WRAL-TV (channel 5) is a television station licensed to Raleigh, North Carolina, United States, serving as the NBC affiliate for the Research Triangle area.

The television stations share studios at Capitol Broadcasting Company headquarters on Western Boulevard in west Raleigh; WRAL-TV's transmitter is located in Auburn, North Carolina.

[2] WRAL was originally an NBC affiliate, taking that network from Durham-based WTVD (channel 11, which included Fletcher's son, Floyd, among its founders).

ABC was at the time the smallest and weakest of the three major networks; it would not be on par with NBC and CBS in terms of ratings or affiliated stations until the early 1970s.

From 1960 until his election to the United States Senate in 1972, Jesse Helms was an editorialist on WRAL-TV's news broadcasts; by the early 1970s, the editorials were running for 10 minutes every weeknight.

In December 1989, WRAL was knocked off the air when a severe ice storm caused the collapse of the station's 2,000-foot (610 m) transmitter tower.

In the early 1990s, WRAL distributed its programming via C-Band satellite as part of the Primetime 24 package, reaching viewers in the Caribbean and Latin America, as well as the few rural areas of the United States and Canada where local over-the-air broadcast signals were not available.

It was replaced in the late 1990s with fellow CBS affiliate WSEE-TV from Erie, Pennsylvania, primarily because of WRAL's preemptions of network programming due to ACC basketball games, which were (and still are) a highly-popular audience draw in North Carolina.

In a ceremony at the end of the morning newscast, Goodmon pressed a button decorated with the NBC peacock to switch to Today.

Notably, Today, the NBC Nightly News, and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon immediately saw major ratings gains in the market after their move to WRAL.

[11] NBC had struggled in the Triangle ratings for more than 40 years, dating to when it was all but forced to move its programming full-time to WRDU-TV (channel 28, later WPTF-TV and now WRDC) in 1971.

While NBC's performance in the area improved somewhat after it moved to WNCN in 1995, that station had remained stubbornly in third place for most of its 20-year run with the network.

The delay in the affiliation switch kept CBS's coverage of Super Bowl 50, which featured the Carolina Panthers (based in nearby Charlotte) as champions of the National Football Conference, on WRAL-TV.

The only exceptions involved ACC football and basketball from Raycom Sports, both of which aired on the station from 1977, when they moved from WTVD, until the end of the syndication package in 2019.

ACC-preempted NBC programming aired either as originally scheduled on digital subchannel 5.2 (which is otherwise an affiliate of Cozi TV) or overnights on the main signal.

Despite the NCAA Tournament moving with the rest of the CBS schedule to WNCN, WRAL-TV continued to air ACC football and/or basketball.

In recent years, WRAL and UNC-TV have co-produced programming, such as the 2009 Gubernatorial Inauguration and the 2006 Parade of Sail Tall Ship Show in Beaufort.

A few months later, WRAL was selected to be the flagship station for North Carolina Education Lottery drawings (twice daily for certain games, with the multi-jurisdictional Mega Millions Tuesday and Friday nights, and Powerball Wednesdays and Saturdays).

[22] Until his retirement on July 1, 1994, Charlie Gaddy co-anchored newscasts alongside Bobbie Battista, Adele Arakawa (now with KUSA-TV in Denver), Donna Gregory (who now works for WWAY in Wilmington), and Pam Saulsby (formerly of WTVJ in Miami).

[23] WRAL was the first commercial station to provide high definition programming when it obtained an experimental HD transmission license from the FCC in 1996.

On November 17, 2006, WRAL had a special "reunion" newscast during the 6 p.m. broadcast with Gaddy, Battista and DeBardelaben reprising their roles once again in commemoration of the station's 50th anniversary alongside Suiter.

After the sudden unexpected death of Dan Wilkinson in October 2003, it was decided that the station would no longer have a full-time farm reporter and frequent agricultural coverage came to an end.

The Hughes 500 helicopter N8624F[29] was painted in the livery of the Royal Saudi Air Force with "Sky 5" graphics added, reflecting the original customer before the sale fell through and WRAL purchased it for newsgathering.

Today, the aircraft is normally stored at the Raleigh-Durham International Airport, but a helipad is available on the roof above the Capitol Broadcasting President's office in the WRAL buildings near downtown Raleigh.

"Sky 5" has also participated in numerous search and rescue operations over the years at the request of local emergency officials before returning to newsgathering duties.

[42] WRAL has consistently swept television media categories in the Independent Weekly and Cary News annual "Best Of" awards voted by readers.

[43][44] The station's digital signal is multiplexed: On June 19, 1996, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) awarded WRAL-TV the first experimental high-definition television license in the United States.

As part of the SAFER Act, WRAL-TV kept its analog signal on the air until July 6 to inform viewers of the digital television transition through a loop of public service announcements from the National Association of Broadcasters.

[60] The system allows emergency information including text, web pages and video to be distributed to compatible receivers using existing digital television signals.

[64] The station building, shared by WRAL-TV and WRAZ, and located at 2619 Western Boulevard in Raleigh, adjacent to the North Carolina State University campus, is a modern and open-designed structure and grounds.