16 Facts About WKBD

1.

WKBD-TV is a television station in Detroit, Michigan, United States, affiliated with The CW.

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2.

WKBD has been broadcasting in color since it first went on the air in 1965.

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3.

WKBD briefly gained a network affiliation in the spring of 1967, when it became the Detroit affiliate of the short-lived United Network.

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4.

WKBD produced a hard-hitting weekly talk show, The Lou Gordon Program, which aired from the late 1960s until 1977 and was seen on all Kaiser stations .

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5.

Programming remained the same as before, with one notable exception: in the late 1980s, WKBD began airing Late Night with David Letterman when NBC affiliate WDIV declined to clear it; this mirrored a similar situation in the mid-1970s, when WDIV declined to air Saturday Night Live—the first two seasons of the show originally aired in the Detroit market on WKBD.

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6.

However, for much of its tenure with Fox, WKBD was still programmed essentially as a de facto independent station, as the network did not run a full week's worth of programming until 1993.

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7.

WKBD is the senior partner since it is the longer-established of the two stations, unlike the other duopolies involving CBS and UPN stations, where the CBS station is the senior partner.

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8.

However, it is likely that WKBD would have been chosen over WB affiliate WDWB in any event, as it was the higher-rated station.

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9.

WKBD produced and broadcast Detroit Red Wings hockey telecasts from 1965 to 2003, with a two-year hiatus in the 1980s, when the team's games were carried on WXON through the subscription television service ON-TV.

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10.

On occasion, WKBD produced broadcasts of Detroit Lions football games, as well as Detroit Pistons basketball games, until the late 1980s when the Pistons decided to produce and distribute the games itself, with WKBD responsible for advertising.

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11.

Under Field Communications ownership, WKBD aired a brief newscast at various times of the day, typically called Newscene, similar to that of other Field-owned stations at the time, such as its Chicago outlet WFLD.

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12.

In 1968, WKBD began producing a nightly newscast at 10 p m For much of its existence under Cox, Paramount and Viacom ownership, WKBD produced the only television newscast in Detroit at 10 p m Originally a half-hour program, The Ten O'Clock News expanded to a full hour in 1989.

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13.

ABC affiliate WXYZ-TV then entered into a news share agreement with WKBD to continue producing a 10 p m newscast for the station that would be produced at WXYZ's Southfield studios and would feature some of WKBD's former news staff, but many longtime Channel 50 employees simply lost their jobs; the WXYZ-produced 10 p m broadcast was canceled in 2005.

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14.

WKBD-TV was granted a license for a digital transmitter facility in January 2001.

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15.

WKBD is available on many cable systems in Southeast Michigan, Southwestern Ontario and Northwest Ohio.

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16.

Outside of the Detroit area most programming on WKBD is subject to territorial syndication exclusivity restrictions placed on cable providers by the local broadcast rights holders to certain syndicated programs.

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