The Warner Bros. Initially, WPIX continued with its usual programming. But due to industry changes, the station shifted directions beginning in As WB network and syndicated daytime programming such as Maury , Judge Mathis , and The Jerry Springer Show became more prominent on channel 11's schedule, most of the station's local-interest programming began to disappear. WPIX was once home to the St. By the end of The WB's run, the "11" was slimmer.
WPIX lost its over-the-air broadcast rights to the Yankees to WNYW following the baseball season, more a result of regional cable sports networks in this case, the Madison Square Garden Network gaining team broadcast rights, leaving broadcast stations with fewer games to air.
In recent years, WPIX has revived The Yule Log , a special holiday program that combines Christmas music with a film loop of logs burning inside a fireplace. The film was made early in the holiday season of and shows a fire burning in the fireplace at New York's official mayoral residence, Gracie Mansion; it was done with the cooperation of then-Mayor John Lindsay.
The revival of the Yule Log has proven to be just as popular, and several other Tribune-owned stations have carried the WPIX version, complete with its audio soundtrack, over the past several years. Channel 11 also airs a live broadcast of the Midnight Mass, from St. Patrick's Cathedral , on Christmas Eve.
As children's programming began to fade from broadcast television, The WB dropped its morning cartoon block in , leaving the time for local stations to carry their own programming. The station continued to carry Saturday morning cartoons from Kids WB up to May 17, when it was bought by 4Kids Entertainment , but the afternoon cartoon block was discontinued on December 30, On September 11, , the transmitter facilities of WPIX as well as eight other New York City television stations and several radio stations were destroyed when two hijacked airplanes crashed into and destroyed the World Trade Center towers.
The station's lead engineer, Steve Jacobson, was among those who were lost in the tragedy. WPIX's satellite feed froze on the last video frame received from the WTC mast, an image of the North Tower burning and the start of the impact of the South Tower; the image remained on the screen for much of the day until WPIX was able to set up alternate transmission facilities the microwave relay for WPIX's satellite feed was also up there.
In the summer of , WPIX began the transition to the new CW by unveiling its new branding, CW 11 , with on-air promos, on-screen program bugs, and an outdoor advertising campaign. The rebranding began with the 10 p. Prior to the newscast, the station aired a video montage of past WPIX logos, starting with a test pattern and concluding with the official unveiling of the new CW 11 logo. On April 2, , Chicago-based investor Sam Zell announced plans to purchase the Tribune Company, with intentions to take the firm private.
The deal was completed on December 20, Prior to the close of the sale, WPIX had been the only New York City commercial television station to have never been involved in an ownership transaction. As noted above, Nexstar cannot buy WPIX outright because that would place Nexstar over the 39 percent market reach cap. The sale was approved by the FCC on December 1, and was completed on December 30, effectively reuniting the station with most of the former Tribune stations bought directly by Nexstar.
In January , Tribune launched its new digital subnetwork, Antenna TV , which airs on digital subchannel At P. News has played an important role on channel 11 from the station's beginnings. As most stations did in the late s and early s, WPIX aired filmed coverage of news events. Channel 11's efforts first got attention when the station covered the collision, and later, sinking of the New York-bound oceanliner SS Andrea Doria off the coast of Nantucket in In , the station commissioned " Move Closer to Your World " as their theme music.
A minute newscast aired at p. The program featured the same talent that worked on WPIX's local newscasts and emanated from the same news studio, with INN logos covering the number 11's on various set pieces. WPIX transmitted the national show's live feed weeknights at p. As part of a midday expansion of INN starting in , channel 11 also experimented with a newscast at p.
Heffner, host of the long-running public-affairs program The Open Mind. WPIX was also famous for the many post-news editorials from to that were delivered by Richard N. Hughes , the station's vice president of news operations. His editorials ended with the legendary tagline, "What's your opinion? We'd like to know. Over the years, channel 11 has won many awards for news, and was the first independent station to win a New York-area Emmy Award for outstanding newscast, first gaining the statuette in and earning it again in It was a significant comeback for a news operation that was accused of falsifying news reports broadcasts in the late s, such as labeling stock footage as "via satellite", and saying a voice report was live from Prague when, in actuality, it was made from a pay telephone in Manhattan.
As a sidenote, WPIX's questionable news gathering practices of the late s became fodder for jokes, and may have been the inspiration for Chevy Chase 's running gag on the Weekend Update segments of Saturday Night Live during that show's first season — in which he would introduce a "file report" from a correspondent in the field, and as the file report some of which used clips of old 's cartoons or comedy one-reelers that were passed off as "File Footage," although the clips had almost nothing to do with the story being reported ends, the "correspondent" is revealed to be Chevy himself, in the studio, using an alias and holding his nose to get the "pinched" effect of voices heard by telephone.
The PIX call letters are pronounced phonetically, similar to the word "picks". In , WPIX was uplinked to satellite and became a superstation that was distributed to cable providers throughout the U. Two years later, WPIX began operating on a hour programming schedule. Over the next few years the station engineered a slow turnaround that eventually resulted in WPIX becoming the leading independent station in the market.
In , the station became the exclusive home of the New York City Marathon, carrying the event for the next five years. It was during the initial broadcast of that event that WPIX unveiled a stylized "11" logo; the new numerical look eventually became the full-time logo, augmented with The WB's logo after the station affiliated with that network in WPIX earned the biggest ratings of all the stations airing the program, with an On November 2, , the Warner Bros.
Due to the company's ownership interest in the network initially a As with other WB-affiliated stations during the network's first four years, WPIX ran feature films and select first-run scripted series prior to its p. WB network and syndicated daytime programs such as Maury and Jerry Springer became more prominent on channel 11's schedule starting in at the expense of most of its local-interest programming outside of news.
In September , when The WB completed its prime time expansion and the network began running its programming Sunday through Friday nights, Movies were limited to Saturday evenings and weekend afternoons. On September 11, , the transmitter facilities of WPIX, and several other New York City area television and radio stations were destroyed when two hijacked airplanes crashed into the World Trade Center; both of the complex's main towers collapsed due to fires caused by the impact.
On January 24, , the Warner Bros. As part of the announcement, Tribune signed ten-year affiliation agreements with the network for 16 of its 19 WB-affiliated stations, including WPIX. WPIX began transitioning its on-air branding to "CW 11" during the summer of ; prior to the start of the station's p.
On April 2, , investor Sam Zell announced plans to purchase the Tribune Company, with intentions to take the publicly traded firm private. The deal was completed on December 20, The station began gradually adopting a modernized "Circle 11" logo in mid-October , featuring a slimmer version of the WB-era "11" the CW logo is sometimes used next to the "Circle 11", primarily in station promos for CW programs.
The station's branding was then changed to "PIX 11" on December 1, the "PIX" in the call letters are pronounced phonetically, similar to the word "picks". On August 17, , Cablevision removed the station from its New York area systems, part of a carriage dispute with Tribune in which WPIX's Hartford, Philadelphia and Denver sister stations were removed from Cablevision's systems in those markets.
Cablevision accused Tribune of demanding higher carriage fees claiming to total in the tens of millions of dollars for use to help pay off debt, and alleged that it illegally bundled carriage agreements for WPIX and Hartford's WTIC-TV which was later pulled as well, but unlike co-owned WCCT, was initially unaffected due to a separate carriage agreement ; the company denied the claims, stating its approach complied with FCC regulations.
Had the deal been able to receive regulatory approval by the FCC and the U. On August 9, , Tribune announced it would terminate the Sinclair deal, and concurrently filed a breach of contract lawsuit in the Delaware Chancery Court, alleging that Sinclair engaged in protracted negotiations with the FCC and the DOJ over regulatory issues, refused to sell stations in markets where it already had properties, and proposed divestitures to parties with ties to Sinclair executive chair David D.
Smith that were rejected or highly subject to rejection to maintain control over stations it was required to sell.
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