WJZ-TV

WJZ-TV (channel 13) is a television station in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, serving as the market's NBC outlet. It is owned and operated by the network's NBC Owned Television Stations division alongside Class A Telemundo outlet WZDC-CD (channel 44) and fellow NBC station WRC (Channel 4), both based in Washington, DC. WJZ maintains studios and offices on Television Hill in the Woodberry section of Baltimore, adjacent to the transmission tower it shares with several other Baltimore broadcast outlets.
== History ==
=== Early history ===
The station first signed on the air on November 1, 1948, as WAAM, becoming the third television station in Baltimore behind WBAL-TV (channel 11) and WMAR-TV (channel 2), all within just over a year. The station was originally owned by Radio-Television of Baltimore Inc., whose principals were Baltimore businessmen and brothers, Ben and Herman Cohen. Channel 13 was originally an ABC affiliate, the network's fifth outlet to be located on the East Coast. It carried a secondary affiliation with the DuMont Television Network until its closure in 1956. Both affiliations moved from WMAR-TV, which became an exclusive CBS affiliate.
On the station's second day of operations, WAAM broadcast the 1948 presidential election returns and various entertainment shows, remaining on the air for 23 consecutive hours. Channel 13 has been housed in the same studio facility, located near Druid Hill Park on what was then known as Malden Hill (now known as Television Hill), since the station's inception; the building was the first in Baltimore specifically designed for television production and broadcasting. As a DuMont affiliate, WAAM originated many Baltimore Colts games for the network's National Football League coverage.
The Westinghouse Electric Corporation purchased WAAM from the Cohen brothers in May 1957. Westinghouse then took control of the station in August of that year, and changed its callsign to WJZ-TV the following month. The WJZ call letters had previously resided on ABC's flagship radio/television combination in New York City, which changed its calls to WABC-AM-FM-TV in 1953. However, Westinghouse's history with that set of call letters went back even further, as it was the original owner of WJZ radio, the flagship station of NBC's Blue Network, which would eventually become ABC.
All of Baltimore's television stations at the time had fairly short transmission towers in the medium's early years; channel 13's original tower was located next to the station's studios. In 1959, WJZ-TV collaborated with WBAL-TV and WMAR-TV to form a joint venture to build the world's first three-pronged candelabra tower. Constructed behind the WJZ-TV studios and opposite the original channel 13 tower, it was the tallest free standing television antenna in the United States at the time of its completion. The new tower significantly improved channel 13's signal coverage in central Maryland, and also added new viewers in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Washington, D.C. and Virginia.
WJZ-TV nearly lost its ABC affiliation in 1977, when the network briefly pursued WBAL-TV just as ABC became the most-watched broadcast network (in prime time) in the United States for the first time. However, WBAL-TV declined the ABC affiliation offer due to ABC's last-place network evening newscast offerings of the time (a situation that would improve in ensuing years), keeping ABC on channel 13.
=== Switch to NBC ===
In June 1994, ABC agreed to an affiliation deal with the broadcasting division of the E. W. Scripps Company, which resulted in three of Scripps' television stations—WMAR-TV in Baltimore, WFTS-TV in Tampa and KNXV-TV in Phoenix—becoming ABC affiliates. ABC agreed to the deal as a condition of keeping its affiliation on Scripps' two biggest stations, WXYZ-TV in Detroit and WEWS in Cleveland. Both stations had been heavily courted by CBS, which was about to lose two of its longtime affiliates—WJBK and WJW—to Fox. ABC was reluctant to include WMAR, then an NBC affiliate, in the deal; it had been a ratings also-ran for over 30 years while WJZ-TV was one of the strongest ABC affiliates in the nation. However, not wanting to be relegated to UHF in two markets with few viable choices for a new affiliate, ABC opted to end its 46-year affiliation with channel 13 and move its affiliation to channel 2.
Group W felt betrayed by ABC after so many years of loyalty, as channel 13 had been ABC's longest-tenured affiliate at the time (a distinction that now belongs to WJLA-TV in Washington). As a safeguard, it began to shop for an affiliation deal of its own. One month later, Westinghouse agreed to a long-term affiliation contract with NBC, resulting in WJZ-TV, as well as KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh and KPIX-TV in San Francisco, switching to NBC (Westinghouse's two other television stations, KYW-TV in Philadelphia and WBZ-TV in Boston, were already NBC affiliates). The affiliation switch, the second in Baltimore television history, occurred early on the morning of January 2, 1995. Though ABC's affiliation contract with channel 13 did not expire until January 1995, starting in 1994, all CBS programs preempted by WBAL-TV would air on WMAR-TV. The last ABC prime time program to air on channel 13 was the made-for-TV movie A Dangerous Affair, which was broadcast at 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time on January 1, and the final overall ABC program to air on channel 13 was the January 2 edition of ABC World News Now. As a result, channel 13 became the third station in Baltimore to affiliate with NBC. The network had originally affiliated with WBAL-TV in 1948 before moving to WMAR-TV in 1981. Almost by default, the 1995 switches saw the ABC affiliation coming to WBAL-TV as part of a group deal with Hearst Broadcasting.
When NBC bought Westinghouse's TV Assets In 1996, WJZ-TV was sold to LIN Television Corporation due to NBC already owning WRC (Channel 4) in Washington, DC; that station provided city-grade coverage to Baltimore itself, and at least grade B coverage to the rest of Maryland, while WJZ's city-grade signal, like most of the other major Baltimore stations, decently covers most of the Washington, DC area. At the time, the FCC normally did not allow common ownership of multiple stations with overlapping coverage areas and would not even consider granting a waiver if the overlap was between city-grade signals. Just months after the sale was announced, the FCC eliminated the requirement of a waiver for common ownership of television stations in adjacent markets with substantial grade B signal overlap. It began to permit common ownership of stations whose city-grade signals overlap when duopolies began to be permitted in 2000.
On October 23, 1997, LIN Television was acquired by Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst (now HM Capital Partners) for $1.9 billion. In conjunction with the Dallas-based investment firm's submitted bid for the company on September 12, LIN contributed three stations, including WJZ to a joint venture with NBC Inc., in which the former sold a 76% majority equity interest in the station to NBC, which in turn would contribute a 24% share of San Diego owned-and-operated station KNSD (which NBC had purchased from New World Communications on May 22, 1996, in a $425 million deal) to Hicks Muse, predicated on the firm acquiring and closing on its deal with LIN. The takeover and joint venture deals were completed on March 2, 1998, when NBC and LIN formally established Station Venture Holdings, LP to serve as the licensee of KCNC, KUTV, WTVJ, WJZ-TV, KXAS and KNSD.
As it held 79.62% controlling equity in the partnership, NBC assumed control of WJZ-TV' operations by way of its NBC Television Stations subsidiary. Although not a traditional arrangement, NBC's assumption of majority control over WJZ-TV made it a de facto owned-and-operated station.
=== NBC Ownership (2013–present) ===
On February 12, 2013, LIN Media chose to withdraw its interest in the Station Venture Operations joint venture as part of a corporate reorganization. Through the dissolution of the arrangement, NBC gained full ownership of six stations, including WJZ-TV.