|
WBRZ, virtual channel 2 (digital channel 13), is an ABC affiliate television station serving Baton Rouge, Louisiana, south-central and southeastern Louisiana and southwestern Mississippi. It is owned by the Manship family, who formerly published the Baton Rouge daily newspaper, ''The Advocate.'' Its transmitter is located in Sunshine, Louisiana, and the station's studios are located on Highland Road in Baton Rouge, just south of downtown. The station is seen ''via'' satellite through DirecTV and Dish Network and on cable through Cox Communications and AT&T U-verse. ==History== WBRZ signed on the air on April 14, 1955 as a primary NBC affiliate, sharing ABC with WAFB. At first, the Manships wanted to call the station WBRA-TV, for Baton Rouge Advocate. However, they concluded that the call letters would cause confusion and controversy. Station founder Douglas L. Manship, Sr. still wanted "BR" in the station's calls, and decided to go to the other end of the alphabet for the fourth letter, picking "Z." He explained, "It was a good choice. 'Z' is a phonetically good sound on the air. It's distinctive." The "Z" was later expanded to mean "2" (similar to WGRZ-TV in Buffalo, New York), and the "W" was expanded to mean "We're". However, the WBRA call letters are currently used on the PBS member station in Roanoke, Virginia. Until 1989, WBRZ was a sister station to WJBO-AM and WYNK-FM, until the Manships sold both radio stations. From the late 1960s until the late 1970s, WYNK was considered an affiliate of WBRZ.〔Broadcasting Yearbooks, various〕 It dropped ABC in 1971 after WRBT-TV (now WVLA) signed on. This made WBRZ a sole NBC affiliate. Because ABC was seeking out new affiliates with stronger signal coverage at the time, WBRZ swapped affiliations with WRBT and became an ABC affiliate again on September 5, 1977. In that same timeframe, NBC sunk to third and last place while ABC moved up to first place in the ratings. In July 1987, the station started broadcasting 24 hours a day, except on Sundays. In September 1988, the station became the first in Louisiana to close-caption its newscasts. In 1991, Manship's son Richard took over the station as its new president, and would later be named "Broadcaster of the Year" by the Louisiana Association of Broadcasters. In 1993, WBRZ joined approximately 50 ABC affiliates in not airing the pilot episode of ''NYPD Blue'' due to local protests; the station decided on a week-by-week basis, at first, to air or not air episodes but eventually settled with airing episodes (including a rerun of the pilot). WBRZ became the first station in Baton Rouge to began broadcasting in high definition on channel 13 on April 22, 2002. In November 2004, WBRZ, along with many other ABC affiliates in the country, opted not to air the movie ''Saving Private Ryan'' when the network broadcast it uncut on Veterans Day. During Hurricane Katrina, the station worked with New Orleans ABC affiliate WGNO (channel 26) to provide coverage of the storm and its aftermath. In late Summer 2007, the Manships acquired a low-powered, independent television station, KBTR (WBTR), from Veritas Broadcasting Company. In late 2012, WBRZ and WBTR took the This TV affiliation from a subchannel of WVLA. WBTR airs This TV on a secondary basis, and WBRZ airs This TV programming on a secondary basis during early morning weekend hours. WBRZ launched its own Web site, WBRZ.com, on the week of September 14, 2009. Prior to that, WBRZ and The Advocate shared a website, 2TheAdvocate.com. The station is a funding partner in The Cinderella Project of Baton Rouge, a charity that provides free prom dresses to public high school students who cannot otherwise afford them. The charity held its third annual prom dress giveaway in 2010. 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「WBRZ-TV」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|