Pittsburgh Today Live - Early History - Westinghouse Enters

Westinghouse Enters

By 1954, DuMont was in serious financial trouble. Paramount Pictures, which owned a stake in DuMont, vetoed a merger with ABC who had merged with United Paramount Theaters, Paramount's former theater division, a year before. A few years earlier, the FCC had ruled that Paramount controlled DuMont and there were still lingering questions about whether UPT had actually broken off from Paramount. Paramount didn't want to risk the FCC's wrath.

Meanwhile, Pittsburgh-based Westinghouse Electric Corporation had been competing with local politicians to acquire the non-commercial channel 13 license from the FCC, as no other Pittsburgh-allocated VHF station would be signing on for the foreseeable future. After launching WBZ-TV in Boston in 1948 and purchasing two other TV stations, Westinghouse was growing impatient with not having a station in its own home market. Westinghouse later offered a compromise plan to the FCC, in which the Commission would grant Westinghouse the channel 13 license; Westinghouse would then "share" the facility with the educational licensee. Finding the terms unacceptable, Pittsburgh attorney Leland Hazard called Westinghouse CEO Gwilym Price to ask him if he should give up on his fight for public television. Price said that Hazard should keep fighting for it, giving Westinghouse backing for the station that would eventually become WQED.

Westinghouse then turned its attention to WDTV, offering DuMont a then-record $9.75 million for the station in late 1954. Desperate for cash, DuMont promptly accepted Westinghouse's offer. While the sale gave DuMont a short-term cash infusion, it eliminated DuMont's leverage in getting clearances in other major markets. Within two years, the DuMont network was no more. After the sale closed in January 1955, Westinghouse changed WDTV's call letters to KDKA-TV, after Westinghouse's pioneering radio station KDKA (1020 AM). As such, it became one of the few stations east of the Mississippi River with a "K" call sign.

As KDKA radio had long been an NBC affiliate (Westinghouse was a co-founder of RCA, NBC's then-parent company), it was expected that KDKA-TV would eventually become a primary affiliate of NBC television. But the network was seeking to purchase Westinghouse's Philadelphia stations, KYW radio and WPTZ (now KYW-TV). When Westinghouse balked, NBC threatened to pull its programming from WPTZ and Boston's WBZ-TV unless Westinghouse agreed to trade its Philadelphia properties for NBC's WTAM-AM-FM and WNBK in Cleveland. The decision would lead to an acrimonious relationship between Westinghouse and NBC in later years. Two years after the ownership change, channel 2 became a primary affiliate of the higher-rated CBS network instead. KDKA-TV retained secondary affiliations with NBC until WIIC-TV (channel 11, now WPXI) signed on in 1957, and ABC until WTAE-TV (channel 4) signed on in 1958. KDKA-TV became the flagship station of Westinghouse's broadcasting arm, Group W.The WDTV calls now reside on a CBS affiliate located 130 miles south in Weston, West Virginia, which is unrelated to the current KDKA-TV. That station, which signed on after KDKA-TV adopted its current call signs, did adopt those calls "in honor" of KDKA-TV. On November 22, 1963, newscaster Bill Burns provided almost 3 hours of live coverage after the shooting of President John F. Kennedy.

Over the years, channel 2 pre-empted moderate amounts of CBS programming. At one point, from the early 1960s to July of 1990, they were not clearing As The World Turns. At the same time, WTAJ-TV in Altoona did run the program and was viewable in the eastern part of the Pittsburgh market. Also, CBS affiliate WTRF-TV in Wheeling, West Virginia was viewable in Pittsburgh and to the west. Until 1978, the show ran on WPGH and for a few years after that it ran on WPTT. KDKA-TV also preempted the daytime game shows and reruns from CBS at various points in the 1970's. KDKA also produced plenty of local programs such as Evening Magazine, Pittsburgh Talks, and local news. The station also occasionally preempted prime time CBS programming for a syndicated movie, local news special, or sports during the years they had broadcast rights to Pittsburgh Pirates baseball and Pittsburgh Penguins hockey. Weekend pre-emptions included a small portion of Saturday and Sunday morning cartoons, and Sunday morning religious programs.

In 1993, KDKA stopped running CBS This Morning and instead ran Disney's syndicated cartoon block. Less than a year later, Westinghouse made a long-term deal with CBS to convert the entire five-station Group W television unit to a group-wide CBS affiliation. Part of this agreement included a deal to stop preempting any CBS Shows except for local news emergencies or local news events which would be effective in 1995. KDKA TV continued preempting moderate amounts of programming into 1995. In the fall of 1995, channel 2 began running the entire CBS lineup in pattern, as it, and sister station KPIX-TV in San Francisco, were already affiliated with the network.

In early 1996, Westinghouse acquired CBS, making KDKA-TV a CBS owned-and-operated station, after four decades as being simply a CBS affiliate. In 1997, Westinghouse became CBS Corporation, which would then merge with Viacom (ironically Paramount's parent since 1994) in 2000, making KDKA a sister station with Pittsburgh UPN (now The CW) affiliate WNPA-TV (now WPCW). Five years later Viacom became CBS Corporation and spun off a new Viacom. In 2001, KDKA-TV began producing a 10 p.m. newscast on UPN Pittsburgh. In 2005, it added a two-hour morning newscast in 2005 on WNPA. On September 1, 2010, KDKA-TV debuted the same graphics and music package that WCBS-TV, KYW-TV and KCBS-TV have. KDKA-TV is also available on cable in the Johnstown, Altoona, and Wheeling areas, as well as several other out-of-market cable systems in northwestern Pennsylvania, northwestern Maryland, northeastern Ohio, and North-Central West Virginia. The furthest south KDKA is carried on cable is in Beverly, West Virginia.