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KDKA-TV

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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 television stations in Pennsylvania that has a callsign starting with a K. Both were former Westinghouse-owned stations that were part of Group W.

History

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. To mark the occasion, a live television special aired that day from 8:30pm to 11pm, with live segments from CBS, NBC, ABC and Dumont.[1] 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. It originally broadcast on channel 3, moving to channel 2 on November 23, 1952 to alleviate interference with WNBK in Cleveland (now WKYC-TV), which for several years was a sister station to KDKA-TV. Not long after moving to channel 2, it became the first station in the country to broadcast 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. [2]

At the time, Pittsburgh was the sixth-largest market in the country (behind New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Detroit). 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). 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. Indeed, according to network general manager Ted Bergmann, WDTV brought in $4 million a year, which helped sustain the network. 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 New York and Chicago. 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.

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. A few years earlier, the FCC had ruled that Paramount controlled DuMont and there were still lingering questions about whether UPT had actually broken off from Paramount. Paramount didn't want to risk the FCC's wrath.

Meanwhile, Pittsburgh-based Westinghouse Electric had been competing with local politicians to acquire the channel 13 license from the FCC since no other station would be signing on in Pittsburgh for the foreseeable future. The company had launched WBZ-TV in Boston in 1948 and would purchase WPTZ-TV (now KYW-TV) in Philadelphia in 1952 but was growing impatient with not having a TV station in its own home market. Westinghouse later offered the FCC a compromise to grant Westinghouse the license, then "share" the proposed KDKA-TV with what would become WQED. Finding the terms unacceptable, Pittsburgh attorney Leland Hazard called Westinghouse CEO Gwilym Price to ask him if he should give up on his fight for public television. Price said that Hazard should keep fighting for it, giving Westinghouse backing for the future WQED.[3]

Westinghouse then turned its attention to WDTV, offering DuMont a then-record $10 million for the station in late 1954. Desperate for cash, DuMont promptly accepted Westinghouse's offer. 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.

After the sale closed in 1955, Westinghouse changed WDTV's calls to KDKA-TV, sistering it to Westinghouse's pioneering radio station KDKA (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. Westinghouse had wanted to sign on a television sister to KDKA radio for some time, but approached DuMont when it became obvious the FCC had no plans to grant any new licenses in Pittsburgh in the near future. Although KDKA radio had long been an NBC affiliate (due to corporate ties between Westinghouse and NBC dating back to 1926, when Westinghouse was a co-founder and part-owner of NBC), KDKA-TV opted to become a primary affiliate of the higher-rated CBS, which would lead to an acrimonious relationship with NBC and Westinghouse in later years. It retained secondary affiliations with NBC until WIIC-TV (now WPXI) signed on in 1957, and ABC until WTAE-TV signed on in 1958. It became the flagship station of Westinghouse's broadcasting arm, Group W.

The WDTV calls now reside on a CBS affiliate located 130 miles south in Weston, West Virginia, which is unrelated to the current KDKA-TV. That station, which signed on after KDKA-TV adopted its current call signs, did adopt those calls "in honor" of 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 Disney's syndicated cartoon block, 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, NBC affiliate KYW-TV in Philadelphia, ABC affiliate WJZ-TV in Baltimore, NBC affiliate WBZ-TV in Boston and fellow CBS affiliate 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-TV began producing a 10 P.M. newscast on UPN Pittsburgh. In 2005, it added a two hour morning newscast in 2005 on WNPA.

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, northeastern Ohio, and North-Central West Virginia. It provides at least grade B coverage of most of this area, as the channel 2 signal travels a very long distance under normal conditions.

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 come 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.

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 was introduced, called "Long Way Home," and features the voice of Kelsey Friday. [4]

Digital Television

KDKA-TV, along with sister station WPCW, does not make use of its digital subchannels. This is because by CBS policy, no stations that are CBS O&O's are allowed to have subchannels, preferring to have picture quality over channel quantity. Of Pittsburgh's nine full-powered stations, the only other stations not to make use of digital subchannels are religious station WPCB-TV (owned by Cornerstone Television) and WQEX (which simulcasts ShopNBC), making KDKA-TV & WPCW the only stations in the market associated with major networks not to make use of digital subchannels.

KDKA has plans to broadcast its news in HD. As mentioned in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, KDKA says it will broadcast in 2009.[5] The station's CBS programming as well as its syndicated shows are broadcasted in HD when those shows are available in HD.

After the analog television shutdown and digital conversion to take place on June 12, 2009 [6], KDKA-TV will continue digital broadcasts on its current pre-transition channel number, 25. [7] However, through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers will display the station's virtual channel as 2.

Programming

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 Dennis Bowman; 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 each Sunday. KDKA-TV also airs the Pennsylvania Lottery televised nighttime drawings live 7 nights a week at 6:59 P.M. and the live Powerball drawing at 10:59 P.M. on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

60 Years

In January 2009 KDKA celebrated 60 years on being on the air.

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
  • Hometown Holiday Lights - Series aired over the news. Contest between local families with christmas displays at their residence.
  • 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

Past

Ratings

Over the past decade, Pittsburgh has been a perennially competitive market for local news, with news ratings usually differing by less than a full ratings point. More recently, however, KDKA has taken a modest lead in most dayparts and continues to be the market leader for local news, with the largest audiences for the newscasts at noon, 4, 5, 6 and 11 P.M., according to the Nielsen March 2009 ratings period. Also during this period, KDKA trailed WTAE-TV and WPXI during the morning hours and the KDKA-produced 10 P.M. news was second to WPXI's newscast on WPGH. [8]

Personalities

Anchors

  • Sonni Abatta (2003-present) - KDKA from 5-7 A.M. & noon; WPCW from 7-8 A.M.
  • Patrice King Brown (1978-present) - 4, 6 & 11
  • Ken Rice (1994-present) - KDKA @ 5 & 11 P.M.; WPCW @ 10 P.M.; host, Hometown High-Q & KD/PG Sunday Edition
  • Stacy Smith (1983-present) - Noon, 4 & 6 P.M.; host, KD/PG Sunday Edition
  • Kristine Sorensen (2003-present) - 5 P.M.; host, Pittsburgh Today Live
  • Stephanie Watson (2006-present) 5-7 A.M. & WPCW from 7-8 A.M.

Anchor/Reporters

  • David Highfield (1993-present)- anchor, KDKA weekend evenings; 6, 7, 11 & WPCW @ 10 P.M.
  • Brenda Waters (1985-present) - anchor, Saturday mornings from 6-8 A.M.; also every :25 & :55 of the hour during the CBS Early Show

Weather

Sports

  • Bob Pompeani (1982-present) - sports director - weekdays @ 5, 6 & 11 P.M. on KDKA; host, KDKA Sunday Sports Showdown & The Nightly Sports Call on WPCW
  • Jory Rand (2008-present) - sports anchor/reporter - weekends
  • Mike Zappone (2007-present) - fill-in sports anchor/reporter/producer - various times

Reporters

Former Personalities

  • Valerie Abati - meteorologist (2007-2008) Now at WLWT-TV in Cincinnati
  • Eddie Alexander - sports
  • Jennifer Antkowiak - anchor (1993-2006), now hosts jennifer on WTAE and edits At Home With Jennifer magazine)
  • Susan Barnett - anchor (1999-2003), now at KYW in Philadelphia
  • Mary Berecky - Westmoreland County bureau chief (1997-2008)
  • Jessica Borg - anchor/reporter (2000-2004), now at WPVI in Philadelphia
  • Andy Briggs - reporter (1997-2002), now reporter at WHTM in Harrisburg)
  • Bill Burns - anchor (1953-1989), died in 1997
  • Patti Burns - anchor/reporter (1974-1997), died in 2001
  • Don Cannon - anchor/reporter (1999-2008)
  • John Cater - anchor/reporter (2004-2007)
  • Bill Currie - sports commentary (1971-1990), died in 2008
  • Alan Cutler - sports (1984-1987), now a motivational speaker based in Lexington, KY
  • Vince DeLisi- sports
  • Gabrielle DeRose - weekend anchor/reporter (2001-2003)
  • George Eisenhauer - station announcer (1949-1987), died in 2007
  • Rehema Ellis - anchor/reporter (1980-1985), now at NBC News
  • Stu Emry - reporter (1988-1998), retired
  • Judie Fertig - reporter
  • Bill Flanagan - business reporter (1982-2003), Executive Vice President, Corporate Relations, Allegheny Conference on Community Development and host of "Our Region's Business" on WPXI)
  • Tim Fleischer - reporter (1982-1985), now at WABC-TV in New York City
  • Andy Gastmeyer - reporter, now at WPXI
  • Donna Hanover - host Evening Magazine (1977-1980) and her first major market television experience. She later hosted the news in New York and married Rudy Giuliani and served as first lady of the city.
  • Rebecca Hower - meteorologist/reporter (2000-2007), now lives in Erie
  • Sheila Hyland - fill-in morning anchor (2006), now runs a public relations firm
  • Keith Jones - morning anchor (2005-2009), now at WTSP
  • Al Julius - commentator (1973-1978; 1981-1991), died in 2002
  • C.S. Keys - meteorologist (1994-1995), now sports director at XETV in San Diego
  • Ron Klink - weekend anchor/reporter (1977-1991), former Congressman now running a lobbying firm
  • Bob Kudzma - meteorologist (1968-2002), retired
  • Ken Meese - sports (?-1985), now communications officer for the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development
  • Liz Miles - host Evening Magazine (1980-1989)
  • Dennis Miller - contributor and guest host of Evening Magazine, got his first on air experience with KDKA.
  
  • Paul Moyer - anchor/reporter (1971), now at KNBC in Los Angeles.
  • Kelli Olexia - anchor (2001-2005), now runs a public relations firm.
  • Paul Nemiroff, M.D. - medical correspondent (2002-2007)
  • Ron Olsen - reporter/host of "Channel to Pittsburgh" (1976-1979)
  • John Parisi - meteorologist (1982-1989), retired
  • Bruce Pompeani - anchor (1997-2005), now works in advertising
  • Larry Richert - host, weather (1990-2001), now on KDKA
  • Locke Roberts - weather (2003)
  • John Sanders - sports (1980-1990), now play-by-play announcer for Cleveland Indians
  • Karen Schroeder - morning anchor (1997-1998)
  • Lynn Sawyer - consumer reporter (1977-1999), now a contributor for OnQ on WQED)
  • Jay Scott - anchor
  • Jacque Smith - weekend anchor/reporter (1995-2000), now reporter at WKYC in Cleveland
  • Bob Sprague - reporter
  • John Steigerwald - sports anchor/reporter (1985-2007)
  • Paul Steigerwald - sports (1987-1998), now the play-by-play announcer for the Penguins on FSN Pittsburgh
  • Dick Stockton - sports (1967-1971), play-by-play man for NFL on FOX
  • Steve Talbot - sports
  • Ray Tannehill - anchor (1976-1999), died in 2007
  • Marie Torre - anchor/reporter (1962-1977), died in 1997
  • Wayne Van Dine - reporter (1978-2003), retired
  • Vicki Yates Orr - weekend anchor (1984-1989), now at WTVF in Nashville

News/Station Presentation

Newscast Titles

  • The Esso Reporter (1949-1966)
  • Eyewitness News (1966-1996)
  • KDKA-TV News (1996-present)

Station Slogans

  • The Best is Right Here on TV-2! / TV-2 is Easy on the Eyes (1973-74; customized version of CBS campaign)
  • Pittsburgh's Here 2 You, We're Looking Good (1980-1981; customized version of CBS campaign, incorporating KDKA's "Here 2 You" campaign)
  • You're in KD Country (1980s)
  • Renaissance Two (1983; used to promote KDKA's newscasts)
  • We've Got the Touch on TV-2 (1985-1986; customized version of the CBS campaign)
  • Get Ready, its KD and You (1989-1990; customized version of the CBS campagin, incorporated with the KD & You promotion)
  • The Look of Pittsburgh is KDKA-TV-2 (1991-1992; customized version of the CBS campaign)
  • Always Taking the Lead (early-mid 1990s)
  • The Hometown Advantage (1996-2005)
  • Local News First (2005-present; news)
  • You're Home (2007-present; general)

Trivia

  • Pop singer Christina Aguilera made her first TV appearance on KDKA-TV.
  • In the early 1980s Dennis Miller hosted The Trolley Show, a Saturday-afternoon newsmagazine for teenagers on KDKA. [2] He also produced humorous essays for the syndicated PM Magazine television program.
  • KDKA is credited with the first "network" TV feed in world history. [citation needed]
  • The station had the world's first father-daughter broadcast team. Beginning in the 1970s, KDKA's noon news broadcast was anchored by veteran Pittsburgh anchorman Bill Burns and his daughter Patti Burns, often referred to as the "Patti and Daddy show."
  • The station is only one of two television stations east of the Mississippi River (the other being KYW-TV) whose call letters begin with "K."
  • KDKA is one of only five CBS O&O stations (in addition to WCCO in Minneapolis, WWJ in Detroit, WJZ in Baltimore, and WBZ in Boston) that doesn't use the "CBS Mandate" for the on-air name (CBS [channel #] [city/market descriptor (on occasion)]). If KDKA did follow the mandate, the station would be branded as CBS 2 (Pittsburgh), but as mentioned above, KDKA does not follow the CBS Mandate as viewers in the Pittsburgh market have protested over such possible changes.
  • KDKA has aired the Pennsylvania Lottery drawings in the Pittsburgh market since 1980 following an incident where WTAE personality Nick Perry, who called the lottery drawings for the Pennsylvania Lottery, fixed the PA Lottery's Daily Number so that the drawing could come up as "666".[9]
  • KDKA uses a variation of the VIPIR system for its radar.
  • It once carried Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune in the 5pm hour back in the '80s. They've been on WPXI since 1987, airing in the prime access hour.
  • KDKA now uses the WeatherBug Network as part of its weather forecasts. It previously relied upon AccuWeather, which is now used at WTAE.

References

  1. ^ Dumont History Website by Clarke Ingram
  2. ^ [1]
  3. ^ http://pbrtv.com/blog/entry_1003.php#body
  4. ^ "TV Q&A with Rob Owen/KDKA's Image Campaign". post-gazette.com. Retrieved 2007-08-27.
  5. ^ http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09023/943769-238.stm
  6. ^ http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-07-138A2.pdf
  7. ^ CDBS Print
  8. ^ "Tuned In: Keith Jones seeks stability in move to Tampa". post-gazette.com. Retrieved 2009-04-03.
  9. ^ http://www.tubecityonline.com/history/perry_fr.html
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