TBS (American TV channel)

TBS (an abbreviation for Turner Broadcasting System) is an American pay television network owned by the Warner Bros. Discovery U.S. Networks division of Warner Bros. Discovery. It carries a variety of programming, with a focus on comedy, along with some sports events, including Major League Baseball, Stanley Cup playoffs, NCAA men's basketball tournament and professional wrestling show AEW Dynamite. As of September 2018, TBS was received by approximately 90.391 million households that subscribe to a pay television service throughout the United States.

TBS was originally established on December 17, 1976, as the national feed of Turner's Atlanta, Georgia, independent television station, WTCG. The decision to begin offering WTCG via satellite transmission to cable and satellite subscribers throughout the United States expanded the small station into the first nationally distributed "superstation." With the assignment of WTBS as the broadcast station's call letters in 1979, the national feed became known as SuperStation WTBS, and later SuperStation TBS, TBS Superstation, or simply TBS. The channel broadcast a variety of programming during this era, including films, syndicated series, and sports (including Atlanta Braves baseball, basketball games involving the Atlanta Hawks and other NBA teams, and professional wrestling including Georgia Championship Wrestling, Jim Crockett Promotions and later World Championship Wrestling).

WTBS maintained a nearly identical program schedule as the national feed, aside from FCC-mandated public affairs and educational programming that only aired on the local signal. By the early 2000s, TBS had begun to focus more intensively on comedic programming, including sitcoms and other series. On October 1, 2007, TBS was converted by Turner into a conventional basic cable network, at which time it began to be carried within the Atlanta market on area cable providers alongside its existing local carriage on satellite providers DirecTV and Dish Network. The former parent station in Atlanta was concurrently relaunched as WPCH-TV (branded as "Peachtree TV", which Turner sold to the Meredith Corporation in 2017, and later acquired by Gray Television in 2021) and reformatted as a traditional independent station with a separate schedule exclusively catering to the Atlanta market.

History

Early years

TBS originated as a terrestrial television station in Atlanta, Georgia that began operating on UHF channel 17 on September 1, 1967, under the WJRJ-TV call letters. That station—which its original parent originally filed to transmit UHF channel 46, before modifying it to assign channel 17 as its frequency in February 1966—was founded by Rice Broadcasting Inc. (owned by Atlanta entrepreneur Jack M. Rice, Jr., owner of locally based pay television firms Atlanta Telemeter Inc. and Home Theaters of Georgia Inc.). Rice built a massive new self-supporting transmission tower (later known as the Turner Broadcasting tower), which, at a height of , was the tallest freestanding structure ever built in Atlanta and provided Channel 17 a stronger signal than other UHF stations, which was particularly beneficial as television sets of that era were often equipped with low-sensitivity tuners and substandard antennas. Under Rice, WJRJ—the first independent station to begin operation in the Atlanta market since WQXI-TV (channel 36, allocation now occupied by MyNetworkTV affiliate WATL) ceased operations on May 31, 1955—operated on a shoestring budget, general entertainment format with a schedule consisting of a few off-network reruns (such as '' Father Knows Best'', '' The Danny Thomas Show'', '' The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet'' and '' The Rifleman'') and older feature films as well as a 15-minute news program.

In July 1969, Rice Broadcasting reached an agreement to merge with the Turner Communications Corporation—an Atlanta-based group owned by entrepreneur Robert E. "Ted" Turner III, who ran his late father's billboard advertising business and had also expanded his interests to include radio stations in Chattanooga, Tennessee ( WGOW), Charleston, South Carolina ( WTMA-AM-FM, the FM station is now WSSX-FM), and Jacksonville, Florida (WMBR, now WQOP)—in an all-stock transaction. Under the sale terms, Rice would acquire Turner in an exchange of stock and adopt the Turner Communications name; however, Turner would acquire about 75% of the merged company and own 48.2% of its stock, receiving 1.2 million shares of Rice stock worth an estimated $3 million. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) granted approval of the acquisition on December 10, 1969, giving Turner its first television property. Soon after Turner received approval of its purchase of WJRJ-TV in January 1970, Turner changed the station's call letters to WTCG (which officially stood for Turner Communications Group, although the station used "Watch This Channel Grow" as a promotional slogan). The sale was formally completed four months later on April 6, 1970, at which time Turner was assigned as licensee of WJRJ-TV.

The channel 17 transmitter was originally located at 1018 West Peachtree Street Northwest (it has since been relocated to the Atlanta suburb of North Druid Hills, Georgia), with the antenna located on the Turner Broadcasting tower. The building at this site was once home to the studios of CBS affiliate