WPXI (channel 11) is a television station in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States, affiliated with NBC and owned by Cox Media Group.

The primary reason for the delay was on the part of WENS-TV (channel 16, now WINP-TV), whose application for the permit had been denied and later contested the FCC's original decision.

[6] In the interim, CBS continued to have most of its programs cleared by Westinghouse-owned KDKA-TV (channel 2), at the time Pittsburgh's only commercial VHF station.

In addition to Cardille, five other announcers that were with the station when it launched in 1957 include Mal Alberts, Bob Cochran, Ed Conway, Len Johnson and Mark Schaefer.

Around 1977, WIIC used the "11 Alive" moniker (which had become popularized by fellow NBC affiliate WXIA-TV in Atlanta and WPIX in New York City).

[15] WPXI also televised the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon as the "Love Network" affiliate of the annual fundraiser for the Pittsburgh market, until the Muscular Dystrophy Association decided to move the event from syndication to ABC (and locally to WTAE) as the MDA Show of Strength in 2013; the show ended the next year.

The station was criticized for technical glitches during the initial week of the new system run but worked through the issues and set the pace of technological advances for WTAE and KDKA to follow.

With Cox Media Group's February 23, 2013, sale of WJAC and WTOV (a sale which also included KFOX-TV in El Paso, Texas, and KRXI and KAME-TV in Reno, Nevada) to the Sinclair Broadcast Group, owners of local Fox affiliate WPGH-TV and MyNetworkTV affiliate WPMY (which was completed on May 2[19]), WPXI became Cox's only NBC-affiliated station until 2019 when the company acquired Northwest Broadcasting stations KYMA-DT in Yuma, Arizona, KIEM-TV in Eureka, California, KPVI-DT in Pocatello, Idaho, and WNBD-LD in Grenada, Mississippi; these four stations were sold in 2022 to Imagicomm Communications, a company affiliated with the cable network INSP, at which time WPXI regained its status as the only Cox-owned NBC affiliate.

[22][21] In February 2019, it was announced that Apollo Global Management would acquire Cox Media Group and Northwest Broadcasting's stations.

[26] From 1963 to 1983, the station produced and broadcast Chiller Theater, a late Saturday evening horror film show hosted by Bill Cardille, or as he was referred to, "Chilly Billy".

The show featured teens dancing to current hit records, a weekly Top 10 countdown and appearances by local bands.

The show marked the earliest appearances of Bruno Sammartino, who moved to Pittsburgh from Italy as a teenager and resided in the area until his death in 2018.

Studio Wrestling was run by Toots Mondt, who co-owned NWA member Capitol Wrestling Corporation (the predecessor to the present-day WWE) with Vince McMahon Sr. McMahon promptly signed Sammartino to the CWC and where Sammartino would eventually become a two-time WWWF Champion for a combined record of 11 years.

Steve Rizen of KQV radio hosted the show, which had contestants spinning a wheel to determine what prizes they could win.

[27] Nexstar-produced shows now air on CBS-owned KDKA, sister station to Nexstar's WPHL Philadelphia rival, KYW-TV.

In 1970, when the Pittsburgh Steelers moved to the American Football Conference after the AFL-NFL merger, channel 11 became the station of record for the team (as NBC held the broadcast rights to AFC games then); this partnership continued through 1997 (after that season, CBS took over the AFC broadcast rights, and most games moved to CBS O&O KDKA-TV; channel 2 had previously served as the default home station from 1962 to 1969).

Even though it aired most of the games from the Steelers' glory years of the 1970s—typically the highest-rated television programs in the market during that time—channel 11 stayed in the ratings basement.

WPXI also aired most Pittsburgh Pirates games that were part of NBC's Major League Baseball broadcast contract from its sign-on until 1989; this included the team's 1960 and 1971 World Series victories.

Since its sign-on in 1957, WIIC, and later WPXI, has aired a mix of syndicated first-run shows, off-network reruns, and afternoon movies throughout its history, although by the 1980s the schedule would become less dependent on most of this product in favor of more talk fare and an expanding newscast.

WPXI acquired the rights to then-King World (now CBS Media Ventures)-distributed syndicated game shows Jeopardy!

In September 2018, WPXI acquired The Wendy Williams Show from WPGH-TV after going back and forth at its 10 a.m. time slot on the station since its 2009 debut.

It could also be argued that if not for sports coverage like the Steeler dynasty of the 1970s and the Pirates in the playoffs airing via NBC, WIIC-TV's ratings could have even been below PBS member station WQED (during the peak era of locally recorded Mister Rogers' Neighborhood) and lowly independent WPGH-TV, years before Fox's existence.

Upon adopting its current logo in 1987, WPXI started using the famous "Move Closer to Your World" theme by Al Ham that was popularized by ABC O&O WPVI-TV in Philadelphia, even adopting that station's fast-paced video montage (but not the Action News branding, due to it being used by WTAE-TV), eventually commissioning a modernized version of the theme used during the 1990s.

Nowadays in addition to being in a dead heat for number one in local news ratings, WPXI is currently one of NBC's strongest major-market affiliates overcoming any lags due to the station's delays in signing on in its early years and despite the fluctuating strength of network programming.

On January 12, 2006, Sinclair Broadcast Group (owner of Fox affiliate WPGH-TV) and WPXI entered into a news share agreement allowing channel 11 to take over production of WPGH's 10 p.m. newscast.

It has commissioned "Total Coverage" (its previous package), and after WPXI moved to its new Summer Hill television building, it started using "The Tower V.2", ending the "NBC Collection" altogether.

[30] Pittsburgh is one of the most competitive markets in the country for local news and viewers benefit by getting quality newscasts from three strong stations.

[31] More recently, however, WPXI has had an increase in most dayparts, although it continues to maintain a tie with KDKA-TV in the market for daytime news, as of the May 2009 Nielsen ratings period.

However, WPXI had the least-watched newscasts in Pittsburgh at noon, 4, 5, 6, and 11 p.m. (with KDKA-TV being the highest watched during those timeslots, except for WTAE-TV which was the leader at 11 p.m. as of the February 2013 ratings period).

[37] On April 15, 2015, WPXI became a charter affiliate of Laff on channel 11.3, bringing 11.3 live again for the first time since NBC Weather Plus shut down.