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127-588: WLS-TV (channel 7) is a television station in Chicago, Illinois , United States, serving as the market's ABC network outlet. It has been owned and operated by the network's ABC Owned Television Stations division since the station's inception. WLS-TV's studios are located on North State Street in the Chicago Loop , and its transmitter is located atop the Willis Tower . The station first signed on

254-572: A TV network and an individual station within the network is referred to as O&O or affiliate , respectively. Because television station signals use the electromagnetic spectrum, which in the past has been a common, scarce resource, governments often claim authority to regulate them. Broadcast television systems standards vary around the world. Television stations broadcasting over an analog system were typically limited to one television channel , but digital television enables broadcasting via subchannels as well. Television stations usually require

381-582: A UHF television station and leased decoders to subscribing customers. At its peak in 1982, ON TV boasted more than 700,000 customers—more than half of them in Los Angeles , its most successful market. However, the rapidly expanding availability of cable television, coupled with a recession, caused the business to quickly lose subscribers at the same time that Oak Industries was experiencing severe financial difficulties. Between March 1983 and June 1985, all eight operations closed. In 1973, Oak Industries ,

508-456: A barter in some cases. ONTV (pay TV) ON TV was an American subscription television (STV) service that operated in eight markets between 1977 and 1985. Originally established by National Subscription Television, a joint venture of Oak Industries and Chartwell Communications, ON TV was part of a new breed of STV operations that broadcast premium programming—including movies, sporting events, and concerts—over an encrypted signal on

635-504: A broadcast license from a government agency which sets the requirements and limitations on the station. In the United States, for example, a television license defines the broadcast range , or geographic area, that the station is limited to, allocates the broadcast frequency of the radio spectrum for that station's transmissions, sets limits on what types of television programs can be programmed for broadcast and requires

762-535: A deal with Zenith to produce its equipment, the company pulled out of the deal in October when major movie studios protested the potential for a monopoly on pay-TV programming between Time's STV holdings and Home Box Office cable network. ) The Dallas–Fort Worth market entered the picture when Oak reaffirmed a 1976 deal with Channel 21, Inc., the Sidney Shlenker and Milton Grant –led consortium that held

889-422: A fill-in translator with a power of 7 kW, and operating their full power operations on channel 44 with a power of 1 MW . Through the use of virtual channel technology, both operating frequencies were re-mapped and displayed as channel 7, which would cause some digital tuners to have two versions of virtual channels 7.1, 7.2 and 7.3, while tuning sequentially. In October 2012, WLS-TV completed construction from

1016-534: A form of parental control. When ON TV entered into a partnership to start SportsVision , a second STV service, in Chicago, Oak manufactured special two-channel decoders that supported both services. The last two new Oak STV installations—Dallas–Fort Worth and Portland—utilized a newer and more secure version of the Sigma scrambling system. A problem that would be a constant for all subscription television operators

1143-584: A letterboxed standard-definition simulcast of their Live Well subchannels, though AccuWeather 's content/branding agreement with ABCOTS, including WLS-TV, continued unchanged. WLS-DT3 formerly served as a charter affiliate of Laff diginet from its launch in January 2015. To accommodate the WXFT channel share which took effect in December 2017, WLS-TV discontinued the third Laff subchannel, which shifted over to

1270-467: A maker of cable television equipment and other electronic components, and Chartwell Communications, a company majority-owned by Jerry Perenchio and Norman Lear , founded a joint venture initially known as World Pay Television, Inc. to create and operate a subscription television system in the Los Angeles market. The connection was made when Everitt A. Carter, an executive at Oak Industries, attended

1397-515: A mix of films and lifestyle programs for four hours per night six days a week after the station's sign-off at 2 a.m.; the service was similar in format to competitor ONTV (which was carried locally on WSNS-TV , channel 44 (now a Telemundo owned and operated station)) and other over-the-air pay services that existed during the early and mid-1980s. Tele1st was created with the concept of allowing users to record programming for later viewing; therefore, its decoder boxes were designed to unencrypt

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1524-502: A modernized update to the "Stimulus" theme. In an interview with media columnist Robert Feder , WLS-TV president/general manager John Idler said the reasoning behind the restoration of the Eyewitness News brand, was that it "[still] resonated strongly with [viewers in] the Chicago market", despite being dropped by the station 17 years earlier. On November 2, 2013, WLS expanded the early block of its weekend morning newscasts, with

1651-652: A monopoly on decoding its signals. Two months later, California Governor Jerry Brown signed a new law prohibiting the sale of unauthorized STV decoding equipment. For Oak, piracy became a serious threat—and one not easily remediated, given the extensive install base of decoders and the inability to pinpoint where pirate decoders were located. Further, in Los Angeles, ON TV had begun turning on disconnected decoders regularly to restore service to subscribers affected by power failures in neighborhoods. Affecting all STV operations—but most severely impacting Chartwell in Detroit—was

1778-480: A much higher radiated power). As a result, many viewers were not able to receive the station. The FCC sent extra personnel to Chicago, Philadelphia and New York City to deal with difficulties in those cities. WLS had received 1,735 calls just by the end of the day on June 12 (WBBM only received 600), and an estimated 5,000 calls in total by June 16. WLS-TV was just one station which needed to increase its signal strength or move its frequency to solve its problems, but

1905-415: A much shorter wavelength, and thus requires a shorter antenna, but also higher power. North American stations can go up to 5000 kW ERP for video and 500 kW audio, or 1000 kW digital. Low channels travel further than high ones at the same power, but UHF does not suffer from as much electromagnetic interference and background "noise" as VHF, making it much more desirable for TV. Despite this, in

2032-603: A new five-year broadcast agreement with the Chicago Cubs , in which WLS televised 25 of the Major League Baseball team's games per year, starting with the 2015 season . The arrangement partially replaced one with WGN-TV (which had broadcast Cubs games since its inception in April 1948), which voluntarily pulled out of its existing broadcast deal with the team for the 2015 season and subsequently agreed to carry

2159-501: A new generation of addressable decoders in 1982. It would not be enough. When ON TV closed in Detroit on March 31, 1983, Chartwell shuttered a business in which it had invested $ 13 million but never turned a profit. The system—which was vigorously competing against it , the subscription service on Ann Arbor -based WIHT , and Livonia -based MDS service MORE-TV, in addition to rapidly proliferating cable services—had lost 26,000 of

2286-766: A new generation of decoder boxes. In 1984, ON TV Chicago, also afflicted by heavy pirating, offered "amnesty" to pirate users ahead of the launch of new scrambling equipment. ON TV was broadcast over the air on eight stations in the United States: The first ON TV service launched in the Los Angeles market on April 1, 1977, on KBSC-TV (channel 52), licensed to Corona ; ON TV's offices were in Glendale . Channel 52 shuffled its ethnic programming lineup in favor of carrying ON TV during evening hours beginning at 8:00 pm. (KBSC-TV changed its commercial program format to Spanish-language shows in 1980. ) By April 1979,

2413-524: A new headquarters building in the planned community of Rancho Bernardo . As very large cities, like Philadelphia, saw years-long delays in cable television wiring due to political disputes over franchises, the specter of services like ON TV loomed over the horizon and served as an impetus to consider more rapid action. Chartwell, too, began the task of developing markets. As early as 1977, NST had an agreement to run an STV service on WXON in Detroit , and

2540-402: A popular anchor team at WLS-TV during the 1980s and 1990s, accompanied by weather anchor Steve Deshler and sports anchor Tim Weigel . In March 1986, channel 7 passed WBBM-TV as the highest-rated news station in Chicago. It has held the lead ever since, aside from a brief period when WBBM-TV forged a tie for first in the late 1980s. In 1992, the station replaced the "News Series 2000" package (as

2667-455: A power increase required making sure no other stations were affected. WLS received a two-week experimental permit for a power increase late in June. WLS had also applied for a permit to construct a low-power fill-in digital translator station on UHF channel 32 (the former analog frequency of WFLD ), but abandoned that plan (the channel 32 RF frequency has since been claimed by WMEU-CD ). Eventually

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2794-550: A reduced slate of 45 games. The WLS broadcasts were seen on DirecTV 's version of MLB Extra Innings, and the feed provided was the WLS signal seen in the Chicago market (unlike with the feeds of WGN broadcasts, where public service announcements were seen in place of local commercials and station promos). As ABC has a limited sports programming schedule during the Major League Baseball season prior to September (when

2921-550: A replacement for Flynn on the 6 p.m. news, as well as a new host for its AM Chicago program after host Robb Weller departed for New York City . He responded to the latter by bringing in Oprah Winfrey , at the time the host of People Are Talking on ABC's then-affiliate in Baltimore , WJZ-TV . Within a year, the program had moved to first place in the ratings. AM Chicago entered into national syndication in 1986 and

3048-537: A service with more program hours—and was the nation's most crowded. Anthony Cassara, president of the television division of VEU owner Golden West Broadcasters, had previously described that market as "total insanity" when it had three competing operators. Expanded hours were crucial to keeping services alive as cable companies grew: in June 1983, Cincinnati's WBTI axed hours of free programming and began taking satellite-fed ON TV programming from Oak in place of its local feed. In August, Willamette Subscription Television,

3175-635: A station to broadcast a minimum amount of certain programs types, such as public affairs messages . Another form of television station is non-commercial educational (NCE) and considered public broadcasting . To avoid concentration of media ownership of television stations, government regulations in most countries generally limit the ownership of television stations by television networks or other media operators, but these regulations vary considerably. Some countries have set up nationwide television networks, in which individual television stations act as mere repeaters of nationwide programs . In those countries,

3302-483: A station which broadcasts structured content to an audience or it refers to the organization that operates the station. A terrestrial television transmission can occur via analog television signals or, more recently, via digital television signals. Television stations are differentiated from cable television or other video providers as their content is broadcast via terrestrial radio waves. A group of television stations with common ownership or affiliation are known as

3429-599: A street-side studio at its North State Street facility on April 10, 2006, during the station's morning newscast, although the station had begun broadcasting its newscasts from that studio two days earlier on April 8. On the weekend of April 29–30, 2006, WLS-TV upgraded its news helicopter with a high definition camera, rebranding it as "Chopper 7 HD". On January 6, 2007, WLS-TV became the first Chicago television station to broadcast all of its local programming—including newscasts—in high definition, although most remote field footage remained in 16:9 widescreen standard definition at

3556-509: A subchannel of WXFT's sister station, WGBO-DT 2, and reduced the Live Well feed from a reduced-bitrate 720p broadcast to a 480i format. After WLS moved to their new channel post-spectrum transition, it soon picked up This TV after ABCOTS picked up the network for their stations in the spring of 2021. WLS-TV shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 7, at noon on June 12, 2009, the official date on which full-power television stations in

3683-560: A subscription television station had left a legacy that impeded Oak's ability to sell its stake in channel 44 for years. In 1982, Monroe Communications Corporation filed a challenge to WSNS's license renewal and a competing application to establish a channel 44 TV station in Chicago, charging that, as an STV station between 1979 and 1982, WSNS failed to serve the public interest and severely cut back on public affairs programming. An FCC administrative law judge found against WSNS licensee Video 44 and in favor of Monroe in 1985. The FCC later granted

3810-491: A tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs in Houston , organized by Perenchio; Perenchio approached Carter and asked if the company could build a system to scramble over-the-air signals for pay distribution. While Oak was initially resistant to the idea, it ultimately agreed to develop the equipment if Perenchio fronted $ 200,000 for research and development, which he did. In 1976, Oak president Frank A. Astrologes

3937-425: A variety of ways to generate revenue from television commercials . They may be an independent station or part of a broadcasting network , or some other structure. They can produce some or all of their programs or buy some broadcast syndication programming for or all of it from other stations or independent production companies. Many stations have some sort of television studio , which on major-network stations

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4064-628: A victory when its direct competitor, Spectrum , opted to discontinue operating in Chicago and sell its subscriber base. However, Oak's condition continued to deteriorate. Later that month, the company announced it was being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and it posted a loss of $ 166.1 million for 1983. One of the company's auditors, Arthur Andersen , qualified its statement, fearing that Oak could not fully realize its $ 134 million investment in subscription television. As pressure increased on Oak's finances and

4191-491: A week later on August 30, WLS-TV discontinued its hour-long weekday 11 a.m. newscast (which originated in 1992 as a half-hour program at 11:30, before it expanded into an earlier, one-hour broadcast on October 6, 2003, following the cancellation of Port Charles ) after 21 years, and replaced it on September 2 with Windy City Live , whose original 9 a.m. slot became occupied by Live! with Kelly and Michael when it moved to WLS from WGN-TV on that date (as such, it became

4318-459: A week of unencrypted programming, KBSC began running ON TV 24 hours a day and displaced its existing Spanish-language daytime programming. However, as Oak dismantled its former STV empire, it quickly sold the ON TV subscriber base, by then dwindling, and KBSC-TV to separate parties weeks apart. SelecTV continued to broadcast over KBSC-TV for several more months until the new, Spanish-language KVEA

4445-424: A year; an inability to obtain more airtime from WXON; and competition from the it service that aired on Ann Arbor -based WIHT . The operating hours that WXON allowed ON TV to have in the Detroit market continually hampered the service's ability to show sporting events, directly causing it to drop a package of Detroit Tigers baseball games it aired. Oak was next to announce casualties. On April 15, 1983, citing

4572-524: Is now broadcasting on UHF channel 22. Television station The Fernsehsender Paul Nipkow ( TV Station Paul Nipkow ) in Berlin , Germany , was the first regular television service in the world. It was on the air from 22 March 1935, until it was shut down in 1944. The station was named after Paul Gottlieb Nipkow , the inventor of the Nipkow disk . Most often the term "television station" refers to

4699-792: Is often used for newscasts or other local programming . There is usually a news department , where journalists gather information. There is also a section where electronic news-gathering (ENG) operations are based, receiving remote broadcasts via remote pickup unit or satellite TV . Outside broadcasting vans, production trucks , or SUVs with electronic field production (EFP) equipment are sent out with reporters , who may also bring back news stories on video tape rather than sending them back live . To keep pace with technology United States television stations have been replacing operators with broadcast automation systems to increase profits in recent years. Some stations (known as repeaters or translators ) only simulcast another, usually

4826-649: Is the local over-the-air host of Monday Night Football games involving the Chicago Bears , airing simulcasts of the team's ESPN -televised games (WLS-TV's corporate parent, The Walt Disney Company , owns 80% of ESPN, and the ABC Owned Television Stations have right of first refusal for simulcasts of ESPN's NFL telecasts within a team's home market). Because of this, atypical for a network-owned station outside of breaking news and severe weather coverage necessitating such situations,

4953-595: The Eyewitness News format that the other ABC owned-and-operated stations began implementing in the late 1960s, after the news format was popularized when it originated at New York City flagship WABC-TV. Beginning in 1968, the station's main evening newscasts were co-anchored by Fahey Flynn , a bowtie -wearing broadcaster who had spent the previous 15 years at WBBM-TV; and Joel Daly , who was hired away by WLS from WJW-TV in Cleveland in 1967. The duo served as

5080-656: The Calgary Flames on October 29, 1981; the Red Wings had scored five goals in the first period before ON TV picked up the game. WXON then sued ON TV to get out of what Chartwell claimed was a "fifty-year contract" with the station. After the 1982 season, ON TV dropped its Tigers deal because it could not secure the air time it needed to telecast games in their entirety. In a bid to stem the piracy problem that had dogged it for nearly its entire existence, Chartwell began upgrading from its original Blonder-Tongue units to

5207-631: The San Fernando Valley , as part of a soft launch of the new system. It was the second subscription television system in operation, with Wometco Home Theater having launched in New York City the previous month. Ambitions to expand ON TV beyond Los Angeles were immediate. When the first system went live, Carter claimed "firm contracts" to move forward in eight cities—five of which would eventually be home to ON TV-branded subscription television operations—but stated he wanted to see if

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5334-534: The electricity bill and emergency backup generators . In North America , full-power stations on band I (channels 2 to 6) are generally limited to 100 kW analog video ( VSB ) and 10 kW analog audio ( FM ), or 45 kW digital ( 8VSB ) ERP. Stations on band III (channels 7 to 13) can go up by 5 dB to 316 kW video, 31.6 kW audio, or 160 kW digital. Low-VHF stations are often subject to long-distance reception just as with FM. There are no stations on Channel 1 . UHF , by comparison, has

5461-721: The 10 p.m. newscast getting a 9.7 rating share, down a tenth of a point from a 9.8 during the same time the previous year. The station remained in second place for its prime time lead-in. WLS-TV's studios at 190 North State Street include the former State-Lake Theatre's gutted and converted interior. Beginning in 1959, Playboy ' s first television show, Playboy's Penthouse , filmed for two years at 190 North State Street. Prior to February 24, 2011, WLS-DT3 carried ABC 7 News NOW , featuring local news and weather and national/sidebar content from The Local AccuWeather Channel . The ABC O&Os discontinued their Local AccuWeather channels on February 24, 2011, replacing its programming with

5588-411: The 11 a.m. newscast, with a replay of the latter late night after Nightline . On July 29, 2019, It was announced that WLS-TV would end its news share agreement with WCIU-TV, ending the weeknight program for that station, the 7 p.m. newscast ABC 7 Eyewitness News at 7:00 on The U after 4 years, with the final broadcast on August 30 of that same year. The mutual parting of ways came as WCIU became

5715-517: The 1970s and 1980s, it waged a spirited battle for second place in the Chicago news ratings between its two main competitors. Around the time of Flynn's death, Channel 7 had been experiencing a ratings decline, prompting major changes to the station's management. ABC hired Bill Applegate from WNEV-TV in Boston (now WHDH ) as the station's news director. Shortly after, general manager Peter Desnoes resigned to co-found Burnham Broadcasting. His replacement

5842-665: The 68,000 subscribers it claimed at its peak. In Phoenix, ON TV launched on a new UHF television station, KNXV-TV (channel 15), which signed on September 9, 1979, and immediately began carrying subscription television programming. The company immediately secured top-tier sports: in Phoenix, ON TV held telecast rights at various times to ASU sports, the Phoenix Suns , Phoenix Giants minor league baseball, and Los Angeles Kings hockey. By July 1982, it had 39,000 subscribers in Phoenix, but signs of trouble were emerging. In 1981,

5969-529: The ABC Radio Network (WENR would eventually merge with WLS , with which it shared a frequency under a time-sharing arrangement until ABC purchased a 50% interest in WLS in 1954). In February 1953, ABC merged with United Paramount Theatres (UPT), the former theater division of Paramount Pictures . UPT subsidiary Balaban and Katz owned WBKB (which shared a CBS affiliation with WGN-TV). The newly merged American Broadcasting-Paramount Theatres , as

6096-587: The FCC granted it a permit to transmit on a second frequency, UHF channel 44, formerly occupied by WSNS-TV; WLS announced the availability of that frequency on October 31, 2009. Throughout construction of the new maximized transmitting facilities at the Willis Tower, WLS operated both channels 7 and 44 from its auxiliary facilities at the John Hancock Center under an STA . WLS operated channel 7 as

6223-423: The Los Angeles system was a success first. In January 1978, Oak reached a deal with Sears to market ON TV service in the Los Angeles and Orange County area. The next year, ON TV got a competitor: SelecTV , which pioneered a pay-per-program model and only showed movies. In October 1978, Oak and Chartwell, the partners in the Los Angeles system, reached an agreement to each develop six ON TV markets on their own;

6350-1132: The MLB regular season and college football season overlap), the station mainly carried the team's weekend daytime games in order to limit preemption of the network's prime time programming. The deal (along with all of the Cubs' broadcast television deals) ended after the 2019 season, when the team launched the cable-only Marquee Sports Network to carry their game telecasts. WLS-TV also carries select Chicago Bulls games as part of their NBA on ABC telecasts. From 1999 to 2004 and again since 2021 , WLS-TV carries select Chicago Blackhawks games as part of their NHL on ABC telecasts. WLS-TV broadcasts 41 hours, 25 minutes of locally produced newscasts each week (with 6 hours, 5 minutes each weekday and 5 + 1 ⁄ 2 hours each on Saturdays and Sundays). WLS-TV also contracts with iHeartMedia to provide weather forecasts for their Chicago market stations, including WLIT-FM (93.9), WCHI-FM (95.5), WVAZ (102.7), WKSC-FM (103.5), and WGCI-FM (107.5). In 1969, WLS-TV adopted

6477-541: The Miami–Fort Lauderdale market commenced subscription television broadcasts on January 11, 1980. The first licensed ON TV system, owned by Home Entertainment Network—a division of Buford Television—went live on that company's WBTI-TV in Cincinnati on February 1; the station itself took to the air on January 28. Oak went on air with ON TV in Chicago on September 22, after having bought a 49 percent stake in

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6604-425: The ON TV systems continued to lose subscribers during 1984, cuts were made. In mid-July, National Subscription Television of Fort Lauderdale laid off 41 employees—half its staff. Less than two weeks later, Oak announced that it had sold WKID-TV to John Blair & Co. for $ 17.75 million; the new buyers intended to program it as a Spanish-language station. In August—after a year of speculation—it emerged that Oak

6731-653: The Oak expansion cities firmed up considerably in November 1978 when Oak announced it would begin operating in Phoenix in July 1979 in a joint venture with the New Television Corporation, which held the construction permit for KNXV-TV (channel 15); New Television would program the station during the day as a free independent, while ON TV would air in the evenings. Oak announced at that time that it would be on

6858-586: The Oak markets would be Chicago, Phoenix, Miami, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, and Dallas–Fort Worth, while Chartwell was tasked with development in New York, Detroit, Atlanta, San Francisco, Cleveland, and Houston. In Philadelphia, NST had reached a deal with Radio Broadcasting Corporation, which in 1977 was awarded a construction permit for a channel 57 TV station there. The next year, the company announced it would license its equipment and technology in cities where it did not intend to operate itself. The first of

6985-535: The Portland licensee and also the operator of a microwave system transmitting HBO to customers, filed for bankruptcy; it owed $ 4.7 million to a group of 20 major creditors, including $ 1 million to Oak. By this time, however, it had ceased receiving programming from Oak. KECH, which itself filed for bankruptcy in November 1983, ceased ON TV broadcasts on August 19, 1984. As Oak Industries faced wider financial trouble, it sought to reduce its involvement in

7112-641: The STV franchisee for KECH in the Portland, Oregon , market. By May 1982, ON TV in southern California had 400,000 subscribers. Oak boasted some 600,000 subscribers in its five ON TV markets, not counting Detroit, Cincinnati, or Portland. Additionally, Oak planned to start a ninth system in Houston in 1983, broadcasting over KTXH (channel 20), the under-construction sister station to KTXA. However, by November, as KTXH itself neared air, it had become clear that Oak

7239-420: The STV operator. This led to several fights between station owners and franchisees, Oak-owned or otherwise. As early as 1980, WXON in Detroit was objecting to ON TV's airing of the movie Is There Sex After Death? . KNXV-TV in Phoenix had threatened to stop airing ON TV's "adults only" late-night fare, and ON TV took the station to court over its refusal to cede early evening hours, which generated 60 percent of

7366-548: The Suns signed a 13-year agreement to telecast games through American Cable (resulting in the launch of the Arizona Sports Programming Network ), which sub-licensed games to ON TV in part because they had not wired all of the metropolitan area. Late in 1982, KNXV resisted a request to expand ON TV to start before 7:00 p.m. on weekdays and 5:00 p.m. on weekends, while the station also wanted

7493-660: The Telstar joint venture. Oak chairman Everitt Carter, under a cloud of uncertainty, abruptly left the position in December 1984. SelecTV ultimately acquired the Los Angeles operation, by then with just 156,000 subscribers, in February 1985. That same month, Oak reached a deal to sell KBSC-TV to an investor group, Estrella Communications, headed by Joe Wallach , in a $ 30 million transaction. That station formally relaunched as Spanish-language KVEA in November. On June 1, 1985, WBTI—which had been sold and relaunched as WIII at

7620-647: The U.S., the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is taking another large portion of this band (channels 52 to 69) away, in contrast to the rest of the world, which has been taking VHF instead. This means that some stations left on VHF are harder to receive after the analog shutdown . Since at least 1974, there are no stations on channel 37 in North America for radio astronomy purposes. Most television stations are commercial broadcasting enterprises which are structured in

7747-570: The United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition UHF channel 52, which was among the high band UHF channels (52-69) that were removed from broadcast use as a result of the transition, to its analog-era VHF channel 7. WLS operated its digital signal at low power (4.75 kW ) to protect the digital signal of NBC affiliate WOOD-TV in Grand Rapids, Michigan (which also broadcasts on channel 7, but at

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7874-454: The Willis Tower and its operating channel 44 at the 1 million watt power level. The station continued its dual-frequency operations until 12:03 p.m. on March 18, 2013, when WLS-TV formally ceased operations on VHF channel 7, leaving UHF channel 44 as its permanent allotment. Since WLS-TV officially moved its full-power operations to channel 44, it is the only ABC-owned station to vacate its former analog allotment for its digital operations and

8001-555: The air in Philadelphia and Miami by 1980. Meanwhile, the ON TV system in Los Angeles grew to more than 100,000 subscribers by the end of 1978 and 200,000 by August 1979, earning it the title of the world's largest single pay-TV operation. Oak's increasing involvement with the entertainment business spurred the entire company, previously headquartered in Crystal Lake, Illinois , to move to southern California, where it built

8128-761: The air on September 17, 1948, as WENR-TV. It was the third television station to sign on in the Chicago market behind WGN-TV (channel 9), which debuted six months earlier in April, and WBKB (channel 4), which changed from an experimental station to a commercial operation in September 1946. As one of the original ABC-owned stations on channel 7, it was the second station to begin operations after WJZ-TV in New York City, and before WXYZ-TV in Detroit, KGO-TV in San Francisco and KECA-TV in Los Angeles. The station's original call letters were taken from co-owned radio station WENR (890 AM), which served as an affiliate of

8255-459: The anchors of the station's 6 and 10 p.m. newscasts until Flynn's death in August 1983. In 1970, the two were joined by John Drury , who helmed the 5 p.m. newscast. By 1973, WLS' Eyewitness News broadcasts surpassed NBC -owned WMAQ-TV (channel 5)'s newscasts to become Chicago's top-rated news operation, a lead it held until WBBM-TV surpassed channel 7 for the top spot in 1979. For much of

8382-561: The appointment and claimed that Chartwell and Perenchio had "surreptitiously" placed Siegel on the payroll; it was reported that Oak had no dispute with Siegel but wanted to affirm its authority as 51 percent owner of the venture. Oak chairman Carter was surprised to learn that Siegel made more money than he did. Further, Perenchio drew Oak's ire when the Chartwell ON TV operation in Detroit ordered new decoder boxes from one of Oak's competitors. Oak and Chartwell settled in September;

8509-635: The case of the Wolverines, it even ran one experimental 1979 telecast live, a presentation spearheaded by Michigan athletic director Don Canham with the blessing of the NCAA . WXON, however, proved to be a poor partner for ON TV. After airing the R-rated movie Is There Sex After Death? (which contained considerable sex and nudity) on March 12, 1980, the station then ordered ON TV to screen all movies it aired for WXON executives. More critically, however,

8636-403: The company remained "bullish about STV"; it struck a deal with Telstar to sublease two satellite transponders, opening the door to satellite delivery of ON TV's programming to local STV and MDS franchisees, low-power television stations, and cable companies. Another problem faced by subscription outlets was that they leased time from television stations, which in some cases were not owned by

8763-561: The company stationed process servers outside of the Windsor offices of one decoder manufacturer, Video Gallery, to dissuade potential U.S. buyers. Chartwell then took Video Gallery and its American clients to U.S. federal court, seeking an injunction, and got it, preventing Americans from importing its products. In response, Video Gallery obtained an injunction in an Ontario court preventing ON TV representatives from interfering with customers entering its store. However, Chartwell would gain

8890-493: The company was known then, could not keep both stations because of Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations then enforced that forbade the common ownership of two television stations licensed to the same market . As a result, WBKB's channel 4 license was sold to CBS, which subsequently changed that station's call letters to WBBM-TV ; that outlet would move to VHF channel 2 several months later on July 5, 1953. The old WBKB's on-air and behind-the-scenes staff stayed at

9017-706: The construction permit for Fort Worth television station KTXA , to bring ON TV to the Metroplex. Oak also filed for construction permits in various cities around the United States, including channel 38 in St. Petersburg, Florida ; channel 38 in New Orleans ; and channel 20 in Denver . Those applications were joined by a 1981 filing for channel 16 at Everett, Washington , near Seattle . The Phoenix operation began September 9 when KNXV-TV began broadcasting, and WKID-TV in

9144-581: The cottage industry that sprang up in Windsor, Ontario , Canada, across the Detroit River . The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission 's then-ongoing study of pay television services prompted the company to halt any plans to start its own business operations there; when asked about the possibility of ON TV being legal in Canada, communications minister David MacDonald replied that

9271-466: The end of the year from Fort Lauderdale -based WKID-TV , which it had purchased. In Chicago, it reached an agreement with Video 44, owner of UHF station WSNS-TV , to use Oak equipment and technology in its service. (While Video 44 then attempted to sell 50 percent of the company to American Television and Communications, a subsidiary of Time, Inc. and owner of the Preview STV services which had

9398-475: The extension of its hour-long 6 a.m. newscast on Saturdays and Sundays to two hours at 5 a.m. On February 10, 2014, WLS-TV entered into a partnership agreement with the Chicago Sun-Times to include the use of the station's weather team in the newspaper's weather section, replacing WMAQ-TV, whose previous partnership ended the day before; in addition, the station would air a 'look ahead' of

9525-399: The first – and currently, the only – ABC owned-and-operated station without a midday newscast). With the move and the midday newscast's cancellation, news and weather cut-ins were incorporated into Windy City Live . On October 26, 2013, WLS-TV reintroduced the Eyewitness News brand (as ABC 7 Eyewitness News ), as part of an overall rebranding of its newscasts that included new graphics and

9652-420: The highest point available in the transmission area, such as on a summit , the top of a high skyscraper , or on a tall radio tower . To get a signal from the master control room to the transmitter, a studio/transmitter link (STL) is used. The link can be either by radio or T1 / E1 . A transmitter/studio link (TSL) may also send telemetry back to the station, but this may be embedded in subcarriers of

9779-486: The idea "would appear to fly in the face of every statement that's ever been made about Canadian broadcasting". It was legal, however, for Windsor residents to build decoders to receive ON TV—and some 10,000 existed within two years of beginning STV operation in Detroit—but when those decoders started to enter the United States and pose a challenge to Chartwell's operation, the company moved to take action. In late May 1981,

9906-497: The intention of using it to bring ON TV to south Florida. ON TV then began operating on January 11, 1980, broadcasting subscription programming from 7:00 p.m. to midnight on weekdays and 5:00 p.m. to midnight on weekends. Operating in a market with few professional sporting franchises, one of the immediate draws was a package of games of the Fort Lauderdale Strikers . 5,200 subscribers were signed up in

10033-827: The licensee of WSNS, and in Dallas–Fort Worth on February 28, 1981. Just eight months after going live in Chicago, ON TV was profitable in that market—said to be unprecedented in the STV industry—and by October 1981, it was joined by all of the Oak-owned operations except Dallas–Fort Worth. Still more stations appeared to be in the pipeline: Oak had a deal with Baltimore's WBFF to enter that market, and it owned 45 percent of an STV franchise for channel 29 at Minneapolis. Meanwhile, Chartwell—after having attempted to nab rights to New York Yankees baseball—dropped its New York subscription television plans, opting not to scrap WNJU-TV's successful Spanish-language programming and battle

10160-426: The liquidation of its parent company, Kaiser Industries . After changing its name to National Subscription Television (NST), the service launched under the brand name ON TV on April 1, 1977, offering unedited, uninterrupted motion pictures, as well as limited slates of Los Angeles Dodgers , California Angels , Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Kings games, during evening hours. The first 500 subscribers lived in

10287-400: The local television station has no station identification and, from a consumer's point of view, there is no practical distinction between a network and a station, with only small regional changes in programming, such as local television news . To broadcast its programs, a television station requires operators to operate equipment, a transmitter or radio antenna , which is often located at

10414-419: The main broadcast. Stations which retransmit or simulcast another may simply pick-up that station over-the-air , or via STL or satellite. The license usually specifies which other station it is allowed to carry. VHF stations often have very tall antennas due to their long wavelength , but require much less effective radiated power (ERP), and therefore use much less transmitter power output , also saving on

10541-466: The market's CW affiliate on September 1, leaving no room for a newscast on the station's schedule. On June 19, 2023, WLS-TV debuted its new on-air look for the first time in a decade as it was the first ABC owned-and-operated station to unveil its new standard graphics package. According to the Nielsen local news ratings for the February 2011 sweeps period, WLS-TV remained in first place overall, with

10668-501: The market's dominant STV provider, Wometco Home Theater. (Perenchio would ultimately sell WNJU-TV in 1986. ) In Los Angeles—the largest ON TV market, where Oak and Chartwell remained partners—the arrangement came into doubt in March 1981. The two sides disagreed over Perenchio's appointment of William M. Siegel, the chief executive of Chartwell, as the general manager of National Subscription Television—Los Angeles. Oak refused to consent to

10795-415: The market, in the first three ON TV launches (Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Detroit). ON TV programming consisted of four basic components: movies, sporting events, special events such as concerts and boxing matches, and adult programming. Though there was variance between ON TV operations—particularly with regard to sports programming in each market—after 1983, when it established the Telstar joint venture, Oak

10922-524: The mid-1950s, which became the most popular show in the Chicago market, far outdrawing other network competition. Channel 7 had its call letters changed to WLS-TV on October 7, 1968, named after WLS Radio, which ABC had wholly owned since 1959 when the network bought the 50% interest it did not already hold in the station from the Prairie Farmer magazine. Ironically, ABC merged WLS with WENR, its shared-time partner, in 1954. In 1963, Al Parker joined

11049-470: The network-centric ABC 7 News ; the move was part of a standard branding effort imposed by ABC across its owned-and-operated stations which saw the incorporation of the ABC name into their local brands (most of the other ABC O&Os retained their existing news branding, as sister stations such as WABC-TV and WPVI-TV in Philadelphia retained their Eyewitness News or Action News identities). WLS-TV debuted

11176-539: The new WBBM-TV, while the WBKB call letters and management moved to channel 7 (from 1965 to 1968, a "-TV" suffix was included in the station's calls, modifying it to WBKB-TV). Sterling "Red" Quinlan served as the station's general manager from the early 1950s to the mid-1960s, and became a giant in early Chicago television. Quinlan was instrumental in starting the careers of Tom Duggan , Frank Reynolds and Bob Newhart . The station courageously aired The Tom Duggan Show in

11303-472: The newspaper's front page and stories, with the Sun-Times promoting WLS's newscasts and programming in turn. On December 14, 2014, WLS-TV entered into a news share agreement with WCIU-TV to produce a weeknight-only 7 p.m. newscast titled ABC 7 Eyewitness News at 7:00 on The U ; the program debuted on January 12, 2015, and is the fifth newscast produced by ABC O&O for a separately owned station in

11430-476: The next year. A worsening recession and faster-than-anticipated growth of cable television became hazards. As ON TV operations in some markets began to face headwinds, the financial picture of Oak Industries itself worsened. In October 1982, it revised down its earnings guidance due to declining sales of its 56-channel cable box, due to the recession and technical issues. Even though one analyst described subscription television as "clearly just an interim business",

11557-429: The notable exception of Chartwell's operation in Detroit, which used equipment from rival Blonder-Tongue , ON TV systems, including all five owned by Oak itself, used scrambling technology and decoder hardware developed and manufactured by Oak, known as the "Model I". The boxes, connected to a standard UHF television antenna, decoded the encrypted STV signal for paying subscribers and output it to their sets. Each decoder

11684-607: The notable pay-per-view presentations provided by ON TV (and other STV systems) was the first television screening of Star Wars in 1982, for which subscribers paid an additional $ 7.95. However, the system could not provide alternate fare for subscribers who did not pay for the movie, so those customers simply received no STV programming—just a blank screen. While more than 30 percent of customers in Oak's ON TV territory paid for Star Wars , conversion rates had surpassed 60 percent in some cases for boxing matches. Adult programming had high uptake in STV operations nationwide, and ON TV

11811-521: The operation of its three remaining directly owned ON TV systems. In October 1983, operation of the Los Angeles, Chicago, and Miami–Fort Lauderdale systems shifted from Oak to a new company, Twin Arts Productions, led by former Playgirl magazine publisher Ira Ritter; the three services counted 370,000 total subscribers, down from 550,000 in October 1982. In early 1984, Oak announced a revamped ON TV program lineup, and its operations did score

11938-516: The other ABC O&Os did over the following year, due partly to increased royalties for use of the Cool Hand Luke theme and its variants by the original theme's composer, Lalo Schifrin ) with a new news music package, also produced by Gari, called "News Series 2000 Plus" (since renamed "Stimulus"), which has remained in use by WLS ever since and was updated in 2013. In 1996, WLS-TV dropped the Eyewitness News brand after 26 years, in favor of

12065-476: The programmes seen on its owner's flagship station, and have no television studio or production facilities of their own. This is common in developing countries . Low-power stations typically also fall into this category worldwide. Most stations which are not simulcast produce their own station identifications . TV stations may also advertise on or provide weather (or news) services to local radio stations , particularly co-owned sister stations . This may be

12192-569: The renewal, only for a federal appeals court to rule in Monroe's favor in April 1990. After the FCC officially denied the license renewal in September 1990, however, Chicago's Hispanic community and civic leaders rallied around WSNS. Video 44 and Monroe reached an $ 18 million settlement agreement in 1993, and Oak and fellow Video 44 partner Harriscope sold their stake in the station to Telemundo in 1995. Subscribers were charged $ 40 to $ 50 installation and $ 19.95 to $ 22.50 per month, depending on

12319-664: The right of first refusal due to the popularity and live voting requirements of ABC's Dancing with the Stars , with WCIU-TV carrying the MNF games when the former program's fall season is ongoing (an exception being WLS' carriage of an MNF Bears game against the Dallas Cowboys on December 9, 2013, when the team honored former head coach Mike Ditka , after the DWTS fall season had already ended ). On December 12, 2014, WLS-TV signed

12446-460: The sale of the over-the-air spectrum of UniMás owned-and-operated station WXFT-DT in the FCC's spectrum reallocation auction for $ 126.1 million on April 13, 2017; as mentioned above, the transition of WXFT to the WLS-TV spectrum occurred eight months later. During the 2019 digital television repack, the station relocated from UHF channel 44 as it was no longer allocated to broadcast television and

12573-457: The second ABC O&O to operate its full-power operations on the UHF band, after Fresno sister station KFSN-TV (which was forced onto UHF in 1961 when it was a CBS affiliate, as the FCC preferred Fresno to be a "UHF island"). On June 12, 2017, WLS-TV's parent company ABC Owned Television Stations and Univision Communications announced they would enter into a channel sharing agreement following

12700-467: The service was signing up 12,000 subscribers a month. By that year, it had grown its sports portfolio beyond the Dodgers, Angels, Lakers, and Kings to include USC Trojans college sports and Los Angeles Aztecs soccer, as well as horse racing from Santa Anita Park . After the FCC repealed a rule in late 1982 that required television stations offering a subscription service to broadcast at least 20 hours

12827-423: The service's first two months, and it claimed 15,000 by July. In September 1981, ON TV added further hours, starting at 6:00 p.m. on weekdays. It expanded again in July 1982. By July 1984, when ON TV laid off half its staff, subscriptions had fallen from a 1982 high of 44,700 to 28,500, making it the smallest of Oak's STV operations at the time. At the time that John Blair & Co. acquired WKID-TV, it

12954-448: The signal only with the aid of a VCR . Scrambling codes that were sent to the box and relayed to the VCR were changed on a monthly basis, requiring subscribers to record additional footage airing immediately before and after that night's schedule to retrieve codes to play back the recorded programs properly; this resulted in any recordings being viewable only during that calendar month. Tele1st

13081-479: The situations in each market, it announced it would shutter its Dallas–Fort Worth and Phoenix systems. In Phoenix, the advance of cable and other factors had caused subscribers to drop from a peak of 39,000 in July 1982 to 25,000 at closure. Besides the Dallas–Fort Worth conflict with KTXA, the company had been handicapped by a late entry into a market that at the time had two existing STV competitors—VEU and Preview, which merged their local operations in late 1982 into

13208-489: The start of the year—dropped ON TV, with just 3,200 remaining subscribers, when Oak ceased providing programming by satellite. Oak had one last portion of its subscription television business to dismantle, in Chicago, where WSNS ceased broadcasting as a subscription station on June 30 and began broadcasting programming from the Spanish International Network the next day. However, WSNS's years as

13335-599: The station as an announcer and worked in that capacity for 26 years. Until his departure, he also served as an announcer for AM Chicago and The Oprah Winfrey Show . He died September 30, 2000, at the age of 74. WLS-TV had claimed to be "Chicago's first television station" in its sign-ons and sign-offs during its first three decades (implying a connection with the original WBKB on channel 4), but admitted to its true roots with WENR with its 30th anniversary in 1978. On January 17, 1984, WLS-TV launched Tele1st, an ABC-owned overnight subscription television service that carried

13462-493: The station has had to reschedule ABC network programs preempted by the telecasts. The preseason and MNF telecasts mark the only NFL games to have aired on WLS-TV since ABC lost the rights to NFL games in 2006; during the regular season, Bears games are rotated between WBBM-TV (through the NFL on CBS ), WMAQ-TV (through NBC Sunday Night Football ) and especially WFLD (through the NFL on Fox ). Since 2010, however, it has deferred

13589-509: The station refused to cede any time before 8:00 p.m. and aired reruns in that time slot, severely crippling it as a sports broadcaster. Midweek Red Wings and Tigers games regularly began before ON TV was on the air, forcing the station to join games in progress (as with the Red Wings) or tape delay them (which it did for the Tigers). This flaw became highly visible when the Red Wings played

13716-645: The station's home market (along with existing programs produced by sister stations in Raleigh , Philadelphia, San Francisco and Los Angeles for WLFL , WPHL-TV , KOFY-TV and KDOC-TV in the respective markets, and a since-canceled newscast produced by KFSN-TV for KAIL in Fresno). On June 27, 2016, WLS-TV revived its 11 a.m. newscasts for the first time since 2013, becoming the fourth television station in Chicago to do so; which completes against WMAQ-TV (who revived its midday newscasts in September 2011 and moved to

13843-438: The subscription service to stop screening adult movies. Phoenix was one of the first markets to show serious subscriber erosion. By April 1983, its subscriber base had dipped below 25,000, a drop of more than 35 percent. Oak Communications ultimately shuttered ON TV in Phoenix on May 4, 1983, resulting in the loss of 140 jobs. In 1979, Oak bought Fort Lauderdale television station WKID (channel 51) for $ 4.1 million, with

13970-551: The suit was dropped, and Oak bought out Chartwell's 49 percent share of National Subscription Television for $ 55 million. Oak now controlled the entire Los Angeles and Miami systems, as well as majority shares in the Chicago, Dallas–Fort Worth and Phoenix markets, while Chartwell continued to own and operate the Detroit ON TV system. Cincinnati was licensed, to be joined by another licensing agreement Oak made starting January 31, 1982, with Willamette Subscription Television,

14097-409: The television station's revenue. KTXA won a legal fight against ON TV in that market, taking away all its adult programming and prompting competitor VEU to run ads with headlines such as "For real adult entertainment, turn-on to VEU". The first ON TV service to close was Chartwell's Detroit system, which shuttered on March 31, 1983. It cited falling subscriber figures, from 68,000 to 42,000 in just

14224-493: The time period in September 2014), WBBM-TV (who began airing a half-hour 11 a.m. newscasts in early 2000s), and WGN-TV (who began its midday newscasts in 1984; followed by some expansions in September 2008 and October 2009). In June 2016, after several years of unsuccessful syndicated talk show replacements for the canceled All My Children (including Katie and FABLife ), the station moved General Hospital to 2 p.m., then Windy City Live to 1 p.m. to accommodate

14351-476: The time. Since then, WLS-TV upgraded most of its field footage to HD, although some field reports remain in widescreen SD. On December 23, 2007, a Mazda MPV minivan drove through a reinforced studio window at the State Street Studio two minutes into the 10 p.m. newscast, startling anchor Ravi Baichwal on air and creating a 20-degree draft as the glass shattered upon the car's impact; no one

14478-710: The two parties aimed for a July 1, 1979, launch. In 1979, the company, through affiliate Tandem Productions, acquired New York City -area station WNJU-TV , and Tandem was waiting in the wings to buy Washington, D.C.'s WDCA-TV if the FCC had rescinded its approval of that station's sale to Taft Broadcasting . Chartwell also explored buying a station in Sacramento, California , in 1980, going so far as to enter into advanced negotiations to purchase that city's KMUV-TV . As 1979 continued, activity accelerated. Oak announced its intention to open subscription television in Miami at

14605-591: The upper hand. After winning its initial injunction, the government closed the border to Canadian decoders in August. Video Gallery closed at the end of the year, and Chartwell won a $ 618,000 judgment against it in March 1982. Even then, it was estimated that some 10,000 additional households received ON TV in southwestern Ontario, including on master antenna systems in apartment complexes—none of them making money for Chartwell. ON TV companies responded to piracy by modifying pulse signals and introducing new scrambling techniques. In Detroit, Chartwell began migrating to

14732-551: Was Chicago native Dennis Swanson , who worked for WGN-TV and WMAQ-TV before becoming news director at ABC's Los Angeles station, KABC-TV . ABC also commissioned Frank Gari to compose an updated version of the Cool Hand Luke "Tar Sequence" theme widely associated with the Eyewitness News format. The result was "News Series 2000", a theme package that was quickly picked up by other ABC O&Os and affiliates. Upon his return to Chicago, Swanson would be tasked with finding

14859-465: Was able to supply much of this programming directly to affiliates and home satellite dish owners. The ON TV decoder supported additional program tiers and pay-per-view events on top of the normal service, for which subscribers would have to pay additional money. This functionality was used to broadcast pay-per-view events including boxing matches—consistently the most successful PPV offering —as well as an "adults only" service of late-night movies. Among

14986-604: Was deemed a failure, attributing only 4,000 subscribers at its peak, and ceased operations on June 30, 1984. In 1988, WLS-TV agreed to sell production rights to The Oprah Winfrey Show to her Harpo Productions company, but ABC O&Os continued to air the show until the end of its run in 2011. WLS-TV currently airs the Weekend Adventure educational programming block and the network's political/news discussion program This Week one hour later than most ABC stations due to its weekend morning newscasts. WLS-TV

15113-563: Was in talks to sell the Los Angeles system to SelecTV, which had competed alongside ON TV for six years in the Southern California market. A deal was initially reached, then collapsed. That October, after a year, management of ON TV had been brought back in house after the Twin Arts arrangement was ended in order to cut costs; the company had also taken over its satellite distribution to some 140,000 subscribers after dissolving

15240-420: Was individually addressable, which meant they could be controlled centrally from the transmitter; addressability allowed for electronic connections and disconnections, as well as the ability to offer pay-per-view services, and allowed Oak to implement a theft deterrent where any disconnected decoder box stopped providing service after eight minutes. The decoders also supported an optional key module that served as

15367-469: Was injured in the crash. Evanston resident Gerald Richardson was subsequently charged with felony damage to property for the incident. On November 11, 2012, WLS-TV expanded its Sunday 8 a.m. newscast from 1 + 1 ⁄ 2 to two hours, leading into ABC's This Week . The 8 a.m. portion of the Saturday morning newscast was expanded to two hours from 8 to 10 a.m. on August 24, 2013. Nearly

15494-510: Was named chairman of the new venture, with Carter succeeding him at Oak. The company intended to open franchises in 14 different states, per Federal Communications Commission (FCC) filings at the time. The system, which would use scrambling of a standard UHF television station, required a carrier. That was secured by the venture in 1976 when, under the name of Oak Broadcasting Systems, Oak and Perenchio purchased Los Angeles television station KBSC-TV (channel 52) for $ 1.2 million as part of

15621-462: Was no exception. In early 1983, 48 percent of subscribers across all ON TV systems paid an extra fee to subscribe to it. In Dallas–Fort Worth—despite being the last Oak market to offer the "Adults Only" tier —89 percent of subscribers opted in; it was 70 percent in Miami. Uptake ranged from 50 to 90 percent at other STV operations nationwide, including Wometco Home Theater and SelecTV Milwaukee. With

15748-600: Was not pursuing Houston plans, having essentially shuttered its part of the operation; Houston Chronicle television editor Ann Hodges cited the increasing wiring of the city for cable, the increased carriage of KTXH by cable systems without STV operation, and more expansive sports coverage planned in Houston than in Dallas–Fort Worth. Subscription television would prove to reach its zenith in 1982, however. That year, STV operations rapidly went from gaining subscribers to losing them. After seeing 65 percent growth in 1981, STV operators grew their subscriber rolls by just 0.8 percent

15875-435: Was ready to debut. In the only system Chartwell controlled outright, ON TV came to Detroit on July 1, 1979, broadcasting on WXON (channel 20); it had 15,000 subscribers within three months. The service quickly snared the rights to Detroit Red Wings hockey, Detroit Tigers baseball (consisting of 20 weeknight games a year from Tiger Stadium ), and Michigan Wolverines athletics (including tape-delayed football games). In

16002-412: Was renamed The Oprah Winfrey Show . Channel 7 was the flagship station for the show, and it, along with most of ABC's other owned-and-operated stations, carried it until it went out of production in September 2011. Swanson also re-hired lead anchor John Drury, who had left for WGN-TV in 1979; and Floyd Kalber , who had led WMAQ-TV to the top of the ratings in the 1960s. Drury and Mary Ann Childers were

16129-574: Was signal piracy. As early as late 1978, the Los Angeles Times described the Oak ON TV decoder as one that "reportedly can be built at home by handy TV technicians". In 1980, a trio of lawsuits against manufacturers of pirate decoders converged. Oak won a case in Phoenix, as did Chartwell in Detroit. In a case involving pirate decoders in Los Angeles, however, a Los Angeles federal judge ruled against Oak and ruled that ON TV did not hold

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