WTAE-TV is the ABC affiliated television station for Western Pennsylvania that is licensed to Pittsburgh, broadcasting on UHF channel 51 and identifying via PSIP as channel 4 (its historic analog allocation). It also serves as an ABC affiliate for the Wheeling/Steubenville and Clarksburg/Weston, West Virginia market areas. Its transmitter is located in Buena Vista, Pennsylvania and its studios are located in the Pittsburgh suburb of Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania.

Channel 4, originally allocated to suburban Irwin, Pennsylvania (in Westmoreland County) and was moved to Pittsburgh in 1958. This came about because Pittsburgh mayor David L. Lawrence had petitioned the Federal Communications Commission relentlessly for a fourth VHF channel in the area. This influencing of the soon to be Governor Lawrence along with the ownership groups connections with powerful U.S. Senator from Florida, George Smathers led to a televised and drama filled U.S. House hearings with both Lawrence and Smathers testifying in 1958. Both were eventually exonerated with Governor Lawrence claiming that in fact it was the city's solicitors office (who's director he appointed) which may have been guilty of any improper influence, with Smathers and Lawrence merely fulfilling their duty to their respective constituents. [5]

Sarah (Sally) Wiggin is a prominent television news anchor and personality in Pittsburgh.

A native of Kalamazoo, Michigan, her family moved to Alabama at the age of 7. She attended Emory University for a year before transferring to the University of Alabama, where she studied East Asian history and graduated Phi Beta Kappa. She earned a master's degree in Chinese history from the University of Michigan and studied Japanese at the University of Pittsburgh.

She first worked for (then ABC affiliate) WBRC-TV (now a Fox affiliate) in Birmingham, Alabama, where she won Alabama Associated Press Award in 1980 for her feature series "Is Your Marriage on the Rocks?" She also worked as WSGN radio in Birmingham, Alabama, where she shared an RTNDA Edward R. Murrow Award, National Headliners Award, and National Sigma Delta Chi Award for her part in an investigative report on insurance fraud in 1977.

In 1980, she joined WTAE-TV in Pittsburgh and became co-anchor of the weekend news in 1981. In November 1986, she was named anchor for the weeknight news. In that position, she was part of a successful team with Don Cannon. In 1987, she won the United Press International Best Special Award for her work on The Budd Dwyer Special about Pennsylvania State Treasurer Budd Dwyer's on-air suicide.