From 1965 to 1986, WCAU-TV was the only network-owned station in Philadelphia. As such, it was the only station in the city that did not heavily or moderately preempt network programming. Channel 10 did, however, run an hour of
Saturday morning cartoons during the 7 a.m. hour on a one-week delay to run the hour-long locally produced children's program,
The Gene London Show, which ended in 1977. Beginning in 1978, WCAU-TV began preempting an hour of Sunday morning cartoon reruns and in the beginning of 1979 the station preempted an hour of the Saturday morning cartoons. By 1980, the station was running the entire Saturday morning cartoon lineup again and by early in 1981, the Sunday morning hour of children's programs was brought back.
Wawa Welcome America In July 2016, Comcast announced that they would take over as presenting sponsor of the
Wawa Welcome America 4th of July festivities, particularly the Philly July 4 Jam and Grand Finale Fireworks; WCAU and WWSI assumed the local broadcast duties beginning in 2016, thus ending 32 years of broadcast rights with ABC owned-and-operated WPVI, while the Philly July 4 Jam concert was also broadcast nationally on
VH1. By airing the event, the station preempts the live national NBC telecast of the ''
Macy's 4th of July Fireworks'' from New York City, though it carries the condensed replay immediately after both ceremonies end.
Sports programming Since Comcast acquired the station's parent NBCUniversal in 2011, WCAU has aired Philadelphia's major sports teams in many years. Because of those commitments to air these major sports teams, they reschedule NBC network programs preempted on the station. WCAU, as both a CBS and NBC station, has also aired Philadelphia's pro sports teams through their network coverage as well.
Philadelphia Phillies On January 2, 2014, Comcast and the
Philadelphia Phillies announced a 25-year, $2.5 billion TV contract, including WCAU and Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia (now
NBC Sports Philadelphia); although it averaged $100 million a year, it was structured to begin below the average and end above it. As part of its 25-year TV contract, WCAU took over free-to-air broadcast rights for Phillies baseball games from
MyNetworkTV affiliate
WPHL-TV beginning in the
2014 season, including its Opening Day game and selected games aired on the station. Some games may air on
WTXF, per the national broadcast agreement between
Major League Baseball and
Fox Sports. As a CBS station, WCAU also aired select Phillies games as part of
CBS' broadcast contract with Major League Baseball from
1990 to
1993, including the
1993 World Series, in which the Phillies lost to the
Toronto Blue Jays.
Philadelphia Eagles Philadelphia Eagles games primarily aired on Channel 10 back when it was a CBS station and that network carried the National Football Conference, a relationship that began in 1956 when CBS took on the broadcast rights to the pre-merger National Football League. That arrangement lasted until
1994, when
Fox acquired the NFC contract and with it, the Eagles games to WTXF. After being traded to NBC, only select games where the Eagles hosted an
American Football Conference opponent would air on WCAU from
1995 to
1997, when CBS regained the NFL. Since
2006, Eagles games broadcast nationally by
NBC Sports have aired on WCAU, mostly
Sunday Night Football contests but also
Super Bowl LII, which saw the Eagles clinch their first NFL championship in the modern Super Bowl era. In the summer of 2015, Comcast and the Eagles announced a new TV contract; WCAU began airing the preseason games in the
2015 season after ending its contract with ABC owned-and-operated station WPVI in the
2014 season. Pre-season games are sub-licensed to other stations during
Olympic years.
Philadelphia Flyers WCAU has free-to-air rights to the
Philadelphia Flyers hockey games beginning with the
2017–18 season with NBC Sports Philadelphia. Flyers games were also broadcast nationally on the station through
its broadcast package of the National Hockey League until the contract's expiration at the end of the
2020–21 season, including the team's appearance in the
2010 Stanley Cup Finals.
Philadelphia 76ers Beginning in the
2017–18 season, WCAU began displaying its in-court advertisements during all of the
Philadelphia 76ers NBA franchise home games held at the Wells Fargo Center (now
Xfinity Mobile Arena); the home games of the 76ers are currently broadcast on its sister regional sports network NBC Sports Philadelphia. Prior to the launch of the station's in-court advertisement campaign, the station carried these 76ers games as part of
the network's broadcasting package of the NBA from 1995 until 2002 and since 2025 (including the team's appearance in the
2001 NBA Finals). During its run as a CBS station, all 76ers games that were broadcast as part of
that network's NBA broadcast contract from 1973 to 1990 aired on channel 10, including the team's victory in the
1983 NBA Finals.
Broad Street Run In 2015, WCAU assumed the local English broadcast rights of the
Blue Cross Broad Street Run, held every first Sunday of May, taking over from ABC O&O WPVI after the 36th annual event in 2014.
News operation WCAU presently broadcasts 41 hours, 20 minutes of locally produced newscasts each week (with 6 hours, 34 minutes each weekday; four hours on Saturdays and hours on Sundays). News has been produced at WCAU from when the station went on the air on in 1948.
Charles Shaw, who had worked with
Edward R. Murrow as a CBS correspondent in London during World War II, was the station's news director from 1948 until he left the station in the early 1960s.
John Facenda, who later gained fame as the voice of
NFL Films, was the station's main anchorman from shortly after it signed on until 1973. At the time he retired, he had been a main anchor longer than anyone in Philadelphia; he has since been passed by WPVI's
Jim Gardner. Soon after joining the station, Facenda sold the
Bulletin on the idea of a local 11 p.m. newscast—the first in the country. It aired for the first time on September 8. In 1950, WCAU became the first station with a four-man news team. The 6 p.m. newscast was anchored by Facenda, with Philadelphia radio legend Phil Sheridan handling weather,
Jack Whitaker on sports and
Ed McMahon as announcer. In 1965, channel 10 introduced the "Big News" format from Los Angeles sister station KNXT (now
KCBS-TV). The station's news operation was the ratings leader in Philadelphia for most of the time from the late 1940s until the 1960s, when it was surpassed by KYW-TV's
Eyewitness News. The station then remained a strong second until the 1970s, when WPVI-TV's
Action News bumped channel 10 down to third place. WCAU struggled through the late 1970s while most of its CBS sister stations dominated the ratings, but has since recovered and has been a solid runner-up to longtime leader WPVI for over a quarter century. WCAU managed to pass WPVI in the 5 p.m. time slot for a time in the early 1980s with its original
Live at 5, anchored by Larry Kane and Deborah Knapp (now at
KENS in
San Antonio). In 2001, WCAU made national news when its 11 p.m. newscast (anchored by Larry Mendte and Renee Chenault-Fattah) knocked WPVI from the top spot in the local news ratings for the first time in decades. Since 2003, WCAU has had to fend off a spirited challenge from a resurgent KYW-TV for second place in the Philadelphia ratings; Channel 3's resurgence was fueled in part by luring Mendte away from channel 10. WCAU used music based on "Channel 2 News", written by
Dick Marx for
WBBM-TV in Chicago (the
de facto official music for CBS' O&O stations) and variations on it from 1982 until the 11 p.m. newscast on September 9, 1995, hours before the switch to NBC. When Facenda retired and
The Newsroom went on-air with Jack Jones and Mike Tuck, WCAU used theme music produced in Philadelphia by deLise & Miller. It used Marx's original 1975 version from 1982 to 1987, a synthesized version produced by a local composer during the 1987–88 season and the "Palmer News Package" composed by
Shelly Palmer from 1988 to 1995. KYW-TV has used variants on this theme in recent years. Shortly after CBS agreed to sell the station to NBC in the fall of 1994, WCAU began to slowly remove CBS references from the station's branding; in January 1995, the longtime moniker of
Channel 10 News was eliminated in favor of
NewsCenter 10, which coincided with the debut of a reconstructed newsroom facility. During this time, new cuts of the Palmer News Package were used alongside an aqua blue and purple graphical package, and a black-and-white logo with no references to any network affiliation. After the sale closed, NBC changed the name to
News 10, with anchors Ken Matz, Renee Chenault and reporter Siani Lee anchoring a special newscast the morning of September 10, 1995, explaining the station's new identity and the affiliation switch. The station's news operation was renamed again, this time to
NBC 10 News, beginning with the 11 p.m. newscast on September 11, 2000. On December 10, 2005, WCAU took over production of WPHL-TV (channel 17)'s nightly half-hour 10 p.m. newscast after that station shuttered its in-house news department and laid off its entire news and production staff; this new newscast was called
WB 17 News at 10, Powered by NBC 10. On July 25, 2006, the program was renamed
My PHL 17 News, Powered by NBC 10 to correspond with WPHL's then-pending switch to MyNetworkTV. This newscast competed with the 10 p.m. newscasts on WTXF (channel 29, which is produced in-house) and
WPSG (channel 57, which is produced by KYW-TV). On September 14, 2012, WCAU produced its final edition of WPHL's newscast. The next day WPVI officially took over production and rebranded the newscast as
Action News at 10 on PHL 17. From 2001 to 2005,
WPPX-TV rebroadcast some of WCAU's newscasts. On November 13, 2008,
Fox Television Stations and NBC Local Media entered into an agreement to test a system that would allow Fox-owned stations and NBC-owned stations to pool their news resources ranging from shared video to any aerial video from a helicopter. WCAU and Fox owned-and-operated station WTXF were the first stations to undertake the plan (known as a "
Local News Service" agreement) as an effective way to deal with the difficulties in costs in news operations. WCAU later announced in September 2012, that it would be leaving the Local News Service agreement with WTXF and KYW-TV (which entered the agreement by 2010) and use its own helicopter. The new helicopter, dubbed "SkyForce 10", debuted on February 25, 2013. WCAU became the fourth and last English-language television station in the Philadelphia
market to begin broadcasting its local news programming in
high-definition on December 10, 2008, starting with its 4 p.m. newscast. On September 12, 2011, WCAU expanded its weekday morning newscast to 4:30 am, along with the launch of a new midday newscast at 11 am, and the reduction of
The 10! Show to a half-hour program. On December 6, 2011, the station announced a partnership with
public broadcasting stations
WHYY-FM-
TV as part of a larger effort by
NBCUniversal to partner with nonprofit news organizations following its acquisition by Comcast. On September 15, 2012,
The 10! Show ended its run after ten years. On September 17, 2012, WCAU's midday newscast expanded to one hour. Their morning newscast starts at 4 a.m. Former morning anchor
Vai Sikahema may be the station's most recognizable current personality. A former Philadelphia Eagle, Sikahema is one of several former NFL stars who have gone on to become sports news anchors (other notable examples include
Jim Hill of KCBS-TV in Los Angeles and
Len Dawson of
KMBC-TV in
Kansas City). While Sikahema anchored the sportscasts on WCAU-TV weeknights, on-air personalities from NBC Sports Philadelphia have anchored sports on weekends in recent years, owing to Comcast owning NBC through NBCUniversal since the start of the 2010s. In February 2014, WCAU became the second television station in Philadelphia (behind Fox O&O WTXF-TV) to expand its weekday morning newscast to three hours, with addition of a half-hour at 4 a.m.; this newscast was canceled in 2016 but revived on July 31, 2017. In conjunction with this, they switched its music to the "L.A. Groove" theme that has been in use by sister stations KNBC in Los Angeles,
KNSD in
San Diego, KNTV in San Francisco and WNBC in New York City (in the case of WNBC, it no longer uses "L.A. Groove" as its news theme as of 2016). On July 11, 2016, beginning with the 4 p.m. newscast, WCAU became the seventh NBC-owned station to begin using ArtWorks' "Look N" graphics package following WNBC, WTVJ, WVIT, KXAS-TV, WMAQ-TV and WRC-TV. On October 21, 2018, WCAU moved to their new studios within the Comcast Technology Center, beginning with the 6 p.m. newscast. The logo was also simplified to remove the redundant "NBC" text and streamline the
NBC Peacock and the "10" numeral together more closely, as had been done with sister station
WBTS-LD's new "10" logo upon their numerical rebranding to "NBC 10 Boston" at the start of 2018. In August 2019, WCAU announced that the last 15 minutes of its 11 a.m. newscast would be cut in favor of their lifestyle show
Philly Live beginning September 9. In February 2020, WCAU announced a content partnership with Philadelphia-based company Entercom Communications (which in 2021 officially became known as
Audacy) and its AM radio station
KYW-AM along with its sister stations
WIP-FM,
WTDY-FM,
WOGL-FM,
WPHT-AM and
WBEB-FM for use of WCAU's on-air talent on the radio stations; it is the second station partnership between Entercom/Audacy and NBC (following KXAS-TV and
KRLD in Dallas beginning in 2018). Fellow NBC O&O stations had already partnered with radio stations in markets including Washington, D.C. (WRC-TV and
WTOP-FM), New York City (WNBC and
WOR), Los Angeles (KNBC and
KABC-AM), Hartford (WVIT and
WILI), and Miami (WTVJ and
WIOD). On February 17, 2020, WCAU added a half-hour 7 p.m. newscast on weekdays. It was announced in July 2020 that Sikahema would be retiring from NBC10 in November of that year after a 26-year run at the station, stepping away from the anchor position but still being active around the station until fully retiring. Additionally, co-anchor Tracy Davidson would be shifting away from the morning editions to anchor the 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. newscasts alongside Jacqueline London and Jim Rosenfield respectively. It was also revealed that previous 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. anchor team Keith Jones and Erin Coleman would take over the anchoring duties for the morning show. Sikahema and Davidson's last day anchoring the broadcast was on September 17, 2020, with Jones and Coleman taking over the next day. On December 23, 2022, Jim Rosenfield left NBC10 after nine years at the station to head home to New York and pursue other opportunities. In July 2021, WCAU testing its "Look S" graphics package in their sponsor plugs; but the new graphics package officially premiered on July 19 of the same year, beginning with the 11 a.m. newscast (sister Telemundo station WWSI also debuted the same package on that date). On January 22, 2022, WCAU launched a new 24-hour streaming channel made exclusively for NBCUniversal's streaming service
Peacock, dubbed as "NBC Philadelphia News" featuring the simulcasts and encores of the station's newscasts as well as the station's original content made for the channel. The new streaming channel comes following the announcement they would have a simultaneous rollout of streaming news channels with its sister stations in Chicago, Miami and Boston beginning on that date, with channels in New York and Los Angeles followed suit on March 17. Prior to the launch of the streaming channel, the station had a curated playlist made available on the streaming service since its April 2020 launch. In March 2023, the station officially announced that Fred Shropshire, an anchor with
WCNC-TV in
Charlotte, had been hired to take over the 6, 7 and 11 p.m. anchor spots left open due to Rosenfeld's departure. However, he would not begin at the station until July 4 co-hosting the station's coverage of the Wawa Welcome America events alongside Jacqueline London and then would officially debut as London's co-anchor on July 10, a few days after his original announced debut date of June 26. In the interim period between Rosenfeld's departure and Shropshire's arrival, morning anchor Keith Jones shifted down to weeknights to co-anchor with London at 6 and 11 p.m. while either he or London would anchor the 7 p.m. edition solo. On December 19, 2025, the host of
Philly Live, Aunyea Lachelle, announced that she would be leaving the station after nearly seven years to pursue other interests; the show aired its final regular episode that day, as the 11 a.m. newscast returned to a full hour-long edition the following Monday.
Philly Live continues to air as a part of the 11 a.m. newscast with morning traffic reporter Sheila Watko as its new host; however, it has been slimmed down to a short segment that airs at the end of the newscast. On January 26, 2026, former
WRAL-TV anchor and reporter Lena Tillett officially joined the station as a reporter and co-anchor of the 5 p.m. newscast with Jacqueline London and the 7 p.m. edition with Fred Shropshire. Tillett replaced Tracy Davidson on the 5 p.m. edition as Davidson had retired in November 2025 from the station after 30 years to pursue a career in public speaking.
Notable current on-air staff •
Keith Jones – anchor
Notable former on-air staff On June 26, 1972, three news correspondents were killed in a helicopter crash in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where they had been covering the
flooding stemming from
Hurricane Agnes. The victims were Del Vaughn of
CBS News and Sid Brenner and Lew Clark of WCAU, and the pilot, Mike Sedio. •
Diane Allen •
Donald Barnhouse •
Ron Burke •
Vince DeMentri •
Herb Denenberg •
Jack Jones •
Siani Lee •
Gene London – children's entertainer •
J. J. Maura •
Jade McCarthy •
Ed McMahon •
Al Meltzer – sports anchor (1978–1998) •
Larry Mendte – anchor (1996–2003) •
Vai Sikahema – former sports anchor and morning anchor •
Tammie Souza •
Stephanie Stahl •
Michael Tuck – news anchor (1974–1978) •
Bill Vargus •
Jane Velez-Mitchell •
Lou Wagner •
Kristen Welker – reporter and weekend anchor (2005–2010) •
Jack Whitaker •
Brian Williams – New Jersey correspondent (1985–1987) ==Technical information and subchannels==