CBS Television Stations

Type	Division
Industry	Television
Predecessor	Westinghouse Broadcasting Paramount Stations Group
Founded	May 24, 2000
Headquarters	New York City, USA
Key people	Peter Dunn, President
Owner	National Amusements
Parent	CBS Corporation
Website	http://www.cbscorporation.com/portfolio.php?division=96

The CBS Television Stations are a group of American television stations owned by CBS Corporation. As of February 2013, CBS Corporation owns twenty-nine stations, broken down as follows: sixteen are the key stations of the CBS Television Network; eight are aligned with the CW Television Network, which is co-owned by CBS with Time Warner; three independent stations; two stations affiliated with MyNetworkTV.^[1]

The group was founded on May 24, 2000, after the merger of Viacom and the previous CBS Corporation, as the Viacom Television Stations Group; it was a merger of the Paramount Stations Group with CBS's owned-and-operated stations division. It was rebranded to its current name on January 3, 2006, after Viacom split itself into two publicly traded companies. However, both companies are still controlled by National Amusements.

Currently many of CBSTS' stations, especially CBS outlets, use a common look in branding. One example is so-called "CBS Mandate" involving most CBS stations calling themselves "CBS [Channel number]" (e.g. WWJ-TV, which is allocated on virtual channel 62, brands as "CBS 62"). This is the same practice as many other O&O groups across the U.S. Only five CBS-owned stations do not use such a branding convention.

On October 21, 2014, CBS and Weigel Broadcasting announced the launch of a new digital subchannel service called Decades, scheduled to launch on all CBS-owned stations in 2015. The channel will be co-owned by CBS and Weigel, with Weigel being responsible for distribution to stations outside CBS Television Stations. It will air programs from the extensive library of CBS Television Distribution, including archival footage from CBS News. The move marks the first major use of digital subchannels by CBS, who unlike other networks had been slow to adopt digital subchannels of its network-owned stations due to compromising picture quality in exchange for more channels. However, the advancement of technology has allowed CBS to reverse course.^[2]

Stations[edit]

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

Notes:

1) Two boldface asterisks appearing following the call letters (**) indicates WCBS-TV as the only station built and signed-on by CBS;

2) Two boldface plus signs appearing following a station's call letters (++) indicate a station that was owned by Westinghouse Broadcasting prior to its acquisition of CBS in 1995;

3) Two boldface symbols appearing following a station's call letters (¤¤) indicate a station that was owned by Gaylord Broadcasting prior to its sale to CBS in 1999;

4) Two boldface hashmarks appearing following a station's call letters (##) indicate a station that was owned by the original Viacom prior to its acquisition of CBS in 2000.

Current[edit]

Former[edit]

Note: This list also contains stations that were owned and operated by CBS prior to the founding of CBS Television Stations in 2000.

• ¹Co-owned with the Los Angeles Times in a joint venture (49% owned by CBS, 51% owned by the Times).
• ²Co-owned with the Washington Post in a joint venture (45% owned by CBS, 55% owned by the Post).
• ³Operated by the original Viacom through its Paramount Stations Group via local marketing agreement (LMA) from 1997 until Viacom/CBS acquired the station outright in 2001.

See also[edit]

• TVX Broadcast Group
• Paramount Stations Group

References[edit]

External links[edit]

• CBS Corporation: CBS Television Stations