WCCO-TV's roots originate with a radio station, but not
WCCO (830 AM).
WRHM, which signed on the air in 1925, is the radio station to which WCCO-TV traces its lineage. In 1934, two newspapers—the
Minneapolis Tribune and the
Saint Paul Pioneer Press-Dispatch—formed a joint venture by the name of "Twin Cities Newspapers", which purchased the radio station and changed its call letters to WTCN. Twin Cities Newspapers later expanded into the fledgling FM band with
WTCN-FM, and shortly thereafter to the then-new medium of television with the launch of WTCN-TV on July 1, 1949, becoming Minnesota's second television station, broadcasting from the Radio City Theater at 50 South 9th Street in downtown Minneapolis. The station's first president was
Robert Ridder. Channel 4 has been a primary CBS affiliate since its sign on; it is the only major commercial station in the Minneapolis–St. Paul market not to have changed its primary affiliation. However, it had a secondary affiliation with ABC during its early years, from 1949 to 1953, until a new station using the WTCN-TV calls (now
KARE-TV) picked up the ABC affiliation, retaining it from its 1953 sign on until 1961 when it became an
independent station; it has been affiliated with NBC since 1979. Twin Cities Newspapers sold off its broadcast holdings in 1952, with channel 4 going to the Murphy and McNally families, who had recently bought the Twin Cities' dominant radio station, WCCO, from CBS. The stations merged under a new company,
Midwest Radio and Television, with CBS as a minority partner. The call letters of channel 4 were changed to WCCO-TV to match its new radio sibling on August 17 (the WTCN-TV call sign appeared again in the market the following year on the new
channel 11). CBS was forced to sell its minority ownership stake in the WCCO stations in 1954 to comply with
Federal Communications Commission ownership limits of the time. The station began telecasting
color programs in 1955. In 1959, WCCO became the first station in the Midwest to have a videotape machine; it came at a cost of $50,000 and one part-time employee was hired to operate the machine. On July 23, 1962, WCCO-TV was involved in the world's first live international broadcast via the
Telstar satellite; the station's mobile units provided the feed for all three networks, ABC, CBS, and NBC, for a program originating from native land in the
Black Hills showing
Mount Rushmore to the world. During the fall of 1979, WCCO-TV and radio experienced a labor dispute when the
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), the union representing many of the stations' technical and production personnel, went on
strike. Despite the walkout, the stations maintained their daily broadcast schedules, utilizing non-striking employees, including management and news personnel, to cover the essential functions. For WCCO-TV, this meant that news director Ron Handberg and anchor Skip Loescher were notably involved in producing and presenting the news, as seen in broadcasts from the period. In September 1983, WCCO relocated its operations from its original studios on South 9th Street to the present location at South 11th Street and Nicollet Mall. The network gained full ownership of WCCO-TV in 1992, when it acquired what was by then known as Midwest Communications. In 2000,
Viacom bought CBS, and WCCO became part of the Viacom Television Stations Group. In 2006, Viacom Television Stations Group was renamed
CBS Television Stations when Viacom split into two companies. During the 1980s, a cable-exclusive sibling station was created to supplement WCCO, with its own slate of local and national entertainment programming. This was known as
WCCO II, but by 1989, it had evolved into the
Midwest Sports Channel, focusing on regional sporting events. It continued under CBS ownership until 2000, when it was announced that MSC and sibling RSN
Home Team Sports were to be sold. HTS went to
Comcast, while MSC was sold to
Fox Entertainment Group and became
Fox Sports North, a part of
Fox Sports Net. MSC had been an FSN affiliate since 1997. On February 2, 2017, CBS agreed to sell
CBS Radio to Entercom, currently the fourth-largest radio broadcasting company in the United States. The sale was completed on November 17, 2017, and was conducted using a
Reverse Morris Trust so that it was tax-free. While CBS shareholders retained a 72% ownership stake in the combined company, Entercom, now
Audacy, is the surviving entity, with WCCO radio and its sibling stations separated from WCCO-TV. On August 13, 2019,
National Amusements announced that
Viacom and CBS Corporation would recombine their assets, forming the entity ViacomCBS. The sale was completed on December 4, 2019, resulting in CBS Television Stations, including WCCO-TV, becoming subsidiaries of ViacomCBS. On February 16, 2022, ViacomCBS changed its name to
Paramount Global. On August 14, 2023,
Wendy McMahon, a former creative services director at WCCO-TV, was named CBS News and Stations president. ==Programming==