Miscellaneous unorganized material/KPLR-TV

KPLR-TV
	[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:KPLR_Logo.png KPLR 11 Logo ]
St. Louis, Missouri
Branding	KPLR 11 (general) News 11 (newscasts)
Slogan	The "Ones" To Watch (general) First, Complete, Local (news)
Channels	Digital: 26 (UHF)Virtual: 11 (PSIP)
Affiliations	The CW
Owner	Tribune Company (Operated by Local TV LLC under LMA) (KPLR, Inc.)
First air date	April 28, 1959
Call letters' meaning	KoPLaR(named after the Koplar family, the station's founding owners)
Sister station(s)	KTVI (via LMA with Local TV LLC)
Former channel number(s)	Analog: 11 (VHF, 1959-2009)
Former affiliations	Independent (1959-1995)The WB (1995-2006) UPN (secondary, 1999-2002)
Transmitter power	1000 kW (digital)
Height	288 m (digital)
Facility ID	35417
Transmitter coordinates	38°34′24″N 90°19′30″W / 38.57333°N 90.325°W / 38.57333; -90.325 (digital)
Website	kplr11.com

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KPLR-TV, Channel 11, is a television station in St. Louis, Missouri. KPLR is owned by the Tribune Company, and is an affiliate of The CW Television Network. The station's studios are located in Maryland Heights, Missouri, in Northwest St. Louis County (though with a St. Louis address), and its transmitter is located in Lemay, Missouri.

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History[]

KPLR commenced broadcasting on April 28, 1959, as the first independent station in Missouri. 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, Koplar acquired the station's license in 1958 through controversial circumstances.

CBS was originally granted a construction permit by the Federal Communications Commission to build channel 11 in 1955, prevailing over four other locally-based competitors.^[1] But two years later, in 1957, CBS decided instead to purchase its existing affiliate, KWK-TV (channel 4). As a condition of the channel 4 purchase, the FCC required CBS to relinquish the channel 11 construction permit. CBS did so by transferring it to the Koplar group, known as 220 Television, Incorporated, in a money-less transaction. Almost immediately, the three-way deal was held up after the St. Louis Amusement Company, one of the applicants for channel 11, protested to the United States Court of Appeals in January 1958.^[2] The appeal was dropped in November 1958,^[3] and the deal was consummated shortly thereafter. CBS renamed its new channel 4 station KMOX-TV—the call letters intended for channel 11—and operated it for 28 years (it is now Belo Corporation-owned KMOV). Meanwhile, Koplar went to work building channel 11 on its own, no longer in the face of opposition.

KPLR's first studios were located within the Koplar-owned Chase Park Plaza Hotel, located on Maryland Plaza in St. Louis' Central West End district. Channel 11 would move into a separate facility adjacent to the hotel several years later. Starting in the mid-1960s Harold's son, Edward J. "Ted" Koplar, began working behind the scenes at KPLR, producing sports programming and developing the station's first regular newscast. Ted Koplar became president and chief executive officer of channel 11 in 1979, and gained complete control of the station upon his father's death in 1985.

KPLR turned down an offer to affiliate with the upstart Fox network in 1986, instead choosing to remain an independent station (the affiliation went to KDNL).

1990s[]

In 1995, KPLR decided to affiliate with the newly created The WB Television Network, but later that same year, KPLR also was offered the ABC affiliation after that network's longtime St. Louis station, KTVI (channel 2) switched to Fox through a group deal with incoming owner New World Communications. Channel 11 turned ABC down, effectively sending them to the former Fox affiliate, KDNL. Beginning in 1999 KPLR also carried a secondary UPN affiliation, running cartoons from UPN's "Disney Block" and select other UPN shows. UPN programming had been previously run on KDNL during overnight and weekend hours, as St. Louis was one of the few large markets that did not have a full-time UPN affiliate, though it finally gained a St. Louis station in WRBU (channel 46), in 2002.

Koplar Communications sold KPLR to ACME Communications in 1997, ending 38 years of local, family ownership. In the sale agreement, Ted Koplar signed a three-year contract to stay with KPLR-TV as its CEO, along with serving as a consultant to ACME. However, Koplar resigned only a year later, citing an irreconcilable rift. [2].

For many years, even after joining The WB, KPLR was known as "St. Louis 11." It often used a logo with the "O" in "St. Louis" (which had a resemblance to the Gateway Arch) converted into its "circle 11" numeric logo. KPLR changed its branding and became known as "WB 11" in 1998.

2000s[]

In March 2003, ACME Communications sold KPLR and sister station KWBP in Portland, Oregon to the Tribune Company.

In September 2006, The WB and UPN networks merged into a new network called The CW Television Network. The new network signed a 10-year affiliation agreement with most of Tribune's The WB stations, including KPLR.

On Sunday, April 9, 2006, The Fan Show, hosted by Rich Gould, debuted. It is a live sports-related show broadcasted from The Casino Queen's Club Sevens for the first year and a half, but starting in December 2007 it is hosted at AJ's Bar and Grill, with audience-participation games and discussion. Gould remarked in a St. Louis Post-Dispatch interview about the show that "it's live TV in its rawest form. It's essentially a time machine back to the 1950s... in fact, some of the games I stole from Beat the Clock." The show's last episode aired on September 7, 2008.

[1][2]KPLR's former The CW logo from September 2006 until the beginning of November 2008, which is a variant of the logo of WPIX in New York.On Wednesday, May 31, 2006 The Tube debuted on 11.2 on ATSC broadcast. The Tube began broadcasting on Charter Cable channel 136 on August 2, 2006. The Tube suspended operations on October 1, 2007.

On September 17, 2008, Local TV, which had recently bought KTVI, and Tribune announced that they would merge the operations of KTVI and KPLR under an local marketing agreement. KTVI will be the senior partner in the LMA, with KTVI general manager Spencer Koch as general manager of the combined operation. However, the two stations will be housed at KPLR's studios. The move was done to allow both stations to combine news operations and share certain programming. The LMA officially took effect October 1, 2008^[4].

On November 1, 2008, the station was rebranded as KPLR 11 as part of Tribune's shift away from the common The CW branding with its CW stations, and returned to a logo featuring the Gateway Arch. The logo is essentially a revised version of the logo used by the station when it was a WB station under Tribune ownership.

On September 8, 2008, KPLR launched a unique schedule where the station's 9 pm newscast moved to 7 pm and stretched to an hour-long show, with The CW lineup airing from 8 pm-10 pm instead of its traditional 7 pm-9 pm berth in the Central Time Zone. The station cited an underserved younger audience in the 9 pm timeslot with the Big Three stations airing network programming meant for older viewers and KTVI's 9pm newscast, and had acquired permission from the network itself before going forward with the experiment ^[5].

On February 16, 2009, KPLR became the fourth station in St. Louis to broadcast in 1080i High Definition a day after sister station KTVI, and behind KSDK which has been in HD since 2006 and KMOV which has been in HD since 2008.

On April 6, 2009, KPLR debuted a new newscast called "News 11 at Noon". The newscast is anchored by Christine Buck, and Chief Meteorologist John Fuller does the weather. Also, McGraw Milhaven from KTRS in St. Louis, does feature stories on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Later that month, the station announced that it was dropping its coverage of the Blues, airing their last game (a 2009 Stanley Cup Playoffs loss to the Vancouver Canucks) on April 21.

Rumors have abounded that ABC is considering moving its affiliation to KPLR, in part because KDNL has been one of the weakest ABC affiliates in the nation in the 15 years since joining the network. However, ABC did extend its affiliation agreement with KDNL and Sinclair's other ABC affiliates for five years on March 26, 2010, which will keep KDNL affiliated with ABC until August 2015 ^[6].

Programming[]

Sports programming[]

For most of its existence, KPLR was a traditional independent with cartoons, sitcoms, movies, dramas, and news. Channel 11 has also served as the home broadcaster of the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team (two stints, 1959–1962 and 1988–2006), the NBA's St. Louis Hawks (1959–1968) and the NHL's St. Louis Blues (three stints, 1967–1976, 1982–1983, and 1986–2009). The station was also available on many cable systems in Missouri, Illinois and Arkansas until the late 1980s. Locally, channel 11's first—and only—competitor came in 1969, when local interests put KDNL-TV (channel 30) on the air. However, it was never a real threat to KPLR in the ratings, even after joining Fox.

Beginning on May 23, 1959, KPLR broadcast Wrestling at the Chase, a professional wrestling program produced first from Chase-Park Plaza's Khorassan Ballroom (until 1970). The show featured the most famous wrestlers in the National Wrestling Alliance, which was controlled in part by St. Louis promoter Sam Muchnick. Participants included Ric Flair, Harley Race, former NFL player Dick the Bruiser, and Ted DiBiase, among others, and is considered one of the pro wrestling industry's most historic programs. About 1,100 episodes were produced during the show's run, which ended on September 10, 1983.

Children's programming[]

Ted Koplar also diversified the family's entertainment holdings during his time at the helm of KPLR, most notably through World Events Productions, which distributed the animated series Voltron: Defender of the Universe and Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs, and later developed and co-produced another, Denver, the Last Dinosaur.

KPLR also aired and produced Captain 11's Showboat, an after-school program for children, that introduced The Three Stooges to St. Louis area television viewers, from 1959 until 1968. Captain 11 was played by long-time radio personality Harry Fender.

News operations[]

Traditionally, like most non-"Big Three" stations, KPLR has aired a newscast an hour behind the Big Three stations — in this case, at 9 pm Since KTVI moved its late evening newscast to 9 pm following its affiliation switch, it has consistently beaten KPLR in the ratings.

KPLR has in the past tried to program its news to a younger audience, with most of its anchors being under 35 and with a more fast-paced style of broadcast. However, in a city where most television personalities have been around for years and the perennial ratings winner, KSDK, does not have a main presenter who has less than ten years tenure, this has for the most part caused them to struggle, in addition to what is perceived as a "soft" approach to news. Nevertheless, KPLR has often been pointed out by Post-Dispatch television critics as a good "sweep story" station, where during November, January and May sweeps the station will plug one or more major investigative pieces. KPLR's stories have been seen as much more broad-based and less sensationalistic.

The primetime newscast moved to 7 p.m. and was cut to airing Monday through Fridays only (on account of The CW having programmed Sunday nights at the time of the move) on September 8, 2008. On September 17, 2008 both Local and Tribune announced that they would merge the operations of both KTVI and KPLR. Both stations will be co-located at KPLR under the management of KTVI GM Spencer Koch. The move was done to allow both stations to combine news operations and share certain programming. The LMA took place on October 1, 2008^[7].

On April 6, 2009, KPLR ventured into the midday news market with a new newscast called "News 11 at Noon". The newscast is anchored by Christine Buck who has been with the station for over 30 years, and Chief Meteorologist John Fuller.^[8] On June 17, 2010 is was announced that KPLR will debut an hour-long weekday 4 p.m. newscast on September 20, 2010.^[9] The hour-long newscast will be anchored by Patrick Clark. The weather will done by either John Fuller or Michelle Anselmo (unless an additional meteorologist is hired), and the sports director Kurt LaBelle will serve as sports anchor.

KPLR 11 News / Station Presentation[]

News sets, music and graphics packages[]

In 2003, KPLR moved out of its traditional home at the Chase Park Plaza (which by that time had gone from a gutted complex in which the station was the only major tenant into a boutique hotel) into a new purpose-built building in Westport with a new newsroom and studio. A new WB11 logo was debuted along with new graphics and music. In late January 2006, KPLR updated its graphics. It also changed its logo from blue to red. In September 2006, the logos were redesigned with the new The CW logos and graphics. In November 2008 the logos were once again changed, returning the arch to the logo, it now goes around the silver letters that say KPLR-11. The silver letters formerly said CW11 without the arch.

In December 2008, KPLR began broadcasting from KTVI's studios as KPLR's facility began remodeling to accommodate both KPLR and KTVI's newscasts. The temporary set includes an anchor desk, green screen, and a mini-weather center.^[10]

On February 16, 2009, KPLR first began its high-definition newscasts in its newly remodeled studio located a few feet adjacent to KTVI's studio. The new studio contains pieces from the "old" KTVI Studio B set along with a new modern news desk and a state of the art weather center.

KPLR 11 Newscast titles[]

Channel 11 News (1966–1972)
KPLR-TV News Watch (1972–1977)
News Watch 11 (1977–1990)
St. Louis 11 News at Nine (1990–1997)
WB 11 News at Nine (1998–2006)
CW 11 News at Nine (2006–2008)
CW 11 News in Prime (2008)
News 11 (2008–present)

KPLR Station slogans[]

The Ones to Watch (1977–1990)
Count On Us (1990–1997)
It's About Time (1998–2006)
Where People Are the Story (2006–2008)
First, Complete, Local (2008–present; news slogan)
The Ones To Watch (2009–present; general slogan)

KPLR 11 News music packages[]

Tuesday 4 (?-1984)
KPLR News (1984–1989)
WHAS News (1989–1991)
Impact (1996–1998)
Magnum (1998–2001)
Production Music (2001–2003)
Power News (2003–2006)
Momentum News (2006–2008)
Extreme (2008–present)

[3] This film, television or video-related list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it with reliably sourced additions.===On-air staff===

Current on-air staff[]

News 11 Anchors / Reporters In addition to providing reports on KPLR-TV, News 11 reporters also provides reports for KTVI-TV.

Christine Buck - weekdays at noon; also 7 pm reporter (sometimes appears on KTVI, usually on the 11 am newscast)
Patrick Clark - weekdays at 4 pm (starting September 20, 2010); also noon and 7 p.m. reporter
Dan Gray - weeknights at 7 pm
Melanie Moon - weeknights at 7 pm
Jeff Bernthal - lead story reporter

News 11 Weather

John Fuller - Chief Meteorologist, weekdays at noon and weeknights at 7 pm, occasionally seen on KTVI's 11 amnewscast
Michelle Anselmo - Meteorologist/Anchor; Sunday at 7 pm; General Assignment Reporter for FOX 2 News-KTVI at 9 & 10 p.m.

News 11 Sports team

Rich Gould - Sports Director; weeknights at 7 pm
Kurt LaBelle - sports and general assignment news reporter

Former KPLR 11 staff[]

Don Bell - sports (currently at KYW-TV in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
Gabrielle Biondo - reporter
Shelley Bortz - reporter
Bryan Busby - meteorologist (currently at KMBC in Kansas City)
Don Clark - anchor
Cree Craig - anchor
Steve Draganchuk - meteorologist/reporter
Dan Eassa - sports (currently at WFTS in Tampa)
Rick Edlund - anchor
Mark Ferree - meteorologist
Ethan Forhetz - reporter (currently at KYTV in Springfield, Missouri)
Kelli Eggers - anchor
Dave Erickson - anchor (1999–2002; currently main anchor at KXLY-TV in Spokane, Washington)
Matt Gamewell - reporter
Kelley Hoskins - reporter (currently at KTVI)
Kathryn Jamboretz - anchor (2000–2007; currently at KTRS-AM)
Kara Kaswell - anchor/reporter (currently at KMOV)
Sandy Miller - anchor (currently at KTVI)
Tony Miller - reporter
Victor Ojeda - reporter
Theresa Petry - reporter/weekend anchor (currently press secretary for "Ed Martin for Congress")
Bob Ramsey - sports
Bill Rees - anchor
Steve Schiff - anchor
Garry Seith - chief meteorologist (1999–2006; currently at KTXA in Dallas-Fort Worth)
Keryn Shipman - chief meteorologist (2006–2008)
Jon Sloane - sports anchor, later attorney
Melanie Streeper - weather anchor
Bill Thomas - news director
Telly Hughes - sports reporter (currently at FSN North)
Evelyn Wilkerson - reporter
Henry Rothenberg - meteorologist (currently at WPTY-TV in Memphis)
Julie Piekarski - news reporter

Digital television[]

After the analog television shutdown and digital conversion on June 12, 2009, KPLR-DT continued to broadcast on channel 26. However, through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers will display KPLR-DT's virtual channel as 11.

References[]

^ "C.B.S. wins St. Louis TV bid." The New York Times, Sept. 7, 1955.
^ "Court blocks TV sale." The New York Times, Jan. 3, 1958, p. 44.
^ "St. Louis TV appeal blocked by court." The New York Times, Nov. 18, 1958, p. 34.
^ From TV Newsday (September 17, 2008)
^ http://www.kplr11.com/pages/landing/?blockID=34931&feedID=1006
^ http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118016982.html?categoryid=14&cs=1
^ From TV Newsday (September 17, 2008)
^ http://www.kplr11.com/pages/landing/?Press-Release-KPLR-11-Launches-Noon-News=1&blockID=224989&feedID=416
^ http://www.tvnewscheck.com/link/?id=43118
^ [1]

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