WABC-TV - History

History

The station signed on August 10, 1948 as WJZ-TV, the first of three television stations signed on by ABC during that same year, with WENR-TV (now WLS-TV) in Chicago and WXYZ-TV in Detroit being the other two. Channel 7's call letters came from its then-sister radio station, WJZ (770 AM, now WABC). In its early years, WJZ-TV was programmed much like an independent station, as the ABC television network was still, for the most part, in its very early stages of development; the ABC-owned stations did air some common programming during this period, especially after the 1949 fall season when the network's schedule in prime time began to expand. The station's original studios were located at 77 West 66th Street, with studios at 7 West 66th Street. An underground tunnel linked ABC studios at 7 West 66th Street to the lobby of the Hotel des Artistes, a block north on West 67th Street. Another studio inside the Hotel des Artistes was used for Eyewitness News Conference.

The call letters were changed to WABC-TV on March 1, 1953, after ABC merged its operations with United Paramount Theaters, a firm which was broken off from former parent company Paramount Pictures by decree of the U.S. government. The WJZ callsign was reassigned to Westinghouse Broadcasting (the original owners of WJZ radio in New York) for their newly acquired television station in Baltimore in 1957 – a station that was an ABC affiliate by coincidence until 1995.

As part of ABC's expansion program, initiated in 1977, ABC built 7 Lincoln Square on the southeast corner of West 67th Street and Columbus Avenue, on a site of an abandoned moving and storage warehouse. At about the same time, construction was started at 30 West 67th Street, on the site of a former parking lot. Both buildings were completed in June 1979 and WABC-TV moved its offices from 77 West 66th Street to 7 Lincoln Square.

On September 11, 2001, the transmitter facilities of WABC-TV, as well as eight other local television stations and several radio stations, were destroyed when two hijacked airplanes crashed into and destroyed the World Trade Center towers. Transmitter maintenance engineer Donald DiFranco died in the attack. In the immediate aftermath, the station fed its signal to several UHF stations that were still broadcasting (notably WNYE-TV), before establishing temporary facilities at the Armstrong Tower in Alpine, New Jersey. The station eventually established transmission facilities at the Empire State Building.

On May 27, 2007, the station's studios at Columbus Avenue and 66th Street suffered major damage as the result of a fire that knocked the station off the air shortly before the start of the 11:00 p.m. newscast. According to preliminary reports, the fire may have been ignited by a spotlight coming into contact with a curtain inside the news studio; the station's website later reported the cause as an "electrical malfunction". The station's building was evacuated and the fire was brought under control, though the studio is said to be "badly damaged", including smoke and water damage, to the studio. WABC-TV resumed broadcasting at around 1:00 a.m. on May 28, 2007 (initially carrying the network's 10 p.m. West Coast feed of Brothers & Sisters, followed by the full version of World News Now).

Due to the fire, the station broadcast Eyewitness News from a temporary set in the newsroom, while Live with Regis and Kelly, whose set was also affected, moved to the set of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Starting with the 5:00 p.m. newscast on June 20, 2007, the station resumed Eyewitness News and Live... broadcasts from its main studios at Columbus Avenue and 66th Street.