WMAR first began broadcasting on October 27, 1947. It was the first television station in Maryland, and was the fourteenth commercial television station to sign on in the United States (another two stations were experimental). WMAR was founded by the A. S. Abell Company, publisher of the "Sunpapers" ("The Baltimore Sun" and its evening counterpart, "The Evening Sun") and was the first completed phase of the "Sunpapers" expansion into broadcasting; the newspapers also held construction permits for WMAR-FM, which signed-on at 97.9 MHz (frequency now occupied by WIYY) in January 1948 and a proposed WMAR (AM), which never made it to air. Channel 2's first broadcast was a pair of horse races emanating from Pimlico Race Course.