WKGC

WKGC, virtual channel 4 (UHF digital channel 14), is a CW-affiliated television station licensed to Gotham City, New Jersey. The station is owned by United Artists Broadcasting.

On cable, WKGC is available in standard definition on Comcast Xfinity, Altice Optimum and Verizon FiOs channel 4 and in high definition on Xfinity, Optimum and FiOs channel 1004.

Early history
The station first signed on the air on November 11, 1948, and was the first television station in Gotham City, beating WGC-TV by eleven days. Owned by Clifton Kelly, from which the K in the station's call letters stand for, the station originally operated as a primary CBS affiliate with secondary affiliations with NBC and the DuMont Television Network.

In its early years, instead of buying most of the expensive items needed to run a television station, Kelly had his own engineers and technicians design and build the items needed. For example, an overhead microphone boom cost approximately $300. Kelly's employees built one for less than $30. When Kelly decided to start broadcasting network programs, establishing a coaxial cable link from Philadelphia would prove impractical, so Kelly built his own microwave relay system from Philadelphia to Gotham City.

The station lost the NBC affiliation after WNKW-TV (channel 11) signed on in May 1949. In April 1954, the station lost the CBS affiliation after WGCN (channel 9, now an ABC affiliate) signed on, and in 1956, the station lost the DuMont affiliation as well.

As an independent station
In the late 1950s, the station began producing some of its local programs in color; WKGC would convert to full color broadcasts in the fall of 1965, after it purchased color-capable camera equipment. On October 30, 1957, Kelly sold WKGC to United Artists Pictures, and the station consequently became the first station of the studio's broadcasting arm, United Artists Broadcasting.

In its early years as an independent, WKGC signed on at 2:00 p.m. each weekday, running a test pattern until regular programming began at 4:00 p.m. The station initially ran older movies and low-budget syndicated programs as well as some of its own locally produced programming. By the 1970s, WKGC began signing on by 6:00 a.m. and stayed on the air until at least 2:00 a.m. In addition to local programming, WKGC aired plenty of movies during the early afternoon hours and in primetime. It also aired cartoons, including The Pink Panther (theatrically released by the station's corporate parent), which were mixed in with locally produced children's programs in the afternoons from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. as well as off-network sitcoms, including Gilligan's Island, which was produced by the station's corporate sibling, United Artists Television, in the evenings.

As cable expanded in the Mid-Atlantic during the 1970s, WKGC became a regional superstation. At its height, it was available on nearly every cable system in New Jersey. It was also carried in large portions of Delaware, Pennsylvania and Maryland, including parts of the Philadelphia area, Wilmington, Dover, Salisbury and Baltimore, and at one point was even carried in the Staten Island borough of New York City. Due to the syndication exclusivity rule, it disappeared from most cable systems outside New Jersey and Delaware in the late 1980s.

By the mid-1980s, WKGC began airing more cartoons and first-run syndicated talk shows during the daytime hours, as well as an increased number of recent off-network sitcoms during the evening. The station also began broadcasting 24 hours a day of programming by that time. Although it was one of the strongest independent stations in the country, WKGC opted against affiliating with the upstart Fox network in 1986 – one of the few long-established independents to do so. This was mainly because most of the markets in its large cable footprint had enough stations to provide Fox affiliates of their own, making the prospect of being a multi-state Fox affiliate unattractive to channel 4. The Fox affiliation in the Gotham City market instead went to what is now WFXG (channel 45), which became a charter affiliate of the network when it launched on October 6 of that year. In September 1993, the station began carrying programming from the Prime Time Entertainment Network syndication service.

As a WB affiliate
WKGC became a charter affiliate of The WB Television Network (which was, ironically, programmed by rival studio Warner Bros.) when the network launched on January 11, 1995. The station accordingly changed its on-air branding to "WB 4 New Jersey".

As The WB pushed for market exclusivity for its local affiliates as the network increased its national distribution beyond the Tribune Company's television stations, United Artists decided to wind down carriage agreements that the station had with cable providers located outside of the Gotham City market.

Switch to The CW
On January 24, 2006, Time Warner and CBS Corporation (which split from Viacom in December 2005) and announced that they would sell off The WB and UPN (which CBS had acquired one month earlier in December 2005 following its split from the original Viacom), and combine the respective programming of both networks to create a new "fifth" network, The CW. WKGC became the market's CW affiliate when the network launched on September 18, 2006; its on-air branding was also changed to "CW 4". In September 2009, the station rebranded as "Jersey 4" as part of a an effort by United Artists to reduce the dependence on the use of references to The CW in the station's branding in part due to the network's weak national ratings.

Analog-to-digital conversion
WKGC signed on its digital signal on UHF channel 14 on December 20, 1996. The station shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 4, on June 12, 2009, the official date in which full-power television in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. As part of the SAFER Act, WKGC kept its analog signal, over VHF channel 4, on the air until June 26 to inform viewers of the digital television transition through a loop of public service announcements from the National Association of Broadcasters. The station's digital signal continued to broadcast on its pre-transition UHF channel 14. Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former VHF analog channel 4.

Programming
WKGC clears the entire CW schedule. As of September 2015, syndicated programs broadcast on WKGC include The People's Court, Friends, America's Court with Judge Ross, Mike & Molly, Seinfeld and Two and a Half Men.