The station first signed on the air on December 18, 1948 as WDSU-TV, a primary NBC affiliate on VHF channel 6. It was the first television station to sign on in the state of Louisiana, the first in the city of New Orleans, the first on the Gulf Coast, the first in the Deep South, and the 49th in the nation. It was founded by New Orleans businessman Edgar B. Stern, Jr., owner of WDSU radio (1280 AM, now WODT; and 93.3 FM, now WQUE-FM). The station has been a primary NBC affiliate since it signed on, owing to WDSU radio's longtime affiliation with the NBC Red Network; however, it initially also carried programming from the three other major broadcast networks at the time: CBS, ABC, and the DuMont Television Network.
1955–1959
BETTER LOGO NEEDED
1960–1963
1963–1975
In January 1972, Royal Street merged with Columbia, South Carolina-based Cosmos Broadcasting in a $17 million deal. Cosmos decided to sell off the radio stations because the ownership of the three station properties combined would exceed ownership limits of the time set by the FCC.
1975–1988
1975–1977
1977–1988
A somewhat similar design to the previous 1975 logo, but with the '6' being bolder and TV replacing the callsign. The typeface is Avant Garde ITC.
1988–1994
Cosmos sold WDSU to Pulitzer, Inc. for $47 million in 1989. Under Pulitzer, channel 6 finally dropped the "-TV" suffix from its calls in 1993, more than 20 years after it and its former radio sisters had gone their separate ways.
1994–2000
Hearst-Argyle Television acquired Pulitzer's entire broadcasting division for $1.8 billion in 1998, the sale was finalized on March 18 of the following year (1999).
2000–present
2000–2010
2010–present
This is the same logo as 2000, but enhanced. In 2015, the NBC peacock logo was added to the "channel 6" red dot logo, due to the network's requirement that the NBC logo be included with any affiliates' logo. It was enlargened in on-screen bugs and newscasts.
