WLS-TV - History

History

The station first went on the air as the third TV station in Chicago on September 17, 1948 as WENR-TV. It was named after WENR radio, ABC's Chicago radio affiliate. As one of the original ABC-owned stations on channel 7, it was the second station after New York City to begin operations, followed by Detroit, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

In February 1953 ABC merged with United Paramount Theatres (UPT), the former theater division of Paramount Pictures. UPT subsidiary Balaban and Katz owned WBKB on channel 4 (which shared a CBS affiliation with WGN-TV) but the new American Broadcasting-Paramount Theatres, as the company was known then, could not keep both stations because of Federal Communications Commission regulations at that time. As a result, WBKB's channel 4 license was sold to CBS and the station was renamed WBBM-TV; it moved frequencies to channel 2 several months later. The old WBKB's talent stayed at the new WBBM-TV, while the WBKB call letters and management moved to channel 7. (From 1965 to 1968, the station's calls were modified to WBKB-TV.)

The general manager from the early 1950s to the mid-1960s was Sterling "Red" Quinlan, who was a giant in early Chicago television. He was instrumental in the careers of Tom Duggan, Frank Reynolds, and Bob Newhart. The station courageously aired The Tom Duggan Show in the mid-1950s, which was the most popular show in Chicago far out drawing other network competition. Channel 7 became WLS-TV on October 7, 1968, after WLS radio (890 AM), which ABC had wholly owned since 1959. Ironically, ABC merged WLS radio with WENR, its shared-time partner, in 1954.

WLS-TV had claimed to be "Chicago's first television station" in sign-ons in the 1980s (implying a connection with the original WBKB on channel 4), but admitted to its true roots with WENR with its 30th anniversary in 1978.