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Channel 2 originally signed on as WDTV Channel 3 as a part of the DuMont system. It was decided that Channel 3 would switch over to Channel 2 and be known as KDKA...sister to the radio station. The famous news anchor, Bill Burns, not only had viewers switch their sets from 3 to 2 one day at noon, but he made the big switch to Television from radio. It was in the early to mid seventies when Bill's daughter, Patti, joined her dad at the news desk for the "Daddy and Patti" show. They anchored the noon news during the 80's until Bill's retirement in 1989. KDKA once held the "Eyewitness News" Moniker, but now calls its news the "Hometown Advantage". The idea behind the name came as a result of the number of anchors/reporters are from the area or have lived here a lengthy period of time. Channel 2 also boasts their weather with Accu-Weather from State College. In the early years, you might have seen Hank Stohl and his puppet friend Knish on KDKA. The studios are in Gateway Center, Downtown along with KDKA- AM. Channel 2's digital signal is on Channel 25.

Signing on in 1958, WTAE has provided Pittsburgh with some great local programming and newscasts. Famous announcer, Paul Long once anchored the evening news with Don Cannon. Joe DeNardo has been providing his DeNardo weather forecasts since the late 1960's and visited schools throughout the region every Wednesday during the school year. "Action News" has almost always been the news name on Channel 4 except for a brief period in the early 90's. Some might remember that WTAE was the home of the Pennsylvania Lottery drawing until the mid 70's. Someone figured out a way to weigh down all of the numbered balls except 6. The daily number that night was 666 and the scandal became known as the "666 fix" Channel 4 then lost the privledge and the drawing has been in Harrisburg ever since. Many a local talent have had shows at Channel 4. Ricki Wertz, Paul Shannon and Joe Negri are just a few of the people who have used the WTAE studios for a show. The studios are just off the Wilkinsburg exit of I-376 on Ardmore Blvd. Channel 4 is the first station in Pittsburgh to air on their digital signal on Channel 51.

Located atop "Television Hill" on the North Side of Pittsburgh, Channel 11 signed on as WIIC-TV on September 1, 1957. The one and only Bill Cardille signed the station on. Cardille was known (and still is) as "Chilly Billy", when he hosted Chiller Theatre during the late night hours. He also hosted another tradition, Studio Wrestling. Don Riggs and his duck Willy were a part of channel 11 for many years. From that first broadcast in 1957 to October 5, 2007, the station was located high atop "Television Hill" in Pittsburgh's Fineview neighborhood. WPXI gave up that "fine view" of downtown Pittsburgh and relocated the station to a larger facility in the Summer Hill neighborhood as of October 6, 2007. The transmitter and tower remain on Television Hill. The original plan for the current facility was to bring the tower with the station. Summer Hill residents complained that they did not want to look at another tower as the current facility is between WPGH-TV - with a tower above the station - and the nearby KDKA-TV tower. Back at TV Hill, the tower also houses the antennas for WWSW-FM and WSHH-FM. Channel 11 News was your source for "More News, More Often" in the early to mid 90's. Now they boast that it's "Coverage You Can Count On". Channel 11's main news team is that of David Johnson and Peggy Finnegan. They've hosted "First at Five" together since 1990. Oh, and dare I NOT forget the incredible Chopper 11 with it's Gyro-cam which can zoom in and see what you are having for supper. Channel 11's digital signal is Channel 48.

Located in Oakland, Channel 13 was the first Publicly funded television station in the nation. WQED is perhaps best known for being the "home" of and where Mister Rogers Neighborhood was produced for many years. WQED has produced a number of PBS programs including the old National Geographic. The station focuses on the region with documentaries produced by Rick Sebak and boasts a magazine program called "On-Q."

Originally, Channel 16 was a short-lived commercially licensed station with the WENS callsign. After this unsuccessful attempt, the station went dark only to be picked up by WQED later. WQEX was born with an educational licence and became the city's secondary PBS outlet. It was known for airing some of the quirky programs which did not air on WQED. In 1997, there was not enough money at QED Communications (now WQED Multimedia) to keep 'QEX on the air with separate programming. The station began to simulcast its sister and a long search began for a buyer. Much ado was made about the station being sold since it was thought that it might be best to apply for a commercial license. A group was formed protesting the move, but the proposed sales went on anyway. In 2003, it was decided that although the station had a commercial license, most of the airtime would be leased to "America's Store" - a part of the Home Shopping Network. The money from the lease would be used toward the large debt at WQED Multimedia. In April 2007, America's Store ceased operation and WQEX now carries MSNBC's shopping channel.

Signing on with a strong signal in 1998, this former low-power outlet used to be an independent station serving the eastern suburbs. When Channel 22 became the WB affliate, UPN was up for grabs and was picked up by WNPA. WNPA started out as WJNL and later became WFAT in Johnstown. That station was the CBS afilliate for many years until CBS gave WTAJ the exclusive rights for CBS programming in Altoona-Johnstown-State College. WJNL latched on as an independent, not an easy thing to do in job hungry Johnstown. The station signed off in 1991, later sold to Venture Technologies group that ran it as the full power satelite station of WBPA-TV 29 in Pittsburgh. The station became WTWB-TV WB19, but still wasn't able to make a go at it in Johnstown, plus the cable systems in Johnstown wouldn't carry Channel 19, necessitating the shift to the much larger Pittsburgh and it's nearest small-town outlet of Jeannette. WNPA was, although still licensed to Jeannette, a Pittsburgh station and became the UPN affiliate. In early 2006, the station became WPCW to reflect its new affiliation with the CW network - a combination of the old UPN and WB networks which debuted in the fall of 2006.

For many years, Channel 22 was WPTT and just another local independent channel that played reruns of TV shows that were past their prime. In the early 90's it broadcasted the Home Shopping Channel for most of the day and local programming at night. It also became sister to WPGH 53 as Sinclair Broadcasting took control of the station and independent owner, Eddie Edwards. Channel 22 became the UPN affiliate and dumped it in early 1998 to bring Pittsburgh the WB. With that, the callsign change became WCWB. (WPTT is the current callsign for 1360 AM.) In early 2006, the callsign was again changed to WPMY to reflect the station's affiliation change to "My Network TV" which debuted in fall 2006. The new network came to Pittsburgh as the result of the WB and UPN networks combining into the CW network which airs on channel 19. Channel 22's digital signal is on Channel 42.

Yes, the former Channel 11 Callsign! WIIC came to Pittsburgh's Channel 29 following WBPA. WBPA was at one time (mid-80's?) the "Video Jukebox" or just "The Box" - an automated (and low power) UHF station that you could dial up with a 976 number to play videos by request. WIIC broadcasts MTV2 (which ironically was once "The Box") locally originated programming. WIIC-LP was known as W29AV until 2/6/2002. Owned by Abacus Television Network.

Channel 35 began a new low-power broadcast in 2001 with Auction programming as WONT-LP. It still airs such programming originating from Eastland Mall in North Versailles. The station was once licensed to Johnstown yet the station is licensed to Pittsburgh. Although the FCC says otherwise. Joe Krinock, the technical director for Abacus says, "(according to the FCC), it was moved from there (Johnstown) due to economic reasons, and is operating on a STA (special temporary authority) in Pittsburgh. Someday, they’ll acknowledge Channel 35 has been in Pittsburgh for 8 years." The programming ranges from Shop at Home Network to Abacus programming.

Channel 40 is commercially licensed Christian station based in Greensburg with smaller repeater sites in Western PA. The late Rev. Russ Bixler was founder and owner of the station and several years ago tried to answer WQED's sale of WQEX. Talks went on for a number of years until the two parties agreed that the sale was not possible. The FCC had originally stated that WPCB would have to follow the guidelines of public broadcasting in order to broadcast on Channel 16. The sale never transpired leaving QED Communications to continue simulcast broadcasting. WPCB is owned and operated by Cornerstone Communications.

In the late 80's/early 90's WPGH went from a simple independent station to being Pittsburgh's Fox Affiliate. WPGH is located in Reserve Township, just a few miles north of Downtown. Sinclair Broadcasting brought on the 10 O'clock News in 1996 after the Super Bowl to compete with WPXI's PCNC. Alby Oxenreiter was the original sports director for the station after serving nearly a decade at WTAE. Sheila Hyland, who did weekends at WTAE joined the station in 1998 to take over for Carolyn Clifford. Early on she was joined by Jay Harris who was once a part of Sheridan Broadcasting and WAMO but later went to work for ESPN. In 2006, after Sinclair had tried a new newscast method without success, they pulled the plug on their own 10 O'Clock News. Instead, Sinclair entered into a "news share" agreement with Cox's WPXI-TV for a 10 O'Clock Newscast. As a result, WPXI's cable channel, PCNC discontinued the 10 O'Clock Newscast. Alby Oxenreiter was hired by WPXI for sports keeping the key element of the old WPGH newscast. The newscast now originated from the WPXI studios. Channel 53's digital signal is Channel 43.

A low-powered TV station that runs All News Channel and America's Voice TV network, plus HS,small college football and BYU football. station also runs news briefs about events going on in and around Beaver and Lawrence counties station can also be picked up via translators in Wheeling WV (ch 28), Steubenville OH (ch 57), Butler PA (ch 25), Greensburg PA (ch 56), Uniontown (ch 35), New castle Pa (ch 56), Beaver County PA (ch 66) and Washington Pa (ch.20 and 26). The station offices are along Greentree Road in Greentree right next to the Olive Garden off the Parkway West. (Rather small operation!)

This Greentree-area TV station has a very low power signal. Rumor has it that the callsign was WNEU for a time.

Channel 69 changed call letters on 2/6/02 from W69CC to WPTG-LP. It shows Shop at Home From 9AM-3PM, and MTV 2 all other times, except when showing local programming with the other Abacus owned stations. Channel 69 gets repeated to WQVC-LP (Channel 28 Greensburg), WWAT-CA (Channel 45 Uniontown) WBOA-LP (Channel 64 Kittanning) W43AX (Channel 43 Butler) and W47BH (Channel 47 Charleroi).

Pittsburgh Cable News Channel was created in 1994 by WPXI-TV and TCI Cable (now Comcast). Channel 11 broadcasts would be re-aired repetatively throughout the day unless original programming aired. The channel became home to NightTalk and was where John McIntire (now with WTZN-FM) made his entry into the Pittsburgh Market.