KIRO-TV

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KIRO-TV is the CBS television affiliate in Seattle, Washington. It broadcasts on analog channel 7 and digital channel 39. The station's offices and broadcasting center are located just south of Seattle Center in the Denny Regrade neighborhood, and its transmitter is located in Queen Anne. It is currently owned by Cox Enterprises.

Currently, the station carries syndicated programming such as The Montel Williams Show, Judge Joe Brown, Judge Judy, Entertainment Tonight and Access Hollywood.

KIRO-TV is one of five local Seattle TV stations seen in Canada on the Bell ExpressVu and StarChoice satellite providers.

History

Channel 7 was to be the last VHF TV channel allocation in the Puget Sound area, and its license was hotly contested. In the end, it went to Saul Haas, owner of KIRO-AM, and the station signed on as KIRO-TV in 1958. It became a CBS affiliate, and competed heavily against KTNT, another CBS affiliate licensed to Tacoma. KIRO eventually won out, becoming the sole CBS affiliate for the Puget Sound area in the early 1960s.

However, throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s, KIRO still faced competition in some Western Washington households from Bellingham's KVOS-TV, which at the time was also a CBS affiliate. After years of legal challenges and negotiations with CBS and KIRO, KVOS phased out most CBS programming but retained a nominal CBS affiliation until the early 1990s, during which it would run all of the CBS shows that were preempted by KIRO.

In 1964, KIRO-AM-FM-TV came under the ownership of Bonneville International Corporation, part of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

In 1994, CBS found itself without an affiliate in Dallas after KDFW left the network to become a Fox affiliate. As a result, CBS began to negotiate with Gaylord Broadcasting in order to secure an affiliation agreement with the independent station it had long owned there, KTVT. As part of the deal, CBS would also affiliate with Gaylord-owned KSTW (which was previously an independent station, and was about to affiliate with The WB). The deal was announced in the summer of 1994, and CBS programming which hitherto had been pre-empted by KIRO was moved to KSTW by the fall of that year. Other programs such as The Late Late Show with Tom Snyder were shown on KSTW.

More changes descended upon KIRO as it was sold by Bonneville to Belo Corporation, which took ownership of the station in 1995. The station affiliated with UPN on March 13, 1995 and modified its local newscast lineup, with newscasts at:

• 5–9am (previously only went until 7 am, now continued until 9 am with the last two hours as "7 Live" with Joyce Taylor, a locally produced alternative to the national morning shows);
• 5–7pm (which previously were separate 5pm and 6pm newscasts, with the CBS Evening News in between at 5:30pm);
• 10–11pm (which was previously an 11pm newscast);
• along with its existing 12noon–1pm newscast.

The rest of the day on KIRO was filled with first-run syndicated talk shows, reality shows, off-network dramas, a couple of off-network sitcoms, UPN shows, and movies. This format was then (and still basically is) unusual for a UPN affiliate, as most UPN affilaites had a general entertainment format outside of UPN programming. In fact, KIRO's format largely resembled that of a typical Fox affiliate today.

Later, Belo Corporation acquired the Providence Journal Company, which owned Seattle's NBC affiliate KING-TV. Belo could not own both KING and KIRO, and as a result, the company opted to put KIRO on the market.

Initially, the Paramount Stations Group announced its intention to buy KIRO and turn it into a more traditional independent station, with a lineup of more cartoons, sitcoms, and movies. However, after further research, Paramount found that the newscasts on KIRO were doing very well. On the other hand, Cox Communications (which took ownership of KSTW in mid-1997) found it rather difficult to upgrade KSTW's news department to the level of competition among the other stations in the market. As a result, the three companies came to a deal. Cox handed KSTW over to Paramount, who in turn gave St. Louis CBS affiliate KMOV to Belo, and Cox in turn received KIRO-TV from Belo. The two stations retained their respective syndicated programming, but swapped network affiliations once again, with KSTW becoming a UPN owned-and-operated station (O&O), and KIRO regaining its CBS affiliation on June 30, 1997.

From 1987 to 1994, under the ownership of Bonneville, KIRO refused to air The Bold and the Beautiful, which normally aired at 12:30pm. The station aired a one-hour local newscast from 12noon to 1pm instead. As a result, the station received many protest letters from fans of the show during that period, and even one from the show's creator himself, William J. Bell. During that time, the show was seen instead on KTZZ (now KMYQ) and KVOS.

KIRO now runs the entire CBS lineup (including The Bold and the Beautiful) with no pre-emptions.

J. P. Patches

One of the most famous and popular local children's TV programs in America, J. P. Patches, was locally produced at KIRO-TV's studios and broadcast from 1958 to 1981. J. P. Patches exhibited a type of humor and good taste which is fondly remembered by today's adults who grew up in the Seattle area and viewed the show as kids.

Newscasts

File:Ewn-kiro-1998.jpg

KIRO 7 Eyewitness News open titles, circa 1998.

Beginning in 1969, KIRO initiated major upgrades of its news programming, implementing the now-commonplace "Eyewitness News" format with chief correspondent Cliff Kirk, sportscaster Ron Forsell, and assistant anchor Sandy Hill, who later left KIRO to become the first co-host of Good Morning America. Throughout the decades, KIRO placed a high emphasis on news programming and investigative stories. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Eyewitness News team of anchors John Marler and Gary Justice, meteorologist Harry Wappler and the late sportscaster Wayne Cody challenged KING-TV for supremacy in local news.

Beginning in the 1970s, KIRO's news programs also included on-air editorial opinions prepared by Lloyd E. Cooney. After Cooney left the station in 1980 to pursue an unsuccessful U.S. Senate campaign, the station editorials were handled by a series of commentators: general manager Kenneth L. Hatch, followed by former Seattle City Council member John Miller (later elected as Congressman from Washington's First District) and then by former Seattle Post-Intelligencer editor Louis R. Guzzo.

In January 1993, KIRO relaunched its news products with great promotional fanfare. "News Outside the Box," as the approach was unofficially known, was an attempt to synergize both KIRO radio and television staffs (the "KIRO News Network") in an open newsroom that also doubled as a set for the station's broadcasts. The Seattle Symphony was commissioned to record the station's musical theme package, and ballet instructors coached KIRO-TV anchors in the art of walking toward a moving camera while simultaneously delivering the news.

The result was an unmitigated disaster. Viewers quickly complained they were distracted by the moving anchors, constant buzz of assignment editors in the background of newscasts and periodic "visits" into the KIRO radio studios. Television reporter's primary assets were lost on radio listeners, and many of the radio reporters were clearly uncomfortable on camera. The original concept also called for live airing of unedited field tape, which, unfortunately, only called attention to the importance of good news editing. In addition, KOMO and KING were, and still are, fighting for first place in the Seattle market. By September, the concept was scrapped for a fixed anchor desk and a rebranding to "KIRO NewsChannel 7."

After the 1995 affiliation change to UPN, KIRO's focus on news and investigative programming increased. In March 2003, KIRO (as a CBS affiliate once again) began producing a 10pm newscast for KSTW. However, KSTW cancelled the newscast in June 2005.

KIRO currently airs local newscasts at the following hours:

Weekdays

• KIRO 7 Eyewitness News This Morning - 5:00am - 8:00am (with segments from The Early Show interspersed throughout the 7am hour)
• KIRO 7 Eyewitness News at Noon - 12noon - 12:30pm
• KIRO 7 Eyewitness News at 5 - 5:00pm - 5:30pm
• KIRO 7 Eyewitness News at 6 - 6:00pm - 7:00pm
• KIRO 7 Eyewitness News at 11 - 11:00pm - 11:35pm

Weekends

• KIRO 7 Eyewitness News Saturday Morning - 7:00am - 8:30am
• KIRO 7 Eyewitness News at 5 - 5:00pm - 5:30pm
• KIRO 7 Eyewitness News at 6 - 6:00pm - 6:30pm
• KIRO 7 Eyewitness News at 11 - 11:00pm - 11:35pm

KIRO Alumni

• Jeffrey Babcock, former WABC TV, Good Morning New York, consumer and finance reporter.
• Aaron Brown, former CNN anchor.
• John Myrick, Director of Electronic News Gathering, Los Angeles.

External links

• KIRO-TV website
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