WBAL-TV - History

History

WBAL-TV began operations on March 11, 1948 from its original studios on North Charles Street in Downtown Baltimore. It was owned by Hearst Corporation along with WBAL radio and two newspapers, the Baltimore News-Post and the Baltimore American (which later merged as the Baltimore News-American before shutting down in 1986). It is one of three Hearst-owned stations to have been built from the ground up by the company (the others being Pittsburgh's WTAE-TV and Kansas City's KCWE), and the oldest to be continuously owned by Hearst through their various television subsidiaries through the years.

At its launch, WBAL-TV was an NBC affiliate. Early programming include Musical Almanac, Look and Cook, and Know Baltimore, along with news and sports productions. In the 1950s, the station introduced Romper Room, a children's program produced locally by Bert and Nancy Claster that eventually became a nationally franchised and syndicated program. Another long-running show of the 1950s was the weekday Quiz Club, co-hosted by local personalities Brent Gunts and Jay Grayson. Baltimore Sun columnist Jacques Kelly described it at the time of Grayson's death in June 2000, as "pure 1950s live television ... executed on a low budget ... the genial hosts ... ruled the 1 p.m. airwaves".

WBAL-TV produced several local bowling shows in the 1960s and early 1970s, including Strikes and Spares, Pinbusters, Duckpins for Dollars, Bowling for Dollars, and Spare Time. The station even went as far as building bowling alleys at its studios. It also launched several children's entertainment shows during this period, such as Rhea and Sunshine, Pete the Pirate, P.W. Doodle, Heads Up, and the teen-oriented Kirby Scott Show.

WBAL-TV's first stint as an NBC affiliate ended on August 30, 1981, when the station swapped affiliations with WMAR-TV (channel 2), then owned by the Baltimore Sun, and became a CBS affiliate. CBS was not pleased with WMAR-TV's frequent pre-emptions and low news ratings. As a CBS affiliate, however, channel 11 pre-empted an hour of the network's daytime schedule everyday, as well as half of its Saturday cartoon lineup. Channel 11 also did not run CBS's late night programming. Baltimore viewers who wanted to see the entire CBS line-up could do so through WDVM-TV/WUSA in Washington, D.C., which was available over-the-air in most of the Baltimore area and pre-empted little network programming.

In 1994, the E. W. Scripps Company, the present owners of WMAR-TV, negotiated with ABC to affiliate with its Baltimore station as part of a multi-station deal. In response, CBS and Westinghouse Broadcasting formed a partnership (they later merged) resulting in the CBS affiliation moving from WBAL-TV to Westinghouse's WJZ-TV (channel 13), Baltimore's longtime ABC affiliate. Largely by default, channel 11 rejoined the NBC network on January 2, 1995, and has remained the market's NBC affiliate since then. It should be noted that WBAL had been invited to switch affiliations to ABC in 1977 (when ABC was the number-one network in primetime), and turned them down out of concerns about the poor ratings for ABC's evening newscasts.

The station was a prominent feature in the movie Diner, set in Baltimore. One of the character's girlfriends works there, and another character watches College Bowl, an NBC program aired on WBAL-TV.

WBAL-TV is one of the few NBC affiliates that does not air the fourth hour of Today in daytime. (The 4th hour airs overnight in a network feed of the program.) Excluding most regular season games (seen mostly on WJZ), WBAL-TV is the official station of the Baltimore Ravens, and aired most of their regular season games in 1996 and 1997. WBAL-TV produces and airs the majority of the team's preseason games, but will use the NBC network feed if NBC picks up a Ravens preseason game for telecast.