WHO-DT
This article needs additional citations for verification. (January 2013) |
kW | |
HAAT | 600 m (1,969 ft) |
---|---|
Transmitter coordinates | 41°48′33″N 93°36′54″W / 41.80917°N 93.61500°W |
Links | |
Public license information | |
Website | who13 |
WHO-DT (channel 13) is a television station in Des Moines, Iowa, United States, affiliated with NBC and owned by Nexstar Media Group. The station's studios are located on Grand Avenue in downtown Des Moines, and its transmitter is located in Alleman, Iowa.
Although WHO-DT's call letters sound like "who" if pronounced as a word, the station is never referred to in that manner; it is always mentioned on air as "W-H-O".
History
WHO-TV signed on the air on April 15, 1954, as the third television station in Des Moines, after
Palmer Communications, which since the 1970s had been the name of the Palmer family's holding company,
On January 4, 2007, The New York Times entered into an agreement to sell its entire television division, including WHO-TV, to private equity group Oak Hill Capital Partners. Oak Hill created Local TV LLC as a holding company for the former New York Times stations. The sale closed on May 7, 2007.[7]
On December 20, 2007, Local TV and
On July 1, 2013, Local TV announced that it would be acquired outright by Tribune Broadcasting, making WHO-DT and KFOR Tribune's first NBC affiliates.[8] The sale was completed on December 27.[9]
Aborted sale to Sinclair; sale to Nexstar
Sinclair Broadcast Group, which has owned KDSM-TV since 1996, entered into an agreement to acquire Tribune Media on May 8, 2017, for $3.9 billion, plus the assumption of $2.7 billion in Tribune debt.[10][11] The deal received significant scrutiny over Sinclair's forthrightness in its applications to sell certain conflict properties, prompting the FCC to designate it for hearing and leading Tribune to terminate the deal and sue Sinclair for breach of contract.[12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23]
Following the Sinclair deal's collapse, Nexstar Media Group of Irving, Texas, announced its purchase of Tribune Media on December 3, 2018, for $6.4 billion in cash and debt.[24] As Nexstar already owned ABC affiliate WOI-DT and CW affiliate KCWI-TV (channel 23), the company agreed on March 20, 2019, to divest the WOI/KCWI duopoly to Tegna Inc. as part of a $1.32 billion group deal with Tegna and the E. W. Scripps Company.[25][26] The sale was completed on September 19, 2019.[27]
Programming
Past programming preemptions and deferrals
Until the 1980s, WHO-TV frequently preempted NBC programming in favor of local shows. For instance, it only ran
News operation
WHO-TV presently broadcasts 36 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with six hours each weekday and three hours each on Saturdays and Sundays); in regards to the numbers of hours devoted to programming, it is the largest local newscast output among any station in Des Moines and the state of Iowa.
It was in 1976 that WHO-TV formed its most popular news team:
By 1979, Phil Thomas had risen to become the news director at the station, as reported in the Guthrie Center Times, where he began his news career.
On September 2, 2008, WHO-TV entered into a news share agreement with Fox affiliate KDSM-TV (owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group). The big three station then began producing a Des Moines-based prime time newscast known as Channel 13 News at Nine on Fox 17. KDSM previously had its 9 p.m. broadcast produced by Sinclair sister outlet KGAN in Cedar Rapids. Originating from WHO-TV's primary set at its facilities on Grand Avenue in Downtown Des Moines (with separate duratrans indicating the Fox show), the nightly prime time program currently airs for an hour on weeknights and thirty minutes on weekends. KDSM features the majority of WHO-TV's on-air team but maintains a separate news anchor on weeknights. Unlike other outsourced news arrangements at Sinclair-owned television stations, KDSM uses the same music and graphics package scheme as seen on this NBC affiliate. WHO had also produced a prime time newscast for Pax TV (now Ion Television) owned-and-operated station KFPX-TV in 2001, and later reran its 10 p.m. news on that station.
For the better part of its history, WHO-TV was a solid, if usually distant, runner-up to CBS affiliate KCCI in the ratings. It managed to close the gap somewhat at the turn of the century. In February 2010, WHO-TV overtook KCCI in the mornings and at 6 p.m. The latter was significant, as it was the first time that channel 8 had lost the lead at 6 in decades.
In the May 2011 ratings period, WHO-TV surged ahead as central Iowa's news leader, claiming a ratings victory in the majority of weekday newscasts (morning, 5 p.m. and 6 p.m.) KCCI retained a narrow lead at 10 p.m.[31] WHO-TV held the lead in most timeslots until February 2013, when KCCI beat WHO-TV by a decisive margin in every timeslot.[32]
WHO-TV has many firsts in the market. It was the first area station to use videotape and the first to broadcast from news events live. It was also the first station to use live Doppler radar and the first to broadcast in high definition (during the 2002 Winter Olympics) and air local news segments in high definition. On April 22, 2009, Channel 13 became the second station in Des Moines broadcasting all in-studio news in widescreen standard definition.[33] On May 19, 2010, WHO-HD became the first commercial station in Des Moines to launch fully into high definition television.[34]
On September 8, 2014, the station premiered a 4 p.m. newscast with
Notable current on-air staff
- Justin Surrency – reporter
Notable former on-air staff
- Jack Cafferty (later at WNBC and WPIX in New York City and CNN)
- WHO Radio and play-by-play announcer for the Iowa Hawkeyesradio network; deceased)
Technical information
Subchannels
The station's signal is
Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming |
---|---|---|---|---|
13.1 | 1080i | 16:9 |
WHO-HD | NBC |
13.2 | 480i | WHO-DT | Rewind TV | |
13.3 | Antenna TV | |||
13.4 | WHO-DT4 | Iowa's Weather Channel | ||
17.1 | 720p | 16:9 | FOX | Fox (KDSM-TV) |
In 2008, WHO-TV introduced Iowa's Weather Plus, a 24-hour weather channel affiliated with
Analog-to-digital conversion
WHO-TV launched
With the conversion to digital, the station also retired the longtime WHO-TV call sign in favor of WHO-DT, a move opposite to what most other TV stations across the country have done (competitor WOI retained its "-DT" suffix as well). In the spring of 2011, the station unofficially changed its call letters to "WHO-HD".
Former translators
WHO-DT was previously repeated on
See also
- The Floppy Show, a long-running children's television series on WHO-TV
References
- ^ "Update: Des Moines FOX Affiliate Returns on NBC Subchannel". Upper Midwest Broadcasting. May 23, 2019. Retrieved May 24, 2019.
- ^ "Facility Technical Data for WHO-DT". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission.
- ^ TV Factbook 1963 American Radio History [dead link]
- ISBN 0-9718323-1-5.
- ^ https://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-BC-YB/1977-TV-Factbook/301-400-1977-TV-Factbook.pdf [dead link]
- ^ "See American Channels: WHO on TVArk". Retrieved July 24, 2023.
- ^ NY Times Co. Sell TV Group to Equity Firm for $530M; Second equity group to buy a media business in two weeks, NewsInc., January 8, 2007.
- ^ Channick, Robert (July 1, 2013). "Acquisition to make Tribune Co. largest U.S. TV station operator". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved July 1, 2013.
- ^ Company Completes Final Steps of Transaction Announced in July Archived December 28, 2013, at the Wayback Machine, Tribune Company, December 27, 2013
- ^ Battaglio, Stephen (May 8, 2017). "Sinclair Broadcast Group to buy Tribune Media for $3.9 billion plus debt". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on June 6, 2017. Retrieved June 6, 2017.
- ^ Littleton, Cynthia (May 8, 2017). "Sinclair Broadcast Group Sets $3.9 Billion Deal to Acquire Tribune Media". Variety. Archived from the original on June 5, 2017. Retrieved June 6, 2017.
- ^ Todd Shields (July 16, 2018). "Sinclair and Tribune Fall as FCC Slams TV Station Sale Plan". Bloomberg News. Retrieved July 19, 2018.
- ^ Harper Neidig (July 16, 2018). "FCC chair rejects Sinclair-Tribune merger". The Hill. Capitol Hill Publishing Corp. Retrieved August 9, 2018.
- ^ Robert Feder (July 16, 2018). "FCC throws Sinclair/Tribune deal in doubt". RobertFeder.com. Retrieved August 9, 2018.
- ^ Benjamin Hart (July 16, 2018). "FCC Throws Wrench into Sinclair Media Megadeal". New York. New York Media, LLC. Retrieved August 9, 2018.
- ^ Edmund Lee (July 18, 2018). "Sinclair Tries to Appease F.C.C., but Its Tribune Bid Is Challenged". The New York Times. Retrieved August 9, 2018.
- Baltimore Sun. Tronc. Retrieved August 9, 2018.
- News Corp.August 9, 2018.
- ^ Mark K. Miller (August 9, 2018). "Tribune Kills Sinclair Merger, Files Suit". TVNewsCheck. NewsCheck Media.
- Tronc.
- ^ Edmund Lee; Amie Tsang (August 9, 2018). "Tribune Ends Deal With Sinclair, Dashing Plan for Conservative TV Behemoth". The New York Times.
- ^ Jon Lafayette (August 9, 2018). "Tribune Ends Deal with Sinclair, Files Breach of Contract Suit". Broadcasting & Cable. NewBay Media.
- ^ Fung, Brian; Romm, Tony (August 9, 2018). "Tribune withdraws from Sinclair merger, saying it will sue for 'breach of contract'". The Washington Post. Nash Holdings LLC.
- ^ Lafayette, Jon (December 3, 2018). "Nexstar Announces Deal to Buy Tribune for $6.4B". Broadcasting & Cable. Archived from the original on April 5, 2019. Retrieved December 6, 2018.
- ^ "Nexstar Selling 19 TVs In 15 Markets For $1.32B". TVNewsCheck. NewsCheckMedia. March 20, 2019. Retrieved March 20, 2019.
- Bloomberg, L.P.
- ^ Miller, Mark K. (September 19, 2019). "Nexstar Closes On Tribune Merger". TVNewsCheck. Archived from the original on September 20, 2019. Retrieved July 20, 2021.
- ^ Phil Thomas Image desmoinesbroadcasting.com
- ^ "WHO-TV Ad from 70s - Phil Thomas/Jack Cafferty era". www.desmoinesbroadcasting.com.
- ^ "1975(?) Eyewitness News Bloopers WHO-TV". Archived from the original on December 21, 2021 – via www.youtube.com.
- ^ "Sorry, this content is not available in your region". Archived from the original on September 27, 2011.
- ^ "KCCI sweeps July ratings | des Moines Register Staff Blogs". Archived from the original on October 1, 2013. Retrieved October 1, 2013.
- ^ "Sorry, this content is not available in your region". Retrieved July 24, 2023.
- ^ "Sorry, this content is not available in your region". Retrieved July 24, 2023.
- ^ McCormick, John (October 5, 2014). "Local TV Stations Are Getting Force Fed Super PAC Cash". Bloomberg. Retrieved October 7, 2014.
- ^ "RabbitEars TV Query for WHO". www.rabbitears.info.
- ^ "DTV Tentative Channel Designations for the First and the Second Rounds" (PDF). Retrieved March 24, 2012.
External links
Media related to WHO-DT at Wikimedia Commons
- Official website
- WHO.AntennaTV.tv – Antenna TV Des Moines official website
- WHO-TV historical artifacts at DesMoinesBroadcasting.com