Detroit, Michigan United States |
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Branding | CW 50 (general) First Forecast (WWJ-TV produced weathercasts) |
Slogan | TV Now |
Channels |
Digital: 14 (UHF) Virtual: 50 () |
Affiliations | The CW |
Owner |
CBS Corporation (Detroit Television Station WKBD, Inc.) |
First air date | January 10, 1965 |
Call letters' meaning |
W Kaiser Broadcasting Detroit (reference to original owner Kaiser Broadcasting) |
Sister station(s) | TV: WWJ-TV Radio: WDZH, WOMC, WWJ, WXYT, WXYT-FM, WYCD |
Former channel number(s) |
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Former affiliations |
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Transmitter power | 185 kW |
Height | 269 m |
Facility ID | 51570 |
Transmitter coordinates | 42°29′0.9″N 83°18′43.5″W / 42.483583°N 83.312083°WCoordinates: 42°29′0.9″N 83°18′43.5″W / 42.483583°N 83.312083°W |
Licensing authority | FCC |
Public license information: |
Profile CDBS |
Website | cwdetroit |
WKBD-TV, virtual channel 50 (UHF digital channel 14), is a CW owned-and-operated television station located in Detroit, Michigan, United States. The station is owned by the CBS Television Stations subsidiary of CBS Corporation, as part of a duopoly with CBS station WWJ-TV (channel 62). The two stations share studio facilities and WKBD maintains transmitter facilities located on West 11 Mile Road in the Detroit suburb of Southfield.
On cable, the station is available in standard definition on channel 5 on most cable systems (except on Comcast Xfinity's Grosse Pointe system, where it is carried on channel 10, and on Charter Spectrum, where it is carried on channel 13), channel 50 on AT&T U-verse, and channel 60 on Cogeco's Windsor system, and in high definition on Xfinity channel 236, and AT&T U-verse channel 1050.
In 1953, WBID-TV was granted a construction permit for Channel 62. Owned by Max Osnos' Woodward Broadcasting (Osnos also owned 9% of WITI in Milwaukee), WBID planned on broadcasting from the Cadillac Tower in downtown Detroit. The following year, the owners of WJLB radio were granted a permit for WJLB-TV on Channel 50; the station was never built, and WJLB-TV returned its allocation to the FCC by the end of 1954. Seeing an opportunity, WBID asked for and was granted Channel 50. But WBID never made it to the air – and neither did WTOH-TV (channel 79) in Toledo, Ohio, another proposed station owned by Woodward Broadcasting (both WBID and WTOH planned on taking at least some programming from the failing DuMont Television Network). It would be another decade before Detroiters would finally see programming on Channel 50.