Channel 9, Washington D.C.
| The original Broadcast House was first occupied in 1954 and is on the
corner of Brandywine and 40th Streets NW, Washington DC. It was purchased
by the Washington Post and known as WTOP-TV. WTOP was a CBS affiliate
and transmitted on channel 9. Originally broadcasting in black and
white, it was later involved in a series of tests to enable the FCC to
pick a standard method for transmitting color signals. CBS chose
to use a mechanical color wheel mounted in front of the TV tube.
NBC chose to place different color dots on the TV tube and precisely aim
the beam to hit the dots corresponding to the color being transmitted.
Since you don't see a color wheel in front of your picture tube you can
guess which method was chosen.
In 1978 the Washington Post swapped this station for a Detroit station and it became WDVM-TV. Gannett (USA Today) bought the station in 1986 and the station was renamed WUSA. In 1992 Broadcast House was moved to a new location. The original transmitting tower is still located on top of the original building, but for many years, WTOP-TV shared an antenna with WMAL and WTTG television. In 1972 WTOP-TV joined with the Evening Star Broadcasting Company (owned by the Post's rival, the Washington Star and licensee of WMAL-TV channel 7, now WJLA(TV)) to build The Joint Tower, a new and much taller 1040' HAAT (height above average terrain) 3-sided tower across the alley from Broadcast House at 4010 Chesapeake Street, NW. Transmission lines were extended from Broadcast House's transmitter area to the new tower for both WTOP-TV and WHUR (FM) (the former WTOP-FM 96.3, which had been donated by Post-Newsweek to Howard University in 1971 but whose transmitter remained at Broadcast House). The old tower continued to serve as the backup antenna for channel 9 until the station sold Broadcast House in 1996. In 1974 WTOP-TV adopted the Post-Newsweek TV stations group (WPLG, WJXT, and WFSB Hartford) image campaign slogan of the time, "The One and Only." The moniker was part of a trend toward group identification of stations, with each station being "The One and Only TV (channel #)." Staff members from the "One & Only" period usually refer to themselves as "the one and onlies" as a source of pride. The slogan was dropped from active use in the late 1990s and has not been used as part of an image campaign since the last image campaign in 1996. The slogan no longer appears on the air. |