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{{Infobox broadcast}} may refer to:

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WCIU-TV is an independent television station, based in Chicago, Illinois. It operates on UHF channel 26 and is Chicago's oldest UHF station, signing on the air in 1964.

WCIU spent much of its history carrying multi-ethnic entertainment, and once carried the Telemundo and Univision networks before those networks bought other competing UHF stations. Channel 26 was the original birthplace of the ground-breaking African-American music program Soul Train, hosted by its creator (and then-WCIU station employee) Don Cornelius. The show later moved into national syndication and to Los Angeles by the late 1970s. The show is currently seen on WGN-TV, and has been part of the station's Saturday daytime lineup for over two decades. Currently, WCIU is the home of the long-running locally produced show Svengoolie.

From the late 1960's to 1985 WCIU ran religious shows in the early morning. From about 8 AM to about 4 or 5 PM they ran Business News they locally produced. After 5 PM Weekdays they ran Spanish Entertainment from The Spanish International Network (Now Univision). On weekends they ran a blend of religious shows, ethnic brokered shows, and Spanish programming. Beginning in the Summer of 1985 SIN (now Univision) moved to Channel 44. They pick up Net Span which would become Telemundo shortly after. By the late 1980's Univision returned to WCIU.

In 1994 WGBO 66's owners would be sold to Paramount Stations Group. WGBO would be excluded and would sell to Univision at the end of 1994. Univision would now move to Channel 66. In 1995, WCIU began to broadcast general entertainment programming, taking most of the leftover programming from 66 WGBO. Initially they ran business news until 5 PM and entertainment after that and on weekends. They then added a 7-9 AM weekday kids block by March of 1995. In the Fall of 1995 they added an afternoon kids block from Kids WB which WGN opted not to run. Also the business news was pulled back to 9 AM-Noon weekdays and a couple years later it would move to their low power station on Channel 23.

The syndicated shows initially consisted of classic sitcoms from the 60's and 70's as well as old movies. Eventually more recent sitcoms would be added as well as more first run syndicated fare such as talk shows, court shows, and reality shows.

WCIU also carries selected telecasts of the Chicago Cubs, White Sox, and Bulls produced by WGN-TV.

The station is owned by Weigel Broadcasting, a locally-based broadcaster that also owns stations in Milwaukee (CBS affilliate WDJT and two low power stations, independent station WMLW and Telemundo affilliate WYTU) and South Bend, Indiana (two low power stations, ABC affilliate WBND and WB affilliate WMWB). Weigel also owns WWME (channel 23), a low powered station.

By 2001 WCIU would drop the afternoon kids block keeping WB Kids in the morning. In 2003 WCIU dropped Kids WB and that would move to WGN TV at the time. Today WCIU focuses on more recent sitcoms, talk shows, court shows, newsmagazine shows. WCIU has been known as U 26.

Early this year the business news format on Channel 23 was moved to one of the digital channels on WCIU DT 27 (their digital channel). Channel 23 became WWME. That station now carries classic sitcoms that WCIU owned all along but no longer has room for on their schedule. But also WWME 23-CA known as ME TV runs mostly classic sitcoms that they recenmtly acquired. Their schedule resembles TV Land. In fact they run more classic sitcoms than any station on the air currently with shows that have not aired in many places for years.

The Digital channel WCIU DT 27 airs multicasting of 3 standard definition digital channels. One airs WCUI U 26. The second airs ME TV from channel 23 WWME-CA which has a TV Land type Classic TV format. the third contains their business news channel.

External links

• Official Site
• Template:TVQ