![]() In 1983, WGN-TV adopted its promotional identity, “Chicago’s Very Own,” stressing the philosophy of the station and its relationship to its community. and expanding it to an hour as “The 9 O’Clock News.” In 1981, Tribune Company formed Tribune Broadcasting Company, indicating the growing importance of broadcasting to the company. In 1980, WGN-TV premiered the Midwest’s first hour-long newscast in prime time by moving its half-hour 10 p.m. The latter transformed WGN-TV from a regional power to a national Superstation in October 1978. Farm Report.” During this time, new technology was changing the TV industry with lighter, more advanced cameras for the news staff as well as advancement in cable TV and satellites. The station also recognized the importance of the farm sector by starting a weekly series for the farm belt, “U.S. The show’s unique format featured discussions on controversial social issues, celebrity guests, and audience participation. The 1970s introduced “Donahue” to Chicago and the rest of the nation as Phil Donahue moved his groundbreaking daytime talk show from Dayton, Ohio to the WGN-TV Studios. Also in the 1960s, WGN expanded its “10th Hour News” newscast to a half-hour (the first Chicago TV station to do so), produced shows such as “Garfield Goose and Friends” and “Ray Rayner and His Friends,” sports telecasts that included Chicago Blackhawks hockey and Bulls basketball, and developed a vast movie library that was featured on a number of showcases such as “Family Classics.” In 1966, the Chicago Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Board of Directors awarded Ward Quaal, then President of WGN Continental Broadcasting Company, the Governors’ Award “for developing the finest independent TV station in the U.S.” “Bozo’s Circus” also created a generation of young Cubs fans as most of the games immediately followed the popular program for two decades. In 1961, WGN-TV began broadcasting from new facilities at 2501 West Bradley Place on Chicago’s northwest side and premiered its own version of “Bozo’s Circus,” which went on to become the most popular and successful locally produced children’s series in the history of television. One year later, the station had scored many firsts, including the first televised appearance of President Truman in Chicago as well as mobile coverage of General MacArthur’s visit to the city. ![]() By 1957, WGN became one of the first local television stations to offer a limited schedule of live programs in color. Although initially an affiliate of the DuMont and CBS television networks, WGN-TV realized it could better serve the Chicago area audience as an independent station. In addition to carrying Chicago Cubs and White Sox baseball games starting in 1948, WGN-TV made its first attempts at producing entertainment series to air on the station while also distributing them to TV stations across the country. Colonel Robert McCormick led the Tribune Company into the TV era, believing that “in television, we have embarked upon another of America’s adventures.” It would be another decade before most networks switched to color broadcasts, and a few years further until Americans began buying color TVs en masse.WGN Television, whose call letters are derived from the Chicago Tribune’s first slogan, “World’s Greatest Newspaper,” hit the airwaves on Apon Channel 9 in Chicago from its studios at Tribune Tower. There was also the issue that most of the networks weren’t broadcasting in color anyway. ![]() Oddly enough, color TV would be postponed for another two years as manufacturers were required to supply the U.S military for the Korean War that was then raging. Justice Frankfurter wrote, “courts should not overrule an administrative decision merely because they disagree with its wisdom.” Ultimately, the Supreme Court ruled in CBS' favor, decreeing that the lower courts followed the processes properly. That injunction essentially neutralized color television until the suit could be settled. Naturally, CBS’s competitors disagreed with the ruling and filed an injunction. In 1951, the FCC ruled that only CBS’s invention was qualified to broadcast in color as the picture quality of the others was deemed inadequate.
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