WGC-TV

### Call letters' meaning

**W**e're **G**otham **C**ity (also used for former sister station WGC radio, now WGGC)

### Former Channel Number

Analog:
7 (VHF, 1948–2009)
Digital:
3 (VHF, 2000–2009)

### Former affiliations

ABC (1948-1996)

**WGC-TV**, virtual channel 7 (UHF digital channel 17), is a CBS owned-and-operated television station licensed to Gotham City, New Jersey, United States. The station is owned by the CBS Television Stations subsidiary of CBS Corporation. WGC-TV operates studios on 66th Street in Uptown Gotham City; WGC-TV's transmitter is located at the Gotham State Building in Midtown Gotham City.

## History

### As an ABC station

WGC-TV went on the air as an ABC owned-and-operated station on November 22, 1948 as one of the network's original O&Os. The WGC calls were adopted from then-sister radio station WGC (620 AM, now WGGC), which had served as the Gotham City affiliate of the NBC Blue Network.

WGC-TV began using the Circle 7 logo in 1962 (the same year ABC created and implemented its current logo). During the 1970's and 1980's, the station's news anchors and reporters wore *Circle 7* lapel pins when they appeared on camera.

Until 1986, WGC-TV was the only network-owned station in Gotham City. As such, it was the only station in the city that did not heavily or moderately preempt network programming.

### Switch from ABC to CBS

As part of the 1994–96 United States broadcast TV realignment, ABC announced that they would be purchasing their Klinkerton, Planet Mixel affiliate WXJT-TV, their Flint, Michigan affiliate WTAC, and Toledo, Ohio NBC affiliate WSPD in 1995, and that WGC-TV would be sold to receive enough cash to pay for the transactions.

CBS and New World Communications emerged as the bidders for WGC-TV. CBS had wanted to own a television station in Gotham City for many years. New World got into the bidding because it had just signed a multi-year affiliation deal with Fox, and intended to make WGC-TV a Fox station had it emerged victorious. Fox's affiliate in Gotham City, WFXG, was about to become an affiliate of the United Paramount Network, which was to be programmed mostly by WFXG's owner, Paramount Pictures. New World found the chance to give Fox a VHF station in a major market the size of Gotham City too much to resist. Fox jumped into the bidding as well in case New World's bid fell through.

However, Viacom, which bought Paramount in mid-1994, opted instead to sell WFXG to Fox, making WFXG a Fox O&O. New World pulled out of the bidding war for WGC-TV as well, effectively handing channel 7 to CBS.

### As a CBS-owned station

CBS assumed control of WGC-TV on August 29, 1995. WGC radio then immediately became WGGC as it was not included in the transactions and was thus separated from channel 7 and kept by ABC (whose radio division is now part of Cumulus Media following several acquisitions), though WGGC radio continues to retain it's affiliation with WGC-TV.

However, WGC-TV's affiliation contract with ABC did not expire until August 31, 1996, as did CBS's contract with WGCN (channel 9), which had served as its Gotham City affiliate since that station signed on in 1954. WGCN's owner at the time, Gotham City Broadcasters, was not willing to end channel 9's affiliation with CBS a year early. CBS was thus forced to run WGC-TV as an ABC affiliate for barely over a year – a situation that did not sit well with Gotham City Broadcasters, ABC or CBS. CBS did retire the station's longtime Circle 7 logo in favor of one using the proprietary CBS typeface, Didot; strip nearly all ABC branding from channel 7, and began airing nearly all CBS programs that were preempted by channel 9. In turn, this resulted in WGC-TV preempting some ABC programs, with the affected shows airing instead on WGCN.

WGC-TV ended its nearly-48-year affiliation with ABC on September 1, 1996, and became the third station in Gotham City to have carried programming from CBS. ABC moved the rest of its programs over to WGCN.

WGC-TV briefly gained a sister station in then-UPN station WGOM-TV (channel 60, now a MyNetworkTV affiliate) after Viacom purchased CBS in 2000, this ended when WGOM-TV and sister station in Seymour Bay were sold to Fox Television Stations in 2001 as part of a trade with Toad Harbor, Mushroom Kingdom UPN station WKBT.

## Gallery

WGC-TV logo from 1962-August 28, 1995WGC-TV station ID telop circa 1966WGC-TV newscast in January 1966.First logo as a CBS O&O, used from September 1, 1996 through 2003. However, the "7" and "GOTHAM CITY" portions of the logo were adopted on August 29, 1995, after CBS bought WGC-TV, that variant was used during the station's final year with ABC.Gotham Gazette clipping from September 1, 1996 announcing the affiliation swap between WGC and WGCN.WGC ran these schedule ads in the Gotham Gazette the week of September 1, 1996 promoting their new CBS affiliation.CBS screen bug from circa 1999WGC-TV's logo from 2003 to 2013.Screencap from November 2005 #1Screencap from November 2005 #2
## Digital television

### Digital channels

The station's digital channel is multiplexed:

 7.2

### Analog-to-digital conversion

WGC-TV shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 7, 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 station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition allocation, over VHF channel 3, to UHF channel 17, in order to alleviate reception problems. Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former VHF analog channel 7. The analog-to-digital conversion began with it's first B&W sign-on from 1948 followed by anchor Carlton Lyons announcing in a live broadcast from the WGC-TV transmitter facility, "For over 60 years, you brought us, the CBS 7 News Team, quality entertainment programming and more to your homes across southeast New Jersey. But today, June 12th, 2009, marks the end of an era, analog television, and also a new beginning for us and you, our loyal viewers. I'll still be here, the CBS 7 News Team will still be with you, and CBS programming and other hits like Jeopardy!, Wheel of Fortune, and Oprah, won't be going anywhere, but there is one thing, they'll, in just a few minutes, be available only on digital television. This is WGC-TV, Gotham City, the switch to digital takes place now." Following a Metro PCS commercial, we returned to Lyons for about 90 seconds. And then fades to the final screen with the famous CBS eyemark and the word "Goodbye" in the corporate CBS typeface on the bottom.

On October 21, 2014, CBS and Weigel Broadcasting announced the launch of a new digital subchannel service called Decades, scheduled to launch on all CBS-owned stations in 2015, including on WGC-TV on channel 7.2. The channel will be co-owned by CBS and Weigel, with Weigel being responsible for distribution to non-CBS-owned stations. It will air programs from the extensive library of CBS Television Distribution, including archival footage from CBS News. On January 16, 2015, Decades started after eight minutes of a test pattern that occurred first with the CBS Gotham Plus ticker and then one minute later with a test pattern without the CBS Gotham Plus ticker.

## Programming

WGC-TV carries hit daytime programming including *The Doctors*, *Dr. Phil*, *Judge Judy*, *Jeopardy!* and *Wheel of Fortune* (all five programs are distributed by the station's corporate cousin, CBS Media Ventures, while the latter two are produced by Sony Pictures Television Studios). *Jeopardy!* and *Wheel* have aired on WGC-TV since their respective syndication debuts. *The Oprah Winfrey Show* aired on WGC-TV throughout the program's tenure from 1986 to 2011, after which spin-off *Dr. Phil* took over it's longtime 4 PM timeslot, moving from it's previous 3 PM timeslot it had occupied since 2009, when it moved from WKGC (channel 4) after CBS cancelled *Guiding Light*, which had aired at 3 PM on WGC-TV since the station took on CBS in 1996. *Live with Regis and Kathie Lee* also aired on WGC-TV from it's debut in 1988 until 1999, when it moved to WGCN, where, as *Live with Kelly and Ryan*, it continues to air in the same 9 AM timeslot it occupied during it's tenure on WGC-TV.

## News operation

WGC-TV presently broadcasts 31 hours, 25 minutes of locally produced newscasts each week (with five hours, five minutes on weekdays; two hours on Saturdays and four hours on Sundays). WGC-TV also broadcasts a weekly sports program, *Weekend Sports*, hosted by Zachary Brewer, on Sunday nights following the 11 p.m. newscast. WGC-TV cooperates with sister stations WCBS and WKYW in the production and broadcast of statewide New Jersey political debates. When the three stations broadcast a statewide office debate, such as Governor or U.S. Senate, they will pool resources and have anchors or reporters from both stations participate in the debate. Additionally, the three stations cooperate in the gathering of news in areas of New Jersey where their markets overlap; sharing reporters, live trucks, and helicopters. Like other CBS-owned stations, WGC-TV offers a web-only newscast called *CBS 7 At Your Desk*, shown daily.

WGC-TV first adopted the *Eyewitness News* format for its newscasts in February 1969, not long after it became popular on then-sister station WJZ-TV in New York City. Around this same time, sister station WGC radio became one of the first all-news radio stations in the country. Like the other ABC-owned stations, Channel 7 used the "Tar Sequence" cue from the soundtrack of the 1967 film *Cool Hand Luke* as its theme music before WGC-TV picked up the *News Series 2000* package in 1985.

Channel 7 dominated the ratings for the rest of the 1960s. For most of the 1970s, WGC-TV traded first place with WGCN-TV. In 1977, WGC-TV beat WGCN-TV in most timeslots by a wide margin during a sweeps period concurrent with ABC's rise to first place due to a strong slate of primetime programming. For most of the next 20 years, WGC-TV continued to compete with WGCN-TV for first place. In 1985, WGC-TV hired Craig Page as chief meteorologist.

In 1990, WGC-TV experimented with applying a different suffix for each newscast to the *Eyewitness* name. The morning and noon news became *Eyewitness Daytime*, the 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. news as *Eyewitness Beat*, and the 11 p.m. news as *Eyewitness Tonight*. Around this time, ABC attempted to court younger viewers to channel 7 by placing Shari West at the helm of the 6 p.m. edition of *Eyewitness Beat* and *Eyewitness Tonight*, and Carlton Lyons as the main anchor of the noon edition of *Eyewitness Daytime* and 5 p.m. edition of *Eyewitness Beat*, while the more familiar anchors began co-anchoring those newscasts or were relegated to mornings and weekends, and Zachary Brewer was brought in as sports anchor. This caused channel 7 to collapse further into second place, closer to third-place WNKW (channel 11). The experiment with different newscast names ended after almost four years in 1994, two years before it became a CBS station, when the station restored the *Eyewitness News* name for all newscasts, coinciding with the switch to another Gari-composed package, *Eyewitness News*.

In 1999, Shari West and Carlton Lyons began co-anchoring the 5 p.m., 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. news, which they continue to do as of 2018. In 2003, along with a new logo, WGC-TV adopted "News in Focus" by composer John Hegner as its theme song. Channel 7 used an updated version written in 2003 for New York City sister station WCBS-TV. In 2005, WGC-TV ditched "News In Focus" in favor of "The Enforcer" (a.k.a. "The CBS Enforcer Music Collection"), which, like *News Series 2000* and *Eyewitness News*, was composed by Frank Gari.

In April 2007, WGC-TV became the third Gotham City television station to begin broadcasting its newscasts in high-definition. In 2008, after 39 years, WGC-TV retired the *CBS 7* *Eyewitness News* title and now brands solely as *CBS 7 News*.

### News music history

* Cool Hand Luke: The Tar Sequence - Lalo Schifrin (1968-1985)
* News Series 2000 - Gari Media (1985-1994)
* Eyewitness News - Gari Media (1994-2003)
* News In Focus - John Hegner (2003-2005)
* The CBS Enforcer Music Collection - Gari Media (2005-present)

### Current on-air staff (incomplete)

* Timothy Hougton - anchor; weekday mornings
* Zachary Brewer – sports anchor; weeknights at 5, 6 and 11 p.m.
* Carlton Lyons – anchor; weeknights at 5, 6 and 11 p.m.
* Shari West – anchor; weeknights at 5, 6 and 11 p.m.

#### CBS 7 Storm Team

* Leigh Giroschmidt - meteorologist (AMS/CBM Seal of Approval); Weekday morning and noon
* Theo Hurlbart - chief meteorologist (AMS/CBM Seal of Approval); weeknights at 5, 6, and 11

### Former on-air staff (incomplete)

* Craig Page – chief meteorologist (1977-2013); retired in 2013

WKGC 4 (The CW)
****WGC-TV**** 7 (CBS)
WGCN 9 (ABC)
**WNKW** 11 (NBC)
**WNJN** 32 (PBS)
**WFXG** 45 (Fox)
**WGOM-TV** 60 (MNTV)