KFMB-TV
kW | |
HAAT | 227 m (745 ft) |
---|---|
Transmitter coordinates | 32°50′17″N 117°15′0″W / 32.83806°N 117.25000°W |
Links | |
Public license information | |
Website | www |
KFMB-TV (channel 8) is a
History
The station first
In October 1949, KFMB-TV signed an affiliation agreement with the short-lived
Changes in ownership
In November 1950, Gross sold KFMB-AM-TV to John A. Kennedy, a former publisher of the
After the Wrather-Alvarez partnership broke up in 1957, Wrather kept the San Diego outlets and
In 2005, Midwest Television signed a ten-year affiliation contract extension for KFMB-TV to remain a CBS affiliate through 2015. The station restored its on-air branding to News 8 on September 19, 2005, after four years of using the "Local 8" brand. In early 2007, the station began to phase in a new branding as CBS 8, although newscasts maintained their previous title until 2013, when the station introduced a new logo similar to Miami's CBS O&O WFOR-TV and renamed its newscasts CBS News 8.
Switch to digital broadcasting
KFMB-TV shut down its analog signal, over
The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition
Tegna acquires KFMB-TV
On December 18, 2017,
KFMB-TV was separated from its radio sisters on March 17, 2020, when Tegna sold KFMB (760 AM) and KFMB-FM (100.7) to Local Media San Diego, which in turn spun KFMB (AM) to iHeartMedia.[17] Under the terms of the deal, Tegna retained exclusive control of the KFMB call sign for KFMB-TV, with the radio stations required to change their call letters within 30 days of the sale;[18] LMSD changed KFMB-FM to KFBG that April.[19] Meanwhile, iHeartMedia changed KFMB (AM) to KGB on July 4.[20]
KFMB-DT2
KFMB-DT2, branded on-air as The CW San Diego, is the primary CW and secondary MyNetworkTV-affiliated second digital subchannel of KFMB-TV, broadcasting in 720p high definition on channel 8.2.
History
On November 1, 2011, KFMB launched KFMB-DT2, an affiliate of MeTV, by way of an agreement between the network's owner, Weigel Broadcasting, and Midwest Television that was announced two months earlier on September 6.[21]
On January 18, 2017, Midwest Television and network co-parent
In preparation, Midwest sold the local rights to the MeTV affiliation to the
KFMB-DT2 added programming from The CW on May 31, 2017 (XETV transferred its existing affiliation with co-owned
KFMB became the third television station in San Diego to affiliate with The CW: the network was originally affiliated with KSWB-TV (channel 69) beginning at The CW's launch on September 18, 2006, before moving to XETV on August 1, 2008, after Tribune Broadcasting agreed to switch KSWB to Fox, reportedly due to that network's concerns about having its programming airing on a Mexican-licensed station, even though XETV had operated as an English-language station since its 1953 sign-on.[34][35][36] The switch resulted in KFMB-DT2 becoming the largest CW station by market size that is carried over a digital subchannel, and San Diego becoming the largest market with a subchannel-only CW affiliate (overtaking WKRC-DT2 in Cincinnati) as well as the largest overall in which any of the six major networks maintains a subchannel-only affiliation.
In September 2018, after XHDTV-TDT dropped MyNetworkTV to join
Programming
For years, KFMB-TV has chosen to air The Bold and the Beautiful outside of the network's recommended 12:30 p.m. timeslot in the Pacific Time Zone. This stemmed from when the station had an hour-long noon newscast, as the station aired the program at 9:30 a.m. (the midday newscast has since moved to 11 a.m.). The Bold and the Beautiful had aired at 11:30 a.m. from 2009 to 2013, when it moved to 12:30 p.m. as the lead-in to The Young and the Restless (which itself normally airs at 11 a.m. in the Pacific Time Zone). It also airs CBS Saturday Morning two hours earlier than most CBS stations (aligning it with the program's recommended timeslot in the Eastern Time Zone).
Due to
Sports programming
KFMB-TV has served two stints as the broadcast television partner of
In
KFMB-TV also airs select
News operation
As of January 2024, KFMB presently broadcasts 39 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with seven hours each weekday and two hours each on Saturdays and Sundays), and also produces an additional 23 hours a week of local newscasts for KFMB-DT2 (with four hours each weekday, 1+1⁄2 hours on Saturdays and a half hour on Sundays). KFMB runs an hour-long local newscast at 6 p.m. on weekdays. Unlike most CBS affiliates in the Pacific Time Zone, KFMB runs a half-hour local newscast at 6:30 p.m. on weekends. KFMB operates the only news helicopter in the San Diego market; its "Chopper 8" helicopter provides aerial video to most of the market's news-producing television stations through Local News Service agreements.
Some famous KFMB alumni include former weather anchor Raquel Tejada (who eventually became a successful actress as Raquel Welch), talk show host Regis Philbin, television host Sarah Purcell, CNN and former CBS anchor Paula Zahn, original Access Hollywood host Larry Mendte, and eventual NBC correspondents Don Teague (later at KRIV in Houston) and Dawn Fratangelo. KFMB has led in newscast viewership in the San Diego market for most of its history, dating back to the 1950s when Ray Wilson was the popular anchor of the city's first half-hour newscast. When Wilson stepped down in 1973, KFMB slipped to a distant second behind KGTV, rebounding only in the late 1970s and early 1980s when former KGTV producer Jim Holtzman was hired by the station as its news director. Holtzman formed a popular and acclaimed news team consisting of anchors Michael Tuck and Allison Ross, weather anchor Clark Anthony and sports anchor Ted Leitner. By the end of 1979, KFMB had risen back to the #1 position, remaining there until 1984 when Tuck suddenly moved to KGTV and helped that station overtake KFMB for the remainder of the decade.
Holtzman tried in vain to compete by experimenting with a different format for the 11 p.m. newscast called This Day which emphasized a softer, humanized format and attempted to find a common thread within the newscast. There was no regular anchor; instead Hal Clement, Loren Nancarrow (now deceased), Dawn Fratangelo (now with NBC) and Susan Lichtman (now known as Susan Taylor and with KNSD) formed an ensemble of anchor/reporters who alternated between anchoring, filing detailed reports and giving live interviews. Computer graphics were used heavily, and Dave Grusin's "Night Lines" served as the newscast's theme music.
Although it was innovative for its time, This Day proved to be a dismal failure as viewers responded negatively to the awkward format; within nine months, KFMB reverted to a more traditional late evening newscast. However, the news ratings for KFMB went into a deep decline for more than a decade as popular mainstays like Marty Levin and Allison Ross (both of whom reappeared in the market on KNSD) either left voluntarily or were fired and were replaced by younger staffers like Stan Miller and Susan Roesgen.
Eventually by the 1990s, Hal Clement would assume early evening anchor duties alongside Susan Peters and later, Denise Yamada to mixed results as the station continued to battle KGTV and KNSD, primarily in the 11 p.m. timeslot where the CBS lead-in at the time was particularly weaker. By the early 2000s, Michael Tuck's brief return following Clement's departure for KGTV and CBS's resurgence at the start of the decade helped bring KFMB back to first place in the early evenings. By October 2020, KFMB, which had become the most watched television station in San Diego (based on
During coverage of the
Notable former on-air staff
- Jerry G. Bishop – co-host of Sun Up San Diego (1978–1990)
- Marc Brown – (1987–1989, now at KABC-TV in Los Angeles)
- Fox News Channel)
- Jim Laslavic – sports anchor (1983–1989; later at KNSD, now retired)
- Ted Leitner – sports anchor (1978–2003)
- Sandra Maas – anchor/medical reporter (1990–2001; later at KUSI-TV)
- Larry Mendte – weather anchor (1988–1991; later at KYW-TV in Philadelphia and WPIX in New York City)
- KAKE in Wichita, Kansas, now retired)
- Sarah Purcell – talk show host (1970s)
- Susan Roesgen – anchor (1989–1991; formerly at CNN, now at WGNO in New Orleans)
- Danuta Rylko – co-host of Sun Up San Diego (1976–1983; later co-host of The 700 Club, now retired)
- Michael Tuck – anchor (1978–1984 and 1999–2004; later at KGTV, KCBS-TV in Los Angeles and KUSI-TV)
- Raquel Welch – weather (early 1960s)
- Paula Zahn – (1979–1981, later with CNN)
Subchannels
The station's signal is
Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming |
---|---|---|---|---|
8.1 | 1080i | 16:9 |
KFMB-HD | CBS |
8.2 | 720p | KFMB-CW |
| |
8.3 | 480i | Laff | Laff | |
8.4 | Crime | True Crime Network | ||
8.5 | Quest | Quest | ||
8.6 | NEST | The Nest |
See also
References
- ^ "Facility Technical Data for KFMB-TV". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission.
- ^ Engstrand, Iris. "San Diego: California's Cornerstone". San Diego: Sunbelt Publications, 2005, pg 180.
- ^ a b c d "KFMB-TV Rebeams 6 hrs. of KTLA Segs". Billboard. June 4, 1949. p. 11.
- ^ "Television". Redlands Daily Facts. Redlands, CA. December 5, 1952. p. 12.
- ^ "First Coast Network: KTLA Pioneers in Hookup with San Diego", Long Beach Independent, pp. 14c, October 16, 1949
- Broadcasting – Telecasting, November 20, 1950, pg. 68.
- ^ "$7 1/2 million mark passed in bumper transfer crop." Broadcasting – Telecasting, February 2, 1953, pp. 27–28.
- ^ "Wrather buys out Alvarez." Broadcasting – Telecasting, May 12, 1958, pg. 9.
- Broadcasting – Telecasting, February 16, 1959, pg. 9.
- ^ "Transcontinent tie with Marietta gets ok." Broadcasting – Telecasting, May 18, 1959, pp. 74, 76.
- ^ "Transcontinent sale: last of its kind?." Broadcasting, February 24, 1964, pp. 27–28.
- ^ "DTV Tentative Channel Designations for the First and the Second Rounds" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on August 29, 2013. Retrieved March 24, 2012.
- ^ "DTV Antenna Info". KFMB-TV. Midwest Television. Retrieved February 17, 2009.
- ^ "CDBS Print".
- ^ "TEGNA Completes Acquisition of Midwest Television, Inc.'s Broadcasting Stations in San Diego, CA – TEGNA". TEGNA. February 15, 2018. Retrieved February 15, 2018.
- ^ Lothspeich, Jennifer (March 14, 2019). "Who is Elisabeth Kimmel? Former owner of KFMB Stations in San Diego named in college admissions scandal". CBS 8. Retrieved April 12, 2021.
- ^ Venta, Lance (March 17, 2020). "Local Media San Diego Closes KFMB AM/FM Purchase; Sells 760 To iHeartMedia". RadioInsight. Retrieved March 17, 2020.
- ^ Venta, Lance (December 30, 2019). "Local Media San Diego Acquires KFMB AM/FM". RadioInsight. Retrieved December 30, 2019.
- ^ "San Diego's 100.7 BIG FM Gets New Call Letters—KFBG-FM". Radio Online. April 23, 2020. Retrieved April 24, 2020.
- ^ Venta, Lance (July 3, 2020). "760 KFMB San Diego Changes Call Letters To KGB". RadioInsight. Retrieved July 3, 2020.
- ^ "Me-TV Announces Significant Market Affiliate Agreements, Including San Diego, Las Vegas, St. Louis & Minneapolis/St. Paul". Me-TV (Press release). Weigel Broadcasting. September 6, 2011. Retrieved June 5, 2017 – via The Futon Critic.
- ^ "MIDWEST TELEVISION, INC. / KFMB-TV ADDS CW AFFILIATION". KFMB-TV. Midwest Television, LLC. January 18, 2017. Retrieved January 19, 2017.
- ^ Miller, Mark K. (January 18, 2017). "KFMB San Diego Adding CW Affiliation". TVNewsCheck. NewsCheck Media. Retrieved June 6, 2017.
- ^ "MarketWatch: KFMB Adds CW Affiliation to CBS, Leaving XETV in Lurch". Times of San Diego. Times of San Diego, LLC. January 22, 2017. Retrieved June 6, 2017.
- ^ Eck, Kevin (January 19, 2017). "CW Affiliation Switch in San Diego". TVSpy. Prometheus Global Media. Retrieved June 6, 2017.
- ^ Tronc. Retrieved January 27, 2017.
- ^ "KFMB San Diego Adding CW Affiliation". TVNewsCheck. NewsCheck Media. January 18, 2017. Retrieved January 18, 2017.
- ^ Eck, Kevin (January 26, 2017). "San Diego Station to Shut Down After Losing CW Affiliation". TVSpy. Prometheus Global Media. Retrieved January 27, 2017.
- ^ "COX San Diego Channel 808 METV changing to CW San Diego". Cox Communications customer forum. May 7, 2017. Retrieved May 12, 2017.
- ^ Lafayette, Jon (March 6, 2017). "Azteca America Adds New Affiliate in San Diego Market". Broadcasting & Cable. NewBay Media. Retrieved March 6, 2017.
- ^ Marszalek, Diana (May 22, 2017). "New CW, Telemundo Stations Rolling Out in San Diego". Broadcasting & Cable. NewBay Media. Retrieved September 14, 2020.
- ^ Peterson, Karla (March 31, 2017). "San Diego's CW6 news signs off". The San Diego Union-Tribune. Tronc. Retrieved June 5, 2017.
- ^ Ortega, Roly (May 23, 2017). "KFMB adding more weekday news for its new CW subchannel". The Changing Newscasts Blog. Retrieved June 6, 2017.
- U-T San Diego. Copley Press. Archived from the originalon January 5, 2018. Retrieved June 5, 2017.
- ^ Peterson, Karla (August 1, 2008). "Trading places: Fox, CW switch network channels". U-T San Diego. Copley Press. Archived from the original on January 5, 2018. Retrieved June 5, 2017.
- ^ Mayfield, Matthew (April 7, 2008). "XETV, KSWB Battle For Fox Affiliation In San Diego". RadioMatthew. Sactown Media. Archived from the original on September 11, 2008.
- ^ Nielsen Media Research, October 2020
- ^ "Witch Creek Fire - October 2007: Larry Himmel in front of his destroyed home in 4S Ranch, San Diego" – via www.youtube.com.
- ^ Local HD News Offered By 24 Stations Archived September 27, 2007, at the Wayback Machine, TVpredictions, November 25, 2006
- ^ "RabbitEars.Info". www.rabbitears.info.