CBS 2 TV Chicago

CBS 2 TV Chicago, WBBM-TV is a full service television station broadcasting in Chicago, Illinois on virtual channel 2 (digital channel 12). WBBM is the ... See more CBS (Columbia Broadcasting System) owned-and-operated television station in Chicago, Illinois. WBBM-TV traces its history to 1940 when Balaban and Katz Theatre corporation, a subsidiary of Paramount Pictures, opened experimental station W9XBK, the first all-electronic television facility in Chicago. Television pioneer William C. (Bill) Eddy used the W9XBK facilities as a prototype school for training Navy electronics technicians, using the knowledge he gained to write a book that defined commercial television for many years. On September 6, 1946, the station started broadcasting as WBKB on channel 4, the first commercial station outside the Eastern Time Zone, airing some of the earliest CBS programing and becoming one of the first CBS affiliates. In 1953, WBKB's channel 4 license was sold to CBS, then changing to the current WBBM-TV call letters. WBBM-TV moved to channel 2 on July 5, 1953, and after the digital transition in 2010, it kept the channel as part of its name although it now transmits its signal on digital channel 12. In the late 1970s, WBBM-TV became one of the most respected local news operations in the country and was considered a example of serious journalism. Led by anchors Bill Kurtis and Walter Jacobson, weatherman John Coughlin and sports director Johnny Morris, WBBM dominated the news ratings in the late 1970s and early 1980s, becoming so well watched that it called its 10 p.m. newscast simply "THE Ten O'Clock News."