Westinghouse Broadcasting facts for kids

The Westinghouse Broadcasting Company, also known as Group W, was the broadcasting division of Westinghouse Electric Corporation. It owned several radio and television stations across the United States and distributed television shows for syndication.

Westinghouse Broadcasting was formed in the 1920s as Westinghouse Radio Stations, Inc. It was renamed Westinghouse Broadcasting Company in 1954, and adopted the Group W moniker on May 20, 1963. It was a self-contained entity within the Westinghouse corporate structure; while the parent company was headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Westinghouse Broadcasting maintained headquarters in New York City. It kept national sales offices in Chicago and Los Angeles.

Group W stations are best known for using a distinctive corporate typeface, introduced in 1963, for their logos and on-air imaging. Similarly styled typefaces had been used on some non-Group W stations as well and several former Group W stations still use it today. The Group W corporate typeface has been digitized and released freely by John Sizemore; Ray Larabie's freeware font "Anklepants" borrows heavily from the typeface and is occasionally used as a substitute. The font is also used in the video game Damnation.

Westinghouse Broadcasting was also well known for two long-running television programs, the Mike Douglas Show and PM Magazine (called Evening Magazine in Group W's core broadcast markets).

Former Westinghouse-owned stations

Stations are arranged in alphabetical order by state and city of license.

Note: Two boldface asterisks appearing following a station's call letters (**) indicate a station that was built and signed-on by Westinghouse.

Television stations

This list does not include KCNC-TV in Denver, WFOR-TV in Miami, and KUTV in Salt Lake City. These stations were taken over by Group W in the interim period before the completion of CBS's acquisition by Westinghouse.

Radio stations

(a partial listing)

Note:

• ¹ Westinghouse Broadcasting also acquired a construction permit for channel 20 in Chicago along with its purchase of WIND radio in 1956 but that station, intended to be called WIND-TV, never signed on. The permit was later donated to the Chicago Educational Television Association, which operated channel 20 as noncommercial educational WXXW from 1965 to 1974. The channel 20 allocation was occupied by WYCC, an educational station operated by the City Colleges of Chicago, from 1983 until 2017.

Syndicated programs

Some of their best-known programs were syndicated and seen in primetime and early/late fringe through its syndication division, Group W Productions, which was originally known as WBC Productions until 1968. Many of these programs were also sold internationally (under the name of Westinghouse Broadcasting International).

Late night talk/variety shows

• PM East (with Mike Wallace and Joyce Davidson)/PM West (with Terrence O'Flaherty) (1961–1962)
• The Steve Allen Show (1962–1964)
• That Regis Philbin Show! (1964–1965)
• The Merv Griffin Show (1965–1969)
• The David Frost Show (1969–1972)
• The Howard Stern Radio Show, (1998–2001) (as Eyemark Entertainment)

Daytime shows

• The Mike Douglas Show (1963–1980)
• The John Davidson Show (1980–1982)
• Hour Magazine, hosted by Gary Collins (1980–1989)
• The Wil Shriner Show (1986–1987)
• Couch Potatoes, game show hosted by Marc Summers (1989; co-production with Saban Entertainment)
• Every Second Counts, game show hosted by Bill Rafferty, produced by Charles Colarusso Productions (1984)
• Scrabble, unsold syndicated run pilot with Steve Edwards as host (1990; co-production with Reg Grundy Productions)
• That's Amore, game show hosted by Luca Barbareschi (1992-1993, co-production with Four Point Entertainment and RTI Mediaset)
• Vicki!, talk show hosted by Vicki Lawrence (1992–1994)
• Marilu, talk show hosted by Marilu Henner (1994–1995)
• Morning Stretch, exercise and fitness program hosted by Joanie Greggains (produced at KPIX during the 1980s)
• Day and Date, hosted by Dana King and Patrick Vanhorn (also produced at KPIX, 1995-1997; initially went under Group W name before switch to Eyemark name mid-season)

Group W and KPIX also created, in 1975 (with its premiere in 1976), America's first non-news magazine series, Evening Magazine with host Jan Yanehiro. After the first few years, it franchised to Group W stations and eventually to other markets through local stations, using the name PM Magazine on non-Group W stations airing the show.

Made-for-TV movies

• Mafia Princess, starring Tony Curtis and Susan Lucci (1986)

Children's/animated series

• Dino Babies
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987 version)
• Speed Racer (1993 version)
• Way Cool (1991–1992) ([1])
• The in-house Filmation library (He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, She-Ra: Princess of Power, Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, Ghostbusters, BraveStarr, among other titles)

First-run syndicated shows

• Fight Back! with David Horowitz (1976–1992)
• Bob Vila's Home Again (1990-2005)
• The George Michael Sports Machine (1995)
• Martha Stewart Living (1993–2004)

End of Group W Productions

After the merger with CBS in 1996, Westinghouse acquired Ed Wilson and Bob Cook's MaXam Entertainment and merged it with Group W Productions and CBS Enterprises (including CBS Broadcast International) to form Eyemark Entertainment, with CBS Broadcast International acquiring the overseas rights to the Group W backlog. Eyemark was in turn folded into King World Productions following the latter company's acquisition by CBS in 2000. King World gained control of most of the Group W and Eyemark libraries from 2000 to 2005. These libraries are now controlled by CBS Television Distribution. The Filmation library and The George Michael Sports Machine are owned by NBCUniversal, Bob Vila's Home Again is owned by Bob Vila with Telco Productions handling distribution rights, and the 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series is now owned by Viacom with DVD rights licensed to Lionsgate Home Entertainment.

Cable networks

• The Nashville Network (TNN) (then co-owned with Gaylord Entertainment; Group W later bought Gaylord's stake in the channel; later owned by Viacom's MTV Networks as Spike)
• The Disney Channel (then co-owned with The Walt Disney Company; Disney later bought Group W's 50 percent stake prior to its launch)
• Home Team Sports (now Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic) (Baltimore\Washington network) and FSN Southwest (Dallas network)
• Home Theater Network (1978–1987)
• Satellite News Channel (co-owned with ABC; network went defunct after a year)
• Showtime (50 percent stake with Viacom from 1981 (when Group W acquired TelePrompTer), until they sold their half of Showtime back to Viacom in 1982)
• Wisconsin Sports Network (co-owned with the Milwaukee Time Warner Cable franchise from 1996 to 1998, then merged into CBS Cable's Midwest Sports Channel (MSC). Later bought by Fox in 2000 and became FSN North and FSN Wisconsin). (No relation to the present-day website of the same name.)
• Z Channel (under TelePrompTer-owned Theta Cable)