KDKA-TV
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| KDKA-TV | |
|---|---|
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| Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania | |
| Branding | KDKA-TV |
| Slogan | Your Home (general) Local News First (news) |
| Channels | Analog: 2 (VHF) |
| Affiliations | CBS |
| Owner | CBS Corporation (CBS Broadcasting, Inc.) |
| First air date | January 11, 1949 |
| Call letters’ meaning | taken from sister radio station KDKA |
| Sister station(s) | WPCW |
| Former callsigns | WDTV (1949-1955) |
| Former channel number(s) | 3 (1949-1952) |
| Former affiliations | Primary: DuMont (1949-1955) Secondary: CBS (1949-1955) NBC (1949-1957) ABC (1949-1958) |
| Transmitter Power | 100 kW (analog) 1000 kW (digital) |
| Height | 295 m (analog) 311 m (digital) |
| Facility ID | 25454 |
| Transmitter Coordinates | |
| Website | www.kdka.com |
KDKA-TV is the CBS owned and operated (O&O) television station in Pittsburgh. Its studios are located at One Gateway Center in Downtown Pittsburgh. It broadcasts its analog signal on VHF channel 2, and its digital signal on UHF channel 25 from its transmitter in Pittsburgh. Along with sister station KYW-TV, it is one of two K call signed television stations in Pennsylvania.
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[edit] History
[edit] As WDTV
The station went on the air on January 11, 1949, as WDTV (W DuMont TeleVision), owned and operated by the DuMont Television Network. It became the first "networked" station briging the gap between the mid-west area stations that showed many shows hosted in Chicago and the east coast stations that had much of its programming from New York. It also boasted being the first full time television station, in March 1952 it was the very first to have a 24/7 program schedule [1]. It originally broadcast on channel 3, moving to channel 2 in 1952 to alleviate interference with WNBK in Cleveland (now WKYC-TV), which for several years was a sister station to KDKA-TV. It was one of the last stations to be granted a construction permit before the Federal Communications Commission imposed what turned out to be a four-year freeze on new licenses.
At the time, Pittsburgh was the sixth-largest market in the country (behind New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Washington). However, WDTV's only competition came from UHF stations, as well as grade B signals from stations in Johnstown, Altoona, Wheeling and Youngstown. Despite its large market size, no other commercial VHF stations signed on in Pittsburgh until 1957 (the only other VHF station in town was educational WQED-TV). This was because the major cities in the Upper Ohio Valley are so close together that they must share the VHF band. After the FCC lifted the license freeze in 1952, it refused to grant any new commercial VHF construction permits to Pittsburgh in order to give the smaller cities in the area a chance to get on the air. At the time, UHF stations were unviewable without a very expensive converter. Even with a converter, the picture quality was marginal at best. UHF stations in the area faced an additional problem because Pittsburgh is located in a somewhat rugged dissected plateau, and UHF stations usually do not get good reception in rugged terrain.
As a result, WDTV had a de facto monopoly on Pittsburgh television. Like its sister stations, WABD in New York (now WNYW) and WTTG in Washington, it was far stronger than the network as a whole. Owning the only viewable station in such a large market gave DuMont considerable leverage in getting its programs cleared in large markets where it didn't have an affiliate. As CBS, NBC and ABC had secondary affiliations with WDTV, this was a strong incentive to stations in large markets to clear DuMont's programs or risk losing valuable advertising in the sixth-largest market. WDTV aired all DuMont network shows live and cherry-picked the best shows from the other networks, airing them on kinescope on an every-other-week basis.
WDTV's sign-on was also significant because it was now possible to feed live programs from the East to the Midwest and vice versa. In fact, its second broadcast was the activation of the coaxial cable linking the two regions. It would be another two years before the West Coast received live programming, but this was the beginning of the modern era of network television.
[edit] As KDKA-TV
By 1954, DuMont was in serious financial trouble. Paramount Pictures, which owned a stake in DuMont, vetoed a merger with ABC who had merged with United Paramount Theaters, Paramount's former theater division, a year before. Since the FCC had ruled that Paramount controlled DuMont and there were still lingering questions about whether UPT had actually broken off from DuMont, Paramount didn't want to risk the FCC's wrath.
Desperate for cash, DuMont was forced to sell WDTV to Westinghouse Electric Corporation for $9.75 million in late 1954. While the sale gave DuMont a short-term cash infusion, it eliminated DuMont's leverage in getting clearances in other major markets. Within two years, the DuMont network was no more.
Westinghouse had wanted to sign on a television sister station to KDKA radio --the world's oldest radio station--for some time, but when it became obvious the FCC wouldn't grant any VHF construction permits in the near future, it opted to approach DuMont.
After the sale closed in 1955, Westinghouse changed WDTV's calls to KDKA-TV, sistering it to Westinghouse's pioneering radio station KDKA (AM) (and later to FM 92.9, now WLTJ). As such, it became one of the few stations east of the Mississippi with a "K" call sign. KDKA-TV became a primary CBS affiliate, retaining secondary affiliations with NBC until 1957 (when WIIC-TV, now WPXI, signed on) and ABC until 1958 (when WTAE-TV signed on). It became the flagship station of Westinghouse's broadcasting arm, Group W. (The WDTV calls now reside on a CBS affiliate in Weston, West Virginia, which is unrelated to the current KDKA-TV.)
As a CBS affiliate, KDKA-TV dominated the ratings. It was not uncommon for newscasts anchored by Bill Burns to draw a 50 percent share of audience (or higher). It is still the market leader today, though WTAE and WPXI have closed the gap in recent years.
The station was known from the 1960s through the 1990s to pre-empt CBS programs that received low ratings, usually replaced by locally produced shows, high-rated syndicated programming, and Pittsburgh Pirates baseball games. Group W's other stations were known for pre-empting network programming in a similar manner. However, CBS didn't mind, given KDKA's near-absolute dominance of the market.
For example, channel 2 pre-empted or delayed As The World Turns for a large portion of its still-continuing run, most notably in the 1960s (for movies and The Mike Douglas Show), The Marie Torre Show during the early 1970s, and from 1978 to 1990, where the 2 to 3 P.M. hour usually reserved for the national CBS feed of ATWT was replaced by the popular talk program Pittsburgh 2Day (Originally titled Pittsburgh Today because it started at 1 PM and it was a 90-minute show). On November 22, 1963, as CBS broke into ATWT to report shots fired at President John F. Kennedy's motorcade, KDKA was airing The Mike Douglas Show when newscaster Bill Burns broke in with the first bulletin. After Pittsburgh 2Day's cancellation in 1990, KDKA would later give in to pressure from both CBS and ATWT fans to air the show. In September 2006, it moved Guiding Light from its longtime 3pm slot to 10am placing Dr. Phil at 3pm.
Starting in 1993, KDKA stopped running CBS This Morning and instead ran syndicated Disney cartoons, an unusual move for a major-market station. However, only a year later, Westinghouse made a long-term affiliation deal with CBS to convert the entire Group W television unit--KDKA, KYW-TV in Philadelphia, WJZ-TV in Baltimore, WBZ-TV in Boston and KPIX-TV in San Francisco--to CBS affiliation. As part of the deal, in the fall of 1994 channel 2 began running the entire CBS lineup in pattern, with no pre-emptions except in the case of breaking news.
In early 1996, Westinghouse merged with CBS, making KDKA-TV a CBS owned-and-operated station, after four decades as being simply a CBS affiliate. Viacom merged with CBS in 2000, making KDKA a sister station with Pittsburgh UPN (now The CW) affiliate WNPA-TV (now WPCW). Ironically, in 1994, Viacom purchased Paramount Pictures, which figured so prominently in DuMont's collapse, and in fact had announced plans to launch UPN prior to being acquired by Viacom.
In 2001, KDKA began producing a 10 P.M. newscast on UPN Pittsburgh. KDKA added a two hour morning newscast in 2005 on UPN.
To this day, KDKA-AM/TV is the last heritage television/radio cluster in Pittsburgh.
KDKA is also available on cable in Johnstown, Altoona and Wheeling, as well as several other out-of-market cable systems in northwestern Pennsylvania, northwestern Maryland and North-Central West Virginia.
[edit] CBS 2?
From 1965 to 2003, KDKA's logo was a stylized "2" in the font made famous by Group W. It retired the font in 2003 in favor of a much plainer logo similar to that of sister station KCBS-TV in Los Angeles. In 2005, it adopted the logo seen above, which is virtually identical to that of WBBM-TV in Chicago. However, it has not fallen into complete compliance with the CBS Mandate as of 2008 as several Pittsburgh viewers have protested the idea of KDKA being called "CBS 2".
WCCO-TV in Minneapolis, WBZ-TV in Boston, WWJ-TV in Detroit and WJZ-TV in Baltimore also do not follow any form of the mandate.
[edit] Image Campaign
In August 2007, KDKA revealed a new image campaign, entitled Your Home, with music and lyrics performed by singer-songwriter Bill Deasy. The promo features scenes of Pittsburgh and its surrounding areas, as well as three of the station's personalites. In September 2007, the station unveiled another promo featuring the Joe Grushecky song "Coming Home". Later, a third spot called "Long Way Home" will feature the voice of Kelsey Friday. [1]
[edit] Digital Broadcast Signal
As of November 2007, KDKA currently uses one of its three designated digital broadcast signals over the airwaves [DTV Ch 25 / 2.1 -- Main Format: 1080i, DD2.0] which will broadcast in HD when programming permits. No information is currently available about plans for use of 2.2 or 2.3.
[edit] Programming
[edit] Local shows
- Hometown High-Q: Saturdays at 11 A.M. - "quiz bowl" format show with three teams composed of local high school students
- KDKA Sports Showdown: Sundays at 11:35 P.M. - sports talk show
- KD/PG Sunday Edition: Sundays at 8:30 A.M. - public affairs programming
- The Lynne Hayes-Freeland Show: Sundays at 6 A.M. - public affairs programming
- Pittsburgh Today Live: 9:00 - 10:00 A.M. - Kristine Sorensen and Jon Burnett are the hosts, with weather from Valerie Abati; local general interest program
- The Sunday Business Page: Sundays at 6:30 A.M. - public affairs programming
KDKA presently offers seven-and-a-half hours of live news each weekday, collectively, on channels 2 and 19 (WPCW). On Saturdays, news is broadcast four-and-a-half hours per day, and there is 90 minutes of news on Sunday. KDKA-TV also airs the Pennsylvania Lottery televised nighttime drawings live 7 nights at week at 6:59 PM and the live Powerball drawing at 10:59 PM on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
[edit] Seasonal
- The Free-Care Fund - (Holiday Season)- yearly pledge drive
- The Hines Ward Show - (during the NFL season) - Saturdays at 11:35 P.M. - Bob Pompeani, Hines Ward, Jim Lokay and a rotating member of the Pittsburgh Steelers
- Steelers Trivia Challenge - Sundays at 12:00 A.M. - Bob Pompeani hosts a "quiz bowl" format, modeled after Hometown High-Q, with three teams composed of three Pittsburgh Steelers fans who answer team-related trivia questions
[edit] Past
- The Jerome Bettis Show
- Evening Magazine
- Pittsburgh 2Day
- Punchline
- Wake Up With Larry Richert
[edit] Ratings
Pittsburgh is a perennially competitive market for local news, with news ratings usually differing by less than a full ratings point. KDKA is the market leader for local news, with the highest audience for the newscasts at noon, 4, 5, 6 and 11 P.M., according to the Nielsen November 2007 ratings period. [2]
[edit] Personalities
[edit] Anchors
[edit] Anchor/Reporters
[edit] Weather
[edit] Sports
[edit] Reporters
[edit] Former Personalities
[edit] Newscast branding
[edit] Logos
[edit] Trivia
[edit] External links
[edit] References
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