of the optical seeker head is protected by a cap which is ejected by a mechanical timer upon firing. The guidance module contains an inertial reference system, a power source, various electric motors and controls and four folding wings used to execute command guidance signals. The warhead is a high explosive fragmentation type which can also be used against heavily armored vehicles such as tanks owing to the steep trajectory of the projectile which allows it to defeat the relatively thin roof armor on most vehicles. Behind the warhead is a rear compartment which houses four folding stabilizers.


title: Krasnopol (weapon system)

text: Krasnopol system can also fire a salvo from multiple artillery pieces on one target using a single laser designator.


title: Krasnopol (weapon system)

text: After destruction of the initial target, the LTD operator may request or order another target. If these subsequent targets are close together they should be upwind (from the previous target) to reduce smoke and dust interference with the designator.


title: Krasnopol (weapon system)

text: In December 2006, The Indian Express reported that India’s Russian Krasnopol 155mm laser-guided shells have displayed defective performance during Army test-firing in the Mahajan ranges in Rajasthan in 2004 and 2005. In March 2007, Defence Minister Shri AK Antony confirmed the extent of the problem.


title: Krasnopol (weapon system)

text: In a June 2009 report the Comptroller and Auditor General of India said, "Krasnopol proved to be a complete dud during testing at high altitudes, as it was woefully short on both range and accuracy. 'Such procurement of defective quality ammunition adversely impact the Army's operational preparedness,' "