Washington’s Channel 7 took to the airwaves on Friday October 3, 1947 as the third DC station to sign on and the first channel 7 in the United States. After a short inaugural program from the transmitter site at American University featuring some remarks from Samuel H. Kauffmann, the President of the Evening Star Broadcasting Co, the station presented the Georgetown vs Fordham football game live from Griffith Stadium on Georgia Avenue. During the construction permit phase, the station was originally assigned the call letters of WTVW, but signed on with the WMAL call letters shared by the company’s AM station and soon to be constructed WMAL-FM. Saturday’s broadcast schedule included the 5th game of the World Series, and on Sunday WMAL-TV presented the Redskins-Steelers game. The business offices and a small studio were located at the Commonwealth Building at 1625 K St NW, with the transmitter and film chains located on the campus of American University. Initially the station was a CBS affiliate, but signed with ABC as soon as they could get their TV network launched on April 19, 1948. Today the station is the longest serving ABC affiliate in the country. WMAL-TV has been credited with a number of TV firsts, the first broadcast of a president from the Oval Office, President Truman on October 5, 1947, the first live telecast of a Congressional Committee hearing on November 11. 1947, the first local station in DC to use a zoomar lens and the first station in the country to broadcast a schedule seven nights a week starting in December 1947.
The station grew rapidly and needed more space to meet the demands of increased local production. On August 2, 1950 the Evening Star Broadcasting Company announced that it had leased the entire second floor of the Chevy Chase Ice Palace at 4461 Connecticut Ave NW to consolidate broadcast operations. The former ice rink provided a massive space for three new studios, two at 40 by 70 feet and a third studio measured 30 by 50 feet. By May of 1951 all TV operations were now on Connecticut Avenue, the film chains having been moved from AU so that film and live broadcasts were now under the same roof.
Local programs produced during the 50s included The Modern Woman with Ruth Crane and Jackson Weaver , soon to become even more famous as half of the long running WMAL AM morning team of Harden and Weaver. The show was a typical daytime offering with local guests, fashion shows, and cooking tips. Bandstand Matinee was a popular local teen dance show hosted by DJ Sherman Butler, which led to some neighborhood complaints about traffic congestion and rowdy teenagers on Connecticut Avenue. Channel 7 was also a hotbed of country music, presenting Connie B. Gay’s Town and Country Time with Jimmy Dean that also aired on Channel 13 in Baltimore. A three hour daily show from WMAR was also broadcast in DC on Channel 7 featuring Jim McManus (soon to be McKay) and Bailey Goss.
WMAL-TV would remain at this location until December 1988, when it moved up Connecticut Avenue to the Intelsat complex on Tilden Street. The station moved again in 2002 across the river to the Rosslyn area of Arlington, Virginia in space formerly occupied by Gannett and USA Today. There was recent talk of coming back to DC in 2016, but those plans didn’t work out and the station signed a new 15 year lease to remain in Rosslyn until at least 2031.
Ownership of Channel 7 would change in 1975 when local banker Joe Allbritton acquired a controlling interest of Washington Star Communications Inc, which included the Evening Star newspaper and broadcast properties WMAL AM-FM-TV. The FCC gave Allbritton a three year deadline to dispose of the newspaper or broadcast stations in order to avoid too much media concentration in one market, a policy later overturned by the Supreme Court in the late 70s. Allbritton first put together a deal to trade Channel 7 to Combined Communications Corp in exchange for KOCO-TV in Oklahoma City and $65 million dollars in CCC stock. That deal ran into problems with government regulations and was never completed. WMAL AM and FM was sold to ABC in March 1977, and the call letters of the TV station were changed to WJLA-TV on June 6, 1977 representing the new owner’s initials of Joseph A. Allbritton. WJLA would remain under Allbritton ownership until 2014 when the station was sold to Sinclair Broadcasting so that Allbritton could concentrate on its Politico websites.