WNBC
WNBC (channel 4) is a television station in New York City that serves as the flagship of the NBC network. It is owned and operated by the network's NBC Owned Television Stations division alongside Linden, New Jersey–licensed Telemundo station WNJU (channel 47). WNBC's studios and offices are co-located with NBC's corporate headquarters at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Midtown Manhattan; WNJU's facilities in Fort Lee, New Jersey, also serve as WNBC's New Jersey news bureau. Through a channel sharing agreement with WNJU, the two stations transmit using WNJU's spectrum from an antenna atop One World Trade Center.
This article is about the television station in New York City. For the AM radio station that used the WNBC call sign, see WFAN (AM). For the FM radio station that used the WNBC call sign, see WQHT. For other uses, see WNBC (disambiguation).
- New York, New York
- United States
- New York, New York
- United States
NBC 4 New York; News 4 New York
- 4.1: NBC
- for others, see § Subchannels
- (NBC Telemundo License LLC)
- Broadcast: WNJU
- Streaming: NBC New York News
July 1, 1928 (as experimental station W2XBS)
July 1, 1941
- WNBT (1941–1954)
- WRCA-TV (1954–1960)
- WNBC-TV (1960–1992)
National Broadcasting Company
47535
575 kW
496 m (1,627 ft)
WKAQ-DT 2.3 (28.3 UHF) San Juan, PR
WNBC holds the distinction of being the oldest continuously operating commercial television station in the United States.
History[edit]
Experimental operations[edit]
What is now WNBC traces its history to experimental station W2XBS, founded by the Radio Corporation of America (RCA, a co-founder of the National Broadcasting Company), in 1928, just two years after NBC was founded as the first nationwide radio network. Originally a test bed for the experimental RCA Photophone theater television system, W2XBS used the low-definition mechanical television scanning system. Later it was used mostly for reception and interference tests. The call letters W2XBS meant W2XB-south, with W2XB being the call letters of the first experimental station, started a few months earlier at General Electric's (GE) main factory in Schenectady, New York, which evolved into today's WRGB. GE was the parent company of both RCA and NBC, and technical research was done at the Schenectady plant.
The station originally broadcast on the frequencies of 2.0 to 2.1 MHz. In 1929, W2XBS upgraded its transmitter and broadcast facilities to handle transmissions of 60 vertical lines at 20 frames per second, on the frequencies of 2.75 to 2.85 MHz. In 1928, Felix the Cat was one of the first images ever broadcast by television when RCA chose a papier-mâché (later Bakelite) Felix doll for an experimental broadcast on W2XBS. The doll was chosen for its tonal contrast and its ability to withstand the intense lights needed in early television. It was placed on a rotating phonograph turntable and televised for about two hours each day. The doll remained on the turntable for nearly a decade as RCA fine-tuned the picture's definition, and converted to electronic television.[2]
The station left the air sometime in 1933 as RCA turned its attention to all-electronic cathode-ray tube (CRT) television research at its Camden, New Jersey facility, under the leadership of Dr. Vladimir K. Zworykin.
In 1935, the all-electronic CRT system was authorized as a "field test" project and NBC converted a radio studio in the RCA Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center for television use. In mid-1936, small-scale, irregularly scheduled programming began to air to an audience of some 75 receivers in the homes of high-level RCA staff, and a dozen or so sets in a closed circuit viewing room in 52nd-floor offices of the RCA Building. The viewing room often hosted visiting organizations or corporate guests, who saw a live program produced in the studios many floors below.
Viewership of early NBC broadcasts was tightly restricted to those authorized by the company, whose installed set base eventually reached about 200. Technical standards for television broadcasting were in flux as well. Between the time experimental transmissions began in 1935 and the beginning of commercial television service in 1941, picture definition increased from 343 to 441 lines, and finally (in 1941) to the 525-line standard used for analog television from the start of full commercial service until the end of analog broadcasts in mid-2009. The sound signal was also changed from AM to FM, and the spacing of sound and vision carriers was also changed several times. Shortly after NBC began a semi-regular television transmission schedule in 1938, DuMont Laboratories announced TV sets for sale to the public, a move that RCA was saving for the opening of the World's Fair on April 30, 1939, the day that regularly scheduled television programming was to begin in New York on NBC with much fanfare. In response, NBC ceased all TV broadcasting for several weeks until RCA sets went on sale; regular NBC telecasts commenced the day the fair opened.
Controversies and incidents[edit]
Chopper 4 helicopter crashes[edit]
1998 saw the introduction of a brand-new Chopper 4, a Eurocopter EC135 that the station heavily promoted. The new chopper ended up crashing into the Passaic River near Harrison and Newark, New Jersey on December 3, 1998; reporter Kai Simonsen and pilot Terry Hawes survived.[63]
Hence, the older model, a Eurocopter AS350, was returned to service and remained until May 4, 2004, when it crashed while covering a shooting in Brooklyn. Reporter Andrew Torres, pilot Russ Cowry and pilot trainee Hassan Taan survived the crash and were taken to area hospitals. The crash occurred at about 6:30 p.m. as the crew was preparing for a live report from the scene of a shooting in East Flatbush. Before the cut-in, Chopper 4 appeared to begin a steep nosedive. WABC's own helicopter captured the initial nosedive and the chopper's subsequent tailspin until crashing into a rooftop.[64]
2008 weeknight infomercial issue[edit]
On March 25, 2008, WNBC carried a paid program leading into NBC's Tuesday night prime time and after the 7 p.m. newscast for mortgage lender Lend America, replacing that night's Access Hollywood. Several 'Big Four' stations throughout the United States had carried paid programs leading into prime time in a period during the Great Recession to some varied controversy (and often do to this day during Saturday evenings, a little-trafficked time period with no complaint), but the one airing in New York of the Lend America infomercial, which was hosted by ex-WNBC reporter Joe Avellar, attracted massive criticism from viewers and local media critics, especially involving Avellar's role as host and Lend America's part in the housing crisis, and to a much lesser extent, preemption of regular weeknight programming. Earning the station $130,000 for the 28+1⁄2-minute program, it generated low ratings and led to a quick fallout, with general manager Frank Comerford resigning his position from the station for approving the airtime sale.[65] Although Lend America expressed interest in buying more early access time on the station, WNBC has never again carried a paid program before prime time on weeknights.
Sue Simmons "F-bomb" incident[edit]
On May 12, 2008, a prime time promo for that night's 11 p.m. newscast was thought by anchor Sue Simmons to be on tape for later broadcast but was actually going out live. After completing the first portion of the tease, Simmons noticed co-anchor Chuck Scarborough distracted with something on his on-desk laptop, and thinking the take would be trashed and another take would be shot for air, shouted "The fuck are you doing?" towards him in a manner seemingly meant as an inside joke among colleagues, while YouTube b-roll of a cruise ship departing Manhattan continued to roll before the promo's end.
Later during the actual newscast, Simmons profusely apologized for the live outburst, saying, "I have to acknowledge an unfortunate incident. I used a word that many people find offensive. It was a mistake I made and I'm truly sorry." No further comment was made by the station or Simmons about the incident.[66][67]
Late Show with David Letterman used clips from the promo in several sketches mocking the incident.[68]
I-Team Super Bowl promo editing controversy[edit]
On February 5, 2012, the station premiered the I-Team promo during NBC Sports' coverage of Super Bowl XLVI featuring former NYPD commissioner Ray Kelly, but later on the day after the Super Bowl, they edited out Kelly's clip due to some complaints from rival WCBS-TV. However, the spokesman declined to comment, and criticisms arose from WABC-TV, WNYW, and WPIX, the station's rivals. Station general manager Michael Jack said in the statement that "our investigative team is among the most experienced in the industry, and to suggest that the station won't cover the NYPD fairly, accurately and with balance simply because the commissioner appeared in a station promotional spot is simply not true."[69] After the promo was edited out at the station, Lynda Baquero resigned from the investigative team but continued as a reporter for the station. She was replaced by Pei-Sze Cheng and Jonathan Vigliotti (though Vigliotti later left for WCBS-TV).
Tweet regarding anti-Semitic violence[edit]
On January 2, 2020, WNBC posted a tweet on its Twitter account linking to an Associated Press wire article, syndicated to its website, on the recent wave of anti-Semitic violence in the United States, coming three weeks after a targeted shooting at a kosher supermarket in Jersey City, New Jersey.[70] The text of the message, likely automatically generated by the station's content management system, featured one of three bullet points summarizing the article as a whole, and stated that Orthodox Jews moving from the core of New York and New Jersey and into their own self-established communities on the fringe of the Tri-State area due to gentrification was a reason for an increase of violent anti-Semitic attacks in the broader region;[71]
WNBC's headline, and its inclusion in the tweet, was met with backlash from Jewish groups and people, including the progressive Zionist group Zioness and the Republican Jewish Coalition, which called out the station for "blaming the Orthodox community for the attacks". Others prominent in the community also questioned the message, including Bari Weiss, former New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind, Ron Kampeas of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, and The Forward's Batya Ungar-Sargon. The station later apologized for the original headline, deleted the original tweet, and then re-sent the article tweet with an edited headline.[72]