page_title: WPIX
section_title: As an independent station (1948–1995)
hierarchical_section_title: WPIX / History / As an independent station (1948–1995)
caption_attribution_description: English: Looking west from Second Avenue across 42nd Street at WPIX Plaza on a sunny afternoon.
context_page_description: WPIX, virtual and VHF digital channel 11, is a CW-affiliated television station licensed to New York, New York, United States. The station is owned by the E. W. Scripps Company. Since its inception in 1948, WPIX's studios and offices have been located in the Daily News Building on East 42nd Street in Midtown Manhattan. The station's transmitter is located at the Empire State Building.
  WPIX is also available as a regional superstation via satellite and cable in the United States and Canada. It is the largest CW affiliate by market size that is not owned and operated by either of the network's co-owners, ViacomCBS or AT&T's WarnerMedia.
context_section_description: The station first signed on the air on June 15, 1948; it was the fifth television station to sign on in New York City and was the market's second independent station. It was also the second of three stations to launch in the New York market during 1948, debuting one month after Newark, New Jersey-based independent WATV (channel 13) and two months before WJZ-TV (channel 7). WPIX's call letters come from the slogan of the newspaper that founded the station, the Tribune-owned New York Daily News, whose slogan was "New York's Picture Newspaper". In its earliest years, WPIX maintained a secondary studio (called "Studio Five") at 110 Central Park South, where programs shot in front of a studio audience were produced.
  Until becoming owned outright by Tribune in 1991, WPIX operated separately from the company's other television and radio outlets through the News-owned license holder, WPIX, Incorporated – which in 1963, purchased New York radio station, WBFM (101.9 FM) and soon changed that station's call letters to WPIX-FM. British businessman Robert Maxwell bought the Daily News in 1991. Tribune retained WPIX and WQCD; the radio station was sold to Emmis Communications in 1997. WPIX initially featured programming that was standard among independents: children's programs, movies, syndicated reruns of network programs, public affairs programming, religious programs and sports – specifically, the New York Yankees, whose baseball games WPIX carried from 1951 to 1998.
  To generations of New York children, channel 11 was also the home of memorable personalities. In 1955, original WPIX staffer and weather forecaster Joe Bolton, donned a policeman's uniform and became "Officer Joe," hosting several programs based around Little Rascals, Three Stooges, and later Popeye shorts. Another early WPIX personality, Jack McCarthy, also hosted Popeye and Dick Tracy cartoons as "Captain Jack" in the early 1960s, though he was also the longtime host of channel 11's St. Patrick's Day parade coverage from 1949 to 1992. WPIX aired a local version of Bozo the Clown (with Bill Britten in the role) from 1959 to 1964; comic performers Chuck McCann and Allen Swift also hosted programs on WPIX during the mid-1960s before each moved to other entertainment work in Hollywood. Jazz singer Joya Sherrill hosted a weekday children's show, Time for Joya (later known as Joya's Fun School). Channel 11 produced the Magic Garden series, which ran on the station from 1972 to 1984. Beginning in the late 1970s and continuing through spring 1982, the station aired  "TV PIXX", a television video game show played during commercial breaks of afternoon programs. Kids would call into the station for the chance to control a video game via telephone in hopes of winning prizes.
  From its early years through the 1960s, WPIX, like the other two major independents in New York, WOR-TV (channel 9) and WNEW-TV (channel 5), struggled to acquire other programming. In 1966, WPIX debuted The Yule Log, which combines Christmas music with a film loop of logs burning inside a fireplace. Airing on Christmas Eve and/or Christmas morning initially until 1989, the film was made in 1966 and was shot at Gracie Mansion, with the cooperation of then Mayor John V. Lindsay. WPIX revived the Yule Log due to viewer demand in 2001, and has proven to be just as popular. Several of Tribune's other television stations (as well as WGN America and Antenna TV) have carried the WPIX version, complete with its audio soundtrack, on Christmas morning since the late 2000s, and is also streamed online on WPIX's website. Since 1977, Channel 11 has aired a live broadcast of Midnight Mass from St. Patrick's Cathedral every Christmas Eve.
  The station's famous "Circle 11" logo – predating the existence of the World Trade Center (which was not completed until 1973), which it closely resembled – was first unveiled in 1969 (an advertising billboard for WPIX with the "Circle 11" logo began appearing that year at Yankee Stadium). By the mid-1970s, WPIX emerged as the second highest-rated independent station in the area, behind WN
caption: WPIX Plaza, southwest corner of 2nd Avenue and 42nd Street.
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