WCBS-TV's over-the air signal was not affected by the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center. Unlike its competitors, channel 2 had long maintained a full-powered backup transmitter at the Empire State Building after moving its main transmitter to the North Tower of the then-new World Trade Center in 1975. The station's coverage of the attacks was also simulcast nationally on Viacom (which owned CBS at the time) cable network VH1 that day. In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, WCBS-TV was briefly the only full-coverage over-the-air television service operating in New York City, although the station lent transmission time to other stations who had lost their transmitters until they found suitable backup equipment and locations. The backup transmitter had been put into operation once before, when the World Trade Center bombing of February 26, 1993 knocked most of the area's stations off the air for a week.