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WTAE-TV, channel 4, is an ABC-affiliated television station located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The station is owned by the Hearst Television division of the Hearst Corporation and has been owned by Hearst since the station's inception. The station's studios are located on Ardmore Boulevard (PA 8) in the suburb of Wilkinsburg (though with a Pittsburgh mailing address), and its transmitter is located in Buena Vista, Pennsylvania. ==History== WTAE-TV began broadcasting on September 14, 1958; the station has been Pittsburgh's ABC affiliate since its sign-on. From the beginning, the Hearst Corporation has been involved in the station's ownership. How the station came to be was the result of a long and complicated drama surrounding the awarding of the station's construction permit and ultimate broadcast license. Although it was the sixth-largest market in the country for most of the early television era, Pittsburgh had only one major commercial television station for close to a decade – DuMont-owned WDTV (channel 2, now KDKA-TV), which signed on in 1949 and carried programs from all four television networks (DuMont, ABC. NBC and CBS). Further development of stations in Pittsburgh was halted by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)'s freeze on license awards, which ran from 1948 until 1952. Even after the freeze was lifted by the FCC's ''Sixth Report and Order'', the FCC held off on allocating new VHF stations to Pittsburgh in order to give the smaller cities in the Upper Ohio Valley a chance to get on the air. The cities in the Upper Ohio Valley are close enough together that they must share the VHF band. Several months after the freeze was lifted two UHF stations in Pittsburgh, WENS-TV (channel 16, now WINP-TV) and WKJF-TV (channel 53, now WPGH-TV), went on the air. For reasons that were both technical and financial, both stations were short-lived. Meanwhile, revisions to the VHF allocation table had given the Pittsburgh area three additional channels – 4, 11, and 13, the latter reserved for non-commercial educational purposes. The channel 4 frequency on which WTAE-TV began operations during the analog television era was originally allocated to suburban McKeesport, in Allegheny County; other official documents have listed the community of license as Irwin, in Westmoreland County. Hearings on the channel 4 permit opened in 1955, and it was originally granted by the FCC to the owners of KQV radio in 1956. Hearst, which entered Pittsburgh broadcasting when it purchased WCAE radio (1250 AM, later WTAE () and now WPGP) in 1931, and the other three applicants that lost later petitioned the FCC to re-open the permit hearings following the death of KQV co-owner Irwin D. Wolf. The subsequent reconsideration awarded channel 4 to Hearst. The agency's commissioners were divided on how to break the stalemate to the satisfaction of both winning parties, and suggested a merger between Hearst and the KQV group, who sold their radio station to ABC in order to appease FCC cross-ownership restrictions.〔("AB-PT Confirms Buy Of KQV for $700,000." ) ''Broadcasting - Telecasting'', September 2, 1957, pg. 74.〕 Together, both firms became equal partners in Television City, Inc., under which ownership WTAE-TV went on the air.〔("VHFs go to Pittsburgh, Seattle." ) ''Broadcasting - Telecasting'', July 29, 1957, pg. 60.〕 Hearst would purchase the remaining 50 percent of the station in 1962.〔("Hearst's $10.6 million buy." ) ''Broadcasting'', July 9, 1962, pg. 5.〕〔("Changing hands: Announced." ) ''Broadcasting'', July 16, 1962, pg. 36.〕〔"Changing hands: Approved." ''Broadcasting'', August 6, 1962, pp. 50-51. ()()〕 As such, WTAE-TV is the only Pittsburgh television station affiliated with a major network to have not changed ownership. Shortly before the station signed on, the FCC moved the channel 4 assignment to Pittsburgh proper following several years of petitioning by then-Pittsburgh mayor (and future Governor of Pennsylvania) David L. Lawrence. However, the FCC had recently changed its rules so that channel 4 could have based its main studio in Pittsburgh, even if it had been licensed in McKeesport or Irwin.〔("For the record: Allocations-TV channel changes." ) ''Broadcasting'', February 24, 1958, pg. 187: "...(FCC) amended TV table of assignments and shifted ch. 4 from Irwin to Pittsburgh, Pa. ... At same time, modified CP of Television City Inc., to specify operation of WTAE-TV (ch. 4) in Pittsburgh instead of McKeesport..."〕 The station's original ownership group's connections with powerful U.S. Senator from Florida, George Smathers led to televised U.S. House hearings with both Lawrence and Smathers testifying in 1958. Both were eventually exonerated with Governor Lawrence claiming that in fact it was the city's solicitors office (whose director he appointed) which may have been guilty of any improper influence, with Smathers and Lawrence merely fulfilling their duty to their respective constituents.〔http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=RvRRAAAAIBAJ&sjid=xnYDAAAAIBAJ&dq=lawrence%20sons%20pittsburgh&pg=5779%2C2453881〕 WTAE-TV was thus short-spaced to other channel 4 stations in Columbus, Ohio; Oak Hill, West Virginia; Buffalo, New York; and Washington, D.C.; the transmitter was located southeast of the city as a result of the move. Shortly after signing on, WTAE-TV was briefly affiliated with the NTA Film Network, sharing the affiliation with KDKA-TV, WIIC-TV (now WPXI), and WQED.〔''Simpson's Leader-Times'' (Kittanning, PA): p. 11. 1960-10-15.〕 In the early years, Channel 4 was best known in the market for its locally originated entertainment programming, most notably the after-school children's shows ''Ricki & Copper'', Paul Shannon's ''Adventure Time'', and Hank Stohl's ''Rodney 'n' Knish'' (Knish was a mop-shaped puppet with a darning egg for a nose). Another popular early program was the late night movie show ''Shock Theatre'', which was hosted by former Pittsburgh radio disc jockey Bob Drews, who portrayed Sir Rodger (often misspelled as Sir Roger). ''Shock Theatre'' featured monster movies such as ''The Invisible Man'' and ''Frankenstein'' in-between live-action comedic skits. By the 1970s, WTAE-TV was running a mix of cartoons and sitcoms from 6:30 to 9 a.m., a local talk show, some ABC shows, more cartoons and off network sitcoms in the afternoon, news and some first run shows in the evening, and ABC prime time programming. On April 24, 1980, WTAE-TV personality Nick Perry, who hosted ''Bowling for Dollars'' and also called the lottery drawings for the Pennsylvania Lottery, fixed the Lottery's daily numbers drawing so that the it would come up as "6-6-6". Perry served jail time, and the drawings were moved to WHP-TV in Harrisburg a year later. This resulted in lotteries now being audited and monitored with "witnesses" from the government and/or accounting firms, and also inspired the movie ''Lucky Numbers''. KDKA-TV aired the Lottery drawings in the Pittsburgh market after this incident until 2009, when they moved back to WTAE-TV. In 1986, WTAE-TV partnered with the Salvation Army and started ''Project Bundle Up'', an operation to make sure that children and seniors receive warm clothing. WTAE-TV has run the ''Project Bundle Up Auction'' which is an auction where local businesses donate products to be auctioned off, and the ''Project Bundle Up Telethon'' a traditional telethon where viewers call in to donate money, businesses donate money and all of the proceeds from the auction and telethon benefit the Salvation Army. In 2007, WTAE-TV moved the auction to the Internet. Although it was the only ABC affiliate in the region when it signed on at the time, WTAE-TV also pre-empted and/or delayed a handful of ABC programs, most notably some of its daytime lineup from the 1960s to the late 1990s. WTAE-TV did not begin running ''Good Morning America'' until December 1978, and only aired an hour of the program until 1980. ''One Life to Live'' did not run on WTAE-TV from its 1968 debut up until 1978, when the serial expanded to an hour-long format. From 1969 to 1971, and again from 1974 to 1979, ABC shows that were not broadcast on channel 4 ended up airing instead on WPGH-TV. After 1980, some of these shows ran on WPTT (channel 22, now WPNT). WTAE-TV also preempted the Sunday morning ABC children's programming block the entire time ABC offered it, as well as a couple of hours of ABC's Saturday morning cartoons until 1979. WTAE-TV ran syndicated cartoons in place of the network-supplied children's programs, while the pre-empted Saturday morning network programs (including ''American Bandstand'') aired on WPGH during that time. By the 1980s, WTAE-TV was running many of the top rated off-network syndicated sitcoms from 4 to 6 p.m. By 1990, WTAE-TV was beginning to focus more on news, and in 1992 dropped the entire ABC Saturday morning cartoon lineup for a 4½ hour newscast (which WPXI was also doing, beginning in 1990). WTAE-TV also expanded its midday newscast to an hour and dropped the ''Home Show'' during 1991. ''Loving'' was dropped from the daytime lineup in January 1995 and moved to the overnight after until its Fall 1995 cancellation. Later in the decade, WTAE-TV also did not carry ''Mike and Maty'' or ''The City''. WTAE-TV began carrying ''Port Charles'' in January 1998, but dropped the show entirely in September 2000, three years shy of its cancellation by ABC, and replaced it with ''Judge Hatchett'', which itself was replaced by ''Access Hollywood'' in 2004. Beginning in 1996, WTAE-TV began running two hours of the ABC Saturday cartoon lineup on Sunday mornings, a half-hour on Saturday mornings, and a half-hour at 12:30 p.m. In 1998, the station cut back its Saturday morning newscast to three hours at 7 to 10 a.m. and began running three hours of the ABC children's lineup from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Today, though it still offers a news-intensive schedule, WTAE-TV clears the entire ABC lineup. At various times, WTAE-TV has also served as the default ABC affiliate for the neighboring Johnstown-Altoona, Wheeling-Steubenville, and Clarksburg-Weston television markets (all of which could receive WTAE-TV as a grade B signal). With WTAE-TV having long been one of ABC's strongest affiliates, both parties reportedly resisted efforts by other television stations in those cities to obtain a full-time ABC affiliation. Since then, one station was eventually granted affiliation in Altoona (WATM-TV), while WBOY-TV in Clarksburg and WTRF-TV in Wheeling began carrying ABC programs through digital subchannel affiliations in August 2008 on WBOY-DT2 (Your ABC) and WTRF-DT3 (ABC Ohio Valley), respectively. WTAE-TV remains available on cable in all three markets. In addition to those areas, WTAE-TV can also be seen on several out-of-market cable systems throughout northwestern and central Pennsylvania, and several locations in eastern and northeast Ohio. WTAE-TV was one of many ABC stations that pre-empted the special showing of ''Saving Private Ryan'' in late 2004 due to concerns that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) would impose a fine on them if they had aired the World War II-set movie due to the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show controversy earlier that year. The station, along with other Hearst-owned ABC affiliated stations, aired the 1992 film ''Far and Away'' instead. Youngstown, Ohio ABC affiliate WYTV still aired ''Saving Private Ryan'', giving viewers in the northern and western portions of WTAE-TV's viewing area the option of watching the film.〔(Scaring Private Ryan: 20 ABC Affiliates Nix Movie ), November 12, 2004.〕 It was later determined that the movie's broadcast was not a violation of FCC regulations. In June 2011, a WTAE-TV staff photographer was charged with a sexual crime when an alleged victim stated that the photographer had inappropriate physical contact with her. The photographer arrived in a WTAE-TV news vehicle with station equipment and claimed he was doing an interview, although WTAE-TV management claims that he was not on duty at the time – even though he was using station resources. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「WTAE-TV」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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