KIRO TV Seattle, as a CBS affiliate, ran the "Eyewitness News" moniker from 1969 to just a couple of years ago. They even copied the KABC set and format in the early 70's. Why they dropped this moniker a couple of years ago is anyone's guess. They would do well to bring it back, IMO.
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ABC Affiliate Upgrades in the late 1970s
- Thread starter SteveRichards
- Start date
KIRO TV Seattle, as a CBS affiliate, ran the "Eyewitness News" moniker from 1969 to just a couple of years ago. They even copied the KABC set and format in the early 70's. Why they dropped this moniker a couple of years ago is anyone's guess. They would do well to bring it back, IMO.
Not sure about Seattle, but it's a major market - and the trend in majors is away from those brand names. Here in the Bay Area, the first to drop the name was KTVU 2 "Action News" which became just "KTVU Channel 2 News at <time>" That was probably in the 80's. The other stations followed suit - so NewsScene became ABC7 News, NewsCenter 4 became KRON4 News, etc. The Spanish language channel here is Noticias 14 (News 14). The NBC O&O (new since 2003) used to be News Channel 11, is now NBC Bay Area News. You can see the trend
Eyewitness News on KPIX was the last holdout here too, until maybe 5 years ago, now it's just KPIX5 News.
I remember Fox O&O's were the first group to rename their newscasts as Fox (Insert Channel#) News at 10 and "Good day _________" this was before Fox News Channel Existed though.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiLf8WU2IXs
Yes Before Fox O&O's were required to change their newscast titles to "Fox 11 News at 10" because of Fox News Channel. KTTV Los Angeles was OK naming their newscast as Fox News branding way things were at the time.
Note KTVU Fox 2 the Fox O&O in San Francisco is the Only Fox O&O that does not use "Good Day " title for its morning shows like KTTV though. KTVU under current Fox Ownership uses "Mornings on Fox 2" as the title for its morning shows while keeping the Good Day format with the other Fox O&O's.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grsbLZXc5kQ
Here is this. How Much was the Olympics games was a factor for ABC Affiliation Upgrades given that they had those broadcasting rights for those shows at the time.
Here is this. How Much was the Olympics games was a factor for ABC Affiliation Upgrades given that they had those broadcasting rights for those shows at the time.
Keep in mind that KTVU has only been a Fox O&O for about 3 years. Mornings on 2 has been a very successful program for a couple of decades. Fox corporate is smart enough to know that when something ain't broke, you don't fix it. About the only change Fox has made to KTVU is to change the news title from "KTVU Channel 2 News" to Fox2 News.
KTTV has been a Fox O&O practically since the beginning of the Fox network, when News Corp bought the station from the old Metromedia.
This thread brings up another question. How many tv stations use their call letters with their newscasts?
We have established that KRON in San Francisco still does, but KTVU is now "Fox2". Seattle and Portland seem to be holdouts, with "KIRO7News", "KING5News", and "KOMOnews". Portland still has "KGW" in their title, as does KOIN and KATU. What other markets still feature the calls in their news identity?
We have established that KRON in San Francisco still does, but KTVU is now "Fox2". Seattle and Portland seem to be holdouts, with "KIRO7News", "KING5News", and "KOMOnews". Portland still has "KGW" in their title, as does KOIN and KATU. What other markets still feature the calls in their news identity?
Does WPIX's "PIX11 News" count?
The following montage provides a more detailed history of WNYW's 10:00 newscast branding: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDjzMa-W5uQ.
Here's an amusing WABC-TV Eyewitness News retrospective: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdU_NtfjsLg.
Hearst for their California stations use KCRA3 News and KSBW 8 Action News.
KPBS San Diego uses "KPBS Evening Edition" for their newscasts. KCAL 9 Los Angeles uses KCAL9 News for the past 30 years though.
But Back to the original purpose of this thread ABC Affiliate upgrades how much of this was that the Olympics in the 1970's had huge ratings at the time though.
The aforementioned KPIX in San Francisco recently changed its branding from "CBS5" to "KPIX5." So in their case, it's "KPIX5 News." . This seems to be the reverse of the current trend to go with the network as brand - especially given that KPIX is a CBS O&O. Why they did this, I could not tell you. The other nets in the Bay Area brand as ABC7, NBC Bay Area, and Fox2.
Maybe KPIX is just trying to be distinctive.
FYI - KRON in San Francisco is an independent station. It used to be the NBC affiliate, but not since 2003.
Minneapolis/St Paul in 1979. In the Twin Cities what happened is that KMSP was BADLY underperforming on a local level while the network was the #1 network at the time. KMSP on average had about 1/3 of the viewers for the local news as did KSTP and WCCO. As a result ABC warned KMSP that either they had to improve or they would start shopping around for a new affiliate. For a while KMSP was improving but it was not enough to satisfy ABC so they began looking. Meanwhile Hubbard Broadcasting, owner of KSTP was becoming unhappy with NBC who as you noted was in a decline. So as a result when he heard ABC was looking for a new affiliate, he took the gamble and began talking to them. And in August of 1978 they came to a deal and announced in that on March 5 KSTP would become the new ABC affiliate for Minneapolis/St Paul. That left NBC looking for a new affiliate and they chose WTCN(KARE) to become the new affiliate as they did not want an ABC reject to become the new affiliate. Thus KMSP was left as the independent. For KMSP it actually allowed them to streamline an already struggling news department but over time this switch actually helped Channel 9 as it eventually became the #1 independent station in the nation. They also slowly rebuilt the news department. At the time these were the only commercial TV stations in the Twin Cites as WFTC, WCWU and KSTC all signed on later. There were also 2 PBS stations not effected by the switch, So as a result WCCO is the only station in MSP to have its network affiliation never change
http://www.studioz7.com/newsnine.html
http://www.studioz7.com/newsnine.html
KMSP actually ended up coming out ahead as them dropping ABC got them cable carriage in all of Minnesota as well as parts of the Dakotas and Wisconsin (cable began to really take off around this time and KMSP would remain on most of these systems until they returned to FOX in 2002)
I can confirm this. Lived in 2 cites that were NOT in the Minneapolis/St Paul DMA and at the time I lived there KMSP was the only Twin Cities station available on cable(pre 2nd Fox stint)
Here's the Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyewitness_News
The idea for the format came from Al Primo, who was at Group W's KYW-TV. He was eventually hired by WABC-TV and the concept took off when it reached the Big 3 DMAs (New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago). San Francisco was the only city where both Group W and ABC ownership of their 5 TV stations overlapped. Apparently KPIX adopted the concept first (but ditched it recently) and KGO-TV has not adopted the branding yet.
The differences between the two versions is very clear: Westinghouse uses the From Russia With Love 007 cue as the theme, while ABC O&Os use the Cool Hand Luke Tar Sequence cue for the theme.
Interestingly here in Houston, KTRK adopted the format in 1973, under Capital Cities ownership. Ironically it also owned WPVI (the late WFIL-TV), which pioneered the Action News format. When Capital Cities bought ABC, there probably weren't many changes to be made at KTRK. Why it did not become Action 13 is still a mystery; the other two stations have never used the Action News format or branding and Action News has never made an appearance in Houston.
The happy talk is missing from the 10 PM newscasts these days, but it's lighter during the day. Len Cannon at crosstown KHOU 11 has notably been doing the "Happy Talk" during the 10 PM news (and it looks forced). It might be the result of a TEGNA mandate along with the new graphics and set.
Yes - KPIX ditched the Eyewitness News brand a couple of years ago - the last holdout. All the other local San Francisco market stations had ditched news titles years before, defaulting to the generic...NBC Bay Area News, Fox2 News, KRON4 News, ABC7 News.
In Minneapolis/St Paul KSTP announced the move to ABC as reported in the August 30, 1978 Minneapolis Tribune while one month later NBC announced they wold go with WTCN as the NBC station for Minneapolis. The then Minneapolis Tribune confirmed these moves on those dates
Unless I'm wrong, is WCCO-TV (CBS) channel 4 the only "Big 4" affiliate in Minneapolis/Saint Paul to have never switched their primary network? I've never been to Minnesota, but still remember hearing CBS News updates on the rare time I picked up WCCO-AM 830 at night here in Connecticut or elsewhere a bit further west.
Yes. CBS has always been with WCCO-TV/4 (originally WTCN-TV). It's been either a partial or total O&O since 1952.
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