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KCPQ

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KCPQ, channel 13, is the Fox television affiliate licensed to Tacoma, Washington serving the Seattle/Tacoma television market, owned by the Tribune Company. KCPQ shares its studio and office facilities with sister station KMYQ (channel 22, the area's MyNetwork TV affiliate) on the west shore of Lake Union in Seattle's Westlake neighborhood, and its transmitter is located on Gold Mountain in Bremerton, Washington.

KCPQ is one of five local Seattle TV stations seen in Canada on the Bell TV and Star Choice satellite providers. The station is also carried on several cable systems in southeastern Alaska.

History

As KMO-TV/KTVW

Channel 13 signed on air on August 2 1953 as KMO-TV, co-owned with KMO radio by Carl Haymond. The station carried some NBC programming for its first year until Seattle's KOMO-TV took to the air on December 11. 1953. Hampered by a poor signal from north of Tacoma and no network material, Haymond was forced to declare bankruptcy and sell the station to J. Elroy McCaw, father of cellular phone magnate Craig McCaw.

Under McCaw's ownership, Channel 13, renamed KTVW, closed their studio in Tacoma's Roxy Theater, relocated to their transmitter building, and limped along on a diet of a low-budget local programming, old network reruns and ancient B-movies. Their advertising of the period pictured a stylized black cat and the ironic tag line "Lucky 13."

In 1970, the station ran a weekday stock-market news program produced by Rockwell Hammond and hosted by Merrill Mael. Dick Stokke and, later, Joe McCusker read the news. Hammond leased six and a half hours a day from KTVW and originated the program, called "Business Action Line", live from the Northern Life Tower in Seattle from where it was microwaved to KTVW in Tacoma. Despite the poor over-the-air reception of KTVW in Seattle, the program had a following in the business community, if only for the 15-minute delayed stock ticker and the real time display of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. However, expenses quickly overcame the income from what proved to be a limited commercial base, and the venture failed.

Mael, a respected broadcaster for six decades, died in 2000. McCusker moved on to a career with the United Nations television operation, retiring in 2007.

During the late 1960s and early '70s, the station featured an on-air movie host named Bob Corcoran, who hawked endless items from Tacoma's B & I Circus Store and Niagara recliners. Corcoran later forged a fledgling political career from his television late-night talk show. Station owner McCaw died in 1969 and the station was purchased by Blaidon Mutual Investors Corporation in 1971 for $1.1 million.

Blaidon tried to turn KTVW around by acquiring first-run syndicated programming and color-capable broadcast equipment (the station telecast exclusively in black-and-white until 1972). Channel 13's poor over-the-air signal, along with the weak Puget Sound economy and Blaidon's undercapitalized operation, rendered the station a money-losing proposition. In an attempt to improve ratings, the station launched an afternoon cartoon show hosted by a "superhero" for whom viewers were asked to suggest a name. The winning entry was "Flash Blaidon" and the host frequently made his entrance "flying" onto the set by jumping off a ladder whose shadow was often visible on the back wall of the cramped studio. Interestingly, Blaidon president Donald Wolfstone attempted to sell the station to then-unknown televangelist broadcaster Pat Robertson, but a court-appointed trustee canceled the deal. Another sale to a Long Island television broadcast company also fell through. A bankruptcy judge then forced KTVW to cease operations in 1974.

As KCPQ

The "Q13" branding was introduced in 1980. This first-generation logo is similar in style to that of then-sister station KCRA-TV.

The remaining Channel 13 assets were bought in bankruptcy court bidding by the Clover Park School District in Lakewood, a Tacoma suburb, for $378,000. The call letters were changed to KCPQ, replacing Clover Park's UHF channel 56 transmitter which had operated under the name KPEC-TV, and the station went back on the air, carrying secondary PBS and educational programs.

By 1980, the Seattle-Tacoma market was strong enough that it could now sustain another VHF commercial television station. Sacramento, California-based Kelly Broadcasting, owners of KCRA-TV in its home city, purchased KCPQ from the Clover Park School District for $6.25 million, outbidding a New Mexico company that had initially stepped up to buy the station. The station went silent temporarily February 28, 1980 during the ownership change. KCPQ's transmitter was relocated to Gold Mountain, a peak west of Bremerton, enabling better signal coverage throughout Western Washington.

When the station relaunched on November 4, 1980, KCPQ adopted its now-familiar Q13 branding, as well as another slogan: "The Northwest's Movie Channel". Channel 13 ran movies during middays, late nights and weekends, and chose to counter-program the networks during primetime with uncut versions of films. The station also ran CBS and NBC shows that KIRO-TV and KING-TV respectively pre-empted, including CBS Late Night and NBC's Saturday morning cartoons. Other than Saturdays, KCPQ did not run children's programming during the week. The station also didn't carry many off-network sitcoms, choosing instead to air first-run syndicated talk and game shows, off-network dramas, and some early morning religious programs. KCPQ also carried college sports for the majority of the 1980s and early 1990s, in particular Pacific Ten Conference football and basketball, and college football bowl games.

File:Kcpq-pugetsoundtv-2.png
KCPQ was alternatively known as "Puget Sound Television" during the 1980s. These station IDs used a ship bell ring sounder. ([1])

In 1986, KCPQ became one of the first affiliates of the Fox Broadcasting Company. In 1987, with the children's television business growing, KCPQ began running cartoons weekday mornings from 7:00 to 9:00 a.m., and afternoons from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m.. Channel 13 added sitcoms as well, and continued airing first-run syndicated shows and movies. As the Fox network's viewership and ratings strengthened in the 1990s, KCPQ gained prominence as a major broadcaster in the local Seattle market.

The Tribune Company acquired KCPQ in August 1998, as part of Kelly Broadcasting's exit from the television business. Following the purchase of channel 13, Tribune merged KCPQ's operations with those of KTWB-TV (channel 22, now KMYQ), which Tribune had operated under a local marketing agreement with Emmis Communications. The two stations became co-owned in 1999, after the FCC approved same-market duopolies.

In January 2007 KCPQ made headlines when, during a satellite interview with the station's morning show, Paula Abdul, who was promoting American Idol, began to sway in her chair and slur her speech. Abdul's publicist attributed this to fatigue and technical difficulties during the recording of the interview, which she was also doing with other Fox affiliates. [1] It was revealed on the Bravo show Hey Paula, which had followed Abdul with a video camera prior to the interviews, that Abdul had not been sleeping, perhaps suffering from some mild form of insomnia.

Digital Television

Digital channels
Channel Programming
13.1 / 18.1 KCPQ-DT
13.2 / 18.2 The Local AccuWeather Channel

Analog-to-digital conversion

After the analog television shutdown and digital conversion, which is tentatively scheduled to take place on February 17, 2009 [2], KCPQ will move its digital broadcasts back to its present analog channel number, 13. [3]

News operation

KCPQ once ran several news updates between movies during the early 1980s, and briefly ran a full half-hour 10:00 p.m. newscast in the middle of the decade. This operation couldn't compete with the more established 10:00 p.m. news on then-independent KSTW, and was eventually cancelled. The current news operation began on January 18, 1998, when it launched a new 10:00 newscast. Channel 13 also launched a morning newscast in 2000. On March 31, 2008, the station launched a 9:00 p.m. newscast on KMYQ. ([2])

Current personalities

  • Amy Allen - Reporter
  • Maria Arcega-Dunn - Morning Co-Anchor
  • Jennifer Cabala - Weekend Anchor/Reporter
  • Brian Callanan - Reporter
  • Darren Dedo - Reporter/Backup Anchor
  • Dan Devone - Weeknight Sports Anchor
  • Adam Gehrke - Traffic Reporter
  • Lily Jang - Morning Co-Anchor
  • Walter Kelley - Chief Meteorologist
  • Angela King - Reporter
  • Aaron Levine - Weekend Sports Anchor/Reporter
  • Parella Lewis - Weekend Meteorologist
  • James Lynch - Reporter
  • M.J. McDermott - Morning Meteorologist
  • David Rose - Weeknight Co-Anchor
  • Roxanne Vainuku - Reporter
  • Susan West - Reporter
  • Bill Wixey - Weeknight Co-Anchor
  • Mark Wright - Morning Co-Anchor
  • Lara Yamada - Weeknight Co-Anchor

Past personalities

Repeaters

All repeaters are owned by KCPQ and are within the Seattle-Tacoma market, unless specified.

References

  1. ^ Paula Abdul seen slurring in TV interview, Reuters via MSNBC.com, 2007-01-15, Retrieved on 2007-04-09.
  2. ^ http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-06-1082A2.pdf
  3. ^ CDBS Print
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