Eyewitness News

Eyewitness News is a style of news broadcasting that is used by local television stations in different markets around the world. It refers to a particular style of television newscast with an emphasis on visual elements and action video. It replaced the traditional "man-on-camera" newscast.

History

Pioneered by Westinghouse

The earliest known use of the Eyewitness News name in American television was in April 1959 when KYW-TV - at the time, based in Cleveland, Ohio and owned by Westinghouse Broadcasting - launched the nation's first 90-minute local newscast (under the title Eyewitness), which was combined with the then 15-minute national newscast. The name was then adopted for use by Westinghouse's other television stations – KPIX in San Francisco, California; WJZ-TV in Baltimore, Maryland; WBZ-TV in Boston, Massachusetts and KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – for their local newscasts.

After the KYW-TV call letters, management, and some staffers moved from Cleveland to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1965 (the result of a government-ordered reversal of a 1956 station swap involving it and Cleveland's WNBK (the current day WKYC) between Westinghouse and NBC) its then-news director, Al Primo, created the Eyewitness News format. In this format, which was meant to be faster in pace than the standard newscast format (in which an anchor simply read headlines), a reporter in the field would be the "eyewitness" to a news event to the anchor in the studio and the viewer at home. The anchors became personalities instead of presenters with the introduction of banter, or "happy talk" as it was named by Al Primo. Anchors would give their own personal comments in between stories to let viewers know their personalities.

WBZ-TV

WBZ-TV, channel 4, is a CBS-owned-and-operated television station located in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. The station is owned by the CBS Television Stations subsidiary of CBS Corporation, and is part of a duopoly with MyNetworkTV affiliate WSBK-TV (channel 38), The two stations share studios and office facilities located on Soldiers Field Road in the Allston-Brighton section of Boston; WBZ-TV's transmitter is located in Needham, Massachusetts on a tower site that is owned by CBS (which is shared with transmitters belonging to WCVB-TV, WGBH-TV, WGBX-TV and WSBK-TV).

WBZ-TV is also one of six local Boston television stations seen in Canada by subscribers to satellite provider Bell TV, and is also seen on most cable systems in Atlantic Canada.

History

As an NBC affiliate

As the only television station that was built from the ground up by the Westinghouse Electric Corporation, WBZ-TV began operations on June 9, 1948, at 6:15 PM with a broadcast hosted by Arch MacDonald. The station was from its inception associated with the NBC television network, owing to WBZ radio (1030 AM)'s longtime affiliation with the NBC Red Network. At its sign-on, WBZ-TV became the first commercial television station to begin operations in the New England region. The station originally operated from inside the Hotel Bradford alongside its radio sister; its current home was not completed at the time, although master control and its self-supporting tower over the building were in use at sign-on. The WBZ stations would not move into what was then known as the Westinghouse Broadcasting Center until June 17, 1948, when the building was finished.