WTAE-TV (channel 4) is a television station in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States, affiliated with ABC. It has been owned by Hearst Television since the station's inception, making this one of two stations that have been built and signed on by Hearst (alongside company flagship WBAL-TV in Baltimore). WTAE-TV's studios are located on Ardmore Boulevard (PA 8) in the suburb of Wilkinsburg (though with a Pittsburgh mailing address), and its transmitter is located in Buena Vista, Pennsylvania.
History WTAE-TV began broadcasting on September 14, 1958; the station has been Pittsburgh's ABC affiliate since its sign-on.
Pittsburgh had only one major commercial television station for close to a decade—DuMont-owned WDTV (channel 2, now KDKA-TV), which signed on in 1949 and carried programs from all four television networks (DuMont, ABC, NBC and CBS). Further development of stations in Pittsburgh was halted by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)'s freeze on license awards, which ran from 1948 until 1952. Even after the freeze was lifted by the FCC, new VHF stations in Pittsburgh were held back to give the smaller cities in the Upper Ohio Valley a chance to get on the owing to VHF band limitations.
Several months after the freeze was lifted, two UHF stations in Pittsburgh, WENS-TV (channel 16, now WINP-TV) and WKJF-TV (channel 53, now WPGH-TV), went on the air. For technical and financial reasons, both stations were short-lived. Meanwhile, revisions to the VHF allocation had given the Pittsburgh area three additional channels—4, 11, and 13, the latter reserved for non-commercial educational purposes. The channel 4 frequency on which WTAE-TV began operations during the analog television era was originally allocated to suburban McKeesport, in Allegheny County; other official documents have listed the community of license as Irwin, in Westmoreland County.
Hearings on the channel 4 permit opened in 1955, and it was originally granted by the FCC to KQV radio in 1956. Hearst and the other three applicants that lost petitioned the FCC to re-open the permit hearings following the death of KQV co-owner Irwin D. Wolf. The subsequent reconsideration awarded channel 4 to Hearst. The agency's commissioners were divided on how to break the stalemate to the satisfaction of both winning parties, and suggested a merger between Hearst and the KQV group, who sold their radio station to ABC to appease FCC cross-ownership restrictions."AB-PT Confirms Buy Of KQV for $700,000." Broadcasting – Telecasting, September 2, 1957, pg. 74. Together, both firms became equal partners in Television City, Inc., under which ownership WTAE-TV went on the air."VHFs go to Pittsburgh, Seattle." Broadcasting – Telecasting, July 29, 1957, pg. 60. Hearst would purchase the remaining 50 percent of the station in 1962."Hearst's $10.6 million buy." Broadcasting, July 9, 1962, pg. 5."Changing hands: Announced." Broadcasting, July 16, 1962, pg. 36."Changing hands: Approved." Broadcasting, August 6, 1962, pp. 50–51. WTAE-TV is the only Pittsburgh television station affiliated with a major network not to have changed ownership.
Shortly before the station signed on, the FCC moved the channel 4 assignment to Pittsburgh proper following several years of petitioning by then-Pittsburgh mayor (and future Governor of Pennsylvania) David L. Lawrence. However, the FCC changed its rules so that channel 4 could have based its main studio in Pittsburgh, even if it had been licensed to McKeesport or Irwin."For the record: Allocations-TV channel changes." Broadcasting, February 24, 1958, pg. 187: "...(FCC) amended TV table of assignments and shifted ch. 4 from Irwin to Pittsburgh, Pa. ... At same time, modified CP of Television City Inc., to specify operation of WTAE-TV (ch. 4) in Pittsburgh instead of McKeesport..." The station's original ownership group's connections with powerful U.S. Senator from Florida, George Smathers led to televised U.S. House hearings with both Lawrence and Smathers testifying in 1958. To fit Channel 4 into Pittsburgh, the allocation was short-spaced to surrounding channel 4 stations in Detroit, Michigan; Columbus, Ohio; Oak Hill, West Virginia; Buffalo, New York; and Washington, D.C.; the transmitter was located southeast of the city as a result of the short-spacing. Shortly after signing on, WTAE-TV was briefly affiliated with the NTA Film Network, sharing the affiliation with KDKA-TV, WIIC-TV (now WPXI), and WQED.Simpson's Leader-Times (Kittanning, PA): p. 11. October 15, 1960.
On April 24, 1980, WTAE-TV personality Nick Perry, who hosted Bowling for Dollars and also called the lottery drawings for the Pennsylvania Lottery, fixed the Lottery's daily numbers drawing so that it would come up as "6-6-6". Perry served jail time, and the drawings were moved to WHP-TV in Harrisburg a year later by orders of Governor Dick Thornburgh. This resulted in lotteries now being audited and monitored with "witnesses" from the government and/or accounting firms, and also inspired the movie Lucky Numbers. KDKA-TV aired the Lottery drawings in the Pittsburgh market after this incident until 2009, when they moved back to WTAE-TV.
In April 1985, WTAE-TV became the only station in the United States to transmit the World Wrestling Federation's WrestleMania event free over-the-air, after a technical glitch prematurely ended the event's closed-circuit broadcast from the Civic Arena.
In 1986, WTAE-TV partnered with The Salvation Army and started Project Bundle Up, an operation to make sure that children and seniors receive warm clothing. WTAE-TV has run the Project Bundle Up Auction where local businesses donate products to be auctioned off, and the Project Bundle Up Telethon, where viewers call in to donate money. Businesses donate money and all of their proceeds from the auction and telethon to benefit the Salvation Army. In 2007, WTAE-TV moved the auction to the Internet.
In early 2001, Hearst bought Clarksburg, West Virginia–based NBC affiliate WBOY-TV, which has a significant Grade A signal overlap with WTAE-TV (a year earlier, the FCC began to allow companies to own television stations with overlapping coverage areas). However, Hearst decided to sell WBOY-TV to West Virginia Media Holdings in September of that year after less than a year of ownership; that station is now owned by Nexstar Media Group, who to this day does not own or operate a station serving Pittsburgh.
In June 2011, a WTAE-TV staff photographer was charged with a sexual crime when an alleged victim stated that the photographer had inappropriate physical contact with her. The photographer arrived in a WTAE-TV news vehicle with station equipment and claimed he was doing an interview, although WTAE-TV management claims that he was not on duty at the time—even though he was using station resources.
Programming In the early years, Channel 4 was best known in the market for its locally originated entertainment programming, including popular early program late night movie show Shock Theatre, which was hosted by former Pittsburgh radio disc jockey Bob Drews, who portrayed Sir Rodger (often misspelled as Sir Roger). Shock Theatre featured monster movies such as The Invisible Man and Frankenstein in-between live-action comedic skits. By the 1970s, WTAE-TV was running a mix of cartoons and sitcoms from 6:30 to 9 am, a local talk show, some ABC shows, more cartoons and off-network sitcoms in the afternoon, news and some first run shows in the evening, and ABC prime time programming.
Sports programming Owing to parent company Hearst's 20% minority stake in ESPN, WTAE-TV has the right of first refusal for Monday Night Football games featuring the Pittsburgh Steelers; the station has aired all MNF games since the program's inception in 1970, even though the program moved from ABC to ESPN after the 2005 season. WTAE-TV aired the Steelers' Super Bowl XL victory in 2006, which was the last NFL game shown on ABC until the 2015 Wild Card game. The station also simulcast the 2025 Steelers game in Dublin, Ireland, from NFL Network.
WTAE-TV also aired select Pittsburgh Pirates games via ABC's MLB broadcast contract from 1976 to 1989, including the team's 1979 World Series championship.
WTAE-TV serves as the over-the-air television provider for the Pittsburgh Penguins via ESPN/ABC's NHL broadcasting contract from 2022 to 2028.
Past program preemptions and deferrals Although it was the only ABC affiliate in the region when it signed on at the time, WTAE-TV preempted and/or delayed a considerable amount of ABC programming, most notably some of its daytime lineup from the 1960s to the late 1990s. WTAE-TV did not begin running Good Morning America until December 1978, and only aired an hour of the program until 1980. One Life to Live did not run on WTAE-TV from its 1968 debut up until 1978, when the soap opera expanded to an hour-long format. Another soap opera, The Edge of Night, was aired at 10 a.m. on a delay from December 2, 1975 (the day after its relocation from CBS to ABC) until August 13, 1982. From 1969 to 1971, and again from 1974 to 1979, ABC shows that were not broadcast on channel 4 ended up airing instead on WPGH-TV. After 1980, some of these shows ran on WPTT (channel 22, now WPNT). WTAE-TV also preempted the Sunday morning ABC children's programming block the entire time ABC offered it, as well as a couple of hours of ABC's Saturday morning cartoons until 1979. WTAE-TV ran syndicated cartoons in place of the network-supplied children's programs, while the preempted Saturday morning network programs (including American Bandstand) aired on WPGH during that time.
By the 1980s, WTAE-TV was running many of the top rated off-network syndicated sitcoms from 4 to 6 p.m. By 1990, WTAE-TV was beginning to focus more on news, and in 1992 dropped the entire ABC Saturday morning cartoon lineup for a hour newscast (which WPXI was also doing, beginning in 1990). WTAE-TV also expanded its midday newscast to an hour and dropped The Home Show during 1991. Loving was dropped from the daytime lineup in January 1991 and moved to overnights, then dropped from the schedule altogether in 1992. Later in the decade, WTAE-TV also did not carry Mike and Maty or The City. WTAE-TV began carrying Port Charles in January 1998, but dropped the show entirely in September 2000, three years shy of its cancellation by ABC, and replaced it with Judge Hatchett, which itself was replaced by Access Hollywood in 2004. Beginning in 1996, WTAE-TV began running two hours of the ABC Saturday cartoon lineup on Sunday mornings, a half-hour on Saturday mornings, and a half-hour at 12:30 p.m. In 1997, the station cut back its Saturday morning newscast to three hours at 7 to 10 a.m. and began running three hours of the ABC children's lineup from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Today, though it still offers a news-intensive schedule, WTAE-TV clears the entire ABC lineup. Viewers and ABC had also begun to clamor for The View, which premiered in 1997 to acclaim, and success compared to ABC's past late morning programs (and was also under the network's full editorial control), to air in Pittsburgh at its prescribed time. WTAE had continued to delay The View to late night until March 27, 2000, when it began to air in its proper 11 a.m. time slot.