WABC-TV
WABC-TV (channel 7) is a television station in New York City, serving as the flagship of the ABC network. Owned and operated by the network's ABC Owned Television Stations division, the station maintains studios in the Lincoln Square neighborhood of Manhattan, adjacent to ABC's corporate headquarters; its transmitter is located at the Empire State Building.
For other uses, see WABC.
- New York, New York
- United States
- New York, New York
- United States
- ABC 7 or Channel 7; Channel 7 Eyewitness News
- 7.1: ABC
- for others, see § Subchannels
- (WABC Television (New York), LLC)
August 10, 1948
WJZ-TV (1948–1953)
American Broadcasting Company
1328
34 kW
405 m (1,329 ft)
506 m (1,660 ft) (CP)
WABC-TV is best known in broadcasting circles for its version of the Eyewitness News format and for its morning show, syndicated nationally by corporate cousin Disney General Entertainment Content.
History[edit]
As WJZ-TV (1948–1953)[edit]
The station signed on August 10, 1948, as WJZ-TV,[4] the first of three television stations signed on by ABC during that same year, with WENR-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. 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 prime time schedule began to expand. The station's original transmitter site was located at The Pierre Hotel at 2 East 61st Street, before moving to the Empire State Building a few years later. The station's original studios were located at 77 West 66th Street, with additional studios at 7 West 66th Street. A 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.
Cable carriage disputes[edit]
Cablevision (2010)[edit]
On March 7, 2010, at 12:02 am. WABC-TV's signal was removed from Cablevision's New York area systems (including iO Digital Cable) after the two sides failed to reach terms on a new retransmission consent agreement; the station was replaced by either a blank screen or a looping video containing a message from Cablevision about the removal. To avoid interruption of programming, the station urged Cablevision subscribers in the station's viewing area (totaling up to three million subscribers) to switch to other services, such as Verizon FiOS and DirecTV or simply view the station over the air through an over-the-air digital antenna and if necessary, a digital converter box, for older television sets.[75] WABC's sister station, WPVI-TV in Philadelphia, was also pulled from Cablevision's New Jersey systems in Mercer, Ocean and Monmouth counties.[76]
Later that same day at approximately 8:50 p.m. 20 minutes into ABC's broadcast of the 82nd Academy Awards, Cablevision and ABC reached a deal, restoring WABC and WPVI's signals for Cablevision subscribers after a nearly 21-hour blackout.[77]
Time Warner Cable (2010)[edit]
In July 2010, ABC's parent company Disney announced that it was involved in a carriage dispute with Time Warner Cable (now Spectrum), its first with that provider in 10 years. This dispute involved four ABC owned-and-operated stations (WABC-TV and sister stations KABC-TV, WTVD and WTVG in Toledo, Ohio [the latter station would be sold by ABC the next year]), Disney Channel and the ESPN networks. If a deal was not in place, the affected stations and cable channels would have been removed from Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks systems across the country. On September 2, 2010, Disney and Time Warner Cable reached a long-term agreement to keep the channels on Time Warner Cable systems.[78]
Charter Spectrum (2023)[edit]
On August 31, 2023, Disney removed all of its channels, including WABC-TV, two other ABC-owned stations, and the ESPN networks, from Spectrum cable systems due to a carriage dispute, its first with the provider since 2010 when its predecessor, Time Warner Cable, was involved in a dispute with Disney.[79] On September 11, 2023, the stations and their sister cable channels were restored by Charter Communications (the parent company of Spectrum) after the company and Disney reached an agreement.[80]
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