KPLR-TV
kW | |
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HAAT | 315 m (1,033 ft) |
Transmitter coordinates | 38°32′7″N 90°22′23″W / 38.53528°N 90.37306°W |
Links | |
Public license information | |
Website | fox2now |
KPLR-TV (channel 11) is a
History
As an independent station
The station first signed on the air on April 28, 1959, as the first independent station in Missouri.[2] The station's call letters were derived from the name of its founding owner, St. Louis real estate developer and hotelier Harold Koplar. Despite losing in his quest to build the station from the ground up, events effectively outside his control would allow him to acquire the license for the station in 1958.
KPLR originally operated from studios within the Koplar-owned
For most of its existence, KPLR was a traditional independent station featuring
On January 17, 1994, the station began airing the
In the summer of 1994, the station was approached by
WB affiliation
Upon that network's launch, on January 11, 1995, KPLR-TV became a charter affiliate of
On September 26, 1997, Koplar Communications announced it would sell KPLR to ACME Communications (owned by Jamie Kellner, who then also served as the chief executive officer of The WB) for $146 million. Five days later, on October 1, ACME assumed operational responsibilities for the station under a local marketing agreement with Koplar. The sale was finalized on March 1, 1998, ending 38 years of local, family ownership and earning a handsome return on their original investment. It would be ACME's only station on the VHF band during the analog era, as all of the other stations they owned were on UHF. As part of the sale agreement, Ted Koplar signed a three-year contract to remain with KPLR-TV as the station's CEO, along with serving as a consultant to ACME, for an annual salary of $1 million. However, Koplar resigned from KPLR/ACME in October 1999 after one year, citing an irreconcilable rift with ACME management.[20][21][22]
In September 1998, KPLR changed its branding to "WB11". In 2000, KPLR began carrying UPN programming in off-hours, running select prime time shows and cartoons from the network's children's program block, Disney's One Too. UPN programs had previously run on KDNL during overnight and weekend timeslots and then on KNLC (channel 24, which subjected the network to several program preemptions due to content objections by owner, Larry Rice). St. Louis was one of the few top-50 markets without a UPN affiliate. The station continued carrying UPN in off-hours until July 2002, leaving UPN with no St. Louis affiliate until WRBU (channel 46) carried a secondary affiliation in September of that year; WRBU then became a primary UPN affiliate on April 1, 2003.
On December 30, 2002, Tribune Broadcasting announced it would purchase KPLR-TV and sister station KWBP in Portland, Oregon, from ACME Communications for $275 million; the sale was finalized on March 21, 2003.[23][24][25][26] Also in 2003, KPLR moved its studios from the Chase Park Plaza (which by that time, went from a gutted complex where the station had been the only major tenant into a boutique hotel) to a new purpose-built studio facility in Maryland Heights.
CW affiliation
On January 24, 2006, UPN parent company
Nearly one month after the CW launch announcement, on February 22, 2006, News Corporation subsidiaries
On September 17, 2008, Tribune announced that it would enter KPLR into a local marketing agreement with Fox affiliate KTVI effective October 1, as a result of the formation of a "broadcast management company" that was created to provide management services to stations owned by both Tribune Broadcasting and KTVI owner
Tribune bought KTVI outright on July 1, 2013, as part of its $2.75 billion acquisition of Local TV; the sale received FCC approval on December 20, and was completed on December 27, creating the first legal station duopoly in the St. Louis market between KTVI and KPLR.[34][35][36] Tribune's direct purchase of KTVI to form a duopoly with KPLR was possible as, in recent years, KPLR and KDNL have rotated between fourth and fifth place in total day viewership due to the weaker viewership of KDNL's programming since its news department was shut down by Sinclair in 2001 (KPLR ranked in fifth place in total day ratings at the time of the purchase, with KDNL ranking in fourth place).
There have long been rumors that ABC has considered moving its affiliation to KPLR, in part because KDNL-TV has been one of the network's weakest affiliates since joining the network in 1995 (in stark contrast to KTVI's former status as one of ABC's strongest affiliates). However, on March 26, 2010, KDNL owner Sinclair Broadcast Group extended its affiliation agreement with ABC to retain the network's affiliation on KDNL and the eight other ABC affiliates that Sinclair owned at the time for five years through August 2015.[37]
On May 8, 2017, Sinclair—which has owned KDNL-TV since 1996, when it acquired that station's previous corporate parent, River City Broadcasting—entered into an agreement to acquire Tribune Media for $3.9 billion, plus the assumption of $2.7 billion in debt held by Tribune, pending regulatory approval by the FCC and the U.S. Department of Justice's Antitrust Division. The market conditions that allowed for Tribune to form a duopoly between KTVI and KPLR in 2013, ironically, precluded Sinclair from acquiring KPLR directly as, at the time of the merger announcement, channel 11 ranked in fourth place and KDNL ranked fifth among the St. Louis market's television stations in total day viewership. As the FCC prohibits common ownership of two of the four highest-rated television stations in a single market, Sinclair was required to sell KPLR to a third-party group in order to comply with those rules and alleviate potential antitrust issues preceding approval of the acquisition (Sinclair CEO Christopher Ripley cited St. Louis as one of three markets, out of fourteen where ownership conflicts existed between the two groups, where the proposed acquisition would likely result in divestitures).[38][39][40][41][42]
Sinclair originally planned to retain operational stewardship of KPLR-TV through a local marketing agreement (possibly involving one of
Three weeks after the FCC's July 18 vote to have the deal reviewed by an
On December 3, 2018,
Nexstar renewed their affiliation deal with The CW on May 20, 2021, which affected thirty-seven CW stations in many media markets, including KPLR-TV.[69]
Programming
KPLR airs Fox programs that are preempted for other broadcasts by KTVI, such as local newscasts. For example, a 2021 college football matchup between Illinois and Nebraska was moved to KPLR due to KTVI's obligation to air Green Bay Packers preseason games.[citation needed]
Sports programming
KPLR-TV served as the home broadcaster of
On May 23, 1959, the station debuted
From April 9, 2006, to September 7, 2008, KPLR produced The Fan Show, a live sports talk program that was hosted by sports director Rich Gould, featuring audience-participation games and discussion. It was originally broadcast from The Casino Queen's Club Sevens for the first 20 months of its run, before the program relocated to AJ's Bar and Grill in December 2007.
Children's programming
From 1959 to 1968, KPLR aired the after-school children's program
News operation
KPLR presently broadcasts 22 hours of locally produced newscasts each week; including a public affairs program on Saturday evenings called The Pulse of St. Louis, which airs over the final 45 minutes of the 7 p.m. newscast, and a weekly sports highlight program on Sunday evenings called Sunday Sports Extra, which also airs during that newscast.
Channel 11 has aired local news programs since its sign-on, and was one of the first independent stations in the country to have a functioning news department. Like most stations that are not affiliated with one of the Big Three networks, KPLR had traditionally aired a prime time newscast at 9 p.m. that ran one hour ahead of the late newscasts seen on the major network affiliates; for much of the time prior to 2008, KPLR's 9 p.m. newscast ran as a half-hour program. After KTVI moved its late evening newscast to 9 p.m. following its August 1995 switch from ABC to Fox, that station's prime time newscast consistently beat KPLR's in the ratings.
In the past, KPLR has attempted to format its newscasts to attract a younger audience, employing anchors under the age of 35 and featuring a more fast-paced reporting style. Nevertheless, KPLR has often been acknowledged by St. Louis Post-Dispatch television critics as a station strong on "sweeps stories", running one or more major investigative pieces during the November, February and May sweeps periods. KPLR's stories have also been seen as much more broad-based and less sensationalistic compared to other stations.
After entering into the local marketing agreement with KTVI, major changes were made to KPLR's news programming. First on September 8, 2008, KPLR shifted the flagship 9 p.m. newscast to 7 p.m. and expanded the program to one hour, trading timeslots with The CW's prime time schedule, which the station moved to 8–10 p.m. (instead of the network-recommended 7–9 p.m. Central Time slot) with the network's permission; this effectively resulted in the newscast being reduced to airing only on Monday through Friday evenings in part due to The CW airing a three-hour prime time lineup on Sundays at the time (although The CW turned its Sunday prime time slots over to the network's affiliates in September 2009, the 7 p.m. newscast would not expand to weekends until September 2012). The station cited an underserved younger audience in the 9 p.m. timeslot with the Big Three stations airing network programming meant for older viewers and competition from KTVI's 9 p.m. newscast as reasons behind the move.[71]
In December 2008, KPLR moved production of its news programs to a temporary set in KTVI's Hampton studios as the Maryland Heights facility was being remodeled to accommodate both KPLR and KTVI's newscasts. On February 16, 2009, KPLR became the fourth St. Louis television station to begin broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition (one day after KTVI converted its newscasts to HD), broadcasting from a newly remodeled studio (which contained pieces from the KTVI's former "Studio B" set, along with a modernized news desk and a state-of-the-art weather center) that is located adjacent to the main news set now occupied by KTVI. Since KPLR and KTVI's news departments merged, there has been considerable sharing between the two stations in regards to news coverage, video footage and the use of reporters, although both outlets maintain their own primary on-air personalities (such as news and sports anchors) that only appear on one station. On April 6, 2009, KPLR debuted an hour-long midday newscast at noon on weekdays.[72] This was followed on September 20, 2010, with the debut of an hour-long afternoon newscast at 4 p.m.[73] On December 23, 2011, KPLR/KTVI opened a news bureau in the newly renovated Peabody Opera House in downtown St. Louis, to better serve the downtown and eastern portion of the St. Louis metropolitan area.
On January 28, 2015, both stations introduced a new combined set with
In mid-2019, both stations introduced The Power of Two: Midday, replacing Fox 2 News Midday and News 11 at Noon. The program is aired live at 11 a.m. on KTVI and KPLR.
On January 30, 2020, both stations introduced a new graphics package and music package for each station. KPLR's simulcasts with KTVI uses the same music package, "Beyond", while KPLR-specific newscasts use "Inergy", both were created by Stephen Arnold Music.
In spring 2020, both stations introduced The Power of Two at 6 am, which is simulcast on KTVI and KPLR. While branded for both stations, it is largely targeted towards the KTVI audience, as it is part of Fox 2 News in The Morning.
In February 2021, both stations overhauled their set again with an with an expansion of the physical studio space with multiple venues and a larger video wall. KPLR no longer has a separate weather center, now just appearing on the same set as KTVI.
Notable former on-air staff
- Julie Piekarski – entertainment reporter (1986–1988)
- Charles Jaco – political and war correspondent
Technical information
Subchannels
The station's ATSC 1.0 channels are carried on the
Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming | ATSC 1.0 host |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
11.1 | 1080i | 16:9 |
KPLR-DT | The CW | KTVI |
11.2 | 480i | CourtTV | Court TV | KDNL-TV | |
11.3 | Comet | Comet | KSDK | ||
11.4 | Rewind | Rewind TV | KMOV |
On May 31, 2006, KPLR added The Tube Music Network to digital subchannel 11.2; The Tube later abruptly suspended its operations on October 1, 2007. In 2010, the 11.2 subchannel became an affiliate of This TV. On January 1, 2016, the 11.3 subchannel became a Comet affiliate.
Analog-to-digital conversion
KPLR-TV shut down its analog signal, over
11.ATSC 3.0
Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming |
---|---|---|---|---|
2.1 | 720p | 16:9 |
KTVI-DT | Fox (KTVI) |
4.1 | 1080i | KMOV-HD | CBS (KMOV) | |
5.1 | KSDK-5 | NBC (KSDK) | ||
11.1 | KPLR-DT | The CW | ||
30.1 | 720p | KDNL | ABC (KDNL-TV) | |
30.10 | 1080p | T2 | T2 |
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