KPLR-TV

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KPLR-TV
St. Louis, Missouri
Branding	CW 11
Slogan	Where People are the Story
Channels	11 (VHF) analog, 26 (UHF) digital
Affiliations	The CW
Owner	Tribune Company (KPLR, Inc.)
Founded	April 28, 1959
Call letters meaning	KoPLaR (named after Ted Koplar, the station's founder)
Former affiliations	Independent (1959-95) The WB (1995-2006) UPN (secondary, 1999-2002)
Website	www.cw11tv.trb.com

KPLR-TV, channel 11, is The CW television network affiliate in St. Louis, Missouri, owned and operated by Tribune Broadcasting. The station offers a schedule of off network sitcoms, talk shows, court shows, reality shows, cartoons, first run shows from the CW, and a few movies. Its transmitter is located in Lemay, Missouri.

Contents 1 History 2 News Operations 2.1 News Sets/Graphics Packages/Music 2.2 Newscasts 2.3 On-Air Personalities 3 External links

[edit] History

KPLR-TV started broadcasting on Tuesday, April 28, 1959. It was the first independent station in Missouri.

KPLR is an abbreviation of the original owner's name, Ted Koplar, who also founded the station. Between May 23, 1959 and September 10, 1983, KPLR produced and broadcast Wrestling at the Chase, a program featuring professional wrestling from the local Chase-Park Plaza Hotel. Originating from the hotel's Khorassan Ballroom until 1970, the show featured the most famous wrestlers in the National Wrestling Alliance, which was controlled in part by St. Louis promoter Sam Muchnick. Participants included Ric Flair, Harley Race, former NFL player Dick the Bruiser Afflis and Ted DiBiase among others, and is considered one of the pro wrestling industry's most historic programs. Approximately 1,100 episodes were made during a run of 24 years, and almost 4 months. Almost a quarter-century after the show went off the air, many of its fans still hope for its return.

For many years, KPLR was the broadcast home of the St. Louis Cardinals (1959-62 and 1988-2006) and St. Louis Blues. For most of its existence, KPLR was a traditional independent with The Three Stooges, cartoons, sitcoms, movies, dramas, sports, and news. It was also available on many cable systems in Missouri, Illinois and Arkansas until the late 1980s.

KPLR turned down FOX affiliation in 1986, instead choosing to remain an independent station. In 1995, KPLR decided to affiliate with the newly created WB Television Network. KPLR also passed on the ABC affiliation after longtime ABC affiliate KTVI switched to FOX, effectively sending ABC to the former FOX affiliate, KDNL. Koplar sold KPLR to ACME Communications in the mid '90s.

For many years, even after joining The WB, KPLR was known as "St. Louis 11." It often used a logo with the "O" in "St. Louis" converted into its "circle 11" numeric logo. KPLR became known as "WB11" in 1998. KPLR had secondary UPN affiliation from 1999-2002 running the cartoons from UPN's "Disney Block" and select other UPN shows. After WRBU assumed UPN affiliation, UPN shows disappeared from KPLR. In March, 2003 ACME Communications sold KPLR and sister station KWBP in Portland to Tribune Company. At that time, it adopted a logo very similar to sister station WPIX in New York City.

On January 2, 2006, the weekday Monday–Friday Kids' WB block was discontinued.

On January 24, 2006, the WB and UPN networks announced they would merge. The newly combined network would be called The CW, the letters representing the first initial of its corporate parents CBS (the parent company of UPN) and the Warner Bros. unit of Time Warner. KPLR became the network's St. Louis affiliate as part of a larger deal between the new network and Tribune. Former UPN station WRBU switched to News Corp's My Network TV, the sister network to FOX.

On Sunday, April 9, 2006, The Fan Show, hosted by Rich Gould, debuted. It is a live sports-related show broadcasted from The Casino Queen's Club Sevens,with audience-participation games and discussion. Gould remarked in a St. Louis Post-Dispatch interview about the show that "it's live TV in its rawest form. It's essentially a time machine back to the 1950s...in fact, some of the games I stole from Beat the Clock."

On Wednesday, May 31, 2006 The Tube debuted on 11.2 on ATSC broadcast. The Tube began broadcasting on Charter Cable channel 136 on August 2, 2006.

The 2006 St. Louis Cardinals' baseball season was the 19th and last broadcast on KPLR. Beginning in 2007, broadcasts of St. Louis Cardinals' games will return to KSDK for the first time since 1987. However, the Blues remained on KPLR, as they have for most of their existence.

[edit] News Operations

Traditionally, like most non-"Big Three" stations, KPLR has aired a newscast an hour back of the major stations--in this case, at 9 P.M. Since KTVI moved their news to 9 following their affiliation switch, they have consistently beaten KPLR in the ratings.

KPLR has in the past tried to program their news to a younger audience, with most of their anchors being under 35 and with a more fast-paced style of broadcast. However, in a city where most television personalities have been around for years and the perennial ratings winner, KSDK, does not have a main presenter who has less than 10 years tenure, this has for the most part caused them to struggle, in addition to what is perceived as a "soft" approach to news. Nevertheless, KPLR has often been pointed out by Post-Dispatch television critics as a good "sweep story" station, where during November, January and May sweeps the station will plug one or more major investigative pieces. KPLR's stories have been seen as much more broad-based and less sensationalistic.

On January 3, 2007, Tribune Broadcasting announced that anchor Kathryn Jamboretz would leave the station on March 1 of the same year, being replaced by fellow anchor Melanie Moon. Jamboretz has switched over to co-anchoring the weekend newscasts, and will remain there until her replacement has been found.

[edit] News Sets/Graphics Packages/Music

In 2003, KPLR moved out of its traditional home at the Chase Park Plaza (which by that time had gone from a gutted complex in which the station was the only major tenant into a boutique hotel) into a new purpose-built building in Westport with a new newsroom and studio. A new WB11 logo was debuted along with new graphics and music. In late January 2006, KPLR updated its graphics. They also updated their logo, from being blue to being red. In September 2006, the logos were redesigned with the new CW logos and graphics.

[edit] Newscasts

Monday-Friday

• CW11 News at Nine - 9:00pm-9:30pm
  • with Rick Edlund and Melanie Moon
  • Keryn Shipman; weather
  • Rich Gould; sports

Saturday

• CW11 News at Nine - 9:00pm-9:30pm
  • with Jeff Bernthal and Kathryn Jamboretz
  • Michelle Anselmo; weather
  • Rich Gould; sports

Sunday

• CW11 News at Nine - 9:00pm-9:25pm
  • with Jeff Bernthal and Kathryn Jamboretz
  • Michelle Anselmo; weather
  • Rich Gould; sports
• The Fan Show - 9:25pm-10:00pm
  • with Rich Gould

[edit] On-Air Personalities

Anchors

• Jeff Bernthal: CW11 News at Nine (weekends) anchor
• Rick Edlund: CW11 News at Nine (weekdays) anchor
• Kathryn Jamboretz: CW11 News at Nine (weekends) anchor
• Melanie Moon: CW11 News at Nine (weekdays) anchor

Reporters

• Michelle Anselmo
• Shelley Bortz
• Christine Buck: features
• Matt Gamewell
• Kelly Hoskins
• Tony Miller
• Theresa Petry

Sports

• Rich Gould: sports director, host of "The Fan Show"
• Telly Hughes: sports reporter
• Kurt LaBelle: sports reporter

Weather

• Keryn Shipman: chief meteorologist
• Michelle Anselmo

Past Personalities

• Don Bell, sports (now at KYW-CBS3 Philadelphia).
• Patrick Clark, reporter.
• Cree Craig, anchor.
• Steve Draganchuk, meteorologist/reporter.
• Dan Eassa, sports.
• Mark Feree, meteorologist.
• Ethan Forhetz, reporter (now at KYTV (TV)).
• Kara Kaswell, anchor/reporter(now at KMOV).
• Sandy Miller, anchor (now at KTVI).
• Victor Ojeda, reporter.
• Steve Schiff, anchor.
• Garry Seith, chief meteorologist (1999-2006; currently at KTXA, Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas).
• Melanie Streeper, weather anchor.
• Evelyn Wilkerson, reporter.

[edit] External links

• Official website of KPLR-TV
• The CW Television Network
• The Tribune Co.
• Query the FCC's TV station database for KPLR
• The Tube Television Network