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WCCO-TV (channel 4), branded CBS Minnesota, is a television station licensed to Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, serving the Twin Cities area. It is owned and operated by the CBS television network through its CBS News and Stations division, and maintains studios on South 11th Street along Nicollet Mall in downtown Minneapolis; its transmitter is located at the Telefarm complex in Shoreview, Minnesota.
WCCO-TV's programming is also seen on full-power satellite station KCCW-TV (channel 12) in Walker (with transmitter near Hackensack). Nielsen Media Research treats WCCO-TV and KCCW-TV as one station in local ratings books, using the identifier name WCCO+. From 1987 until 2017, WCCO-TV operated a second satellite, KCCO-TV (virtual and VHF digital channel 7) in Alexandria (with transmitter near Westport).
WCCO is one of three owned-and-operated network affiliates in the Twin Cities market, the others being Fox O&O KMSP-TV (channel 9) and MyNetworkTV O&O WFTC (channel 9.2).
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.
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.
The station began telecasting color television programs in 1955. 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 part of Bally Sports, becoming Fox Sports North. It 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 retain 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.
Since 2023, WCCO has aired select Minnesota Golden Gophers football games as a part of a new deal between CBS and the Big Ten Conference.
WCCO began broadcasting local newscasts in high-definition on May 28, 2009, becoming the third major network station in the Twin Cities (behind KARE and KMSP) to do so.
WCCO-TV launched a streaming news service, CBSN Minnesota (now CBS News Minnesota) on December 12, 2019, as part of a rollout of similar services (each a localized version of the national CBSN service across the CBS-owned stations).
On September 5, 2022, WCCO premiered an hour-long 4 pm newscast called The 4.
As part of the SAFER Act, WCCO-TV kept its analog signal on the air until July 12 to inform viewers of the digital television transition through a loop of public service announcements from the National Association of Broadcasters.
It formerly operated a second satellite station:
Both of these stations were founded by the Central Minnesota Television Company and maintained primary affiliations with NBC and secondary affiliations with ABC from their respective sign-ons until the summer of 1982, when both stations switched to CBS. "WATR-TV decides to go it alone." Broadcasting, February 22, 1982, pg. 72. KCMT had originally broadcast from a studio in Alexandria, with KNMT operating as a satellite station of KCMT. Central Minnesota Television sold both stations to Midwest Radio and Television in 1987, at which point they adopted their present call letters and became semi-satellites of WCCO-TV.Washington, D.C. Federal Communications Commission. FCC Record, Vol. 02, No. 22, pp. 6730-6732, Oct 23 – November 6, 1987. UNT Digital Library. FCC 87-331 Vol. 22. Retrieved June 28, 2012.
Until 2002, the two stations simulcast WCCO-TV's programming for most of the day, except for separate commercials and inserts placed into channel 4's newscasts. However, in 2002, WCCO-TV ended KCCO/KCCW's local operations and shut down the Alexandria studio, converting the two stations into full-time satellites. Since then, channel 4 has identified as "Minneapolis–St. Paul/Alexandria/Walker", with virtually no on-air evidence that KCCO and KCCW were separate stations.
CBS sold KCCO's spectrum in the FCC's spectrum incentive auction, but was expected to engage in a channel-sharing agreement.Washington, D.C.: Federal Communications Commission. FCC Record, Vol. 32, No. 4, pp. 2822, April 13, 2017. DA 17-314. Retrieved September 30, 2017. In a request for a waiver of requirements that KCCO broadcast public service announcements related to the shutdown (as the station no longer had the capability to originate separate programming, such announcements would also need to air on WCCO-TV and KCCW-TV despite not being relevant outside of KCCO's viewing area; CBS inserted a crawl at the KCCO transmitter for broadcast every fifteen minutes), CBS disclosed that KCCO would shut down December 30, 2017. WCCO-TV remains available on cable and satellite providers in the Alexandria area; Selective TV, Inc., a local translator collective, announced on December 22, 2017, that it had struck a deal to add WCCO to its lineup.
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