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Providence, Rhode Island/ New Bedford, Massachusetts United States |
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Branding | NBC 10 (general) NBC 10 News (newscasts) |
Slogan | Coverage You Trust, Southern New England's News Leader |
Channels |
Digital: 50 (UHF) Virtual: 10 () |
Subchannels | (see article) |
Affiliations | NBC |
Owner |
Sinclair Broadcast Group (WJAR Licensee, LLC) |
First air date | July 10, 1949 |
Call letters' meaning | taken from former sister radio stations |
Sister station(s) | Ocean State Networks (OSN) |
Former channel number(s) |
Analog: 11 (VHF, 1949–1953) 10 (VHF, 1953–2009) Digital: 51 (UHF, until 2015) |
Former affiliations |
All secondary: CBS (1949–1955) DuMont (1949–1956) ABC (1949–1953, 1956–1963) DT2: NBC Weather Plus |
Transmitter power | 1000 kW |
Height | 286 m |
Facility ID | 50780 |
Transmitter coordinates | 41°51′55.4″N 71°17′12.7″W / 41.865389°N 71.286861°W |
Licensing authority | FCC |
Public license information: |
Profile CDBS |
Website | turnto10.com |
WJAR (more commonly known as NBC 10) is the NBC-affiliated television station for the state of Rhode Island and Bristol County, Massachusetts licensed to Providence. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 50 from a transmitter in Rehoboth, Massachusetts. Owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, the station shares studios on Kenney Drive in Cranston with ZGS Communications-owned Telemundo affiliate WRIW-CD.
WJAR-TV signed on for the first time on July 10, 1949, broadcasting on channel 11. It was Rhode Island's first television station and the fourth in New England. It was owned by The Outlet Company, a department store chain headquartered in Providence, along with WJAR radio (AM 920, now WHJJ; and FM 95.5, now occupied by WLVO). In 1952, after hearing about repeated instances of interference in Connecticut between WJAR-TV and New York City's WPIX (also on channel 11), the FCC changed the television allocations for Providence and forced the station to move to channel 10, which it did in the spring of 1953. At that time, WJAR's coverage area increased, since the interference with WPIX had been rectified.
WJAR-TV initially carried programming from all four networks of the time (NBC, ABC, DuMont, and CBS), but has always been a primary NBC affiliate due to WJAR radio's long affiliation with NBC Radio. Despite this, WJAR only carried a little more than half of NBC's program schedule during its early years on the air; WJAR also broadcast about half of the CBS network schedule and a couple of shows each from ABC and DuMont every week. It lost ABC in 1953 when WNET-TV signed on, and lost CBS in 1955 when WPRO-TV (now WPRI-TV) launched. When WNET-TV went dark in 1956, WJAR shared ABC programming with WPRO-TV until WTEV (now WLNE-TV) signed on in 1963. During the late 1950s, WJAR-TV was also briefly affiliated with the NTA Film Network. In 1954, WJAR-TV received national attention for its coverage of Hurricane Carol; newsreel films shot by WJAR cameramen of the storm and its aftermath not only appeared on the station, but also fed to CBS and NBC for use on their evening news programs.