WRAL-TV (channel 5) is a television station licensed to Raleigh, North Carolina, United States, serving as the NBC affiliate for the Research Triangle area. It is the flagship station of the locally based Capitol Broadcasting Company, which has owned the station since its inception.
It is a sister station to Fox affiliate WRAZ (channel 50, also licensed to Raleigh), Class A news-formatted independent station WNGT-CD (channel 34, licensed to both Smithfield and Selma), and radio stations WRAL (101.5 FM), WCMC-FM (99.9), and WDNC (620 AM). The television stations share studios at Capitol Broadcasting Company headquarters on Western Boulevard in west Raleigh; WRAL-TV's transmitter is located in Auburn, North Carolina.
The station has been affiliated with NBC since February 29, 2016, when it ended a 30-year affiliation with CBS, with CBS going to Goldsboro-licensed WNCN (channel 17) on that date. This is channel 5's second stint with NBC; it was a primary affiliate with that network for six years at the station's inception.
History
Early years WRAL-TV began broadcasting on December 15, 1956. Among the first programs aired was the movie Miracle on 34th Street. A. J. Fletcher's Capitol Broadcasting Company, which first licensed WRAL Radio (AM 1240, now WPJL) in 1938, won the TV license in an upset over the much larger Durham Life Insurance Company, then-owners of radio station WPTF."Peoria, Springfield, Raleigh TV grants Issued by FCC" Broadcasting – Telecasting, July 2, 1956, pg. 9.
WRAL was originally an NBC affiliate, taking that network from Durham-based WTVD (channel 11, which included Fletcher's son, Floyd, among its founders). When WNAO-TV (channel 28), the Triangle's CBS affiliate, went dark at the end of 1957 and the affiliation moved to WTVD (which was an ABC affiliate at that point) in the process,"WNAO-TV to go black, joins WTOB-TV in Ch. 8 shift plea." Broadcasting – Telecasting, December 30, 1957, pg. 10. WRAL shared ABC with WTVD until August 1, 1962, when channel 5 took the ABC affiliation full-time."ABC-TV acquires two new primary affiliates." Broadcasting, May 7, 1962, pg. 80. This was unusual for a two-station market. ABC was at the time the smallest and weakest of the three major networks; it would not be on par with NBC and CBS in terms of ratings or affiliated stations until the early 1970s. WRAL did, however, continue to carry The Huntley–Brinkley Report until January 3, 1967, when ABC's own evening newscasts expanded to 30 minutes. WRAL also continued to carry My Three Sons for several years after that show switched networks, from ABC to CBS.
From 1960 until his election to the United States Senate in 1972, Jesse Helms was an editorialist on WRAL-TV's news broadcasts; by the early 1970s, the editorials were running for 10 minutes every weeknight. Helms' conservative commentaries were both controversial and popular with many viewers.
Switch to CBS In March 1985, WTVD's owner, Capital Cities Communications, purchased ABC, resulting in WTVD becoming an owned-and-operated station of that network. The CBS affiliation moved to WRAL-TV on August 4, 1985."In brief." Broadcasting, July 15, 1985, pg. 80 Within six months of the switch, WRAL-TV had become one of the strongest CBS affiliates in the country. It is one of the few stations in the country to have been a primary affiliate of all of the "Big Three" networks.
In December 1989, WRAL was knocked off the air when a severe ice storm caused the collapse of the station's transmitter tower. Within hours, channel 5 cut a deal with the then-struggling Fayetteville independent station WKFT-TV (channel 40, now Univision O&O WUVC-DT), allowing WRAL to return to the air in only three hours. WKFT ran the entire WRAL schedule during this time. The station's new, stronger tower was activated on October 25, 1990, at which point WKFT reverted to broadcasting its own programming.
In the early 1990s, WRAL distributed its programming via C-Band satellite as part of the Primetime 24 package, reaching viewers in the Caribbean and Latin America, as well as the few rural areas of the United States and Canada where local over-the-air broadcast signals were not available. It was replaced in the late 1990s with fellow CBS affiliate WSEE-TV from Erie, Pennsylvania, primarily because of WRAL's preemptions of network programming due to ACC basketball games, which were (and still are) a highly-popular audience draw in North Carolina.
Return to NBC On January 15, 2016, WRAL-TV announced that it would switch back to NBC on February 29, 2016. Concurrently, CBS announced that the existing NBC station, Media General-owned and Goldsboro-licensed WNCN (channel 17), would replace WRAL-TV as the Triangle's CBS affiliate the same day. Capitol Broadcasting president and CEO Jim Goodmon stated that CBS would only renew its affiliation with WRAL if it entered into a reverse compensation agreement—under which Capitol would be required to pay the network for the local rights to air its programming, the complete opposite of traditional commercial television practices. NBC, on the other hand, took the line that an affiliation deal was a partnership. Goodmon saw the switch to NBC as "a business decision for the future." The last CBS program to air on WRAL was a showing of the movie Last Vegas at 9 p.m. Eastern Time.
WRAL officially rejoined NBC at 7 a.m. on February 29. In a ceremony at the end of the morning newscast, Goodmon pressed a button decorated with the NBC peacock to switch back to Today.
Meredith College professor Doug Spero suggested that WRAL's overall dominance in the Triangle was so absolute that it was in a position to become one of NBC's strongest affiliates, much as it was one of CBS' strongest affiliates. The feeling was mutual; according to NBC News correspondent Harry Smith, NBC officials felt like they had "just won the lottery" when they learned WRAL was rejoining NBC. Indeed, on the first day of WRAL's return to NBC, several dayparts saw NBC jump from third to first in the Triangle ratings at one stroke. Notably, Today, the NBC Nightly News, and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon immediately saw major ratings gains in the market after their move to WRAL. The former two shows tallied their highest ratings on record in the Triangle on the day channel 5 officially returned to NBC, showing gains of well over 200 percent compared to their previous showings on WNCN. By contrast, CBS' competing programs lost more than half their audience share, falling from first to third in one stroke. NBC had struggled in the Triangle ratings for more than 40 years, dating to when it was all but forced to move its programming full-time to WRDU-TV (channel 28, later WPTF-TV and now WRDC) in 1971. While NBC's performance in the area improved somewhat after it moved to WNCN in 1995, that station had remained stubbornly in third place for most of its 20-year run with the network.
The delay in the affiliation switch kept CBS's coverage of Super Bowl 50, which featured the Carolina Panthers (based in nearby Charlotte) as champions of the National Football Conference, on WRAL-TV. As an NBC station, channel 5 carried the 2016 Stanley Cup Finals and the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, making it the only television station in the United States to air all three events from different networks in the same year.
Programming WRAL clears most of the NBC schedule in pattern, except for one hour of The More You Know (NBC's E/I-compliant block), which it preempts in favor of paid programming in the noon hour on Saturdays (as a CBS affiliate, it cleared the network's entire schedule from the late 1990s until it rejoined NBC). The only exceptions involved ACC football and basketball from Raycom Sports, both of which aired on the station from 1977, when they moved from WTVD, until the end of the syndication package in 2019. ACC-preempted NBC programming aired either as originally scheduled on digital subchannel 5.2 (which is otherwise an affiliate of Cozi TV) or overnights on the main signal. The More You Know is split over two days; the first hour airs on Saturdays from 10 to 11 a.m., with Brain Game and Smart Start Kids (both of which count toward WRAL's E/I commitments) airing from 11 a.m. to noon, and the second hour airs on Sundays from 11 a.m. to noon.
However, the 2003 reality show Cupid did not air on the station, as have some controversial shows on sister station WRAZ, and WRAL was one of a few CBS affiliates in the nation that did not carry an hour of CBS' weekend morning children's programming block (in favor of Brain Game and Smart Start Kids). WRAL was also one of the few CBS affiliates that aired The Young and the Restless at 4 p.m. as a lead-in to its 5 p.m. newscast. Most CBS stations in the Eastern Time Zone air Y&R at 12:30 p.m. (CBS' recommended time for the show), but in the case of WRAL, the timeslot switch occurred in January 1993. This happened because the station's sitcom reruns (the show being run at the time was an hour-long block of The Golden Girls, making it ironic that during their ABC affiliation they were one of 13 affiliates not to carry the original network run of Soap, another Witt/Thomas/Harris Production) were having no luck against The Oprah Winfrey Show on WTVD. (The second half of their noon newscast and Right This Minute aired in Y&Rs recommended time slot.) Following WRAL-TV rejoining NBC on February 29, 2016, Y&R continued to air at 4 p.m. on WNCN while WRAL-TV carried local news at the time slot until January 17, 2022, when WNCN moved it to its traditional 12:30 p.m. timeslot and introduced its own 4 p.m. newscast.
When WRAL joined CBS in 1985, it became the Triangle's home for the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament, which has aired on CBS since 1981. Due to the Triangle's (and North Carolina's) longstanding status as a college basketball hotbed and local teams North Carolina and Duke being fixtures in the tournament, NCAA Tournament games on WRAL were consistently among the highest-rated programs in the Triangle during tournament season. WRAL aired the Tar Heels' national championship wins in 1993, 2005, and 2009; five of the Tar Heels' other Final Four appearances in 1995, 1997, 1998, 2000, and 2008; all five of the Blue Devils' national championship victories in 1991, 1992, 2001, 2010, and 2015; four of the Blue Devils' other national championship appearances in 1986, 1990, 1994, and 1999; and three of the Blue Devils' other Final Four appearances in 1988, 1989, and 2004. Despite the NCAA Tournament moving with the rest of the CBS schedule to WNCN, WRAL-TV continued to air ACC football and/or basketball until the package ended in 2019 in favor of the ACC Network. WRAL-TV may potentially air any away games of the local ACC teams if the opposing home team is from the Big Ten, Atlantic-10 or Big East conferences.
WRAL has broadcast memorable locally produced children's programming throughout its storied history. Its most famous and longest-running is Time for Uncle Paul, which ran from 1961 to 1981, and starred Paul Montgomery. He had played various other characters on other local shows before getting his own program. He voluntarily ended his program after station management suggested a change to an educational format.
Soon after, WRAL continued to produce acclaimed educational children's shows such as Frog Hollow, Sparks, and The Androgena Show. Today, WRAL continues to produce educational programs with such shows as Smart Start Kids and Brain Game. In recent years, WRAL and UNC-TV have co-produced programming, such as the 2009 Gubernatorial Inauguration and the 2006 Parade of Sail Tall Ship Show in Beaufort. UNC-TV has, also, begun carrying WRAL's award-winning Focal Point documentaries. WRAL has long been a corporate supporter of UNC-TV, often assisting them financially and occasionally with on-air talent during UNC-TV's pledge drives.