KMAX-TV

For the television station in Springfield, Missouri, which currently uses a callsign formerly used by KMAX-TV, see KRBK.

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KMAX-TV, channel 31, is the CW affiliate serving the Sacramento-Stockton-Modesto, California broadcast area. The station is owned by CBS Television Stations along with the local CBS station, KOVR; the two stations are two of the 3 English network O&Os in the market, along with Ion Television affilate KSPX-TV. It is known on the air as "CW 31, Cable 12".

History

KMAX originally went on the air as KMUV-TV on October 5, 1974, and was owned by legendary television producer, Norman Lear. It was programmed as an all-movie channel, to counter-program against the other established area stations, particularly then-independent (and current Fox station) KTXL. However on May 1, 1976, KMUV abandoned the all-movie format and largely began to air Spanish-language programming; it did air some English-language religious programming, including The PTL Club, during this time.

On April 2, 1981, Koplar Broadcasting, owner and founder of current St. Louis CW station KPLR-TV, purchased the station and on April 6 relaunched it as an English-language independent station, KRBK-TV, to compete directly with KTXL. The KRBK callsign was named for Harold Koplar's son, Robert "Bob" Koplar. During this time, the station had the slogan We Deliver!!.

KMAX's first "UPN 31" logo, used from 1998 until 2002.

Pappas Telecasting bought KRBK in 1994, and on January 11, 1995, changed its call letters to KPWB-TV (callsign meaning: Pappas WB) to reflect its affiliation with the then-new WB network, which launched that same day. Paramount Stations Group bought the station in January 1998, and on January 5 it swapped affiliations with KQCA and became UPN affiliate KMAX-TV. With Paramount's stake in the network, KMAX became the first station in Sacramento to be owned and operated by a major network. PSG's parent company, Viacom, later bought CBS, and merged Paramount Stations Group with the CBS owned-and-operated stations to form Viacom Television Stations Group (now CBS Television Stations).

Channel 31 was the flagship television home of the NBA's Sacramento Kings from the 1988-89 season until the middle of the 2002-03 season, when the team's owners, the Maloof family, terminated the station's contract due to the station selling ads featuring the team, without the Kings' permission. KMAX remains the local over-the-air affiliate of the San Francisco Giants. It was also the Oakland Athletics' affiliate before that team moved all its telecasts to the non-broadcast Comcast SportsNet California in 2009.

In May 2005, KOVR became KMAX's sister station when Viacom bought it from the Sinclair Broadcast Group. The station is now owned by CBS Corporation, due to the split of Viacom into two separate entities (one which retained the Viacom name). The station also moved from its original studios off Highway 160 in Sacramento to KOVR's in West Sacramento.

After UPN and The WB announced that they would shut down and merge to form The CW on January 24, 2006, KMAX, owing to it status as a CBS-owned station, was one of the first stations announced as an affiliate of the new network. A month before the launch of The CW that September, the station changed its branding from UPN 31 to CW 31 to reflect this.

The station clears Toonzai on a three hour tape delay (10 am to 3 pm, as opposed to 7 am to noon), to accommodate the weekend edition of Good Day Sacramento; it had done the same for the previous Kids WB & The CW4Kids blocks until its replacement with Toonzai in 2010.

Newscasts

KMAX-TV's Julissa Ortiz setting up to report.

Currently, the only news programming on KMAX-TV is Good Day Sacramento, the area's second highest rated morning news program (local or network), behind Today.

After Viacom's acquisition of KOVR, KMAX's news operation was merged into KOVR's, with reporters from one station appearing on the other, and the Good Day Sacramento set being moved into the KOVR building.

It was announced on January 11, 2008 via a viewer blog that KMAX would launch a primetime newscast featuring KOVR's news personalities. The show would not have been a revival of Good Evening Sacramento, which aired in 2003, but instead was to have been a full newscast either before or after KOVR's 10 pm newscast. However, owing to cutbacks ordered by CBS corporate management, plans for this broadcast were shelved in late summer 2008.

News/station presentation

Newscast titles

• 31 News (1980s-1995)
• Good Day Sacramento (1995–present)
• 31 Action News (1996–1998)
• UPN 31 Action News (1998–2000)
• Good Evening Sacramento (2003–2004)

News team

Anchors

• Marianne McClary, Morning Anchor, Monday-Friday 5 am-9 am (1995)
• Mark S. Allen, Entertainment Anchor/Reporter, Monday-Friday 6 am-10 am (1996)
• Cody Stark, Anchor/Reporter/Weather, Monday-Friday 5 am-10 am (Weather); Weekend, 6 am-10 am (Anchor/Reporter/Weather) (2004)
• Lisa Gonzales, Anchor/Reporter, Monday-Friday 7 am-10 am (2005)
• Julissa Ortiz, Morning Anchor, Monday-Friday 5 am/9 am (2006)
• Christina Anderson, Morning Anchor, Monday-Friday 4:30 am-10 am (2010)

Reporters

• Nick Janes, Reporter (2008)
• Alan Sanchez, "Alan the intern", Weekend Reporter (2006)
• Lori Wallace, Weekend Reporter (2007)
• Ashley Williams, Weekend Reporter (2009)

Traffic team

• Tina Macuha, Traffic Anchor/Reporter, Monday-Friday 4:30 am-10 am (1995)
• Courtney Dempsey, Traffic Reporter, Monday-Friday 5 am-10 am (1995)

Spanish-language interpreters

• Martha Garcia, Spanish Language Interpreter
• Xavier Altimiras Lupon, Spanish Language Interpreter
• Andres Marquez, Spanish Language Interpreter (2004)
• Flavio Soria, Spanish Language Interpreter (2004)
• Sam Pinilla, Spanish Language Interpreter

Former newscasters

• Christine Craft (1985–1990, known for her lawsuit against previous employer Metromedia)
• Sharon Ito (1990s, now at KXTV)
• Cristina Mendonsa (news writer, now anchor at KXTV)
• Grant Napear (1987–1995, now at KHTK and is also the play-by-play announcer for the Sacramento Kings)
• Nick Toma (1998-2011 on Good Day Sacramento)

High-definition

KMAX-TV debuted its new Good Day Sacramento set on June 1, 2009. It also started broadcasting its news cast in high-definition. Only in-house cameras are high-definition while all remote cameras are standard-definition. Both KMAX-TV and sister station, KOVR-TV, now use 16:9 ratio high-definition cameras in the field and feed back to the station in 16:9 standard-definition.

External links

• Good Day Sacramento
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