Everything about Ktvu totally explained
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
1964, making it the largest Fox
market size that isn't
owned and operated by the network. 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.
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 aired
The 8 O'Clock Movie as an independent alternative to network prime time programming by
KRON,
KPIX, and
KGO-TV.
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, 1990s, and 2000s,
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.
KBCW has since debuted a primetime newscast produced by KPIX in March 2008 though.
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.
Newscasts
Today, the station has newscasts at noon, 5 p.m. and 6 p.m., 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. Now Fox has no network newscasts, but it still motivated its affiliates to air more local news, including KTVU. 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.
KCAL's Dave Clark joins the newsteam
Since November 1, 2007,
Los Angeles local station
KCAL weekend anchor Dave Clark has joined KTVU, anchors KTVU Morning News with Pam Cook.
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 Sundays at 7 p.m. 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.
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 McCormick, had brought his puppets from KGO. The shorts often aired during children's programming. 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.
Other programming
Other programs included:
50th anniversary
On
March 3,
2008, KTVU celebrated its 50th anniversary of broadcasting. Fifteen promos of KTVU's 50th anniversary aired which included "Bits & Pieces", "Romper Room", "Captain Satellite" as well as sports like wrestling and Roller Derby, Innovation, Technology and personalities/faces just to name a few. Many promos are available on KTVU's website.
Sports
San Francisco Giants baseball games were televised by KTVU from
1958 – when the team moved to San Francisco from
New York City – to
2007. On
November 1,
2007, it was announced that
KNTV will broadcast Giants games beginning with the
2008 MLB season. Beginning in
1996, some Giants Saturday afternoon games have been carried via the
Fox Network, which had won broadcast rights to
Major League Baseball. KTVU 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.
Affiliation
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.
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
1991 (and, as such, became the fourth Fox affiliate or 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.
Fox branding
In the early years as a Fox affiliate, KTVU still referenced itself as
Channel 2 and rarely called itself
Fox 2 as other Fox affiliates did and still do, but it has done Fox promos as
Fox Channel 2. In
1996, the Fox logo was encrypted into the longtime Circle Laser 2 logo (used since
1975), and when the network tightened its station standardizations, the station branded itself as
KTVU Fox 2 today -- only to revert to
KTVU Channel 2 during newscasts.
Programming deviations
Fox airs fewer hours of network programming than its three main rivals (CBS, NBC and ABC). KTVU has generally aired the entire Fox lineup with no pre-emptions, except for San Francisco Giants baseball during the term of its contract with the team. At first KTVU delayed pre-empted programming to the weekends, but with the growth of Fox and viewer demand the station eventually aired the delayed primetime shows following
The Ten O'Clock News. The Bay Area has always been one of the largest
Nielsen ratings markets and Fox naturally wanted to have a network owned-and-operated station in the area. Through the network's parent,
News Corporation, it tried several times to buy KTVU, but Cox turned down every offer. When Cox purchased KICU, the pre-empted Fox programming would be moved to that station to air in its normal timeslot in lieu of KTVU. The issue over Giants baseball and pre-emptions became moot when the team announced that NBC O&O KNTV would be the flagship station for the Giants beginning with the 2008 season.
Technology
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-TV in
Atlanta, Georgia and
WFTV in
Orlando, Florida which were already airing their newscasts in HD.
On satellite
Until the late 1990s, KTVU was seen nationally on
PrimeStar and
C-Band satellite systems.
Personalities
Current
Anchors
Tori Campbell - Mornings on Two and noon
Pam Cook - Morning News
Dave Clark - Morning News and Mornings on 2
Julie Haener - 6 and 10 p.m. weeknights
Heather Holmes - weekends
Gasia Mikaelian Weekdays 5 p.m. and Bay Area News at 7 on TV 36 (KICU)
Ross McGowan - Mornings on Two
Frank Somerville - Weeknight KTVU 2 News at 5, 6 and The 10 O'Clock News
Ken Wayne - Weekends
Weather
Bill Martin - weeknights
Steve Paulson - weekday mornings, Mondays - Thursdays noon
Byron Miranda - Fridays noon and weekends
Sports
Joe Fonzi - weekend anchor
Mark Ibáñez - sports director
Fred Inglis - reporter/fill-in anchor
Reporters
Sal Castaneda - traffic
Rosy Chu - Community Affairs director/Bay Area People host
Kraig Debro (also fill-in anchor)
John Fowler - health/science editor
Robert Handa - San Jose Bureau
Craig Heaps
Renee Kemp - freelance
Jana Katsuyama - freelance
Lloyd LaCuesta - South Bay Bureau chief
Amber Lee (primarily seen evenings)
Bob MacKenzie - feature reporter
Mike Mibach
Maureen Naylor - freelance reporter
Rob Roth - San Francisco Bureau
John Sasaki - also fill-in anchor
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)
Former
Marilyn Baker - 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 11 p.m.
Marcia Brandwynne - Anchor
Brian Copeland - Feature AM reporter, currently on KGO-AM
Elaine Corral - 10 O'Clock News anchor
Mark Curtis - Anchor/Reporter, now a political analyst
Priya David - Reporter
Ysobel Duran - Reporter
Diane Dwyer - Anchor/reporter, now at KNTV
Faith Fancher - Reporter (deceased)
Ron Fortner - co-anchor on The Tuck and Fortner Report (deceased)
Eric Greene - 2 at Noon host and Mornings on 2 anchor
Leslie Griffith - 10 O'Clock News anchor
Judd Hambrick - Anchor
Walt Harris - Staff announcer and host of live Friday night wrestling from KTVU's studios and Roller Derby announcer at live San Francisco Bay Bomber games that were taped from Kezar Pavilion on Sunday afternoons until 1973.
Kim Hunter - Reporter
Jennifer Jolly - Reporter
Greg Liggins - Reporter
Terry Lowry - Morning and noon anchor
Claude Mann - Former Reporter and Weekend Anchor (deceased)
Bob March - Host of Captain Satellite children's show, Host of Dialing for Dollars, and weather reporter
Pat McCormick - Host of Dialing for Dollars, Charlie and Humphrey children's show
Lee McEachern - Reporter
Steve Physioc - Sports director, now with Fox Sports
Gary Park - Sports director
George Redding - Anchor
Dennis Richmond - KTVU 2 News at 6 & The 10 0'Clock News - Anchor (retired May 21, 2008)
Ted Rowlands Reporter, now at CNN
Julia Sandstrom - Meteorologist
Don Sherwood - Talk show host, late 1950s (deceased)
Sara Sidner - Reporter and fill-in anchor, moved to CNN New Delhi bureau (External Link
) (External Link)
John Stanley - Final host of Creature Features
Dan Springer - Morning reporter/fill-in anchor, now at Fox News
Thuy Vu - Anchor/reporter, left to anchor at KGO-TV, now at KPIX
Steve McPartlin
Mark Pitta
Michael Tuck - co-anchor on The Tuck and Fortner Report; later worked at KCBS-TV in Los Angeles and San Diego's KFMB-TV, KGTV, and KUSI
George Watson - Reporter and anchor
Bob Wilkins - Original host of Creature Features, Captain Cosmic children's show
Kevin Wing - Reporter now at KRON-TVFurther Information
Get more info on 'Ktvu'.
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