Tribune Broadcasting

Background

Tribune Broadcasting is the broadcasting arm of Tribune Company. It began in June 1924 when the Chicago Tribune acquired WDAP and renamed it to "WGN" in Chicago ("WGN" stands for "World's Greatest Newspaper", slogan of the company's namesake, the Chicago Tribune). It entered television in 1948 with WGN-TV in Chicago and WPIX-TV in New York (the "PIX" in WPIX is for the New York Daily News's then-slogan, "New York's Picture Newspaper"). It grew by acquiring more stations (such as Duluth's KDAL (now "KDLH") in 1960, being Tribune's first station west of the Mississippi, Denver's KCTO in 1966 (now "KWGN"), being kept by Tribune after KDAL's sale, and Los Angeles's KTLA in 1985, formerly owned by Gene Autry). From 1995 to 2006, it owned a minority interest in the now defunct The WB network. During The WB's existence, Tribune exited the radio business (excluding WGN-AM), bought out a company called Renaissance Broadcasting (no relation to Renaissance Pictures), and bought several other stations (such as Seattle's KCPQ). Many of its WB stations were sold not too long after the inception of it's successor, The CW (the aforementioned stations, with one exception, all went with The CW at its launch, though two of these stations would later disaffiliate from the network; San Diego's KSWB in 2008, and WGN-TV in 2016). In 2013, Tribune Broadcasting expanded considerably through their purchase of another company, Local TV (which itself was formed from stations formerly owned by The New York Times and those formerly owned by Fox Television Stations). On May 8, 2017, Sinclair Broadcast Group reached an agreement to acquire Tribune Media Company (the parent company of Tribune Broadcasting), though by August 2018 this agreement collapsed. Afterward, on December 2, 2018, Nexstar Media Group reached it's own agreement to acquire Tribune Media, this being approved on September 16, 2019 and completed three days later.

1st Logo (1995-2008)

Note: Prior to this logo's usage, either the copyright information is shown at the end of newscasts or the logo used for newscasts was the then-current Tribune Entertainment logo, with "ENTERTAINMENT" replaced with "BROADCASTING", after the logo's debut in 1995, most of its stations (including WPIX) continued using the copyright information at the end of newscasts until 1998 which can be seen here.

Nicknames: "Zooming Tribune Text", "The WPIX Logo", "The KTLA Logo", "The WGN Logo"

Logo: In widescreen, we see a changing purple/pink/blue background with "TRIBUNE" in its corporate logo font, moving in different directions when it changes scenes of the background. Then the text:

TRIBUNE
B R O A D C A S T I N G

zooms-out, and a red line drawn between "TRIBUNE" and "BROADCASTING". Usually, copyright information for the station appears below.

Variant: An in-credit version of the logo (which is the finished product in a small box) appeared on some stations, such as KWGN; it disappeared when KWGN retired its Giant Octopus graphics in August 2008.

FX/SFX: The text zooming out.

Music/Sounds: A majestic piano/string pop tune with a drum beat. Most of the time, the ending theme of the newscast plays; the clip above (from New York's WPIX) uses Non-Stop Music's "WPIX Custom News Package"; other stations' themes vary.

Availability: Extinct. It was seen on broadcasts of Tribune-owned stations' newscasts of the era, but starting in 2007, the next logo below debuted, beginning with WGN-TV, its flagship station, but some others still used this logo until April of 2008 when those stations switched as well.

Editor's Note: None.

2nd Logo (2007-2011)

Nickname: "Sweeping Tribune Text"

Logo: Mostly the same as its predecessor, but redone. We see a changing animated background with blue and black background colors with lines and "TRIBUNE" in the current corporate logo font, moving in different directions, looking similar to its predecessor. The text "TRIBUNE BROADCASTING", in the same style as the previous logo, sweeps up to the middle of the screen. As with its predecessor, copyright information usually appears below.

FX/SFX: TBA.

Music/Sounds: Same as its predecessor.

Availability: Extinct. Debuted in 2007, starting with WGN-TV, while others used the previous logo until April 2008.

Editor's Note: None.

3rd Logo (2011-2014)

Nickname: "Tribune Tower", "The Tallest Tower"

Logo: In what looks like space, we see the camera fly out from top to bottom to reveal the Tribune Tower (HQ of Tribune Company) standing in clouds. Once the building/clouds are revealed, the text "TRIBUNEBROADCASTING" appears below the tower. At the end of newscasts produced by local Tribune stations, a copyright stamp appears below the words.

Trivia: This logo was made by Tribune Creative Group (the Chicago branch based at WGN), which was Tribune's in-house design unit.

Variant: Speaking of which, they also made a variant with their name: "TRIBUNECREATIVEGROUP" is seen instead of the normal text with "CENTRALUSA" in smaller spaced out lettering under it. This only appeared on their Vimeo page and can be seen here.

FX/SFX: The zooming out, clouds moving, etc.

Music/Sounds: A whoosh sound, accompanied by the end theme. The Tribune Creative Group variant only has the whoosh sound.

Music/Sounds Variant: On the September 11th, 2013 episode of the 2013 revival of The Arsenio Hall Show, the logo was silent due to a 10-second commemorative silence for the 9/11 victims who lost their lives on September 11, 2001.

Availability: Extinct. Appeared at the end of WGN-TV newscasts, The Bill Cunningham Show and the 2013 version of The Arsenio Hall Show.

Editor's Note: None.