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KMOV, "News 4 Saint Louis", is the CBS television affiliate in St. Louis, Missouri. KMOV is currently owned and operated by Belo Corp.

The station's transmitter, the KMOV TV Tower, is located in Lemay, Missouri. Its analog signal broadcasts on channel 4 while the digital channel operates on channel 56. Its studio is located on Memorial Drive in downtown St. Louis, along with its former radio sister, KMOX.

KMOV broadcasts in stereo and broadcasts a Secondary Audio Program (SAP) channel, used mainly for Descriptive Video Service (DVS).

KMOV airs about 26 hours of local news per week.

History

The station began broadcasting on July 8, 1954 as KWK-TV, owned by the Convey family along with KWK-AM (now KSLG. It took the CBS affiliation from WTVI (channel 54, now KTVI on channel 2). Until 1955, it also aired whatever ABC programs that WTVI turned down. CBS bought the station in 1958 and renamed it KMOX-TV (after the radio station).

In 1986, CBS decided to buy a station in the increasingly lucrative Miami market. However, it had to sell one of its existing stations in order to stay under FCC ownership limits of the time. CBS opted to sell KMOX-TV, its smallest O&O at the time. On May 16 of that year, Viacom Broadcasting Company, Inc. (which at that point was a separate entity from CBS) bought the station and renamed it KMOV. This left St. Louis without a major network O&O until News Corporation's New World Communications (part of the Fox Television Stations Group) bought former-ABC station KTVI in 1995, and made it a Fox O&O.

As part of a sale of Viacom's non-UPN affiliated stations, Belo Corp. acquired KMOV in a three-way deal also involving Cox Communications and 2 stations in Seattle. The deal closed on June 1 1997.

As a CBS O&O, KMOX-TV cleared the entire CBS schedule. When Viacom took over in 1986, this changed rather drastically. KMOV began signing off the air at night, thus pre-empting the CBS overnight news program, Nightwatch. Other daily network pre-emptions and delays during this period included airing the CBS morning news program at 6AM (from the East Coast feed) rather than 7AM; airing The Price Is Right on a one-day delay at 11AM; delaying The Young and the Restless to 3PM (and then later moved to 4PM where it airs currently to compete with The Oprah Winfrey Show); airing CBS late-night programming on a one-week delay at 11PM (KMOV completely dropped CBS late-night programming in late 1989); and a barrage of scattered prime-time pre-emptions that was so rampant, the station earned a mention in Ken Auletta's 1991 book, Three Blind Mice. KMOV randomly replaced CBS prime-time shows with programming such as Billy Graham and National Geographic specials, syndicated movie packages, and occasional sporting events. KMOV regularly pre-empted CBS's summer Friday night reruns of Dallas and Falcon Crest, airing a syndicated movie instead. According to Auletta, KMOV pre-empted 103 hours of CBS prime-time programming in 1987, accounting for nearly 10 percent of the network prime-time schedule. In the 1990s, the prime-time pre-emptions eased, and currently, the station only occasionally pre-empts a CBS prime-time program. The station also resumed a 24-hour broadcast schedule in the early-1990s.

In February 2002, KMOV and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch launched the weekly news discussion program Extra Edition; hosted by weekday morning news anchor Marc Cox, Extra Edition airs every Saturday at 9:30 am.

In 2003, KMOV began producing and airing At The Zoo, a program that gives behind-the-scenes look at the world-class St. Louis Zoo; hosted by KMOV Chief Meteorologist Kent Ehrhardt, At The Zoo airs Saturday mornings at 10am.

News Operations

Channel 4 dominated the St. Louis news ratings for most of the time from the late-1960s to the early-1980s.

From the early-1980s until recently, KMOX/KMOV has been a solid runner-up to KSDK. Although KMOV's newscasts won much critical acclaim, they were rarely rewarded with a ratings win. The 10 p.m. newscast regularly won at least a 20% share in viewership, while KSDK averaged about 30% share.

Since 2004, KMOV has seen significant growth in viewership. The station initially beat out KSDK at 10 p.m. in November, 2004. KMOV won at 10 p.m. again in May 2006.[1] In November, 2006, KMOV's 10 p.m. newscast not only beat out KSDK's, but also became the most-watched late newscast in the country. Most of the 10pm growth can be attributed to CBS' primetime ratings increases and NBC's large drop in viewership. However, KMOV has also seen growth in all of its other newscasts, at times where the station does not benefit from a stong CBS lead-in.[2]

Many KMOV personalities have moved on to jobs in the national spotlight (both Richelle Carey and meteorologist Reynolds Wolf moved to CNN in 2006). While this would initially seem like a positive, the "revolving door" and the unfamiliarity many of the station's personalities have in the market has been one of KMOV's weaknesses. Three of the station's four main anchors (Russell Kinsaul, Vickie Newton, and one anchor opening; Donna Savarese left the station in 2007) have been with the station for fewer than five years; three of the stations four main meteorologists (Matt Chambers, Steve Templeton, and Melanie Streeper) have been with the station fewer than three years. Though this may have initially caused some hiccups for KMOV, the ratings now seem to be increasing. Since the departure of Karen Foss from KSDK in December, 2006, Larry Connors assumed the mantle of longest-serving 10 p.m. news anchor in the market.

In 2002, KMOV updated its news set and added two other multipurpose sets. Both new sets are interview sets that can double as reporting/anchoring sets if the interview chairs are replaced with a news desk.

News/Station Presentation

Newscast Titles

  • News 4 St. Louis (early 1980s-1992)
  • Channel 4 News (1992-1993)
  • News 4 Saint Louis (1993-present)

Station Slogans

  • The Vision of St. Louis (1992-?)
  • Where There's Always Something Extra (2004-2007)
  • News 4 Never Stops (2007)

Personalities

Current On-Air Talent

News4 Anchors

News4 Reporters

4Warn Weather

In addition to providing forecasts on KMOV-TV, the 4Warn Weather Team also provides forecasts for The St. Louis Post-Dispatch and KEZK-FM radio.

News4 Traffic

News4 Sports

Former On-Air Talent

References

  1. ^ http://www.belo.com/pressRelease.x2?release=20060705-972.html
  2. ^ http://www.belo.com/pressRelease.x2?release=20061204-1081.html

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