WKBD-TV

WKBD-TV, virtual channel 50 (UHF digital channel 14), is a CW owned-and-operated television station located in Detroit, Michigan, United States. The station is owned by the CBS Television Stations subsidiary of CBS Corporation, as part of a duopoly with CBS station WWJ-TV (channel 62). The two stations share studio facilities and WKBD maintains transmitter facilities located on West 11 Mile Road in the Detroit suburb of Southfield.

History

Prior history of channel 50

The UHF channel 50 allocation in Detroit was originally assigned to WBID-TV in 1955. Owned by Max Osnos' Woodward Broadcasting (Osnos also owned 9% of WITI in Milwaukee), WBID planned on broadcasting from the Cadillac Tower in downtown Detroit. However, WBID never made it to the air – and neither did WTOH-TV (channel 79) in Toledo, Ohio, another proposed station owned by Woodward Broadcasting (both WBID and WTOH planned on taking at least some programming from the failing DuMont Television Network). It would be another decade before Detroiters would finally see programming on Channel 50.