KTVU

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KTVU
Oakland, California / San Francisco, California
Branding	KTVU FOX2 (general) KTVU Channel 2 News HD (news)
Slogan	Complete Bay Area News Coverage
Channels	2 (VHF) analog, 56 (UHF) digital
Affiliations	FOX
Owner	Cox Enterprises
Founded	March 3, 1958
Call letters meaning	K TeleVision for YoU (though original owner claimed calls were randomly selected)
Former affiliations	Independent (1958 - October 9, 1986)
Transmitter Power	100 kW / 479 m (analog) 1000 kW / 433 m (digital)
Website	www.ktvu.com

KTVU (Channel 2) is the San Francisco Bay Area's FOX affiliate. Its studio facilities are located in Oakland, California at Jack London Square, and its transmitter is located at Sutro Tower in San Francisco. It has been owned by Cox Enterprises since 1968, making it the largest FOX affiliate through market size that is not an O&O. KTVU is also co-owned with KICU which was bought out by Cox in 2000, and as such KICU moved from the original San Jose studios to Oakland where KTVU now shares its studio facilities with KICU. It is also the second largest Cox-owned station (with only Cox sister station WSB-TV in Atlanta in front of it).

KTVU signed on the air as an independent station on March 3, 1958. It was the third station in the Bay Area - after KQED and KNTV - since the FCC lifted the VHF permit freeze. Until the completion of the Mount Sutro television tower, KTVU transmitted from a tower on San Bruno Mountain.

Contents 1 Programming 1.1 News 1.1.1 Newscasts 1.1.2 Departure of Leslie Griffith 1.2 Classic television series 1.3 Children's programming 1.4 Other programming 1.5 Sports 2 Affiliation 2.1 As a superstation 2.2 As a FOX affiliate 2.2.1 FOX branding 3 Technology 3.1 Converting to HDTV 3.2 On satellite 4 Personalities 4.1 Current 4.2 Former 5 References

[edit] Programming

Over the years, KTVU aired a schedule of cartoons, off-network sitcoms, old movies, drama shows, talk shows, local news, and religious shows. It was the leading independent station in the San Francisco television market for years. It retained this status when more independents (on UHF) signed on the air over the years by reinventing the station's own image with its former longtime slogan: "There's Only One 2." As a VHF station competitor, KTVU broadcasted The 8 O'Clock Movie as an independent alternative to network prime time programming by KRON, KPIX and KGO-TV.

[edit] News

The station has been well known in the Bay Area for its locally-produced news, public affairs and children's programming, especially The Ten O'Clock News, which for years had been the only television news broadcast in the Bay Area at that hour. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, The Ten O'Clock News was often referred to as the number one prime time newscast in the country, which was true based on the number of viewers at that hour. KTVU's 10 p.m. newscast was such a force to be reckoned with that KBWB cancelled its own 10 p.m. news in 2002 after having no luck competing with KTVU.

When KRON-TV became an independent station, it also scheduled its new prime time newscast at 9 p.m. so as to not compete directly with KTVU. In the early 1990s, KRON, along with KPIX (throughout the 1990s), did have 10 p.m. newscasts, which have since been moved back up to the 11 p.m. time slot. During the period, KTVU branded its late newscast as The Original Ten O'Clock News. The retirement of KTVU's long-time news director Fred Zehnder brought changes to the newsroom but in 2000 it was ranked as the highest quality local newscast in the nation by the Project for Excellence in Journalism under his immediate successor while maintaining number one ratings at ten and throughout the noon and morning newscasts. Varying prime time numbers and improvements at competitors have since lead to a decline in the once dominant news operation's ratings.

The Ten O'Clock News is also one of the few syndicated local news shows in the United States. It also airs on co-owned KRXI-TV, the FOX affiliate in Reno, Nevada, and also airs on KRVU-LP, the MyNetworkTV affiliate for the Chico/Redding market, and KEMY, the My Network TV affiliate for the Eureka/Arcata market. KRVU and KEMY are not owned by KTVU parent company Cox. Some of the stations also carry KTVU's earlier newscasts and Mornings on 2.

[edit] Newscasts

Today, the station has newscasts at noon, 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. as well, in addition its morning and 10 p.m. broadcasts. Before its current station status, Channel 2 had only the 10 o'clock newscast; this was common of most independent-turned Fox affiliates back then to have more syndicated programming and children's programming than it did news. That changed when the station decided to go head-to-head with competitors KRON, KPIX, KGO-TV and KNTV by leaning more towards a news-intensive format which took years to take effect.

The noon newscast, originally called 2 at Noon, was added in 1986, displacing syndicated game shows. The original morning newscast, Mornings on 2, debuted in January 1991 in the 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. slot. An additional morning newscast was added in 1996, which would later expand to two hours from one hour, then a 6:00 p.m. newscast would be added in 2000, and finally in 2005, an hour-long 5:00 p.m. newscast. As a result, KTVU now airs 40 hours of local news a week -- the most local news coverage of any counterpart Fox station in the West Coast since KTTV in Los Angeles only has a morning and 10:00 newscast despite being the larger market station. In this practice, the station has followed the lead of a growing number of affiliates and Fox O&O's that expanded their newscast hours under the motivation of Fox to do this because the network itself has no early evening news itself. KTVU ranks as one of the top rated Fox affiliates.

Monday-Friday

• KTVU News Early Edition HD - 5 a.m. to 6 a.m.
• KTVU Morning News HD - 6 a.m. to 7 a.m.
• Mornings on Two HD - 7 a.m. to 9 a.m.
• KTVU Channel 2 News at Noon HD - 12 p.m. to 12:30 p.m.
• KTVU Channel 2 News at Five HD - 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.
• KTVU Channel 2 News at Six HD - 6 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.
• The 10 O'Clock News on KTVU Channel 2 HD - 10 p.m. to 11 p.m.

Saturday

• KTVU Channel 2 News at Six HD - 6 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.
• The 10 O'Clock News on KTVU Channel 2 HD - 10 p.m. to 10:45 p.m.
• Sports Wrap HD - 10:45 p.m. to 11 p.m.

Sunday

• KTVU Channel 2 News at Five HD - 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.
• The 10 O'Clock News on KTVU Channel 2 HD - 10 p.m. to 10:45 p.m.
• Sports Wrap HD - 10:45 p.m. to 11 p.m.

[edit] Departure of Leslie Griffith

On November 17, 2006, longtime anchor Leslie Griffith decided to leave KTVU after nearly 20 years of anchoring KTVU's weekend news, as well as anchoring the 10 O'clock News with Dennis Richmond, after a departure on August 22. KTVU anchors would often say that "Leslie Griffith is off tonight" when in fact, after 3 months of speculation, she announced her departure at KTVU due to unsatisfactory treatment. Recently, KTVU anchors have confirmed Leslie Griffith as leaving the station, and have stopped saying: "Leslie Griffith is off tonight" when the newscast begins. Julie Haener has been named co-anchor of The Ten O'Clock News on KTVU Channel 2 and will continue to co-anchor the KTVU Channel 2 News at 6. Besides, the weekday KTVU Channel 2 News at 5 has not yet named any permanent co-anchor, while currrently either Sara Sidner or Juile Haener is co-anchoring with Frank Somerville.^[1][2][3]

[edit] Classic television series

For many years KTVU regularly ran reruns of classic, filmed television series from the 1950s and 1960s. An early favorite on the station was the syndicated Topper series with Leo G. Carroll and Lee Patrick.

KTVU frequently showed classic movies, especially week nights from 8 to 10 p.m. and on Sunday afternoons. In the early 1960s KTVU began televising Warner Brothers films, mostly from the 1950s and mostly in color, on Sunday evenings. They were the first Bay Area television station to present such films as A Star Is Born (1954) with Judy Garland and James Mason, East of Eden (1955) with James Dean and Julie Harris, and Rebel Without A Cause with James Dean and Natalie Wood. KTVU exercised discretion and limited commercial interruptions during the movies, and often offered interesting comments, either by a studio host or via slides. The station even televised MGM's Hollywood Revue of 1929 with some of the original two-strip Technicolor sequences.

[edit] Children's programming

During the 1960s and 1970s the station aired an afternoon children's show called Captain Satellite. The show's host was Bob March.

Up until the 1980s, the station produced a series of classic children's public service shorts under the title Bits and Pieces. Bits and Pieces often featured a number of talking puppets, Charley and Humphrey, and were aimed at delivering positive messages to children. Pat Mc Cormick, had brought his puppets from KGO. The shorts often aired during children's programming. "Think Fast" a childrens game show which aired on Nickelodeon taped its first season here in 1989. Shots of KTVU children's programming appear in the movie Mrs. Doubtfire, portions of which were shot in the KTVU studios and film library. It was also the Bay Area origination of Romper Room, a children's television show which was franchised, instead of syndicated.

[edit] Other programming

Other programs included:

• Creature Features, hosted by Bob Wilkins from 1971 to 1979 and was replaced by John Stanley from 1979 until 1984
• Dialing for Dollars, hosted by Pat McCormick, the voice of Charley and Humphrey and later the station's weatherman

[edit] Sports

KTVU has been the over-the-air home of the San Francisco Giants since they moved from New York for the 1958 season, and has also been the home of most San Francisco 49ers games since 1994 when FOX won the contract to carry the National Football Conference games. Since 1996, some Giants Saturday afternoon games have been carried via the FOX Network, which won broadcast rights to Major League Baseball in 1996.

[edit] Affiliation

[edit] As a superstation

For a brief time in the early-1980s, KTVU was a nationwide superstation, seen mostly on parent Cox's cable systems. However, unable to compete with WTBS, WGN and WOR, KTVU left the national scene and merely became a regional superstation, seen on cable systems in northern California, Nevada and Oregon.

[edit] As a FOX affiliate

On October 9, 1986, the station became a charter FOX affiliate serving the Bay Area. It launched a morning newscast called Mornings on 2 in 1990 (and, as such, became the fourth FOX station to air weekday morning newscasts). It began to air an afternoon cartoon block known as Fox Kids by 1991. It also added more syndicated talk shows, court shows, and reality shows over the years. It still runs some off-network sitcoms. The station continued to run the Fox Kids block on weekdays until FOX ended weekday kids programming in early 2002, but still retained the Saturday lineup, of which is now 4Kids TV.

[edit] FOX branding

In the early years as a FOX station, KTVU still referenced itself as Channel 2 and rarely called itself FOX2 as other Fox affiliates did and still do, but it has done Fox promos as Fox Channel 2. In recent years since the late 1990s, the FOX logo was encrypted into the longtime Circle Laser 2 logo (used since 1975), and finally followed Fox's station standardization branding as KTVU FOX2 today -- only to revert to KTVU Channel 2 during newscasts.

[edit] Technology

[edit] Converting to HDTV

On October 10, 2006 KTVU debuted a new state-of-the-art high definition (HD) studio for production of their newscasts in HD. This follows sister stations WSB in Atlanta, Georgia and WFTV in Orlando, Florida which were already airing their newscasts in HD.

[edit] On satellite

Until the late 1990s, KTVU was seen nationally on PrimeStar and C-Band satellite systems.

[edit] Personalities

[edit] Current

Anchors

• Tori Campbell - Mornings on Two and noon
• Pam Cook - Early Edition and Morning News
• Mark Curtis - Early Edition and Morning News
• Julie Haener - 6 and 10 p.m. weeknights (also rotating co-anchor at 5 p.m.)
• Ross McGowan - Morning on Two
• Dennis Richmond - 6 and 10 p.m. weeknights
• Sara Sidner - weekends (also rotating co-anchor at 5 p.m.)
• Frank Somerville - Mornings on Two and 5 p.m. weekdays
• Ken Wayne - weekends

Weather

• Bill Martin - weeknights
• Steve Paulson - mornings and noon
• Julia Sandstrom - weekends
• Byron Miranda-Weekends

Sports

• Joe Fonzi - weekend anchor
• Mark Ibanez - sports director
• Fred Inglis - reporter/fill-in anchor

Reporters

• Sal Castaneda - traffic
• Rosy Chu - Community Affairs director/Bay Area People host
• Priya David (primarily seen mornings)
• Kraig Debro (also fill-in anchor)
• John Fowler - health/science editor
• Robert Handa - San Jose Bureau
• Craig Heaps
• Renee Kemp - freelance
• Lloyd LaCuesta - South Bay Bureau chief
• Amber Lee (primarily seen evenings)
• Bob MacKenzie - feature reporter
• Mike Mibach
• Gasia Mikaelian (also fill-in anchor)
• Rob Roth - San Francisco Bureau
• John Sasaki
• Randy Shandobil - political editor
• Bob Shaw - movie critic/entertainment reporter
• David Stevenson
• Tom Vacar - consumer editor
• Rita Williams
• Claudine Wong (primarily seen mornings and noon)

[edit] Former

• Marilyn Baker former Reporter
• Brian Banmiller Business Editor for KTVU, former host of Banmiller on Business
• Larry Beil now at KGO-TV and KBWB on ABC7 News at 11pm
• Marcia Brandwynne former Anchor
• Brian Copeland Former Feature AM Reporter
• Elaine Corral Former 10 O'Clock News Anchor
• Ysobel Duran former reporter
• Diane Dwyer Former Anchor/Reporter now at KNTV
• Faith Fancher Former Reporter
• Eric Greene Former 2 at Noon Host and Mornings on 2 Anchor
• Leslie Griffith (announced on 11/17/2006 that she left KTVU to pursue writing a book in Steamboat Springs, CO)
• Judd Hambrick former Anchor
• Walt Harris (staff announcer and host of live Friday night wrestling from KTVU's studios)
• Greg Liggins Former Reporter
• Pat McCormick Host of Dialing for Dollars, Charlie and Humphrey children's show
• Lee McEachern former reporter
• Steve Physioc Former Sports Directr, now with Fox Sports
• Gary Park Former Sports Director
• George Redding former Anchor
• Dennis Richmond Anchor
• Ted Rowlands Former Reporter, now at CNN
• Don Sherwood (disc jockey) (talk show host, late 1950s)
• John Stanley (final host of Creature Features)
• Dan Springer Former Morning Reporter/Fill-in Anchor, now at FOX News
• Thuy Vu Former Anchor/Reporter, left to Anchor at KGO-TV, now Reporter at KPIX
• George Watson former Reporter and Anchor
• Bob Wilkins (original host of Creature Features, Captain Cosmic children's show)
• Ryan Azell Seacrest Former Reporter, now host of the hit FOX series American Idol^{[citation needed]}

[edit] References

1. ^ http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/16043723.htm
2. ^ http://www.ktvu.com/station/10345877/detail.html
3. ^ http://www.ktvu.com/station/1849411/detail.html

• KTVU Website
• Station History KTVU.com
• Project for Excellence in Journalism reference
• KTVU Mention at TVParty.com
• Query the FCC's TV station database for KTVU

v • d • e

Broadcast television in the San Francisco Bay Area market (Nielsen DMA #5)

Greater San Francisco Bay Area KTVU 2 (Fox) - KRON 4 (MNTV) - KPIX 5 (CBS) - KGO 7 (ABC) - KQED 9 (PBS) - KNTV 11 (NBC) - KDTV 14 (UNI) - KBWB 20 (Ind) - KRCB 22 (PBS) - KAXT 22 (TBN) - KTSF 26 (Ind) - KFTL 28 (HSN) - KMTP 32 (Ind) - KICU 36 (Ind) - KTVJ 36 (Ind) - KCNS 38 (Ind) - KTNC 42 (AZA) - KBCW 44 (The CW) - KSTS 48 (TEL) - KFTY 50 (Ind) - KTEH 54 (PBS) - KCSM 60 (PBS) - KKPX 65 (ION) - KFSF 66 (TFT) - KTLN 68 (TLN)
Ukiah-Mendocino County: KUNO 8 (AZA) - K17CG 17 (Ind) - K21CD 21 (TEL) - K27EE 27 (PBS) - K29DF 29 (Ind) - K39AG 39 (Fox) - K41AF 41 (MNTV) - K43AF 43 (CBS) - K45AH 45 (ABC) - K51AQ 51 (The CW) - K55GX 55 (PBS) - K67BV 67 (Ind) - K69DF 69 (PBS)
Defunct television stations KQEC 32 (PBS)
Local cable television channels FSN Bay Area - Comcast SportsNet West - Tri-Valley Community Television

Fox Network Affiliates in the state of California
KTVU 2 (Oakland / San Francisco) - XETV 6 (Tijuana / San Diego) - KECY 9 (El Centro) - KTTV 11 (Los Angeles) - KKFX 24 / KSSB 17 (Santa Maria / Santa Barbara) - KMPH 26 / 17 (Visalia / Merced) - KBVU 29 (Eureka) - KCVU 30 (Chico) - KDFX 33 / KESQ-DT 51.2 (Indio / Palm Springs) - KCBA 35 (Salinas) - KTXL 40 (Sacramento) - KBFX 58 (Bakersfield)
See also: ABC, CBS, CW, MyNetworkTV, NBC, PBS, Telefutura, Telemundo, Univision, Independent, Other Spanish Network, Religious, Home Shopping and Other stations in California