WJLA 24/7 News is an American regional cable news television channel in

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, operated by

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-affiliated station

WJLA-TV WJLA-TV (channel 7) is a television station in Washington, D.C., affiliated with ABC. It is one of two flagship stations of Sinclair Broadcast Group (alongside dual Fox/MyNetworkTV affiliate WBFF hannel 45in Baltimore), and is also sister ...

(channel 7) owned by the

Sinclair Broadcast Group Sinclair, Inc., doing business as Sinclair Broadcast Group, is a publicly traded American telecommunications conglomerate that is controlled by the descendants of company founder Julian Sinclair Smith. Headquartered in the Baltimore suburb o ...

. The channel provides 24-hour news coverage primarily focused on Washington, northern

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, and suburban areas of

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within the

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. The channel shares studio facilities and offices with WJLA-TV and the Rosslyn-based ''

Circa News ''Circa News'', also known as ''Circa'', was an American online newspaper and entertainment service. The site was founded in 2012 by Matt Galligan, Ben Huh and Arsenio Santos. The service had news stories and features consisting of individual bit ...

'' in

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. WJLA 24/7 News reaches more than 1.2 million cable television households within the D.C metropolitan area.

History

The channel was launched on October 7, 1991, as NewsChannel 8. The "8" branding was selected as a part of the name to attempt to get Washington-area cable providers to place the channel between its parent ABC-affiliated station, WJLA-TV (at channel 7), and local

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS (an abbreviation of its original name, Columbia Broadcasting System), is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...

affiliate WUSA-TV on channel 9. Allbritton also bundled the channel along with WJLA in carriage contracts. In 1995, the channel began airing timeshifted

ABC News ABC News most commonly refers to: * ABC News (Australia), a national news service of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation * ABC News (United States), a news-gathering and broadcasting division of the American Broadcasting Company ABC News may a ...

programs hours or days after their original broadcast. NewsChannel 8 initially only had ad revenue stream until federal regulations required cable operators to pay for its carriage. In 1997, the channel was reported as profitable and started a streak of profitability by Allbritton. As NewsChannel 8's carriage expanded to those areas, coverage was expanded to include

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and Prince William County governmental meetings by the end of the 1990s. In July 2001, NewsChannel 8 beat

CNN Cable News Network (CNN) is a multinational news organization operating, most notably, a website and a TV channel headquartered in Atlanta. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable ne ...

Headline News HLN is an American basic cable network. Owned by CNN Worldwide, the network primarily carries true-crime programming, recently drifting away from limited live news programming. The channel was originally launched on January 1, 1982, by Tur ...

MSNBC MSNBC is an American cable news channel owned by the NBCUniversal News Group division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. Launched on July 15, 1996, and headquartered at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan, the channel primarily broadcasts r ...

and

CNBC CNBC is an American List of business news channels, business news channel owned by the NBCUniversal News Group, a unit of Comcast's NBCUniversal. The network broadcasts live business news and analysis programming during the morning, Day ...

in the ratings, the highest viewership that the channel had ever accrued in its first 10 years. In August 2001,

Comcast Comcast Corporation, formerly known as Comcast Holdings,Before the AT&T Broadband, AT&T merger in 2001, the parent company was Comcast Holdings Corporation. Comcast Holdings Corporation now refers to a subsidiary of Comcast Corporation, not th ...

agreed to carry the channel for another 10 years. In August 2002, Allbritton Communications merged NewsChannel 8 and

with NewsChannel 8 laying off 30 of its 125 staff. The channel in Springfield and station in Northwest Washington moved to a Rosslyn section twin towers office complex in Arlington, Gannett Co. and

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's former home. Logo of NewsChannel 8

On September 5, 2006, Comcast moved NewsChannel 8, at the channel's request, to channel 28 on the analog tiers of some of its systems, placing it next to sister station WJLA-TV on channel 27 (Comcast's systems in the immediate Washington, D.C., area slot the market's broadcast stations in the 20-29 channel range; this is an artifact from when television stations broadcast in

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prior to the 2009

digital television transition The digital television transition, also called the digital switchover (DSO), the analogue switch/sign-off (ASO), the digital migration, or the analogue shutdown, is the process in which older analogue television broadcasting technology is con ...

in order to avert

co-channel interference Co-channel interference or CCI is crosstalk from two different radio transmitters using the same channel. Co-channel interference can be caused by many factors from weather conditions to administrative and design issues. Co-channel interferen ...

with the broadcast signals). Systems outside of Washington proper carry it on channel 8, next to WJLA on channel 7. In all cases, however, the channel's high definition feed is carried on

digital Digital usually refers to something using discrete digits, often binary digits. Businesses *Digital bank, a form of financial institution *Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) or Digital, a computer company *Digital Research (DR or DRI), a software ...

channel 808. On July 17, 2013, satellite provider

DirecTV DirecTV, LLC is an American Multichannel television in the United States, multichannel video programming distributor based in El Segundo, California. Originally launched on June 17, 1994, its primary service is a digital Satellite television, s ...

began carrying NewsChannel 8 on channel 8 within the Washington market. On December 21, 2015, the channel was added to satellite provider

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's D.C.-area broadcast lineup, also on channel 8. On August 9, 2010, the channel was rebranded as TBD TV, in order to associate it with the recently established news website TBD.com, which provided news content for both the channel and WJLA. Allbritton subsequently reverted its news channel's branding to the original NewsChannel 8 name in February 2011. On July 29, 2013, Allbritton Communications announced that it would sell its entire television group, including NewsChannel 8 and WJLA-TV, to Hunt Valley-based

(owners of

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station

WBFF WBFF (channel 45) is a television station in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, affiliated with Fox and MyNetworkTV. It is one of two flagship stations of Sinclair Broadcast Group (based in nearby Hunt Valley), alongside ABC affiliate WJLA- ...

, as well as operators of two other

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in the adjacent

Baltimore Baltimore is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland. With a population of 585,708 at the 2020 census and estimated at 568,271 in 2024, it is the 30th-most populous U.S. city. The Baltimore metropolitan area is the 20th-large ...

market). Sinclair had indicated that it may use NewsChannel 8 as a base to launch a national cable news channel. On July 23, 2018, WJLA announced that NewsChannel 8 will be rebranded as WJLA 24/7 News on Tuesday July 24, aligning it further with the call letters of its broadcast station, WJLA-TV. On March 25, 2021, Sinclair launched ATSC 3.0 operations on WIAV-CD and for the first time, made the channel available over the air via the station.

Programming

Despite having "24/7" on the channel's name, WJLA 24/7 News actually provides local and national news programming on weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 1:00 a.m., Saturdays from 6:30 a.m. to 2:00 a.m. and Sundays from 7:00 a.m. to 1:30 a.m. The remaining vacated hours are occupied by infomercials. Through a fiber optic delivery system, WJLA 24/7 News (as NewsChannel 8) provided programming and advertising targeted at three separate geographical regions of the Washington metropolitan area and was once known for airing specific "Zone Reports" on weeknights to these regions, including "The Washington Report" (featuring news stories affecting the District of Columbia), "The Virginia Report" (featuring news stories from northern Virginia) and "The Maryland Report" (featuring news from communities in adjacent suburban areas of Maryland). The appropriate edition was fed to each of the cable systems in the region. The newscasts were all the same, except for the second segment (aired between the first and second commercial breaks), which was specifically tailored to each "zone." The channel ended this practice in 2009. WJLA 24/7 News employs its own anchors and certain meteorologists while sharing reporting and weather staffers with WJLA-TV. The two news operations share the same on-air news staffers for the weekend evening newscasts aired respectively by the cable channel and television station. The channel (along with its sister broadcast station) operates a bureau in Washington, D.C. When it is not airing newscasts, WJLA 24/7 News airs encore presentations of

programs as well as various local programs, including ''Government Matters'' (a news show geared towards federal government employees and contractors and the "business of government"), and ''SportsTalk'' (a sports discussion program). Previous talk shows included ''Moms Talk'' (a Monday morning advice show hosted by two housewives), the Wednesday movie review ''Entertainment Forecast'' show, ''NewsTalk'' (a live hour-long daily call-in show featuring prominent newsmakers), ''Capital Insider'' (a political discussion program), ''Goss' Garage'' (a Saturday morning automotive program), ''The Arch Campbell Show'' (an entertainment news program) and ''Capital Golf Weekly'' (a program featuring golf instruction and feature reports on the sport). In 2015, D.C. United of

Major League Soccer Major League Soccer (MLS) is a professional Association football, soccer league in North America and the highest level of the United States soccer league system. It comprises 30 teams, with 27 in the United States and 3 in Canada, and is sanc ...

reached a new multi-year deal with Sinclair Broadcast Group to broadcast all 26 of the team's regional matches on then NewsChannel 8 and WJLA, succeeding

CSN Mid-Atlantic Monumental Sports Network, formerly NBC Sports Washington, is an American regional sports network owned by Ted Leonsis through Monumental Sports & Entertainment. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the channel broadcasts regional coverage of sports ...

Notable on-air staff

Notable former on-air staff

* Lisa Fletcher – anchor/reporter (was at

Al Jazeera America Al Jazeera America was an American pay television news channel owned by the Al Jazeera Media Network. The channel was launched on August 20, 2013, to compete with CNN, HLN, MSNBC, Fox News, and in certain markets RT America. It was Al Jazee ...

, host of The Stream until the network's closure on April 12, 2016; returned to WJLA/NewsChannel 8 later that same year) * Morris Jones – anchor/reporter (left network in May 2016) *

Britt McHenry Brittany May "Britt" McHenry (born May 28, 1986) is a television personality. She is the host of a show on WTTG Fox 5 in Washington, D.C. McHenry was formerly an ESPN correspondent and a commentator on Fox Nation. Personal McHenry, the daugh ...

– sports anchor/reporter (was at

ESPN ESPN (an initialism of their original name, which was the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by the Walt Disney Company (80% and operational control) and Hearst Commu ...

until April 26, 2017) * Joe Witte – meteorologist (now a researcher at the

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)

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:WJLA 24/7 News Television stations in Washington, D.C. 24-hour television news channels in the United States Sinclair Broadcast Group Television channels and stations established in 1991 1991 establishments in Washington, D.C.