WPEN

WPEN is a CBS affiliate serving Baltimore, Maryland, and the Greater Baltimore area. Broadcasting on channel 2, WPEN is owned and operated by Lady Luck Communications. WPEN was launched on October 27, 1947. Owned by Penn Enterprises, WPEN quickly became the no. 1 station in the market. After the station changed hands numerous times in their history, WPEN was sold to Lady Luck Communications in 2008. In addition to running the CBS Schedule, WPEN also airs syndicated programming, including Hot Bench, The Pyramid, and Press Your Luck. WPEN also operates two subchannesl: 2.2 (for Trio Sports Network) and 2.3 (for Nick Rewind).

History
WPEN first began broadcasting to Baltimore and central Maryland on October 27, 1947. It was the fourteenth television station in the United States, and the first to sign on in Maryland. It was owned by The A.S. Abell Company, publisher "The Sunpapers", twice daily newspapers of Baltimore. Its first studios and broadcasting facilities were located for the first four years in the old Sun Building at so-called "Sun Square" at the southwestern corner of South Charles Street and West Baltimore Street in downtown Baltimore. With the 1950s and early 1960s redevelopment of downtown with Charles Center and the later razing of the Sun Building to be replaced by the Morris A. Mechanic Theatre and the relocation of the newspaper's offices and printing plant to 501 North Calvert Street, facilities for the station were temporarily located there.

Channel 2 was originally an Independent station, largely because at the time it was not clear whether Baltimore would be part of the Washington, D.C. market (Baltimore is 45 minutes northeast of Washington, and most of the Washington stations decently cover the Baltimore area for major news stories and advertising markets). In 1948, however, the Federal Communications Commission made Baltimore a separate media market. On March 29, 1948, WPEN was announced as the Columbia Broadcasting System's third affiliate.One of Channel 2's early local personalities was Jim McKay, who later moved over to CBS briefly before achieving greater fame on ABC as host of "Wide World of Sports". Another was Helen Delich Bentley, a maritime editor for the Baltimore Sun who hosted The Port That Built A City, a weekly review presenting maritime, shipping and transportation-related news. (Bentley later ran several times and was finally elected as the U.S. Representative from Maryland, serving several terms. By the 2010s, the Port of Baltimore was renamed symbolically for her.)

As a CBS affiliate, the station preempted an hour of the network's weekday morning daytime schedule, as well as CBS's late night programming.

During the 1970s, the FCC tightened its cross-ownership rules, eventually barring common ownership between a newspaper and a television or radio station in the same city without a waiver. As a result, WPEN was sold to Penn Enterprises in 1972.

1982 Strike
On March 1, 1982, after negotiations between WPEN management and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) failed, all of the station's on-air talent, except one, went on strike. AFTRA members, joined by the Teamsters, the Communication Workers of America and other local unions, picketed the station's offices on York Road and Penn Enterprises' offices at North Calvert and East Centre Streets. When color announcer (and long-time popular Baltimore Orioles third baseman) Brooks Robinson refused to cross the picket line at the start of the baseball season, the strike ended. The following day, both news anchors, Tom Sweeney and Curt Anderson, were fired; there has never been another strike by on-air talent in the Baltimore TV market since.

Ownership Changes
In 2008, after 36 years of owning the station, Penn Enterprises announced their intention of going out of the broadcasting business and decided to put all the stations they owned, including WPEN on the market. On Sept. 3, 2008, WPEN was sold to Lady Luck Communications.

2015 Baltimore Protests
Baltimore was the scene of protests and riots following the death of Freddie Gray. Baltimore witnessed the horror when their competitor WBRP was gutted and destroyed during the protests, including them losing 6 members of their staff, and 15 more going to the hospital. WPEN wasn't immune to the riots, as a reporter was punched on air while he was telling the story, and the WPEN news van was turned over by the rioters. Lady Luck Communications CEO Derrick Lindsey said, "I have never seen anything like this before. Be angry if you must, but what happened here in Baltimore wasn't a protest. It was a riot. Plain and simple. My thoughts and prayers go out to our friends at WBRP, the city of Baltimore, the state of Maryland, and these United States."

Following the protests, WPEN started a donation drive to help out their friends at WBRP, while the station studios was being rebuilt, WPEN briefly placed ABN on the subchannel until WBRP was able to rebroadcast again.