is sister to wusa which formerly used the wusa tv callsign see kare . not to be confused with its sister station in denver colorado kusa tv . wusa washington d.c. united states branding wusa 9 general stylized as wusa 9 slogan the next generation of news channels digital 9 vhf virtual 9 psip affiliations .1 cbs .2 bounce tv .3 justice network owner tegna wusa tv inc. first air date january 16 1949 ; 67 years ago 1949 01 16 call letters meaning united states of america usa today owned by gannett wusa s former owner former callsigns woic 1949 1950 wtop tv 1950 1978 wdvm tv 1978 1986 former channel number s analog 9 vhf 1949 2009 digital 34 uhf 1998 2009 transmitter power 52 kw height 235.6 m facility id 65593 transmitter coordinates 38 57 1 n 77 4 47 w 38.95028 n 77.07972 w 38.95028 ; 77.07972 wusa licensing authority fcc public license information profile cdbs website www.wusa9.com wusa channel 9 is a cbs affiliated television station located in the american capital of washington d.c. . the station is owned by tegna inc. based in the suburb of mclean virginia and effectively serves as the flagship television property of the company . wusa s studios and transmitter are located at broadcast house on wisconsin avenue in the tenleytown neighborhood on the northwestern side of washington . 1 wusa is the largest cbs affiliate by market size wgcl tv being the third largest and khou being the second largest that is not owned and operated by the network . the station s signal is relayed on a low powered translator station w50bd d in moorefield west virginia 2 which is owned by valley tv cooperative inc. . contents 1 history 1.1 early years 1.2 later years 2 websites 3 digital television 3.1 digital channels 3.2 analog to digital conversion 3.3 mobile dtv 4 programming 5 news operation 5.1 notable current on air staff 5.2 notable former on air staff 6 footnotes and references 7 external links history edit early years edit the station first went on the air on january 11 1949 as woic and began full time operations on january 16 . the fourth oldest station in the nation s capital channel 9 was originally owned by the bamberger broadcasting service a subsidiary of r.h. macy and company . 3 bamberger also owned wor am fm in new york city and was working to put wor tv channel 9 now wwor tv on the air at the same time . nine days later woic broadcast the first televised american presidential inaugural address given by president harry s. truman . woic picked up the cbs affiliation upon signing on replacing wmal tv channel 7 now wjla tv as the network s washington outlet . however wor was a shareholder in the mutual radio network which had plans to enter television with woic and wor tv as the flagship stations of its network ; these plans never came to fruition . at the start of 1950 bamberger broadcasting changed its name to general teleradio . 4 in june 1950 a joint venture of cbs and the washington post purchased woic from bamberger macy s for 1.4 million . the new owners wtop incorporated the washington post owned 55 % with cbs holding the remaining 45 % stake changed the station s call sign to wtop tv after its new sister station wtop radio then at 1500 am . 5 since wtop took the callsign from the radio partners at the time the callsign was a coincidence under ownership of the publisher since they never stood for washington post ; they instead stood for the fact that what was then known as wtop am was at the top of the city s radio dial wtop am has been known as wfed am since 2006 and is now owned by hubbard broadcasting not by the post . in july 1950 wtop tv became the first television station in washington authorized to broadcast color television in the 405 line field sequential color standard which was incompatible with the black and white 525 line ntsc standard . color broadcasts continued for nearly 30 months when regulatory and commercial pressures forced the federal communications commission fcc to rescind its original color standard and begin the process of adopting the 525 line ntsc 3 standard developed by rca to be backwards compatible with the existing black and white televisions . in 1954 the wtop stations moved into a new facility known as broadcast house at 40th and brandywine streets nw in washington . the building was the first in the country designed as a unified radio and television facility . its name was in honor of broadcasting house home of the bbc in london . the building was well known to wtop s president since he had spent much of world war ii assigned to the bbc . previous to the move to broadcast house the radio stations operated out of the earle building now the warner building home of the warner theatre and wtop tv had operated out of the small woic studios at the same location . when broadcast house was completed and the new television studios were inaugurated the old studio became the garage for broadcast house and the old master control room became both the master control and transmitter room for channel 9 since broadcast house had been built around the station s original four sided tower . the building with the tower remains in the middle at the same location although it is now an office building and retail store front . the wtop tv tower was known in washington for two things . first at christmas time the tower was strung with christmas lights and glowed brightly on top of mount reno the tallest point in the district of columbia . second the tower tended to sway much more than three sided towers . in a strong wind the tower could be seen swaying back and forth and during the winter ice from the tower fell quite often on the streets below . in october 1954 cbs sold its share of wtop inc. to the washington post to comply with the federal communications commission s new seven station per group ownership rule . cbs s partial ownership of wtop radio kqv radio in pittsburgh and wcco radio in minneapolis exceeded the fcc s limit for am radio stations . 6 cbs opted to sell its share of wtop which it had purchased in whole in 1932 before selling controlling interest to the post in 1949 . after the sale closed the post merged the wtop stations with its other broadcast property wmbr am tv in jacksonville florida and changed the name of the licensee from wtop inc. to post stations inc. wmbr radio was sold off in 1958 and wmbr tv became wjxt . the post renamed its broadcasting group post newsweek stations in 1961 after the post bought newsweek magazine . post newsweek acquired its third television station wlbw tv now wplg in miami in 1970 and in 1974 added wtic tv now wfsb in hartford connecticut to the group . in 1972 wtop tv joined with the evening star broadcasting company owned by the post s rival the now defunct washington star and licensee of wmal tv to build the joint tower a 1 040 foot 320 m three sided tower across the alley from broadcast house at 4010 chesapeake street nw . transmission lines were extended from broadcast house s transmitter area to the new tower for both wtop tv and whur fm the former wtop fm which had been donated by post newsweek to howard university in 1971 . the old tower continued to serve as the backup antenna for channel 9 until the station sold broadcast house in 1996 . in 1974 wtop and the other post newsweek stations adopted the slogan the one and only . the moniker was part of a trend toward group identification of stations with each station being the one and only channel channel number . staff members from the one and only period usually refer to themselves as the one and onlies as a source of pride . the slogan was dropped from active use in the late 1990s and has not been used as part of an image campaign since 1996 . the slogan no longer appears on air but was revived in a sense when channel 9 adopted its slogan in the mid 2000s first and only with local news in hdtv . wtop was one of the few cbs stations that declined to carry the popular game show the price is right during the early years of the program s run although washington d.c. abc station wmal tv wjla tv 7 did carry the price is right and some other cbs daytime game shows that wtop didn t carry during the mid 1970s . additionally when cbs began carrying nfl games in 1956 channel 9 became the washington redskins station of record ; an alliance which would continue until 1993 when wttg gained the rights to air the games thanks to fox s acquisition of the nfc broadcast rights . today the station airs redskins games when the team hosts an afc opponent at fedex field or if the redskins play on a thursday night football telecast carried by cbs . later years edit in july 1978 post newsweek exchanged wtop tv with the evening news association s wwj tv now wdiv tv in detroit . upon completion of the swap wtop tv changed its call letters to wdvm tv with the new call letters representing the initials of the areas which channel 9 serves district of columbia virginia and maryland . post newsweek parent the washington post company and the evening news association which published the detroit news decided to swap their stations for fear that the fcc would force them to sell the stations at unfavorable terms or revoke their very valuable licenses because the fcc at the time was considering forbidding ownership of newspapers and broadcast stations in the same market . 7 8 logo used from 2000 to january 2013 . an earlier variant which replaced the 1980s era square 9 which dated to the days of wdvm was colored yellow with a black numeral and was used from 1995 to 1998 . in 1985 the gannett company purchased the evening news association . 9 nb 1 on july 4 1986 gannett changed wdvm s call letters to wusa both in honor of the station being located in the nation s capital and gannett s ownership of usa today 11 the same connection is noted with gannett s nbc affiliated denver station kusa tv . the wusa callsign had previously been used by gannett s station in minneapolis which changed its callsign to kare . while the station s current call sign is commonly printed as w usa particularly in gannett press releases the asterisk or star between the w and u is not officially recognized as part of the call sign as fcc records list the station as wusa . the star device was used to denote its connection to usa today kusa tv employs a similar practice . the star was replaced on air with the cbs eyemark in the late 1990s as cbs began to considerably relax their formerly strict branding guidelines for their affiliates which had not allowed blending the logo into call letters and to reduce confusion with the wusa initialized women s united soccer association which was also visually represented as w usa within their logo . wusa moved to a new broadcast house at 4100 wisconsin avenue nw in january 1992 . wtop fm had left the old broadcast house in 1971 but kept its transmitter there . wtop radio departed in 1978 ; the post had sold it a year earlier to