WBRZ-TV
kW | |
HAAT | 498 m (1,634 ft) |
---|---|
Transmitter coordinates | 30°17′49″N 91°11′37″W / 30.29694°N 91.19361°W |
Links | |
Public license information | |
Website | wbrz |
WBRZ-TV (channel 2) is a
History
WBRZ signed on the air on April 14, 1955, becoming the second television station in Baton Rouge, signing on exactly two years after
At first, the Manships wanted to call the station WBRA-TV, for the Baton Rouge Advocate, but went with the reverse "Z" at the end instead, avoiding the implications of having calls which could be understood to also mean the
It dropped ABC in 1971 after WRBT-TV (now
In July 1987, the station started broadcasting 24 hours a day, except on Sundays. In September 1988, the station became the first in Louisiana to
In late summer 2007, the Manships acquired a
WBRZ launched its own Web site, WBRZ.com, in 1996. In 2003, WBRZ and The Advocate shared a website, 2theadvocate.com, but during the week of September 14, 2009, WBRZ and the Advocate returned to having separate websites as the Manship family put The Advocate up for sale.
The station is a funding partner in The Cinderella Project of Baton Rouge, a charity that provides free prom dresses to public high school students who cannot otherwise afford them. The charity held its third annual prom dress giveaway in 2010.
Programming
Preemptions and deferrals
In 1993, WBRZ joined approximately 50 ABC affiliates in not airing the pilot episode of NYPD Blue due to local protests; the station decided on a week-by-week basis, at first, to air or not air episodes but eventually settled with airing episodes (including a rerun of the pilot).
In November 2004, WBRZ, along with many other ABC affiliates in the country, opted not to air the movie Saving Private Ryan when the network broadcast it uncut on Veterans Day. During Hurricane Katrina, the station worked with New Orleans ABC affiliate WGNO (channel 26) to provide coverage of the storm and its aftermath.
WBRZ has aired
News operation
WBRZ was Baton Rouge's "news leader" in the ratings for much of its early history until the mid-1990s, given its history of always broadcasting on channel 2 (rival WAFB did not move to the VHF band until 1960) and its ties to the Baton Rouge newspapers, The Morning Advocate and The State-Times. The station experienced a ratings decline when Ed Buggs, the first African-American anchor in Baton Rouge, and many of its veteran anchors left the station in the mid-to-late 1990s amidst several format changes. This allowed CBS affiliate WAFB to overtake the lead in local news ratings, after competing with WBRZ for first place throughout the decade.[3]
In 2004, the station dropped its twenty-year slogan of "On Your Side" and started describing their news as "Balanced. Fair. Accurate", which was inspired by
On July 29, 2007, WBRZ upgraded its set and news theme and began broadcasting their morning show 2une In and its noon, 4, 5, 6 and 10 p.m. newscasts in high-definition. WBRZ was the second station in the Baton Rouge area and the fourth in Louisiana to broadcast their newscasts in high definition.
On November 17, 2014, WBRZ introduced their new state of the art upgrades set on their 5 p.m. newscasts, while maintaining the news theme "Extreme" by Stephen Arnold Music, which the station has used from 2007 HD upgrade until 2016.[4]
WBRZ airs six hours of news each weekday, with two hours of morning news (2une In), one hour at noon, and half-hour newscasts at 4, 5, 6, and 10 p.m. On weekends, it airs a half-hour of morning news at 9 a.m. and prime time newscasts at 6 and 10 p.m. with a special interest report known as Sunday Journal on Sunday mornings.
On January 15, 2018, WBRZ rebranded its subchannel 2.2 to WBRZ Plus. With this rebrand, the station expanded its prime time news offerings by extending its 6 and 10 p.m. newscasts to a full hour. The hour-long newscasts air on this subchannel, while the first 30 minutes of each newscast continue to air on WBRZ's main channel. In June 2021, WBRZ also began mixing programming from
WBRZ was a 2023 recipient of an Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award for its investigative reporting on the Louisiana State Police cover-up of misconduct related to the death of Ronald Greene in 2019. It was the third time the channel received the award], known as the broadcast equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize.[6]
Notable former on-air staff
- Sharon Weston Broome - now mayor-president of Baton Rouge
- Kip Holden – public relations specialist (former mayor-president of Baton Rouge)[7]
- Margaret Orr – now at WDSU New Orleans
- Dallas Raines – chief meteorologist, now at KABC-TV in Los Angeles[8]
- Jay Young– news anchor
Technical information
Subchannels
The station's signal is
Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming |
---|---|---|---|---|
2.1 | 720p | 16:9 |
WBRZ-HD | Main WBRZ-TV programming / ABC |
2.2 | NEWS 2 | WBRZ Plus |
Upon launching its digital signal, WBRZ has aired its newscasts on a 24-hour stream on its second subchannel, and in late 2003, WBRZ took over operations for Cox Communications' cable-only NOAA weather channel. The new channel mixed NOAA's radio voiceover with WBRZ's radar, traffic cameras, and in the event of severe weather, live updates from the stations' weather team. In 2010, radio feed was replaced with prerecorded forecasts from the team and by early 2021, became silent with cuts of the station's news theme, "Impact" by 615 Music playing in the background. In August 2017, WBRZ's news and weather channels were replicated on sister station KBTR's subchannels, and during September 2017, the weather channel, 2.3, was removed from WBRZ's feed to upgrade the news subchannel to 720p. The weather channel continues to be carried online.
Analog-to-digital conversion
WBRZ-TV shut down its analog signal, over
References
- ^ "Facility Technical Data for WBRZ-TV". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission.
- ^ Broadcasting Yearbooks, various
- ^ ":: Baton Rouge Business Report :: Ron Winders heads back to Savannah". www.businessreport.com. Archived from the original on July 28, 2011.
- ^ "WBRZ's New Set | WBRZ News 2 Louisiana : Baton Rouge, LA |". www.wbrz.com. Archived from the original on November 29, 2014.
- ^ "WBRZ becomes first-in-nation to offer sports betting network to local TV viewers".
- ^ "2023 Winners & Finalists". duPont-Columbia Awards. Retrieved January 23, 2024.
- ^ "Baton Rouge, LA | Official Website". www.brla.gov. Retrieved July 12, 2020.
- ^ Fates & Fortunes: News and Public Affairs (page #96 of 116) Broadcasting: August 28, 1978 (retrieved January 17, 2021)
- ^ RabbitEars TV Query for WBRZ
- ^ "DTV Tentative Channel Designations for the First and the Second Rounds" (PDF). Retrieved March 24, 2012.
- ^ CDBS Print