Fiktiv USA - WWJ-TV

WWJ-TV, virtual channel 62 (UHF digital channel 21), is a CBS owned-and-operated television station licensed to Detroit, Michigan, United States. The station is owned by the CBS Television Stations subsidiary of ViacomCBS, as part of a duopoly with CW owned-and-operated station WKBD-TV (channel 50). The two stations share studios on 11 Mile Road in the Detroit suburb of Southfield; WWJ-TV's transmitter is located in Oak Park, Michigan.

The station is carried on several Canadian cable providers, predominantly in Southwestern Ontario, and is one of five local Detroit television stations seen in Canada on satellite provider Shaw Direct.

The station first signed on the air on September 29, 1975, as WGPR-TV. The station was originally owned by WGPR Incorporated, formed by the Detroit-based International Free and Accepted Modern Masons along with WGPR radio (107.5 FM). The call letters stood for Grosse Pointe Radio, a nod to the radio station's original studio in Grosse Pointe Woods, but were later interpreted to mean Where God's Presence Radiates.

WGPR was the first wholly African American-owned television station in the United States, and was marketed towards Detroit's urban audience. At the time, WGPR's emergence was hailed as an advance for African-American enterprise, with the "color line" having been broken by the station's establishment. Station president William V. Banks, together with Jim Panagos and George White, sales and programming managers respectively of co-owned WGPR radio (107.5 FM), were the management team at the station's outset. Prior to WGPR-TV's sign-on, the channel 62 frequency had been used by WXON (now WMYD channel 20), which had originally broadcast on that channel when it signed on in 1968 before moving to channel 20 in 1972.

Operating as an independent station, WGPR-TV aired network programs from NBC and CBS that were pre-empted by their local affiliates, WWJ-TV (channel 4, now WDIV-TV) and WJBK-TV (channel 2) respectively, as well as older cartoons, a number of religious shows, brokered programs, programs aimed at the black community, R&B music shows, and low-rated off-network dramas and barter syndicated programs.

Channel 62's most popular and most well-known show was a Middle Eastern variety show called Arab Voice of Detroit, which was broadcast late on Saturday nights. Another popular program was a nightly dance show titled The Scene (similar in content to the nationally syndicated Soul Train) that aired from October 13, 1975 to December 31, 1987. A similar lower-budget Friday evening dance show called Contempo was initially The Scene's replacement in 1988; it was hosted by several different personalities from WGPR radio, and featured local artists. However, lackluster ratings caused the show's cancellation in early 1990, and eventually it was replaced by The New Dance Show, which was hosted by R.J. Watkins and aired until 1996. The station was also home to horror show host Ron "The Ghoul" Sweed during the late 1970s, and was Detroit's affiliate for the 1970s version of the NHL Network.

The socially laudatory aims of the station did not immediately translate into good business. During its tenure as an independent station, WGPR-TV was easily the lowest-rated television station in Detroit, with only a niche viewership within its target audiences. On paper, Detroit should have been big enough to support three independent stations. However, Windsor-based CBC owned-and-operated station CBET (channel 9) owned the Detroit rights to many American syndicated programs that would have otherwise likely aired on WGPR-TV. Most of the top-tier syndicated programming was picked clean by WKBD-TV, WXON and CBET. It did not help that it was located near the top of the UHF dial; prior to the advent of cable television, most Detroit-area viewers never tuned past WTVS, the local PBS station on channel 56. This left WGPR-TV to contend with several already marginal independent outlets available to viewers in southeastern Michigan for lower-budget programming.

WGPR was also hampered by an inadequate signal, broadcasting at only 800,000 watts. By comparison, WKBD broadcast at 2.3 million watts, and WXON broadcast at 1.5 million watts. Its signal was so weak that it could only be seen over-the-air in Detroit itself and some nearby suburbs (such as Southfield, Eastpointe, Redford Township, Warren, Royal Oak, Livonia and Mount Clemens). The signal could not reach the outlying suburbs such as Clarkston, Lake Orion and Richmond. For its first 20 years on the air, it was the only Detroit station not carried in the Flint-Lansing edition of TV Guide, which, in the Detroit market, was sold in Sanilac, Lapeer, western and northern Livingston, and northwestern Oakland counties.

In 1979, WGPR was granted permission by the FCC to carry pay-TV programs, and the station signed an agreement with California-based Universal Subscription Television (US-TV) to provide programming similar to that of ONTV, which was carried on WXON in Detroit. The deal was put on hold, however, probably because US-TV felt the market couldn't support another pay-TV service, especially after WIHT in Ann Arbor also switched to pay TV. Another company, Satellite Television and Associated Resources (STAR) announced they were to pay $1.2 million for US-TV's rights to WGPR and to be on the air by July 1981, but nothing came of these plans.

In August 1986, the station started carrying the International Television Network, which was an overnight four-hour block of primarily foreign-language subtitled programs.

By the 1990s, WGPR's on-air look had become very primitive. It was the only local station which still used art cards instead of CGI for its sponsor announcements and newscasts. Further, a character generator manufactured in the 1970s remained in use for some graphics for many years.

WGPR's situation changed in 1994, when New World Communications signed an affiliation deal with Fox under which twelve of its stations switched their affiliations to that network. One of those stations was Detroit's longtime CBS affiliate, WJBK-TV. CBS then approached each of Detroit's four remaining major commercial stations – NBC affiliate WDIV, ABC affiliate WXYZ-TV (channel 7), soon-to-be former Fox outlet WKBD, and WXON – for an affiliation deal. However, WXYZ's owner, the E. W. Scripps Company, forced ABC (which, ironically, had owned WXYZ until 1986) to agree to a long-term affiliation deal with WXYZ and several of its other stations after threatening to affiliate WXYZ and sister station WEWS-TV in Cleveland with CBS. WKBD was eliminated when its owner, the Paramount Stations Group, announced that its stations would become charter affiliates of the co-owned United Paramount Network (UPN). WDIV was not an option as that station was in the middle of a long-term affiliation contract with NBC, while WXON was also not interested in affiliating with CBS, thus leaving the network with only two realistic choices for a new Detroit affiliate: WGPR and another low-profile UHF independent station, Mount Clemens-based WADL (channel 38). Though WGPR was initially thought to have a minimal chance at landing an affiliation deal, CBS broke off negotiations with WADL after its owner started making unreasonable demands. Essentially by default, CBS began discussions with WGPR. However, negotiations with the Masons moved slowly.

CBS faced similar situations in Atlanta, Austin, Cleveland and Milwaukee. In all cases, the longtime CBS affiliates (Atlanta's WAGA-TV, Austin's KTBC-TV, Cleveland's WJW-TV and Milwaukee's WITI) also switched to Fox. While CBS was able to land on higher-profile UHF stations in Atlanta, Austin and Cleveland (the latter two simply swapping with the old Fox affiliates), it was unable to do so in Detroit or Milwaukee.

As a backup, CBS worked out deals with three VHF stations in nearby markets. First, the network persuaded WNEM-TV in Bay City, a longtime NBC affiliate, to switch to CBS as part of a multi-station deal with its parent company, the Meredith Corporation. WNEM's signal penetrated further into the northern portions of the Detroit market than the longtime Flint/Tri-Cities CBS affiliate, WEYI-TV. WNEM provided a strong "grade B" signal to Detroit's northern suburbs, including St. Clair County and parts of Oakland and Macomb counties; as well as Sarnia, Ontario. It also provided a strong city-grade signal to the lower Thumb. CBS also signed a long-term deal with its longtime affiliate in Toledo, Ohio, WTOL-TV, which provided at least grade B coverage to most of Detroit, Windsor and the immediate area and city grade coverage to Monroe County. It also convinced WLNS-TV in Lansing to build a translator in Ann Arbor. The main WLNS signal reached portions of Detroit's western suburbs, such as Livingston and Oakland counties. These moves were made not only in the event CBS could not land an affiliate of its own in Detroit, but also because of channel 62's aforementioned signal problems.

With only a few days remaining before WJBK was due to switch to Fox, CBS had still not lined up a replacement affiliate in Detroit. Fearing it would be left without an affiliate in the nation's tenth-largest market and faced with the prospect of having to pipe in WNEM, WTOL and WLNS for Detroit viewers, CBS struck an eleventh-hour deal to purchase WGPR outright for $24 million. The final price tag was more a reflection of CBS' desperation than the actual value of the station.

However, the plans hit a snag when leaders of Detroit's African-American community spoke out against the sale. Most of the community's ire was directed toward the Masons, who were criticized for agreeing to sell to a mainstream network broadcaster. While the deal's opponents had no objection to WGPR-TV becoming a network affiliate, they feared an important local voice would be lost if CBS gained outright ownership of the station. CBS and the Masons, and their local supporters, contended that they were engaged in a fair business transaction. There was growing sentiment to block the sale of WGPR-TV to CBS in favor of selling it to a locally based broadcaster. Spectrum Detroit Inc., an investment group led by Lansing-based real estate investor and broadcaster Joel Ferguson, made a counter offer to buy the station outright, or at the least convince CBS to enter into a joint-ownership venture. When those efforts failed, the group sued CBS in a last-ditch effort to block the sale. However, Spectrum Detroit could not stop CBS from moving its programming from WJBK to WGPR on December 11, 1994; the first CBS program to air on channel 62 was that day's edition of CBS News Sunday Morning at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Time. Shortly after the switch, CBS started an advertising campaign featuring actor Bill Cosby (among others) in an effort to attract viewers to this previously unknown UHF station. This advertising campaign ended around 1998, with mixed results.

After a court ruled in favor of CBS, the network was able to close on its purchase of channel 62. When the purchase was finalized, channel 62 became the first network-owned station in Detroit since ABC sold WXYZ-TV to Scripps in 1986. CBS officially took control of channel 62 on September 20, 1995, in what would be the last station purchase completed by the original CBS Inc. before the Westinghouse Electric Corporation took full control of the company two months later. Concurrently, the station's call letters changed to WWJ-TV after WWJ radio (950 AM), which CBS had owned from 1989 to 2017 (it is now owned by Entercom). The WWJ-TV calls had originally been used by what is now WDIV from 1947 to 1978; the two television stations are not related.

CBS' ratings in Metro Detroit took a huge hit in the aftermath of the loss of WJBK, as viewers adjusted to the somewhat odd situation of having to tune to a previously little-known station with a high channel number for CBS programming. This was mostly because many cable systems in the outer portions of the Detroit market did not carry it. It would take more than a year for the station to get adequate penetration throughout the area. The network's ratings in the market have never really recovered, and to this day channel 62 has been the weakest major-network station in Detroit. In contrast, WJBK was perennially one of CBS' strongest affiliates. However, CBS initially made a large investment into channel 62, moving the station into a state-of-the-art studio at Stroh River Place in downtown Detroit soon after taking control. It also brought back some limited original programming, having dropped all local programming soon after the purchase.

In 1999, WWJ-TV activated a new tower and transmitter at its radio sister's former transmitter site in Oak Park, boosting its effective radiated power to five million watts, the strongest signal in Detroit. Until the power boost, many viewers in Detroit's outer-ring suburbs watched CBS by way of the three surrounding VHF stations from Bay City, Toledo, and Lansing.

Viacom, which owned then-UPN affiliate WKBD, purchased CBS in September 1999, shortly after WWJ-TV activated its new tower. In 2001, WWJ-TV merged its operations into WKBD's studio facility in Southfield. WKBD is the senior partner in this duopoly since it was longer-established; the CBS affiliate usually is the senior partner in other duopolies that involve stations respectively aligned with CBS and The CW (CBS and UPN prior to 2006).

In February 2014, the Detroit Historical Museum held a fundraiser for a 2016 exhibit on WGPR-TV which will occupy the museum's Community Gallery, in collaboration with the WGPR-TV Historical Society, which aims to immortalize the station's legacy. The exhibit will be moved to a new WGPR-TV Museum to be located at the station's original operating quarters.

On October 21, 2014, CBS and Weigel Broadcasting announced the launch of a new digital subchannel network called Decades on all CBS-owned stations in 2015, including on WWJ-TV on subchannel 62.2.

In 2017, CBS Radio agreed to merge with Entercom, which separated WWJ radio from WWJ-TV.

As a CBS O&O, WWJ-TV runs the entire CBS schedule. Syndicated programs currently airing on WWJ-TV as of September 2020 include The Dr. Oz Show, Family Feud, Entertainment Tonight, Dr. Phil, and The Drew Barrymore Show, among others. The latter three programs are distributed by corporate cousin CBS Media Ventures.

As a CBS O&O, WWJ-TV broadcasts CBS Sports telecasts, including CBS' coverage of NFL football. Although most regular season Detroit Lions games air on Fox because the team is in the NFC, from 2008 to 2010, WWJ-TV was the flagship station of the Detroit Lions Television Network in place of sister station WKBD-TV. The station also aired the weekly program The Ford Lions Report, produced by the Detroit Lions during the regular season, and also aired pre-season games for the team (by NFL rules, all cable games are required to be broadcast by a local television station in the team's primary market). In 2010, WWJ-TV had broadcast all Lions preseason games in high definition. The rights to broadcast Lions preseason games and other team-related programming moved to ABC affiliate WXYZ-TV (which as a result, replaced WWJ-TV as the flagship of the Detroit Lions Television Network) beginning with the 2011 season.

WWJ-TV, as per CBS's contract, broadcasts Detroit Lions regular season games when the team is hosting an AFC opponent, including the traditional Thanksgiving Day game on even-numbered years. WWJ-TV also broadcasts the Lions' ESPN Monday Night Football and NFL Network Thursday Night Football games, resulting in CBS' entire primetime lineup being moved to WKBD-TV for the night. As per ESPN's Monday Night contract, WWJ-TV has the right of first refusal for at least one Monday night game. This right of first refusal has only been deferred twice, when the Lions' lone Monday night game of 2011 moved to WXYZ-TV due to an unexpected winning record at the time, and then when the station moved the team's first Monday night game of 2015 to WKBD so as to not preempt a new episode of The Big Bang Theory, among other programs. Being the team's primary market, it is subject to the NFL blackout policy, although in 2015 the policies were suspended on an experimental basis, meaning that any Lions game scheduled to be aired on Channel 62 aired regardless of ticket sales; this policy has since continued in subsequent seasons.

WWJ-TV presently broadcasts 37 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with 7 hours each weekday and 1 hour each on Saturdays and Sundays); WWJ-TV also produces 3 hours of local newscasts each weekday for CW owned-and-operated sister station WKBD, in the form of a two hour-long extension of WWJ-TV's weekday morning newscast at 7 a.m. and a nightly hour-long newscast at 10 p.m. The station also shares newsgathering operations with the Detroit Free Press.

As WGPR-TV, the station produced a low-budget newscast titled Big City News, which served as a launching pad for several news personalities such as Amyre Makupson (née Porter), who later became the lead anchor and public affairs director at WKBD; and Sharon Crews, who later became a multiple-award-winning broadcast journalist. The WGPR-TV news operation was shut down in the late 1980s. In the fall of 1996, WWJ-TV presented a news special on the annual "Devil's Night" fires in Detroit. It served as the pilot for what would become InDepth Detroit, a newsmagazine that aired on Sunday evenings from early 1997 to March 2001.

Unlike other former independent stations and Fox affiliates that joined a Big Three network displaced due to Fox's affiliation deals with longtime major network stations, WWJ-TV did not invest in its own news department after it was acquired by CBS. The station would not have a regular newscast until April 2, 2001, when WWJ-TV launched a 11 p.m. newscast produced by WKBD, which had been producing its own newscast at 10 p.m. since 1968.

WWJ-TV is currently the market's only Big Four affiliate without a newscast on weekend mornings. (Local weather inserts are taped after the Friday and Saturday 11 p.m. news for broadcast during the Saturday edition of CBS This Morning and CBS News Sunday Morning, except during ongoing severe weather events).

On May 5, 2009, WWJ-TV launched a two-hour weekday morning newscast, which was later expanded by an additional half-hour. On February 7, 2011, an extension of WWJ-TV's weekday morning newscast debuted on sister station WKBD-TV from 7 to 9 a.m. This was followed a week later by launch of a weekday noon newscast.

WWJ-TV and WKBD-TV upgraded all locally produced programming to high definition on February 2, 2012, making them the final CBS-owned properties with an in-house news operation to upgrade to HD.

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WKBD-TV, virtual channel 50 (UHF digital channel 34), is a CW owned-and-operated television station licensed to Detroit, Michigan, United States and also serving Windsor, Ontario, Canada. The station is owned by the CBS Television Stations subsidiary of ViacomCBS, as part of a duopoly with CBS owned-and-operated station WWJ-TV (channel 62). The two stations share studios on 11 Mile Road in the Detroit suburb of Southfield, where WKBD-TV's transmitter is also located.

On cable, the station is available on channel 5 on most systems (except on Comcast Xfinity's Grosse Pointe system, where it is carried on channel 10, and on Charter Spectrum, where it is carried on channel 13), channel 50 on AT&T U-verse, and channel 60 on Cogeco's Windsor system.

On the week before May 5, 1952, Goodwill Stations, owner of WJR radio in Detroit, announced the intent of applying for four station licenses which would operate as a regional network—UHF channel 50 in Detroit, VHF channel 11 in Toledo, Ohio, VHF channel 12 in Flint and VHF channel 5 in Bay City. In 1953, WBID-TV was granted a construction permit for Channel 62. Owned by Max Osnos' Woodward Broadcasting (Osnos also owned 9% of WITI in Milwaukee), WBID planned on broadcasting from the Cadillac Tower in downtown Detroit. The following year, the owners of WJLB radio were granted a permit for WJLB-TV on Channel 50; the station was never built, and WJLB-TV returned its allocation to the FCC by the end of 1954. Seeing an opportunity, WBID asked for and was granted Channel 50. But WBID never made it to the air—and neither did WTOH-TV (channel 79) in Toledo, Ohio, another proposed station owned by Woodward Broadcasting (both WBID and WTOH planned on taking at least some programming from the failing DuMont Television Network). It would be another decade before Detroiters would finally see programming on Channel 50.

WKBD first signed on the air on January 10, 1965, under the ownership of Kaiser Broadcasting, owned by industrialist Henry J. Kaiser. It started with an all-sports format, predating ESPN by some 14 years; WKBD began broadcasting at 5 p.m. on that date, with its first programs being two college basketball games (taped the day before): Michigan State University vs. the University of Iowa and the University of Detroit against the University of Dayton, followed by a live NHL game between the Red Wings and the Chicago Blackhawks. It eventually became a typical UHF independent station running cartoons, sitcoms and older movies. WKBD has been broadcasting in color since it first went on the air in 1965. Some locally produced programs such as The Lou Gordon Program were broadcast in black and white until the station upgraded to color studio cameras in the late 1960s. WKBD briefly gained a network affiliation in the spring of 1967, when it became the Detroit affiliate of the short-lived United Network. For many years, it aired an afternoon movie hosted by Detroit legend Bill Kennedy. WKBD also produced a hard-hitting weekly talk show, The Lou Gordon Program, which aired from the late 1960s until 1977 and was seen on all Kaiser stations (and a few non-Kaiser outlets). However, sports remained a central part of WKBD's schedule, and it was the over-the-air home for Red Wings hockey and Pistons basketball for 30+ years, as well as Tigers baseball for a decade.

In 1972, the Kaiser Broadcasting Corporation partnered with Field Communications in Kaiser Broadcasting Co. which included WKBD-TV, four other Kaiser stations and Field's single station in Chicago, WFLD. In 1977, the bulk of Kaiser Broadcasting Corporation, including WKBD, was sold to Field.

In 1982, Field put all its stations up for sale; however, the company had a difficult time selling WKBD-TV for the amount of money it wanted, despite its success. As a result, Field was forced to hold onto channel 50 for almost two years. In late 1983, Cox Enterprises offered to buy the station, which the company finally did on January 30, 1984. Shortly thereafter, the station dropped the -TV suffix from its call letters, becoming simply WKBD once again. At the same time, the station dropped the Field Communications font in its on-air branding and replaced it with a new, lined "50" it used until joining UPN.

The programming remained the same as before, with one notable exception: in the late 1980s, WKBD began airing Late Night with David Letterman when NBC affiliate WDIV (channel 4) declined to clear it; this mirrored a similar situation in the mid-1970s, when WDIV (then known as WWJ-TV) declined to air Saturday Night Live—the first two seasons of the show originally aired in the Detroit market on WKBD. Coincidentally, one of the show's original cast members, Gilda Radner, was born in Detroit.

The Ghoul Show aired in Detroit on WKBD from 1971 to 1975; the show featured late-night horror movie host Ron Sweed in the title role and was produced by WKBD's Kaiser-owned Cleveland, Ohio sister station at the time, WKBF-TV. When Kaiser dropped the program, the show's production moved to Detroit where it was produced by and aired on WXON (channel 20, now WMYD). The show moved briefly to WGPR (channel 62, now WWJ-TV) and then back to WXON. Although never produced at WKBD itself, the program was very popular and was one of the few local programs that aired on WKBD that was not related to sports.

On October 9, 1986, channel 50, along with Cox's other two independent stations KTVU in Oakland, California and KDNL-TV in St. Louis, Missouri became a charter affiliate of the Fox network, yet it wasn't until 1990 that the station began identifying as "WKBD 50/Fox Detroit", which was soon dropped in favor of adopting "Fox 50" as its on-air branding. However, for much of its tenure with Fox, WKBD was still programmed essentially as a de facto independent station, as the network did not run a full week's worth of programming until 1993. Owing to its large cable footprint, the station served as the default Fox affiliate for the Traverse City/Cadillac/Sault Ste. Marie and Marquette markets as well (both markets are now served by Fox through in-market affiliates WFQX-TV and WLUC-DT2).

Channel 50 was later sold to the Paramount Stations Group in June 1993. Even though WKBD was one of Fox's strongest affiliates, Fox announced that it would move its Detroit affiliation to WJBK-TV (channel 2), Detroit's longtime CBS affiliate, by the end of 1994. This was a result of WJBK's then-owner, New World Communications, striking a group deal with Fox to switch the network affiliations of twelve of the company's stations to Fox (which then bought ten of the New World stations affected by the deal in 1996; New World had earlier sold two other stations it could not keep due to ownership conflicts to Fox outright). CBS then approached WKBD for an affiliation after being turned down by WXYZ-TV (channel 7, which opted to renew its affiliation with ABC via an agreement where three other stations became affiliates of that network) and WDIV (which had a long-term contract with NBC at the time), since it was the only non-Big Three station in Detroit that had a functioning news department. However, Viacom, which had just bought Paramount, turned the offer down because it was about to switch all of its non-Big Three stations to the upstart United Paramount Network (UPN), of which it was managing partner.

WJBK became Detroit's Fox affiliate on December 11, 1994. As a result, WKBD briefly went independent again until UPN began operations on January 16, 1995. Channel 50's programming was unchanged from its days as a Fox affiliate, except for the prime time programming provided by UPN. Eventually, the older sitcoms were replaced with more first-run syndicated talk or reality shows. Fox Kids stayed on WKBD until 1998, when it moved to WADL (channel 38). WKBD continued to carry morning/afternoon cartoon blocks supplied by UPN (first with UPN Kids, and then Disney's One Too) until the network stopped running children's programs in August 2003. WKBD became a UPN O&O when Viacom purchased a 50% interest in the network in 1996; in effect, becoming the second network O&O in Detroit (and the third overall, factoring WXYZ-TV, which ABC had owned from 1948 until the station's sale to the E. W. Scripps Company in 1986), predating the completion of WJBK's sale to Fox in 1997.

In 2000, Viacom acquired CBS, a move that united channel 50 with WWJ-TV (channel 62), which CBS acquired in 1995 after losing its affiliation with WJBK. After the merger, WWJ-TV moved from its facilities in downtown Detroit to WKBD's Southfield studios. WKBD is the senior partner since it is the longer-established of the two stations, unlike the other duopolies involving CBS and UPN (and later CBS and CW) stations, where the CBS station is the senior partner.

On January 24, 2006, CBS Corporation (which WKBD and WWJ-TV became part of as a result of the December 2005 split of the original Viacom, which became CBS Corporation, from CBS) and the Warner Bros. Television unit of Time Warner announced that the two companies would shut down UPN and The WB and combine the networks' respective programming to create a new network called The CW. That day, the new network signed a 10-year affiliation deal with 11 UPN stations owned by CBS, including WKBD. However, it is likely that WKBD would have been chosen over WB affiliate WDWB (now WMYD, which affiliated with MyNetworkTV, another upstart network that debuted two weeks before The CW's launch) in any event, as it was the higher-rated station.

WKBD produced and broadcast Detroit Red Wings hockey telecasts from 1965 to 2003, with a two-year hiatus in the 1980s, when the team's games were carried on WXON (now WMYD) through the subscription television service ON-TV. Detroit Tigers baseball games were broadcast on the station from 1994 to 2005 (with WJBK occasionally airing Tigers games from 2004 to 2007), while Detroit Pistons basketball games were broadcast from 1972 to May 2004 (when rights moved to WMYD, which carried the Pistons telecasts until 2008); all three teams are now exclusively on Fox Sports Detroit.

The short-lived World Football League, through the TVS network, aired games on WKBD in its only full season in 1974; the first telecast, on July 10, featured the hometown Detroit Wheels against the Memphis Southmen. (The station also planned to carry the September 25 game at New York, but backed off as both teams were about to fold by that point.) Later, Detroit Lions preseason football was broadcast on channel 50 from 1992 to 1996 and again from 2004 to 2008.

The station also produced occasional pre-game and post-game shows for all four professional teams. WKBD aired special coverage of the Red Wings' Stanley Cup Celebration and parade ceremonies in 1997 and 1998, as well as carrying the final Tigers game played at Tiger Stadium on September 27, 1999. During the final year of its Fox affiliation, WKBD was the primary station for the Lions for much of the 1994 season (the team's last game on WKBD was the December 10 game at the New York Jets, with the games moving back to WJBK the next week). On occasion (and regularly during preseason games), WKBD produced broadcasts of Detroit Lions football games, as well as Detroit Pistons basketball games, until the late 1980s when the Pistons decided to produce and distribute the games itself, with WKBD responsible for advertising. Both teams' games were simulcast on a handful of other stations across Michigan.

On April 16, 2008, CBS O&O sister station WWJ-TV entered into an agreement to carry Detroit Lions exhibition games. The departure of longtime sports producer Toby Cunningham (whose termination was part of budget cuts imposed by CBS Corporation at all of its television stations) closed the book on the storied history of sports coverage by WKBD. WWJ-TV broadcast preseason Lions games until 2010, when WXYZ-TV was signed as the team's new flagship station.

WWJ-TV presently produces 17 hours of locally produced newscasts each week for WKBD (with 3 hours each weekday and an hour each on Saturdays and Sundays).

Under Field Communications ownership, WKBD aired a brief newscast at various times of the day, typically called Newscene (or alternately News Scene), similar to that of other Field-owned stations at the time, such as its Chicago outlet WFLD. In 1968, WKBD began producing a nightly newscast at 10 p.m. For much of its existence under Cox, Paramount and Viacom ownership, WKBD produced the only television newscast in Detroit at 10 p.m. Originally a half-hour program, The Ten O'Clock News expanded to a full hour in 1989. The program received competition in December 1994 when WJBK launched its own hour-long primetime newscast at 10 p.m. after that station took the Fox affiliation from channel 50.

On February 7, 2011, a two-hour extension of sister station WWJ-TV's weekday morning newscast premiered in the 7–9 a.m. timeslot. WKBD-TV, along with its WWJ-TV, began broadcasting all locally produced programming in high definition on February 2, 2012, making them the final CBS-owned properties with an in-house news operation to upgrade to HD.

WKBD is available on many cable systems in Southeast Michigan, Southwestern Ontario and Northwest Ohio. Outside of the Detroit area, however, most programming on WKBD is subject to territorial syndication exclusivity restrictions placed on cable providers by the local broadcast rights holders to certain syndicated programs. During the affected programming, cable systems either switch to a feed from another channel, or run an on-screen text notice acknowledging the blacked out programming (such as "This channel is being blacked out due to FCC regulations"). In Canada, some programs may be subject to simultaneous substitution.

In 1994, when Fox moved its Detroit affiliation from WKBD to WJBK, many Michigan cable systems outside the Detroit area replaced WKBD with the network's Cadillac affiliate WGKI (now WFQX-TV), in order to keep Fox programming available in the Upper Peninsula. However, in areas where Fox was already available locally, mainly in television markets located in southern and central Michigan (especially the Tri-Cities), much of WGKI's programming was blacked out. In 1996, some systems that dropped WKBD for WGKI brought the former back.

Following the launch of The CW, WKBD began to be dropped from cable providers outside of the Detroit market, in favor of local or nearby CW or MyNetworkTV affiliates, and at present is not carried any farther away than Flint and Hillsdale.