WDBJ

WDBJ (channel 7) is a television station licensed to Roanoke, Virginia, United States, serving as the CBS affiliate for the Roanoke–Lynchburg market.

The two-way contest virtually ended in January 1955, when the WROV group relinquished their application and sold their television assets to WDBJ.

[10] Channel 7, along with its radio sisters, originally operated from studio facilities located in the Mountain Trust Bank Building in downtown Roanoke.

As channel 7 grew during the late 1950s, plans were drawn for a new studio at the corner of Brandon and Colonial Avenues in southwest Roanoke.

[11][12] The merger came one year after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) barred the co-ownership of broadcast outlets and newspapers, while "grandfathering" existing newspaper-broadcasting combinations in several markets.

[13] It is not likely that the FCC would have allowed Landmark to keep WDBJ-TV in any event due to a significant signal overlap with Landmark-owned WFMY-TV in Greensboro, North Carolina.

In 2000, WDBJ announced plans to construct a new studio facility on the site of the Best Products building in northwest Roanoke—which was demolished that June—which was designed for high definition broadcasting.

Schurz's Kansas television properties (KWCH-DT and KSCW-DT) were the first to launch new Tribune-run sites in late June of that year, with WDBJ following suit in mid-July.

[20][21] MyNetworkTV was created to compete against another upstart network that would launch at the same time that September, The CW – a network created through a partnership between CBS Corporation and Time Warner, which had announced one month earlier on January 24 that the two companies would respectively shut down UPN and The WB, which originally consisted primarily of the higher-rated programs from its two predecessors; MyNetworkTV was also formed to give UPN- and WB-affiliated stations that were not named as The CW's charter affiliates another option besides converting into independent stations.

On September 1, 2018, MyNetworkTV moved to WZBJ (channel 24), which operates on WDBJ's spectrum; a simulcast was retained in Lynchburg on WLHG-CD, which was renamed WZBJ-CD.

On April 22, 2008, WDBJ began broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition; the station also became the first in the Roanoke–Lynchburg market with high-definition weather graphics.

In July 2009, WDBJ announced that it would refuse to air a political advertisement from the National Republican Congressional Committee attacking Democratic Representative Tom Perriello's position on climate change, citing "factual inaccuracies".

The report, which centered a former female porn actress who became a volunteer EMT for a Roanoke area rescue squad, featured a brief image from an adult website showing the subject of the report (who was not nude or engaged in a sexual act) that included a video clip of a hand stroking a penis unblurred which appeared within the safe area of the editing suite while the story was being packaged, but was visible on the edge of the screen when it was broadcast.

Schurz Communications stated that it would challenge the fine, contending the images were fleeting (lasting only three seconds) and small enough to not be visible for many viewers.

Their killer was later identified as Vester Lee Flanagan II, a multimedia journalist who worked under the professional pseudonym "Bryce Williams" and was employed by WDBJ from 2012 to 2013 until he was fired.

Smith Mountain Lake Regional Chamber of Commerce director Vicki Gardner, who was being interviewed by Parker before the shooting, was the only survivor and was hospitalized with gunshot wounds to the back.

WDBJ is also available on cable systems in Pocahontas County, West Virginia (including Snowshoe), and as far east as Clarksville and South Boston, as far west as Glade Spring, Marion, Grundy (on digital cable only), Clintwood and Norton (all five of which are part of the Tri-Cities market), and as far south as Galax and Martinsville in Virginia and Person, Caswell and Rockingham counties in North Carolina.

Longtime WDBJ logo, used from the 1970s until late July 2012. The "7" in the current logo is based on this classic logo, enhanced for HD.