KALB-TV is the NBC

NBC

The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

-affiliated television station

Television station

A television station is a business, organisation or other such as an amateur television operator that transmits content over terrestrial television. A television transmission can be by analog television signals or, more recently, by digital television. Broadcast television systems standards are...

 for Central Louisiana

Central Louisiana

Central Louisiana , also known as the Crossroads region, is the part of Louisiana that includes the following parishes: Allen Parish, Beauregard Parish, Catahoula Parish, Concordia Parish, Grant Parish, La Salle Parish, Natchitoches Parish, Rapides Parish, Sabine Parish and Vernon Parish.The five...

 licensed to Alexandria

Alexandria, Louisiana

Alexandria is a city in and the parish seat of Rapides Parish, Louisiana, United States. It lies on the south bank of the Red River in almost the exact geographic center of the state. It is the principal city of the Alexandria metropolitan area which encompasses all of Rapides and Grant parishes....

. It broadcasts a high definition

High-definition television

High-definition television is video that has resolution substantially higher than that of traditional television systems . HDTV has one or two million pixels per frame, roughly five times that of SD...

 digital signal on UHF channel 35 (virtual channel

Virtual channel

In telecommunications, a logical channel number , also known as virtual channel, is a channel designation which differs from that of the actual radio channel on which the signal travels....

 5.1 via PSIP) from a transmitter in Forest Hill

Forest Hill, Louisiana

Forest Hill is a village in Rapides Parish, Louisiana, United States. It is part of the Alexandria, Louisiana Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 456 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Forest Hill is located at ....

. The station can also be seen on Suddenlink

Suddenlink Communications

Suddenlink Communications, formerly Cebridge Connections, is a top-10 cable broadband services provider in the United States with approximately 1.4 million subscribers. Suddenlink operates in 18 states in primarily medium-sized communities. With its corporate headquarters in St. Louis, MO,...

 channel 5 and in high definition on digital channel 730. Owned by the Hoak Media Corporation

Hoak Media Corporation

Hoak Media Corporation is a United States broadcasting media company based in Dallas, Texas. Hoak owns eighteen television stations , all in medium and small-markets, mostly in the Great Plains states and Colorado....

, KALB has studios on Washington Street in Downtown Alexandria. Syndicated

Television syndication

In broadcasting, syndication is the sale of the right to broadcast radio shows and television shows by multiple radio stations and television stations, without going through a broadcast network, though the process of syndication may conjure up structures like those of a network itself, by its very...

 programming on the station includes Wheel of Fortune

Wheel of Fortune (U.S. game show)

Wheel of Fortune is an American television game show created by Merv Griffin, which premiered in 1975. Contestants compete to solve word puzzles, similar to those used in Hangman, to win cash and prizes determined by spinning a large wheel. The title refers to the show's giant carnival wheel that...

, Jeopardy!

Jeopardy!

Griffin's first conception of the game used a board comprising ten categories with ten clues each, but after finding that this board could not be shown on camera easily, he reduced it to two rounds of thirty clues each, with five clues in each of six categories...

, Anderson

Anderson (TV series)

Anderson is an American first-run syndicated talk show that is hosted by CNN anchorman Anderson Cooper, who also serves as co-producer in his first foray into daytime talk television. The show debuted on September 12, 2011, and is distributed by Warner Bros...

, The Ellen DeGeneres Show

The Ellen DeGeneres Show

The Ellen DeGeneres Show, often shortened to Ellen, is an American television talk show hosted by comedian/actress Ellen DeGeneres. Debuting on September 8, 2003, it is produced by Telepictures and airs in syndication, including stations owned by NBC Universal. For its first five seasons, the show...

, and The Rachael Ray Show among others.

Digital television

KALB operates the area's CBS

CBS

CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...

 affiliate on a second

KALB-DT2

KALB-DT2 is the CBS-affiliated television station for Central Louisiana. It is a second digital subchannel of NBC affiliate KALB-TV owned by Hoak Media Corporation. Over-the-air, the station broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 35.2 from a transmitter in Forest Hill...

 digital subchannel

Digital subchannel

In broadcasting, digital subchannels are a means to transmit more than one independent program at the same time from the same digital radio or digital television station on the same radio frequency channel. This is done by using data compression techniques to reduce the size of each individual...

. It uses the "NALB-TV" call sign in a fictional manner for identification purposes. This can also be seen on Suddenlink channel 2 (hence the on-air branding CBS 2) and in high definition on digital channel 715. Syndicated programming on KALB-DT2 includes Extra

Extra (TV series)

Extra is an American entertainment television news program covering events and celebrities which debuted on September 5, 1994 in syndication. It is produced at Victory Studios in Glendale, California by Telepictures Productions in association with Warner Bros. Television Distribution...

, How I Met Your Mother

How I Met Your Mother

How I Met Your Mother is an American sitcom that premiered on CBS on September 19, 2005, created by Craig Thomas and Carter Bays.As a framing device, the main character, Ted Mosby with narration by Bob Saget, in the year 2030 recounts to his son and daughter the events that led to his meeting...

, Judge Alex

Judge Alex

Judge Alex is a United States syndicated courtroom television show that debuted September 12, 2005. The host/arbitrator is the Hon. Alex Ferrer, a former police officer, lawyer, and Florida judge. The show was produced in Houston at the television studios of Fox's KRIV , as was previously done with...

, and The Doctors

The Doctors

The Doctors is a soap opera which aired on NBC Daytime from April 1, 1963, to December 31, 1982. There were 5280 episodes produced, with the 5000th episode airing in November 1981...

 along with others. The CBS 2 website is shared with sister station News Channel 5. KALB is among a handful of local television outlets in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 broadcasting its main channel and at least one of its subchannels in full high definition (both are seen in 1080i

1080i

1080i is the shorthand name for a high-definition television mode. The i means interlaced video; 1080i differs from 1080p, in which the p stands for progressive scan. The term 1080i assumes a widescreen aspect ratio of 16:9, implying a frame size of 1920×1080 pixels...

 in this case).

Channels (virtual/physical)	Video	Aspect ratio Aspect ratio The aspect ratio of a shape is the ratio of its longer dimension to its shorter dimension. It may be applied to two characteristic dimensions of a three-dimensional shape, such as the ratio of the longest and shortest axis, or for symmetrical objects that are described by just two measurements,...	Programming
5.1/35.1	1080i 1080i 1080i is the shorthand name for a high-definition television mode. The i means interlaced video; 1080i differs from 1080p, in which the p stands for progressive scan. The term 1080i assumes a widescreen aspect ratio of 16:9, implying a frame size of 1920×1080 pixels...	16:9 16:9 16:9 is an aspect ratio with a width of 16 units and height of 9. Since 2009, it has become the most common aspect ratio for sold televisions and computer monitors and is also the international standard format of HDTV, Full HD, non-HD digital television and analog widescreen television ...	main KALB programming/NBC (HD)
5.2/35.2	1080i	16:9	KALB-DT2 "CBS 2" (HD)

History

KALB began broadcasting on September 29, 1954 with NBC's airing of the 1954 World Series

1954 World Series

The 1954 World Series matched the National League champion New York Giants against the American League champion Cleveland Indians. The Giants swept the Series in four games to win their first championship since , defeating the heavily favored Indians, who had won an AL-record 111 games in the...

. It aired an analog signal on VHF channel 5. The station has been an affiliate with the network from the very first day although it also carried programs from CBS and ABC

American Broadcasting Company

The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...

 until 1957 plus DuMont

DuMont Television Network

The DuMont Television Network, also known as the DuMont Network, DuMont, Du Mont, or Dumont was one of the world's pioneer commercial television networks, rivalling NBC for the distinction of being first overall. It began operation in the United States in 1946. It was owned by DuMont...

 until that network folded in 1955. In 1957, the station was bought by Shreveport

Shreveport, Louisiana

Shreveport is the third largest city in Louisiana. It is the principal city of the fourth largest metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana and is the 109th-largest city in the United States....

 businessman T.B. Lanford and his company Red River Valley Broadcasting. Park Communications purchased KALB in 1993 and merged with Media General

Media General

Media General, Inc. is a media company based in the Southeastern United States. Its major properties include newspapers such as The Tampa Tribune, the Winston-Salem Journal, and the Richmond Times-Dispatch, as well as numerous television stations, such as flagship station WFLA-TV.The company was...

 in 1997. KALB began broadcasting in stereo

STEREO

STEREO is a solar observation mission. Two nearly identical spacecraft were launched into orbits that cause them to respectively pull farther ahead of and fall gradually behind the Earth...

 in 1988. The station launched its digital signal in 2002.

On October 29, 2007, Media General announced it was exploring the sale of KALB. On March 14, 2008, the company reached an agreement to sell the station and sister outlet WMBB

WMBB

WMBB is the ABC-affiliated television station for the Florida Panhandle that is licensed Panama City. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on VHF channel 13 from a transmitter in Youngstown along the Bay and Calhoun County line. Owned by Hoak Media Corporation, the station has studios on...

 in Panama City, Florida

Panama City, Florida

-Personal income:The median income for a household in the city was $31,572, and the median income for a family was $40,890. Males had a median income of $30,401 versus $21,431 for females. The per capita income for the city was $17,830...

 to the Hoak Media Corporation. The deal was closed on July 16. However, KALB still retained its Media General-era logo with the arc motif. On February 17, 2009, it turned-off its analog signal on channel 5 and now only operates in digital on channel 35. However, through PSIP, digital tuners show the virtual channel as the former analog channel.

Originally, it aired a digital signal from a transmitter at its facilities in Downtown Alexandria. KALB is one of the country's most dominant stations in part because it was the only commercial station in town until KLAX-TV

KLAX-TV

KLAX-TV is the ABC-affiliated television station for Central Louisiana licensed to Alexandria. It broadcasts a standard definition digital signal on UHF channel 31 from a transmitter in the Kisatchie National Forest southwest of Dry Prong. The station can also be seen on Suddenlink channel 3...

 signed-on in 1983. Alexandria is sandwiched between Monroe

Monroe, Louisiana

Monroe is a city in and the parish seat of Ouachita Parish, Louisiana, United States. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 53,107, making it the eighth largest city in Louisiana. A July 1, 2007, United States Census Bureau estimate placed the population at 51,208, but 51,636...

/El Dorado

El Dorado, Arkansas

El Dorado , a multi-cultural arts center: South Arkansas Arts Center , an award-winning renovated downtown, and numerous sporting, shopping, and dining opportunities. El Dorado is the population, cultural, and business center of the 7,300 mi² regional area...

 to the north, Baton Rouge

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Baton Rouge is the capital of the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is located in East Baton Rouge Parish and is the second-largest city in the state.Baton Rouge is a major industrial, petrochemical, medical, and research center of the American South...

 to the east, Shreveport to the west, and Lafayette

Lafayette, Louisiana

Lafayette is a city in and the parish seat of Lafayette Parish, Louisiana, United States, on the Vermilion River. The population was 120,623 at the 2010 census...

/Lake Charles

Lake Charles, Louisiana

Lake Charles is the fifth-largest incorporated city in the U.S. state of Louisiana, located on Lake Charles, Prien Lake, and the Calcasieu River. Located in Calcasieu Parish, a major cultural, industrial, and educational center in the southwest region of the state, and one of the most important in...

 to the south. This created a large "doughnut" in Central Louisiana

Louisiana

Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...

 where there could be only one VHF license. When cable arrived in the market

Media market

A media market, broadcast market, media region, designated market area , Television Market Area , or simply market is a region where the population can receive the same television and radio station offerings, and may also include other types of media including newspapers and Internet content...

 in the 1970s, companies supplemented the area with stations from those cities. Before CBS began broadcasting on KALB-DT2, viewers watched CBS on cable from KLFY-TV

KLFY-TV

KLFY-TV, channel 10, is a CBS affiliated television station in Lafayette, Louisiana. Broadcasting on DTV 10.1, its transmitter is located in Maxie, Louisiana...

 in Lafayette, KNOE-TV

KNOE-TV

KNOE-TV, Channel 8, is the CBS affiliate television station for Monroe, Louisiana. The station is owned by Hoak Media Corporation, which also controls ABC affiliate KAQY, Channel 11 through a local marketing agreement.-History:KNOE-TV went on the air in 1953...

 in Monroe, or WAFB-TV in Baton Rouge.

News operation

KALB operates a relatively large news department compared with other big three

Big Three Television Networks

The Big Three Television Networks are the three traditional commercial broadcast television networks in the United States: ABC, CBS and NBC...

 affiliates in markets of its size. This results in a higher-quality product than conventional wisdom would suggest for such a small market. It is one of the country's most dominant stations largely because it had the area more or less to itself until KLAX launched in 1983.

Unlike many NBC affiliates, this station does not air a weekday morning show for a full two hours. There is also no early evening local newscast on Sundays. On weeknights, KALB-DT2

KALB-DT2

KALB-DT2 is the CBS-affiliated television station for Central Louisiana. It is a second digital subchannel of NBC affiliate KALB-TV owned by Hoak Media Corporation. Over-the-air, the station broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 35.2 from a transmitter in Forest Hill...

 airs CBS 2 News at 6:30pm with the CBS Evening News

CBS Evening News

CBS Evening News is the flagship nightly television news program of the American television network CBS. The network has broadcast this program since 1948, and has used the CBS Evening News title since 1963....

 airing at 6:00pm. This is unlike most affiliates in the Central Time Zone

Central Time zone

In North America, the Central Time Zone refers to national time zones which observe standard time by subtracting six hours from UTC , and daylight saving, or summer time by subtracting five hours...

, which normally air the broadcast at 5:30pm. The morning news/weather updates and weekend newscasts are simulcast on both CBS 2 and News Channel 5. The weekend broadcasts are co-branded with the title "Weekend Edition".

During weather forecast segments, KALB features a live NOAA National Weather Service

National Weather Service

The National Weather Service , once known as the Weather Bureau, is one of the six scientific agencies that make up the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the United States government...

 weather radar

Weather radar

Weather radar, also called weather surveillance radar and Doppler weather radar, is a type of radar used to locate precipitation, calculate its motion, estimate its type . Modern weather radars are mostly pulse-Doppler radars, capable of detecting the motion of rain droplets in addition to the...

 feed from a site on the south side of Alexandria International Airport. On-air, this is known as "Sky Warn 5 Live Doppler". Additionally, KALB has a partnership with Radio Maria, AM 580 in Alexandria, to simulcast its newscasts during severe weather or other emergencies. KALB's meteorologists also provide daily weather updates for Radio Maria and its network of stations.

The station also produces locally-originated programs such as live coverage of the Komen Alexandria Race for the Cure and live political debates during election season. Each hurricane season, the station's team of meteorologists produces a 30-minute hurricane special called "Suriving the Storm." On Thanksgiving, a "Giving Thanks" special airs, and 30-minute "Spirit of the Season" specials air at various times during the holiday season. These holiday and special event programs are produced locally by KALB-TV and features the station's personalities.

The "5th Quarter" show is hosted by sports anchors Lizzie Hill and Mo Carter. It includes football highlights and scores from schools throughout Central Louisiana. The "5th Quarter" airs from 10:10pm-10:35pm on Friday nights during high school football season.

Newscast Titles

• Your Esso Reporter (1954–1961)
• The Central Louisiana
  Central Louisiana
  Central Louisiana , also known as the Crossroads region, is the part of Louisiana that includes the following parishes: Allen Parish, Beauregard Parish, Catahoula Parish, Concordia Parish, Grant Parish, La Salle Parish, Natchitoches Parish, Rapides Parish, Sabine Parish and Vernon Parish.The five...
  
  Report (1961–1966)
• The Sixth/Eleventh Hour Report (1966–1971)
• TV-5 News (1971–1978)
• Region 5 News (1978–1984)
• NewsCentral 5 (1984–1994)
• News Channel 5 (1994–present)
• CBS 2 News (2010-present, sister station CBS 2)

Station Slogans

• "TV-5, We're Central Louisiana's Station" (early-1970s)
• "Turn to TV-5" (mid-1970s)
• "Central Louisiana's #1 News Team" (late 1970s-early 1990s)
• "The Leader" (early-1990s)
• "On Your Side" (mid 1990s-2011)
• "Your Local Station" (2011-present on News Channel 5)
• "The One to Turn To (2011-present on CBS 2)

News Team

Anchors

• Mark Hamblen - Jambalaya & Midday News Anchor/Reporter
• Dale Hoffman - Weeknight Anchor/Reporter
• Joy Howe - Weeknight Anchor/Reporter
• Sherman Desselle - Weekend Anchor/Reporter

Storm Team Meteorologists

• Tom Konvicka - Evening Meteorologist
• Sarah Black - Jambalaya/Midday Meteorologist
• Dorrell Wenninger - Weekend Meteorologist/Multimedia Journalist

Sports

• Lizzie Hill - Weeknight Anchor/Sports Reporter
• Morrell "Mo" Carter - Weekend Anchor/Sports Reporter

Reporters

• Brooke Buford - Multimedia Journalist
• Morrell Carter - Sports Journalist
• Sherman Desselle - Multimedia Journalist
• Lizzie Hill - Sports Journalist
• Mark Klein - Multimedia Journalist
• Natalie North- Multimedia Journalist
• Dorrell Wenninger - Multimedia Journalist

Assignment Desk & Producers

• Amy Bryant - Noon & 5pm News Producer
• Alex Cornetta - Jambalaya Morning Show Producer
• Bryant Ferguson - Assignment Manager/Photojournalist
• Ryan Workman - 6pm & 10pm Weekday News Producer
• Daisy Brame - Jambalaya Associate Producer
• Kevin Clarkston - Associate Producer/Production Tech

External links

• KALB-TV