Outlet profile

WUSA9

U.S. center

Owned byTegna Inc. (a subsidiary of Nexstar Media Group, which completed a $6.2 billion acquisition of Tegna in March 2026; a federal court injunction issued April 2026 requires Tegna to remain a separately managed business unit pending antitrust litigation)

FundingCommercial broadcast advertising revenue

On the administrationmostly neutral

Background

WUSA9 (channel 9) traces its origins to January 16, 1949, when it began broadcasting in Washington, D.C. as WOIC, owned by the Bamberger Broadcasting Service, a subsidiary of R.H. Macy and Company. Nine days after its launch, the station broadcast the first televised U.S. presidential inaugural address, delivered by Harry S. Truman. In June 1950, a joint venture of CBS and The Washington Post purchased the station and renamed it WTOP-TV; CBS sold its stake back to the Post in 1954 to comply with new FCC multi-station ownership limits. The station passed through several call signs — WTOP-TV, then WDVM-TV — before Gannett Company acquired it in 1986 and rebranded it WUSA, with the on-air identity WUSA9 becoming its common name. Gannett spun off its broadcast properties as Tegna Inc. in 2015. Nexstar Media Group announced a $6.2 billion deal to buy Tegna in August 2025; the deal cleared DOJ and FCC review and closed in March 2026, but a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction in April 2026 ordering the two companies to keep Tegna operating independently while antitrust claims brought by DirecTV and eight state attorneys general proceed. WUSA9 is CBS's longest-tenured affiliate and has no notable record of significant editorial controversies or documented partisan slant.

Sources

Profile compiled 2026-06-26; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.

← Back to track record