34 Facts About WFAA

WFAA is a television station licensed to Dallas, Texas, United States, serving the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex as an affiliate of ABC.

WFAA maintains studio facilities and business offices at the WFAA Communications Center Studios on Young Street in downtown Dallas ; sister station KMPX maintains separate facilities on Gateway Drive in Irving.

WFAA is the largest ABC affiliate by market size that is not owned and operated by the network through its ABC Owned Television Stations subsidiary.

The WFAA calls reportedly stood for "Working For All Alike, " although the radio station later billed itself as the "World's Finest Air Attraction" .

In 1950, WFAA switched its primary affiliation to NBC, and affiliated with ABC on a secondary basis.

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In 1958, WFAA became the first television station in the market to use a videotape recorder for broadcasting purposes; the station would gradually shift much of its locally produced programming from a live to a pre-recorded format, outside of newscasts, sports and special events, and eventually became one of the first television stations in the U S to convert its news footage to videotape in the 1970s.

Jim Wade filed a motion to the FCC, challenging Belo's renewal application for the Channel 8 license and strip it of rights to operate WFAA; Wade's efforts, in which he attempted to convince the FCC to award the television station's license to him, would prove unsuccessful as the agency chose to approve renewal of the existing license owned by Belo.

WFAA acquired its second television station in 1969, when it purchased KFDM-TV in Beaumont from Beaumont Broadcasting, later followed in 1980 by its purchase of WTVC in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

In May 1984, WFAA unveiled one of the most successful station image campaigns in the United States with the launch of the "Spirit of Texas", which was created in commemoration of the forthcoming 1986 sesquicentennial of Texas' independence.

All of the news themes that WFAA commissioned afterward had carried the TM Productions theme's seven-note musical signature .

WFAA was the first radio station in Texas to join a national network, co-founded the Texas Quality Network, and was the first Texas station to carry educational programs, to produce a serious radio drama series, to air a state championship football game and the first to broadcast an inaugural ceremony .

WFAA was home to the long-running morning program, The Early Birds, hosted by John Allen ; as well as programs such as the gospel music series Hymns We Love, hosted by Norvell Slater; music programs Saturday Night Shindig, The Big D Jamboree and Slo-and-Ezy; the agricultural news program Murray Cox RFD; and later, 57 Nostalgia Place.

Many of the early Dallas television pioneers began their careers at WFAA radio, including Ed Hogan, one of the most well-known personalities in Dallas during the early years of television.

WFAA was initially based its operations in a 9×9-ft tent on the roof of the Dallas Morning News headquarters, before relocating to the newspaper's library.

The FM station shared facilities with WFAA-AM on the second floor of the Communications Center building.

WFAA-DT2 is the second digital subchannel of WFAA, broadcasting in-house weather and local programming in widescreen standard definition on channel 8.

The subchannel was used to air special programming; in particular, WFAA-DT2 was used to relay wall-to-wall coverage from its sister stations during hurricane season from New Orleans sister station WWL-TV for Hurricane Katrina in August 2005 and Hurricane Gustav in 2008; and Houston sister station KHOU for Hurricane Ike in 2008 and Hurricane Harvey in 2017.

In February, WFAA Two expanded its content to include local programming; it planned to carry the home baseball games of Dallas Baptist University in 2020 before the COVID-19 pandemic canceled the college baseball season.

WFAA-DT3 is the True Crime Network-affiliated third digital subchannel of WFAA, broadcasting in widescreen standard definition on channel 8.

WFAA launched a tertiary digital subchannel on virtual channel 8.

WFAA-DT4 is the Quest-affiliated fourth digital subchannel of WFAA, broadcasting in widescreen standard definition on channel 8.

From its debut in 1980 until September 1983, WFAA delayed Nightline in favor of late night movie presentations; the newsmagazine aired in its then-recommended 10:30 slot from September 1983 until September 1984, when it settled into a half-hour tape delayed airing after the station acquired the local syndication rights to Entertainment Tonight.

WFAA has traditionally run ABC's Saturday morning children's program lineup in its entirety; however, from September 1998 to September 2011, WFAA aired several programs within the block significantly out of pattern.

Under the stewardship of general manager Mike Shapiro during the 1960s and 1970s, WFAA preempted certain theatrical and made-for-television films aired by ABC which management deemed too risque for broadcast.

WFAA was the largest ABC affiliate to preempt NYPD Blue due to concerns over its violent content, and occasional strong profanity and partial nudity.

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Channel 8 substituted the police procedural in its Tuesday night timeslot with alternate programming, before launching Good Evening Texas—a weekly talk show serving as an extension of Good Morning Texas—in September 1994; WFAA began clearing NYPD Blue at the start of its third season in September 1995.

WFAA is one of the few television stations that does not use the First Warning broadcast weather alert system; a text display of the warning type and the affected counties is instead shown at the top of the screen when severe weather alerts are in effect for the viewing area.

WFAA had purchased a fully equipped, live broadcast studio truck prior to the assassination of Kennedy, but the truck was not rolled out for the parade through downtown Dallas.

WFAA was the first U S television station to make use of international satellite capacity, broadcasting a live program from Paris, France, in 1969, consisting of interviews with wives of American POWs in Vietnam.

WFAA-TV began its rise to news dominance in Dallas–Fort Worth during the late 1960s and early 1970s under the leadership of news manager Travis Linn, who had previously served as news director for WFAA radio.

WFAA pioneered community outreach in 1977 with the "Wednesday's Child" series of feature segments, which profiled children in need of an adoptive family and was descended from a feature segment on News 8 Etc.

In 2009, WFAA became the first local station to receive the Alfred I duPont-Columbia University Award's Gold Baton, for its commitment to investigative journalism; reporters Byron Harris and Brett Shipp were recognized for investigative reports about corruption and waste at the Export-Import Bank of the United States, grade changing for failing high school athletes and dangers posed by aging gas pipeline couplings .

WFAA is one of a handful of ABC affiliates that transmits its main channel in the 1080i high definition resolution format; most of ABC's other owned-and-operated stations and affiliates transmit the digital feed assigned to carry the network's programming in 720p, the resolution designated by network parent The Walt Disney Company as the HD format for ABC and its other U S television properties.

Immediately before WFAA ceased transmission of its analog signal, the station aired a retrospective of its history that was narrated by meteorologist Pete Delkus, which was followed by a video of the sign-off that the station had aired at the conclusion of its broadcast day during the 1970s.