The two stations share studios at the Gateway Center in Downtown Pittsburgh; KDKA-TV's transmitter is located in the city's Perry North neighborhood.

To mark the occasion, a live television special aired that day from 8:30 to 11 p.m. on WDTV, which began with a one-hour local program broadcast from Syria Mosque in Pittsburgh.

When the release of the FCC's Sixth Report and Order ended the license freeze in 1952, DuMont was forced to give up its channel 3 allocation to alleviate interference with nearby stations broadcasting on the frequency, notably NBC-owned WNBK (now WKYC) in Cleveland, which itself moved to the frequency to avoid interference with stations in Columbus and Detroit.

[citation needed] Until the end of the freeze, WDTV's only competition came in the form of distant signals from stations in Johnstown, Altoona, Wheeling and Youngstown.

At the time, UHF stations could not be viewed without the aid of an expensive set-top converter, and the picture quality was marginal at best with one.

[citation needed] Although Pittsburgh was the sixth largest market in the country (behind New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Washington/Baltimore), the other VHF stations in town were slow to develop.

After the FCC lifted the license freeze in 1952, it refused to grant any new commercial VHF construction permits to Pittsburgh in order to give the smaller cities in the area a chance to get on the air.

WDTV's sign-on was also significant because it was now possible to feed live programs from the East to the Midwest and vice versa.

It would be another two years before the West Coast received live programming, but this was the beginning of the modern era of network television.

Meanwhile, Pittsburgh-based Westinghouse Electric Corporation had been competing with local politicians to acquire the non-commercial channel 13 license from the FCC, as no other Pittsburgh-allocated VHF station would be signing on for the foreseeable future.

Finding the terms unacceptable, Pittsburgh attorney Leland Hazard called Westinghouse CEO Gwilym Price to ask him if he should give up on his fight for public television.

(Related to the trade, Westinghouse received a cross-station waiver from the FCC to own the Cleveland properties due to overlapping signals with KDKA radio and channel 2.)

[17] On November 22, 1963, newscaster Bill Burns provided almost three hours of live coverage after the shooting of President John F.

In May 2003, KDKA-TV retired the distinctive Group W font in its logo after 40 years, adopting a more standardized CBS branding identity.

In August 2007, KDKA-TV unveiled a new image campaign, entitled "Your Home", with music and lyrics performed by singer-songwriter Bill Deasy.

In the fall of 1995, channel 2 began running the entire CBS lineup in pattern, as it, and sister station KPIX-TV in San Francisco, were already affiliated with the network.

At the same time, WTAJ-TV in Altoona had run the program and was viewable in much of Pittsburgh itself and the eastern part of the market, and was even carried on many Pittsburgh-area cable systems well into the 1980s.

Despite the preemptions, CBS was mostly satisfied with KDKA-TV, as it was the far-and-away market leader in Pittsburgh owing to its eight-year head-start on its main competitors.

and Wheel of Fortune, though in separate time slots as opposed to the standard practice of airing them back-to-back; the station lost both shows to WPXI in 1988.

In 1997, The Ricki Lake Show moved to WPGH-TV and Sally returned to KDKA-TV, and once again was given the 9 a.m. time slot, where it remained on and off until its cancellation in 2002.

With Dr. Phil ending its run, rather than expanding its evening newscasts to five hours, KDKA-TV launched a new afternoon talk-show spinoff of PTL called Talk Pittsburgh on March 20, 2023.

The station also shares newsgathering operations and co-produces certain public affairs shows with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette newspaper.

Under Westinghouse ownership, KDKA-TV used the Eyewitness News branding for its newscasts, pioneered by sister station KYW-TV.

In January 2019, the station fired an employee who programmed a lower third graphic to refer to New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady as a "known cheater" during a report on Super Bowl LIII.

On January 8, 2024, KDKA-TV premiered an 8 p.m. newscast on WPKD to replace CW network programming after Paramount Global's deal with Nexstar Media Group.

As of May 2015, KDKA-TV is the most watched news station in the Pittsburgh area in the hours of Noon, 4, 5, 6 and 11 p.m.; the 7 a.m. newscast it produces for WPKD rated quite strongly at that time slot.

The station's signal is multiplexed: KDKA-TV ended regular programming on its analog signal, over VHF channel 2, on June 12, 2009, the official date on which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate, during that night's broadcast of the Late Show with David Letterman.

The station showed the High Flight video clip, and a compilation of their analog history with "The Star-Spangled Banner" as background music, before signing off with DuMont test card and original name.

[38] As part of the SAFER Act, KDKA-TV kept its analog signal on the air until July 12 to inform viewers of the digital television transition through a loop of public service announcements from the National Association of Broadcasters.

On June 17, 2009, during the nightlight period, KDKA-TV temporarily resumed regular programming to air severe weather coverage.