WJZ-TV (channel 13) is a television station in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, serving as the market's CBS outlet.

[7] On the station's second day of operations, WAAM broadcast the 1948 presidential election returns and various entertainment shows, remaining on the air for 23 consecutive hours.

[12] However, Westinghouse's history with that set of call letters went back even further, as it was the original owner of WJZ radio, the flagship station of NBC's Blue Network, which would eventually become ABC.

In 1959, WJZ-TV collaborated with WBAL-TV and WMAR-TV to form a joint venture to build the world's first three-pronged candelabra tower.

[14] Constructed behind the WJZ-TV studios and opposite the original channel 13 tower, it was the tallest free standing television antenna in the United States at the time of its completion.

The new tower significantly improved channel 13's signal coverage in central Maryland, and also added new viewers in Pennsylvania, Delaware,[14] Washington, D.C., and Virginia.

ABC agreed to the deal as a condition of keeping its affiliation on Scripps' two biggest stations, WXYZ-TV in Detroit and WEWS in Cleveland.

[21] Though ABC's affiliation contract with channel 13 did not expire until January 1995, starting in 1994, all CBS programs preempted by WBAL-TV would air on WJZ-TV.

WJZ-TV also picked up the Late Show with David Letterman, which had aired on WNUV (channel 54) after WBAL passed on it (one of the few CBS affiliates to do so).

Notably, this marked the first time that CBS had wholly owned a television station in the Baltimore/Washington corridor; it had been minority owner of WTOP-TV in Washington (now WUSA) from 1950 to 1955.

Over the years, WJZ-TV frequently preempted ABC programming in favor of locally produced programs and syndicated content from Westinghouse's broadcasting division, Group W, such as The Mike Douglas Show and the original version of The Merv Griffin Show; notably, the former ABC daytime soap opera Dark Shadows was preempted during the mid-1960s.

Deane's program was the inspiration for the John Waters 1988 motion picture Hairspray and its subsequent Broadway musical version, which in turn has been made into a film.

Prior to September 2019, WJZ-TV aired the CBS Evening News on a half-hour tape delay, due to an hour-long 6 p.m. newscast.

However, in the official November 2009 Nielsen ratings sweeps period, the first since the debut of The Jay Leno Show (which aired on WBAL-TV), WJZ-TV returned to a dominant position at 11 p.m. for the first time since the early 2000s.

Since the November 2011 Nielsen sweeps period, WJZ has regained the lead in all news time slots in both total households and the critical 25–54 demographic; however, WBAL remains a strong second.

Koch and Carter currently make up the longest-tenured evening anchor team in Baltimore TV history, having co-anchored the 6 p.m. newscast since 1995.

Former WJZ weather anchor Bob Turk holds to the title of the longest-tenured talent at a single station in Maryland TV.

As of September 2011, all of WJZ-TV's locally produced video footage, including remote field reports, are in HD, making it the first station in Baltimore to do so.

During the noon newscast on August 9, 2018, WJZ-TV unveiled a new set, and introduced the same on-air graphics scheme used by other CBS owned-and-operated stations (the last among the group to do so).

The switch caused problems for some viewers due to reception issues related to the transition, but the Federal Communications Commission granted WJZ-TV a power increase that helps some people.