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KYW-TV, channel three, is the CBS owned-and-operated television station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. KYW-TV shares studios with sister stations KYW radio (1060 kHz.) and WPSG (channel 57) at Independence Mall East in Center City Philadelphia, while its transmitter is located in the Roxborough section of the city.
As WPTZ-TV The channel three facility in Philadelphia is one of the world's oldest television stations. It began in 1932 as W3XE, an experimental station owned by Philco. In 1941, it began sharing programs with W2XBS (later WNBT and now WNBC-TV) in New York City, becoming NBC's second television affiliate, and creating a link between the station and the network that would last for 56 years. On July 1, 1941, W3XE received a commercial license--the third in the United States, and the first outside New York-- as WPTZ-TV. The station signed on for the first time on September 3. The station originally broadcast from a tower in the suburb of Wyndmoor. It suspended operations after the U.S. entered World War II, but returned to the air in 1945. It then became one of three stations (along with WNBT and WRGB in Schenectady, New York) that premiered NBC's regular television service in 1946. The Westinghouse Electric Corporation, owner of Philadelphia's NBC radio affiliate KYW, purchased WPTZ-TV in 1952. As an NBC-owned station In late 1955, Westinghouse traded WPTZ-TV and KYW radio to NBC in exchange for Cleveland's WNBK television and WTAM-AM-FM. NBC, who had long sought an owned-and-operated station in Philadelphia, was at first rebuffed by Westinghouse. NBC remained persistent, as it threatened to cancel its affiliation from WPTZ-TV and Westinghouse's other NBC-TV affiliate, WBZ-TV in Boston, unless Westinghouse agreed to the trade. When NBC took over in February 1956, channel three's calls letters were changed to WRCV-TV (for the '''RC'''A-'''V'''ictor record label; KYW radio adopted the WRCV calls as well). Shortly after NBC took control of channel three, the FCC ruled that most of Delaware, the Lehigh Valley and most of southern New Jersey (including Atlantic City) were part of the Philadelphia market. NBC realized WRCV-TV's existing tower was inadequate for this enlarged market. In 1957, channel three moved to a new 1,100-foot tower in Roxborough. The tower was co-owned with WFIL-TV (channel 6, now WPVI-TV) and added much of Delaware, the Lehigh Valley and southern New Jersey to the station's city-grade coverage. Along with the transmitter move, NBC upgraded channel three from black-and-white to color transmissions. However, almost immediately after the trade was finalized, Westinghouse complained to the FCC and the United States Department of Justice about NBC's extortion. After a thorough investigation and a protracted legal battle, the FCC ordered the swap reversed without NBC realizing any profit on the deal. Westinghouse had moved the KYW call letters to Cleveland after the swap, and upon regaining control of WRCV-AM-TV on June 19, 1965, channel three became KYW-TV. Group W, as Westinghouse's broadcasting division was known by this time, took over a transmitter facility far superior to the one it relinquished in 1956. To this day, KYW-TV insists that it "moved" to Cleveland in 1956 and "returned" to Philadelphia in 1965 -- in fact, some staffers who worked at KYW-TV in Cleveland (talk show host Mike Douglas among them) moved to Philadelphia along with the call letters. As KYW-TV Despite its status as NBC's largest affiliate, KYW-TV spent much of the next thirty years pre-empting many NBC programs, choosing to air local or syndicated programming instead. The production arm of Westinghouse Broadcasting was partially responsible for the pre-emptions, as channel three aired shows produced and syndicated by Group W, such as The Mike Douglas Show, The David Frost Show, and Hour Magazine. Pre-empted network programming was usually lower-rated daytime game shows, soap operas, or reruns of primetime programs, with an average of two hours per day. At one point, in the fall of 1980, KYW-TV preempted NBC's entire morning schedule after the Today Show. Over the years, NBC contracted independent stations WPHL-TV (channel 17), WTAF/WTXF (channel 29) and WKBS/WGTW (channel 48) to air programs pre-empted by channel three. However, NBC has always been far less tolerant of pre-emptions than the other networks, and was rather peturbed at losing valuable advertising in the nation's fourth-largest market. Like most affiliates that pre-empt poorer performing network programs, KYW-TV used the pre-emptions in order to gain an increase in local advertising rates which potentially come with ratings increases. This proved to be a very profitable decision at first, as KYW-TV was either first or second in the Philadelphia television ratings for most of the 1960s and 1970s. However, the station (and NBC) faltered in the late 1970s, and by 1980 KYW-TV was the lowest-rated network affiliate in Philadelphia. The station continued to pre-empt network programs, which didn't sit very well with NBC. This was especially the case in the middle 1980s and early 1990s, when KYW-TV was NBC's lowest-rated major-market affiliate during a very successful period for the network as a whole. (As a sidebar, sister station WBZ-TV pre-empted NBC programming almost as often as KYW-TV, but NBC did not seem to mind as much since WBZ-TV was always one of its strongest affiliates.) In 1994, sister station WJZ-TV in Baltimore lost its affiliation with ABC after that network announced a deal with the E.W. Scripps Company to switch all but two of Scripps' television stations to ABC. One of the Scripps-owned stations joining ABC was Baltimore's NBC affiliate, WMAR-TV. Westinghouse was outraged, and as a safeguard began shopping for affiliation deals for the entire Group W television unit. Group W eventually struck an agreement to switch KYW-TV, WBZ-TV, and WJZ-TV to CBS (Westinghouse's two other stations, KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh and KPIX in San Francisco were already CBS affiliates). The announcement also meant that CBS would sell its longtime owned-and-operated station in Philadelphia, WCAU-TV (channel 10), despite that station's stronger ratings performance. As a CBS-owned station On September 10, 1995, KYW-TV and WCAU-TV swapped network affiliations, part of a more complex affiliation/ownership deal involving NBC and a new CBS/Group W partnership. CBS acquired a minority ownership share in channel three, while NBC-owned stations KCNC-TV in Denver and KUTV in Salt Lake City became CBS stations, with Group W assuming majority ownership. Group W/CBS and NBC also traded broadcasting facilities in Miami. Westinghouse purchased CBS in early 1996, making channel three a CBS owned-and-operated station. In 2000, the combined company was purchased by Viacom. The Viacom deal brought KYW-TV under common ownership with Philadelphia's UPN station, WPSG, and that station moved into the KYW facility on Independence Mall. On January 1, 2003, KYW-TV went into compliance with the CBS Mandate and officially rebranded itself as CBS 3. When Viacom spun off CBS Corporation in 2005, KYW-AM-TV and WPSG, along with the rest of Viacom's broadcasting interests, became a part of the new company. In 2007, KYW-TV and WPSG will move to a new broadcast complex on Spring Garden Street in Center City. Logos From 1965 to 2003, KYW-TV's logo was a stylized "3" in the distinctive font made famous by Group W. It was the longest continuously-used logo in Philadelphia television history until 2006, when WPVI-TV's simple "6" logo passed it. The only major change came in 1997, when the CBS Eye was placed in front of the "3". The logo was finally retired after KYW-TV rebranded itself as CBS 3. In its place, it used a plainer "3" in a font similar to that of other CBS O&Os. Image:Kyw83.jpg|KYW-TV ident from 1983 to 1989 Image:Kyw89.jpg|KYW-TV ident from 1989 to 1991 Image:Kyw92.jpg|KYW-TV logo from 1991 to 1994 Image:Kyw96.jpg|KYW-TV logo from 1994 to 1997 Image:Kyw97.jpg|KYW-TV logo from 1997 to 2003 Image:Kyw2003.jpg|The present CBS 3 logo, used since 2003 News operation
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