Tegna’s WUSA marking 75 years

Tegna’s CBS affiliate in Washington, D.C., is marking its 75th anniversary in 2024 with a special logo and series of retrospectives.

WUSA actually turned 75 Jan. 16, 2024, having signed on Jan. 16, 1949, but began prominently recognizing the milestone on air in early February 2024, perhaps in a move to align the celebrating with the February ratings period.

WUSA signed on as WOIC before becoming WTOP in 1950, WDVM in 1978 and, finally, WUSA in 1986.

In 1986, then owner-Gannett, which had acquired WDVM the year before, already controlled the WUSA call signs in Minneapolis and arranged for the transfer to the D.C. market, simultaneously switching the old WUSA to KARE.

This move aligned the “USA” (as in “United States of America”) to the nation’s capital. It also put the WUSA name nearby Gannett’s USA Today newspaper’s newsroom in Virginia. 

Gannett’s TV group is now known as Tegna and also owns KUSA in Denver.

For WUSA’s 75th celebrations, the station created a standalone circular icon, rather than try to blend the numbers “75” into the its “9” logo.

There’s still a visual tie-in to the main logo; its overall circular shape mirrors the CBS eye and the strong angle of the “7” matches that of the diagonal in the “9.” The “7” also cuts off part of the “5,” similar to how the “W” covers part of the “U” in the call letters in the bottom of the main lockup.

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The larger scale of the “7” with slightly smaller “5” could also be seen as a nod to how the CBS logo is incorporated next to the “9.”

WUSA is running the logo with a gold background, despite 50th anniversaries traditionally being considered “golden” and 75th celebrations marked with diamonds. 

Correction: An earlier version of this article spelled the company name Tegna incorrectly. It has been corrected.