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Outlet profile

CBS Minnesota

U.S. center / mainstream local news (corporate network-owned)

Owned byOwned and operated by CBS Entertainment Group, a unit of Paramount Skydance Corporation. The Ellison family-backed Skydance Media took control of Paramount in the 2025 merger. WCCO-TV (channel 4) and sister station KCCW-TV (channel 12) serve the Minneapolis–St. Paul market.
FundingMainly local and national advertising. It also earns retransmission-consent fees paid by cable and satellite distributors, and it gets network programming and resources from CBS. It has no paywall, and its website is part of the CBS News network of local sites.
On the administrationmostly neutral

Background

WCCO-TV launched on July 1, 1949, as WTCN-TV on channel 4, the second TV station in Minnesota. It took the WCCO call letters on August 17, 1952, after the Murphy and McNally families gained control of WCCO radio and formed a holding company, Midwest Radio and Television. CBS had owned the radio station earlier and bought the WCCO stations back outright in 1992 when Midwest Communications merged with the network. The station has been a CBS owned-and-operated station since then, and it has long been a leading news brand in the Twin Cities. It celebrated 70 years on the air in 2019. Corporate ownership has shifted around it: CBS merged with Viacom in 2019 to form ViacomCBS, then Paramount Global, and in 2025 Skydance Media took control of the company. Since then, national CBS News has drawn criticism and debate over editorial independence. Examples include Paramount's 2025 settlement of a lawsuit by President Trump over a '60 Minutes' interview, which critics saw as linked to the merger's regulatory approval, and the later appointment of Bari Weiss to lead CBS News. WCCO itself has mostly stayed focused on local reporting, such as weather, crime, politics and Minnesota issues, and has not been known for a strong partisan slant. Media-rating sites generally class its news as centrist to slightly left-of-center in story selection, with high factual reporting.

Sources

  1. WCCO-TV – Wikipedia
  2. WCCO – Media Bias/Fact Check
  3. WCCO-TV Celebrates 70 Years On The Airwaves – CBS Minnesota
  4. Paramount Global, owner of CBS News, to merge with Skydance Media – CBS Minnesota
  5. Midwest Communications (1952–1992) – Wikipedia

Profile compiled 2026-10-15; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.

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