WCNLN

WCNLN, channel 28, is the New Line Network owned-and-operated station located in Chicago, Illinois.

WCNLN maintains studio facilities based at the New Line Center on North Columbus Drive in downtown Chicago; which it shares with Time Warner's central United States newsgathering operations center and also houses two studios for several New Line entertainment programs; WCNLN maintains transmitter facilities located atop the Willis Tower in downtown Chicago. On cable, the station is available on Comcast channel 24, RCN channel 27; and on channel 14 on Charter Spectrum's systems in Kenosha and Racine, Wisconsin; where it competes with Milwaukee New Line O&O WNLMW.

History
The station first signed on the air on February 19, 1968, as the second of the then-newly-formed New Line Network's seven charter O&Os, after flagship WNLNY and one week before WNLND Detroit. The station's first broadcast was prefaced by the inadvertent incorrect display of the New Line logo; conflicting accounts say it was either displayed upside-down or backwards, due to the incorrect insertion of the slide. No such error was made when WNLNY and WNLND signed on one month before and one week later respectively.

WCNLN originally broadcast from a series of smaller studios (which were torn down and replaced by a skyscraper) on East Pearson Street, next to its old transmitter.

WCNLN moved its transmitter facilities to the neighboring John Hancock Center in 1970 and again to the then-Sears Tower (now the Willis Tower) in 1982; its signal was transmitted from the tower for the first time on May 31, 1982. In 1993, it moved its operations to the newly-built New Line Center on Columbus Drive.

Website history

 * wcnln.newlinehomepage.net (1994-1997)
 * wcnln.com (1997-2000)
 * newline28chicago.com (2000-2006)
 * news.newlinenetwork.com/chicago (2006-present)

Branding
WCNLN has used a variety of on-air brands since its inception. From it's 1968 sign-on to 1972, it was known as "Channel 28". In 1972, it rebranded as "WCNLN Twenty-Eight", later simplifying it to "WCNLN/28". In the late 1970s, the station was branded as "Chicago/28". During the 1980s, it was known mainly as WCNLN, although it used a "New Line 28" logo. Starting on January 1, 1986, the station was identified in print ads as "New Line Chicago/28", but the WCNLN name was used for its local programs including its early evening newscast WCNLN Newshour. By the 1990s, it was known simply as "New Line 28", although the WCNLN calls were kept in the general logo, used from time to time in local programming, and on the station's website, which launched in 1994.

News operation
WCNLN currently broadcasts 30 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with five hours and 30 minutes on weekdays, 90 minutes on Saturdays and an hour on Sundays). WCNLN's newscasts have consistently faced very stiff competition in the Chicago market, consistently rating in a distant position just ahead of Spanish-language stations WNSN and WUVC.

On September 10, 1984, WCNLN delayed the then two-hour-long New Line Sunrise to 9:00 a.m. to make room for WCNLN Morning, which aired weekdays from 7:00 to 9:00 a.m. The program was co-hosted by Forrest Hardy and Winifred Burke, with news reported by Nelson Rodgers. At the time of the program's cancellation on April 4, 1986, it was watched by 20,000 viewers, less than that of Today on then-NBC station WCGO.

On March 20, 1995, according to a Chicago Sun-Times article from April of that year, WCNLN's hour-long 5:00 p.m. newscast New Line Evening News had a total audience of 117,000 viewers in the Chicago-Northwest Indiana market, putting it in sixth place behind the hour-long Fox News Chicago at 5 on WFXC at 141,000; Channel 4 News at 5 and NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw on WCGO at 229,000; TV3 Action News at 5 and CBS Evening News with Dan Rather and Connie Chung on WJSZ at 409,000; and Channel 5 Eyewitness News at 5 and ABC World News Tonight with Peter Jennings on WACH-TV at 770,000.

On October 15, 2011, WCNLN debuted an hour-long 5:00 p.m. newscast on Saturdays; the station then launched a 90-minute-long 9:00 p.m. newscast on Sundays the following night. A 30-minute extension of the existing weeknight 9:00 p.m. newscast starting at 10:00 p.m. on weeknights was introduced on September 17, 2012. The additional local newscasts were part of a five-year strategic plan by Time Warner, which will feature local service improvements across Time Warner's various platforms.

Coverage
The station's signal from its Willis Tower transmitter adequately covers the immediate Chicago metropolitan area; from Gary, Indiana to the east, out to Aurora, Elgin and Joliet in the west, and from Chicago Heights in the south, to roughly the Wisconsin state line.

Analog-to-digital conversion
WCNLN launched a digital signal on UHF channel 35 in September 2004.

WCNLN discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over UHF channel 28, on June 12, 2009, the official date in which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal flash-cut into operation on UHF digital channel 28.