KTVU
Encyclopedia
KTVU, virtual channel
2 (digital channel 44), is the Fox
-affiliated television station
serving the San Francisco Bay Area
. Licensed to Oakland, California
, the station has been owned by Atlanta
-based Cox Enterprises
since 1964, making it the largest Fox affiliate by market size
that is not owned and operated by the network. KTVU's studio facilities are located in Oakland at Jack London Square
, and its transmitter is located at Sutro Tower
in San Francisco
.
In the few areas of the western United States where viewers cannot receive Fox programs over-the-air, KTVU is available to Dish Network
customers as part of All American Direct's distant network package.
on March 3, 1958. (The call letters KTVU had been previously used for a short-lived Stockton station on channel 36 in 1955-56, the successor to which, 1967's KGSC-TV—now KICU-TV
-- came under common ownership with KTVU in 2000). Until the completion of the Sutro Tower
, KTVU transmitted from a tower on San Bruno Mountain
.
For a brief time in the early-1980s, KTVU was a nationwide superstation
, seen mostly on parent Cox's cable systems. However, unable to compete with WTBS, WGN
and WOR
, KTVU left the national scene and merely became a regional superstation, seen on cable systems in northern California, Nevada
, Oregon
and to a lesser extent Utah
.
and St. Louis were sold to different owners nearly a decade later, while Cox brought in affiliates in El Paso
and Reno into their portfolio later on. KTVU launched a morning newscast called Mornings on 2 in 1991
(and, as such, became the fourth Fox affiliate or station to air weekday morning newscasts). It began to air an afternoon cartoon block known as Fox Kids
by 1991
. It also added more syndicated talk shows, court shows, and reality shows over the years. It still runs some off-network sitcoms. The station continued to run the Fox Kids block on weekdays until Fox ended weekday kids programming in early 2002
, but still retained the Saturday lineup, which became 4Kids TV
until that ended in 2008.
KTVU and KICU became sister stations in 2000 upon KICU's sale to Cox, and has moved its operations from its original studios in San Jose to KTVU's studios. As the first Bay Area duopoly, both stations now share several programming and cross promotion as well.
On March 3, 2008, KTVU celebrated its 50th anniversary of broadcasting. Fifteen promos of KTVU's 50th anniversary aired which included Bits & Pieces, Romper Room
, Captain Satellite
as well as sports like wrestling and Roller Derby, Innovation, Technology and personalities/faces just to name a few. Many promos are available on KTVU's website.
Virtual channels>
Channel
Video
Format
Programming
2.1
720p
16:9
Main KTVU programming / FOX
2.2
480i
4:3
LATV
KTVU also has a Mobile DTV feed of subchannel 2.1, labelled "KTVU MB", broadcasting at 1.83 Mbps on KICU-TV
's digital signal, though it has plans to move it to its own signal.
as 2 on digital television receivers.
KTVU currently have a construction permit on a digital fill-in translator on channel 48. This translator will serve the southern viewing area, including San Jose.
in Atlanta, Georgia
and WFTV
in Orlando, Florida
which were already airing their newscasts in HD.
and C-Band satellite systems. Now, it is available nationwide to qualifying DISH Network
subscribers through All American Direct, which began to lease space from DISH Network to distribute distant network signals following a court ruling that said DISH itself could not distribute the programming.
.
ratings markets and Fox naturally wanted to have a network owned-and-operated station in the area. Through the network's parent, News Corporation
, it tried several times to buy KTVU, but Cox turned down every offer. When Cox purchased KICU, the pre-empted Fox programming would be moved to that station to air in its normal timeslot in lieu of KTVU. The issue over Giants baseball and pre-emptions became moot when the team announced that NBC owned-and-operated KNTV would be the flagship station for the Giants beginning with the 2008 season. This is also due to in part that KICU, KTVU's sister-station, which also broadcasts Oakland A's
baseball until 2009, when CSN California took over as a result of an exclusive contract, ending the broadcast on KICU. Despite all this, Fox has been very satisfied with KTVU, as one of its strongest affiliates.
series. In fall 1981, KTVU ran Laverne & Shirley, Odd Couple, M*A*S*H and Barney Miller in the weeknight 6-8 p.m. block. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, KTVU aired syndicated comedies such as I Love Lucy
in back-to-back episodes in the mornings, and Three's Company
and Too Close for Comfort
(former ABC primetime comedies) in the early afternoon.
KTVU frequently showed classic movies, especially week nights from 8 to 10 p.m. and on Sunday afternoons. In the early 1960s, KTVU began televising Warner Brothers films, mostly from the 1950s and mostly in color, on Sundays at 7 p.m. They were the first Bay Area television station to present such films as A Star Is Born
(1954) with Judy Garland
and James Mason
, East of Eden (1955) with James Dean
and Julie Harris
, and Rebel Without a Cause
with James Dean and Natalie Wood
. KTVU exercised discretion and limited commercial interruptions during the movies, and often offered them uncensored and with interesting comments, either by a studio host or via slides. The station even televised MGM's Hollywood Revue of 1929 with some of the original two-strip Technicolor
sequences.
In 1992, KTVU edited a version of director David Lynch
's 1984
science fiction
film Dune
, combining the Allen Smithee television cut with the original theatrical release (and thereby restoring all the violence of the latter cut, while eliminating some of the objectionable edits that caused Lynch to take his name off the credits of the TV print).
. The show's host was Bob March. Up until the 1980s, the station produced a series of classic children's public service short
s under the title Bits and Pieces. Bits and Pieces often featured a number of talking puppet
s, Charley and Humphrey
, and The Space Explorers
were aimed at delivering positive and educational messages to children. Pat McCormick
, had brought his puppets from KGO. The shorts often aired during children's programming. Shots of KTVU children's programming appear in the movie Mrs. Doubtfire
, portions of which were shot in the KTVU studios and film library. It was also the Bay Area origination of Romper Room
, a children's television show which was franchised, instead of syndicated. In the 1980s, Romper Room
generally aired at 8:30 a.m.
aired at 11 a.m. on KTVU in the early 1980s, before moving to KGO-TV. Live! with Regis and Kathie Lee debuted in the San Francisco Bay Area in September 1988 at 11 a.m. on KTVU. It also later moved to KGO-TV. The one-hour daily program by television evangelist James Bakker aired at 6 a.m. on KTVU in the early 1980s.
Other programs that were once on KTVU's schedule included:
baseball games were televised by KTVU from 1958
, When the team arrived in San Francisco from New York
, to 2007. On November 1, 2007, it was announced that KNTV
will broadcast Giants games beginning with the 2008
MLB season. Beginning in 1996
, some Giants Saturday afternoon games (as well as certain postseason games like the entire 2002 World Series
) have been carried via the Fox Network, which had won broadcast rights to Major League Baseball
(currently, the Fox network coverage marks the only times the Giants and/or the A's appear on KTVU).
KTVU has also been the home of most San Francisco 49ers
games since 1994
(early on in the Steve Young
era), when Fox
won the contract to carry the National Football Conference
games (the first season KTVU carried the 49ers, the team won Super Bowl XXIX
, which aired locally on KGO-TV
). KTVU also airs the Oakland Raiders
when they are hosting an NFC team, and if they are sold out (under NFL broadcast rules, this forces the 49ers to either play in a national TV slot, or have a bye week; NFL rules also state that non-sold out games cannot be aired on local television). They (along with sister station KICU) also carry Oakland Raiders preseason games.
The San Francisco/Golden State Warriors
also aired many of their games on KTVU through the years, on several occasions: 1962-1963, 1965–1968, 1969–1983, and the late 1990s to 2001.
newscast in the country", which was true based on the number of viewers at that hour. KTVU's 10 p.m. newscast was such a force to be reckoned with that KBWB cancelled its own 10 p.m. news in 2002
after having no luck competing with KTVU. KBCW has since debuted a primetime newscast produced by KPIX in March 2008, however, that newscast is only 30 minutes long instead of one hour.
When KRON-TV became an independent station, it also scheduled its new prime time newscast at 9 p.m. so as to not compete directly with KTVU. In the early 1990s, KRON, along with KPIX (throughout the 1990s), did have 10 p.m. newscasts, which have since been moved back up to the 11 p.m. time slot. During the period, KTVU branded its late newscast as The Original Ten O'Clock News. The retirement of KTVU's long-time news director Fred Zehnder
brought changes to the newsroom but in 2000 it was ranked as the highest quality local newscast in the nation by the Project for Excellence in Journalism under his immediate successor, Andrew Finlayson, while maintaining number one ratings at ten and throughout the noon and morning newscasts. Varying prime time numbers and improvements at competitors have since lead to a decline in the once dominant news operation's ratings.
The Ten O'Clock News is also one of the few syndicated local newscasts in the United States. It also airs on co-owned Fox affiliate KRXI-TV
in Reno, Nevada
, and also airs on MyNetworkTV
affiliate KRVU-LP in the Chico
/Redding
market, and MyNetworkTV affiliate KEMY in the Eureka
/Arcata
market. KRVU and KEMY are not owned by KTVU parent company Cox. Some of the stations also carry KTVU's earlier newscasts and Mornings on 2. KTVU had used the "KTVU News Theme" by Michael Randall as its news theme starting in 1987, until it was replaced on June 23, 2010 by a new music package called "Icon News Music Package", produced by 615 Music
. KTVU was the last Bay Area news station at one point not to use a news helicopter; In the 2000s, the station began to utilize a news helicopter, which is branded News Chopper 2.
Before its current station status, KTVU had only the 10 p.m. newscast; this was common of most independent-turned Fox affiliates back then to have more syndicated programming and children's programming than it did news. That changed when the station decided to go head-to-head with competitors KRON, KPIX, KGO-TV
and KNTV
by leaning more towards a news-intensive format which took years to take effect. The noon newscast, originally called 2 at Noon, was added in 1986, displacing syndicated game shows. The original morning newscast, Mornings on 2, debuted in January 1991 in the 7 to 9 a.m. slot. Fox has not had any national network newscasts and continues not to have any to this day, but it still motivated its affiliates, including KTVU, to air more local news. An additional morning newscast was added in 1996, which would later expand to two hours from one hour, then a 6 p.m. newscast would be added in 2000, and finally in 2005, an hour-long 5 p.m. newscast.
Today, KTVU currently broadcasts a total of 47 hours of local newscasts each week (eight hours on weekdays and 3½ hours on Saturdays and Sundays), second only to MyNetworkTV affiliate KRON-TV for the most hours of local news in the San Francisco Bay Area; the station now has newscasts at noon, 5 and 6 p.m., in addition its morning and 10 p.m. broadcasts (however as is standard with Fox stations that carry early evening weekend newscasts, KTVU's Saturday 6 p.m. and Sunday 5 p.m. newscasts are subject to preemption or delay due to sports coverage from Fox). KTVU however is the largest Fox station not owned by the network without a newscast in the traditional 11 p.m. timeslot, and the fifth-largest Fox station in the United States without an 11 p.m. newscast. KTVU also produces Bay Area News at 7 for sister station KICU, presented by Gasia Mikaelian, weeknights at 7 p.m., and a rebroadcast of The Ten O'Clock News is shown at KICU at 11:30 p.m.
On January 22, 2011, KTVU launched two-hour weekend morning newscasts on Saturdays and Sundays from 7 to 9 a.m., making KTVU the largest Fox affiliate and the second-largest Fox station – behind Fox-owned KDFW
in Dallas-Ft. Worth – to carry a weekend morning newscast, with Mike Mibach and Claudine Wong as anchors. On January 24, KTVU expanded its weekday morning newscast to 4½ hours, with a half-hour extension of the newscast at 4:30 a.m. The additions expanded KTVU's weekly newscast output to 47 hours of local newscasts each week, with eight hours on weekdays and 3½ hours on weekends.
Weather team
Sports team
Reporters
}
}
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....
2 (digital channel 44), is the Fox
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
-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...
serving the San Francisco Bay Area
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a populated region that surrounds the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, along with smaller urban and rural areas...
. Licensed to Oakland, California
Oakland, California
Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...
, the station has been owned by Atlanta
Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. According to the 2010 census, Atlanta's population is 420,003. Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to 5,268,860 people and is the ninth largest metropolitan area in...
-based Cox Enterprises
Cox Enterprises
Cox Enterprises is the successor to the publishing company founded in Dayton, Ohio, United States, by James Middleton Cox, who began with the Dayton Daily News. He was the Democratic candidate for the President of the United States in the election of 1920...
since 1964, making it the largest Fox affiliate by market size
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...
that is not owned and operated by the network. KTVU's studio facilities are located in Oakland at Jack London Square
Jack London Square
Jack London Square is a popular tourist attraction on the waterfront of Oakland, California. Named after the author Jack London and owned by the Port of Oakland, it is the home of stores, restaurants, hotels, an Amtrak station, a ferry dock, the historic Saloon, the cabin Jack London lived in the...
, and its transmitter is located at Sutro Tower
Sutro Tower
Sutro Tower is a three-pronged antenna tower near Clarendon Heights in San Francisco, California. Rising from a hill between Twin Peaks and Mount Sutro, it is a prominent part of the city skyline and a landmark for city residents and visitors...
in San Francisco
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
.
In the few areas of the western United States where viewers cannot receive Fox programs over-the-air, KTVU is available to Dish Network
Dish Network
Dish Network Corporation is the second largest pay TV provider in the United States, providing direct broadcast satellite service—including satellite television, audio programming, and interactive television services—to 14.337 million commercial and residential customers in the United States. Dish...
customers as part of All American Direct's distant network package.
As an independent station
KTVU signed on the air as an independent stationIndependent station
An independent station is in the category of television terminology used to describe a television station broadcasting in the United States or Canada that is not affiliated with any television network....
on March 3, 1958. (The call letters KTVU had been previously used for a short-lived Stockton station on channel 36 in 1955-56, the successor to which, 1967's KGSC-TV—now KICU-TV
KICU-TV
KICU-TV, known as TV36, is an independent television station in the San Francisco Bay Area market. It shares its broadcast facility with sister station KTVU in Oakland but it is licensed to San Jose, where KICU was formerly located. It is owned by Cox Enterprises. It runs an independent schedule...
-- came under common ownership with KTVU in 2000). Until the completion of the Sutro Tower
Sutro Tower
Sutro Tower is a three-pronged antenna tower near Clarendon Heights in San Francisco, California. Rising from a hill between Twin Peaks and Mount Sutro, it is a prominent part of the city skyline and a landmark for city residents and visitors...
, KTVU transmitted from a tower on San Bruno Mountain
San Bruno Mountain
San Bruno Mountain in northern San Mateo County, California is the northernmost part of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Most of the mountain lies within the San Bruno Mountain State Park, a unique open-space island in the midst of the San Francisco Peninsula's urbanization. Next to the state park is the...
.
For a brief time in the early-1980s, KTVU was a nationwide superstation
Superstation
Superstation in United States television can have several meanings. In its most precise meaning, a superstation is defined by the Federal Communications Commission as "A television broadcast station, other than a network station, licensed by the FCC that is secondarily transmitted by a satellite...
, seen mostly on parent Cox's cable systems. However, unable to compete with WTBS, WGN
WGN-TV
WGN-TV, virtual channel 9 , is the CW-affiliated television station in Chicago, Illinois built, signed on, and owned by the Tribune Company. WGN-TV's studios and offices are located at 2501 W...
and WOR
WWOR EMI Service
WWOR EMI Service was a New York City-based American superstation for Secaucus, NJ-licensed WWOR-TV Channel 9, uplinked from Syracuse, New York to satellite by Eastern Microwave, Inc., who later sold the satellite distribution rights to Advance Entertainment Corporation, which was owned by Advance...
, KTVU left the national scene and merely became a regional superstation, seen on cable systems in northern California, Nevada
Nevada
Nevada is a state in the western, mountain west, and southwestern regions of the United States. With an area of and a population of about 2.7 million, it is the 7th-largest and 35th-most populous state. Over two-thirds of Nevada's people live in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, which contains its...
, Oregon
Oregon
Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...
and to a lesser extent Utah
Utah
Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...
.
As a Fox affiliate
On October 9, 1986, KTVU became a charter affiliate of the newly-created Fox Television Network. Distinctively, the station has been the only Cox-owned Fox affiliate under the same ownership; affiliates in DetroitWKBD
WKBD-TV, virtual channel 50 , is an owned and operated station of the CW Television Network, based in Detroit, Michigan. The station is owned and operated by the CBS Corporation, and is one-half of a duopoly with sister station WWJ-TV . Its studios and transmitters are located at 11 mile and...
and St. Louis were sold to different owners nearly a decade later, while Cox brought in affiliates in El Paso
KFOX
KFOX may refer to:* KFOX-TV, a television station licensed to El Paso, Texas, United States* KFOX , a radio station licensed to Torrance, California, United States...
and Reno into their portfolio later on. KTVU launched a morning newscast called Mornings on 2 in 1991
1991 in television
For the American TV schedule, see: 1991-92 United States network television schedule.The year 1991 in television involved some significant events.Below is a list of television-related events in 1991.-Events:-Debuts:-1950s:...
(and, as such, became the fourth Fox affiliate or station to air weekday morning newscasts). It began to air an afternoon cartoon block known as Fox Kids
Fox Kids
Fox Kids was the Fox Broadcasting Company's American children's programming division and brand name from September 8, 1990 until September 7, 2002. It was owned by Fox Television Entertainment airing programming on Monday–Friday afternoons and Saturday mornings.Depending on the show, the...
by 1991
1991 in television
For the American TV schedule, see: 1991-92 United States network television schedule.The year 1991 in television involved some significant events.Below is a list of television-related events in 1991.-Events:-Debuts:-1950s:...
. It also added more syndicated talk shows, court shows, and reality shows over the years. It still runs some off-network sitcoms. The station continued to run the Fox Kids block on weekdays until Fox ended weekday kids programming in early 2002
2002 in television
The year 2002 in television involved some significant events.Below is a list of television-related events in 2002.For the American TV schedule, see: 2002–03 United States network television schedule.-Events:-Debuts:-1940s:...
, but still retained the Saturday lineup, which became 4Kids TV
4Kids TV
4Kids TV was a Saturday morning television programming block on the Fox Broadcasting Company. The block was part of the Fox Network schedule...
until that ended in 2008.
KTVU and KICU became sister stations in 2000 upon KICU's sale to Cox, and has moved its operations from its original studios in San Jose to KTVU's studios. As the first Bay Area duopoly, both stations now share several programming and cross promotion as well.
On March 3, 2008, KTVU celebrated its 50th anniversary of broadcasting. Fifteen promos of KTVU's 50th anniversary aired which included Bits & Pieces, Romper Room
Romper Room
Romper Room is a children's television series that ran in the United States from 1953 to 1994 as well as at various times in Australia, Canada, Japan, Puerto Rico, New Zealand and the United Kingdom...
, Captain Satellite
Captain Satellite
Captain Satellite was an afternoon TV program on KTVU-2 in Oakland, California. Like many kids' shows of this period, it took advantage of the interest engendered by science fiction and the early space program. The Captain was played by Bob March, a local TV personality...
as well as sports like wrestling and Roller Derby, Innovation, Technology and personalities/faces just to name a few. Many promos are available on KTVU's website.
Station branding
In the early years as a Fox affiliate, KTVU still referenced itself as 'Channel 2' and rarely called itself Fox 2 as other Fox affiliates did and still do, although it has done network promos as Fox Channel 2. In 1996, the Fox logo was added into the longtime Circle Laser 2 logo (used since 1974), and when the network tightened its station standardizations, the station branded itself as KTVU Fox 2 today — only to revert to KTVU Channel 2 during newscasts. At the same time, it incorporated the KTVU calls into its branding full time to maintain a local presence.Digital television
720p
720p is the shorthand name for 1280x720, a category of High-definition television video modes having a resolution of 1080 or 720p and a progressive scan...
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 ...
480i
480i is the shorthand name for a video mode, namely the US NTSC television system or digital television systems with the same characteristics. The i, which is sometimes uppercase, stands for interlaced, the 480 for a vertical frame resolution of 480 lines containing picture information; while NTSC...
LATV
LATV is a bilingual music and entertainment network. LATV has been on the air in the Los Angeles market as KJLA since 2001 and is distributed through mostly digital television subchannels throughout the United States and Puerto Rico....
KTVU also has a Mobile DTV feed of subchannel 2.1, labelled "KTVU MB", broadcasting at 1.83 Mbps on KICU-TV
KICU-TV
KICU-TV, known as TV36, is an independent television station in the San Francisco Bay Area market. It shares its broadcast facility with sister station KTVU in Oakland but it is licensed to San Jose, where KICU was formerly located. It is owned by Cox Enterprises. It runs an independent schedule...
's digital signal, though it has plans to move it to its own signal.
Analog-to-digital conversion
KTVU shut down its analog signal on June 12, 2009 as part of the DTV transition, it moved to channel 44, previously occupied by KBCW pre-transition era. PSIP is used to display KTVU's virtual channelVirtual 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....
as 2 on digital television receivers.
KTVU currently have a construction permit on a digital fill-in translator on channel 48. This translator will serve the southern viewing area, including San Jose.
Converting to HDTV
On October 10, 2006 KTVU was the first station in the Bay Area to debut a new state-of-the-art high definition (HD) studio for production of their newscasts in HD. This follows sister stations WSB-TVWSB-TV
WSB-TV, virtual channel 2.1 , is the ABC affiliate in Atlanta, Georgia. It is the flagship television station of Cox Enterprises and its Cox Media Group subsidiary...
in Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. According to the 2010 census, Atlanta's population is 420,003. Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to 5,268,860 people and is the ninth largest metropolitan area in...
and WFTV
WFTV
WFTV, channel 9, is the ABC-affiliated television station for Central Florida that is licensed to Orlando. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 39 from a transmitter between Bithlo and Christmas. Owned by Cox Enterprises, WFTV is sister to Independent WRDQ. The two stations...
in Orlando, Florida
Orlando, Florida
Orlando is a city in the central region of the U.S. state of Florida. It is the county seat of Orange County, and the center of the Greater Orlando metropolitan area. According to the 2010 US Census, the city had a population of 238,300, making Orlando the 79th largest city in the United States...
which were already airing their newscasts in HD.
On satellite
Until the late 1990s, KTVU was seen nationally on PrimeStarPrimeStar
PrimeStar was a U.S. direct broadcast satellite broadcasting company formed in 1991 by a consortium of cable television system operators. PrimeStar was the first medium-powered DBS system in the United States but slowly declined in popularity with the arrival of DirecTV in 1994 and Dish Network in...
and C-Band satellite systems. Now, it is available nationwide to qualifying DISH Network
Dish Network
Dish Network Corporation is the second largest pay TV provider in the United States, providing direct broadcast satellite service—including satellite television, audio programming, and interactive television services—to 14.337 million commercial and residential customers in the United States. Dish...
subscribers through All American Direct, which began to lease space from DISH Network to distribute distant network signals following a court ruling that said DISH itself could not distribute the programming.
Programming
Over the years, KTVU aired a schedule of cartoons, off-network sitcoms, old movies, drama shows, talk shows, local news, and religious shows. It was the leading independent station in the San Francisco television market for years. It retained this status when more independents (on UHF) signed on the air over the years by reinventing the station's own image with its former longtime slogan: "There's Only One 2." As a VHF station competitor, KTVU aired The 8 O'Clock Movie as an independent alternative to network prime time programming by KRON, KPIX, and KGO-TVKGO-TV
KGO-TV, channel 7, is an owned-and-operated television station of the Walt Disney Company-owned American Broadcasting Company, based in San Francisco, California...
.
Programming deviations
Fox airs fewer hours of network programming than its three main rivals (CBS, NBC and ABC). KTVU has generally aired the entire Fox lineup with no pre-emptions, except for San Francisco Giants baseball during the term of its contract with the team. At first KTVU delayed pre-empted programming to the weekends, but with the growth of Fox and viewer demand the station eventually aired the delayed primetime shows following The Ten O'Clock News. The Bay Area has always been one of the largest NielsenNielsen Ratings
Nielsen ratings are the audience measurement systems developed by Nielsen Media Research, in an effort to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States...
ratings markets and Fox naturally wanted to have a network owned-and-operated station in the area. Through the network's parent, News Corporation
News Corporation
News Corporation or News Corp. is an American multinational media conglomerate. It is the world's second-largest media conglomerate as of 2011 in terms of revenue, and the world's third largest in entertainment as of 2009, although the BBC remains the world's largest broadcaster...
, it tried several times to buy KTVU, but Cox turned down every offer. When Cox purchased KICU, the pre-empted Fox programming would be moved to that station to air in its normal timeslot in lieu of KTVU. The issue over Giants baseball and pre-emptions became moot when the team announced that NBC owned-and-operated KNTV would be the flagship station for the Giants beginning with the 2008 season. This is also due to in part that KICU, KTVU's sister-station, which also broadcasts Oakland A's
Oakland Athletics
The Oakland Athletics are a Major League Baseball team based in Oakland, California. The Athletics are a member of the Western Division of Major League Baseball's American League. From to the present, the Athletics have played in the O.co Coliseum....
baseball until 2009, when CSN California took over as a result of an exclusive contract, ending the broadcast on KICU. Despite all this, Fox has been very satisfied with KTVU, as one of its strongest affiliates.
Classic television series and movies
For many years, KTVU regularly ran reruns of classic, filmed television series from the 1950s and 1960s. An early favorite on the station was the syndicated TopperTopper (TV series)
Topper is an American fantasy sitcom based on the 1937 film of the same name. The series was broadcast on CBS from October 9, 1953 to July 15, 1955, and stars Leo G. Carroll in the title role.-Synopsis:...
series. In fall 1981, KTVU ran Laverne & Shirley, Odd Couple, M*A*S*H and Barney Miller in the weeknight 6-8 p.m. block. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, KTVU aired syndicated comedies such as I Love Lucy
I Love Lucy
I Love Lucy is an American television sitcom starring Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance, and William Frawley. The black-and-white series originally ran from October 15, 1951, to May 6, 1957, on the Columbia Broadcasting System...
in back-to-back episodes in the mornings, and Three's Company
Three's Company
Three's Company is an American sitcom that aired from March 15, 1977, to September 18, 1984, on ABC. It is based on the British sitcom, Man About the House....
and Too Close for Comfort
Too Close for Comfort (TV series)
Too Close for Comfort is an American television sitcom which ran on the ABC network and later in first-run syndication from November 11, 1980 to September 27, 1986. It was modeled after the British series Keep It in the Family, which debuted nine months before Too Close for Comfort debuted in the U.S...
(former ABC primetime comedies) in the early afternoon.
KTVU frequently showed classic movies, especially week nights from 8 to 10 p.m. and on Sunday afternoons. In the early 1960s, KTVU began televising Warner Brothers films, mostly from the 1950s and mostly in color, on Sundays at 7 p.m. They were the first Bay Area television station to present such films as A Star Is Born
A Star Is Born (1954 film)
A Star Is Born is a 1954 American musical film directed by George Cukor. The screenplay written by Moss Hart was an adaptation of the original 1937 film, which was based on the original screenplay by Robert Carson, Dorothy Parker, and Alan Campbell...
(1954) with Judy Garland
Judy Garland
Judy Garland was an American actress and singer. Through a career that spanned 45 of her 47 years and for her renowned contralto voice, she attained international stardom as an actress in musical and dramatic roles, as a recording artist and on the concert stage...
and James Mason
James Mason
James Neville Mason was an English actor who attained stardom in both British and American films. Mason remained a powerful figure in the industry throughout his career and was nominated for three Academy Awards as well as three Golden Globes .- Early life :Mason was born in Huddersfield, in the...
, East of Eden (1955) with James Dean
James Dean
James Byron Dean was an American film actor. He is a cultural icon, best embodied in the title of his most celebrated film, Rebel Without a Cause , in which he starred as troubled Los Angeles teenager Jim Stark...
and Julie Harris
Julie Harris
Julia Ann "Julie" Harris is an American stage, screen, and television actress. She has won five Tony Awards, three Emmy Awards and a Grammy Award, and was nominated for an Academy Award. In 1994, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts. She is a member of the American Theatre Hall of Fame...
, and Rebel Without a Cause
Rebel Without a Cause
Rebel Without a Cause is a 1955 American drama film about emotionally confused suburban, middle-class teenagers. Directed by Nicholas Ray, it offered both social commentary and an alternative to previous films depicting delinquents in urban slum environments...
with James Dean and Natalie Wood
Natalie Wood
Natalie Wood, born Natalia Nikolaevna Zacharenko was an American film and television actress. After first working in films as a child, Wood became a successful Hollywood star as a young adult, receiving three Academy Award nominations before she was 25 years old.Wood began acting in movies at the...
. KTVU exercised discretion and limited commercial interruptions during the movies, and often offered them uncensored and with interesting comments, either by a studio host or via slides. The station even televised MGM's Hollywood Revue of 1929 with some of the original two-strip Technicolor
Technicolor
Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952...
sequences.
In 1992, KTVU edited a version of director David Lynch
David Lynch
David Keith Lynch is an American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor. Known for his surrealist films, he has developed his own unique cinematic style, which has been dubbed "Lynchian", and which is characterized by its dream imagery and meticulous sound...
's 1984
1984 in film
-Events:* The Walt Disney Company founds Touchstone Pictures to release movies with subject matter deemed inappropriate for the Disney name.* Tri-Star Pictures, a joint venture of Columbia Pictures, HBO, and CBS, releases its first film....
science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
film Dune
Dune (film)
Dune is a 1984 science fiction film written and directed by David Lynch, based on the 1965 Frank Herbert novel of the same name. The film stars Kyle MacLachlan as Paul Atreides, and includes an ensemble of well-known American and European actors in supporting roles. It was filmed at the Churubusco...
, combining the Allen Smithee television cut with the original theatrical release (and thereby restoring all the violence of the latter cut, while eliminating some of the objectionable edits that caused Lynch to take his name off the credits of the TV print).
Children's programming
During the 1960s and 1970s the station aired an afternoon children's show called Captain SatelliteCaptain Satellite
Captain Satellite was an afternoon TV program on KTVU-2 in Oakland, California. Like many kids' shows of this period, it took advantage of the interest engendered by science fiction and the early space program. The Captain was played by Bob March, a local TV personality...
. The show's host was Bob March. Up until the 1980s, the station produced a series of classic children's public service short
Short subject
A short film is any film not long enough to be considered a feature film. No consensus exists as to where that boundary is drawn: the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all...
s under the title Bits and Pieces. Bits and Pieces often featured a number of talking puppet
Puppet
A puppet is an inanimate object or representational figure animated or manipulated by an entertainer, who is called a puppeteer. It is used in puppetry, a play or a presentation that is a very ancient form of theatre....
s, Charley and Humphrey
Pat McCormick (television personality)
Pat McCormick is a retired local television personality in San Francisco, California's KGO-TV, and Oakland's, KTVU channel 2 in the San Francisco Bay Area, where among many jobs he was the nightly news' weatherman, hosted the midday movie Dialing for Dollars program, and co-hosted the local...
, and The Space Explorers
The Space Explorers
The Space Explorers was an animated feature film which was later converted to a cartoon serial. First shown on television during the Space Race era of the late 1950s by publisher Bill Cayton and animator Fred Ladd...
were aimed at delivering positive and educational messages to children. Pat McCormick
Pat McCormick (television personality)
Pat McCormick is a retired local television personality in San Francisco, California's KGO-TV, and Oakland's, KTVU channel 2 in the San Francisco Bay Area, where among many jobs he was the nightly news' weatherman, hosted the midday movie Dialing for Dollars program, and co-hosted the local...
, had brought his puppets from KGO. The shorts often aired during children's programming. Shots of KTVU children's programming appear in the movie Mrs. Doubtfire
Mrs. Doubtfire
Mrs. Doubtfire is a 1993 American comedy film starring Robin Williams and Sally Field and based on the novel Madame Doubtfire by Anne Fine. It was directed by Chris Columbus and distributed by 20th Century Fox. It won the Academy Award for Best Makeup...
, portions of which were shot in the KTVU studios and film library. It was also the Bay Area origination of Romper Room
Romper Room
Romper Room is a children's television series that ran in the United States from 1953 to 1994 as well as at various times in Australia, Canada, Japan, Puerto Rico, New Zealand and the United Kingdom...
, a children's television show which was franchised, instead of syndicated. In the 1980s, Romper Room
Romper Room
Romper Room is a children's television series that ran in the United States from 1953 to 1994 as well as at various times in Australia, Canada, Japan, Puerto Rico, New Zealand and the United Kingdom...
generally aired at 8:30 a.m.
Talk shows
In the 1980s, KTVU aired nationally-syndicated talk shows that later moved to other stations. DonahueThe Phil Donahue Show
The Phil Donahue Show, also known as Donahue, is an American television talk show that ran for 26 years on national television. Its run was preceded by three years of local broadcast in Dayton, Ohio, and it was broadcast nationwide between 1967 and 1996.In 2002, Donahue was ranked #29 on TV Guide's...
aired at 11 a.m. on KTVU in the early 1980s, before moving to KGO-TV. Live! with Regis and Kathie Lee debuted in the San Francisco Bay Area in September 1988 at 11 a.m. on KTVU. It also later moved to KGO-TV. The one-hour daily program by television evangelist James Bakker aired at 6 a.m. on KTVU in the early 1980s.
Other programming
In the early 21st century, KTVU broadcast San Francisco's Chinese New Year Parade each winter. Sister station KICU generally re-broadcast it the same evening (KTSF broadcast its own Chinese-language version using "pool" cameras).Other programs that were once on KTVU's schedule included:
- Creature Features, hosted by Bob Wilkins from 19711971 in televisionThe year 1971 in television involved some significant events.Below is a list of television-related events in 1971.For the American TV schedule, see: 1971-72 American network television schedule.-Events:...
to 19791979 in televisionThe year 1979 in television involved some significant events.Below is a list of television-related events in 1979.For the American TV schedule, see: 1979-80 American network television schedule.-Events:...
and was replaced by John StanleyJohn Stanley-Leaders:* John I Stanley of the Isle of Man , Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and King of Mann* John II Stanley of the Isle of Man , Knight of the Garter and King of Mann-Politicians:...
from 19791979 in televisionThe year 1979 in television involved some significant events.Below is a list of television-related events in 1979.For the American TV schedule, see: 1979-80 American network television schedule.-Events:...
until 19841984 in televisionThis article is a list of television-related events in 1984.-Events:*January 9 – Wendy's "Fluffy Bun" ad first airs, which propels Clara Peller and her "Where's the beef?" catchphrase to national prominence....
. - Dialing for DollarsDialing for DollarsDialing for Dollars was a franchised format local television program in the United States and Canada, popular in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s.-Format:...
, hosted by Pat McCormickPat McCormick (television personality)Pat McCormick is a retired local television personality in San Francisco, California's KGO-TV, and Oakland's, KTVU channel 2 in the San Francisco Bay Area, where among many jobs he was the nightly news' weatherman, hosted the midday movie Dialing for Dollars program, and co-hosted the local...
, the voice of Charley and Humphrey and later the station's weathermanWeather forecastingWeather forecasting is the application of science and technology to predict the state of the atmosphere for a given location. Human beings have attempted to predict the weather informally for millennia, and formally since the nineteenth century... - National All-Star Wrestling, telecast on Friday nights during the early and mid-1960s from the KTVU studios or San Francisco's Cow PalaceCow PalaceCow Palace is an indoor arena, in Daly City, California, situated on the city's border with neighboring San Francisco, notable as a sporting arena.-History:...
, hosted by Walt Harris - Roller DerbyRoller derbyRoller derby is a contact sport played by two teams of five members roller skating in the same direction around a track. Game play consists of a series of short matchups in which both teams designate a scoring player who scores points by lapping members of the opposing team...
Walt Harris also hosted for many years The San Francisco Bay Bombers Roller Derby games till the demise of the IRDL in 1973.
Sports
San Francisco GiantsSan Francisco Giants
The San Francisco Giants are a Major League Baseball team based in San Francisco, California, playing in the National League West Division....
baseball games were televised by KTVU from 1958
1958 in baseball
-Major League Baseball:*World Series: New York Yankees over Milwaukee Braves ; Bob Turley, MVP*All-Star Game, July 8 at Memorial Stadium: American League, 4-3-Other champions:*Caribbean World Series: Marianao *College World Series: USC...
, When the team arrived in San Francisco from New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, to 2007. On November 1, 2007, it was announced that KNTV
KNTV
KNTV, channel 11, is the NBC owned-and-operated television station in the Bay Area market. It is licensed to San Jose, with its transmitter located on San Bruno Mountain, just south of San Francisco. It shares facilities in San Jose with NBC Universal sister station KSTS and CNBC's Silicon...
will broadcast Giants games beginning with the 2008
2008 in baseball
-Major League Baseball:* Regular Season Champions* World Series Champions – Philadelphia Phillies** American League Champions – Tampa Bay Rays** National League Champions – Philadelphia Phillies* Postseason – October 1 to October 29...
MLB season. Beginning in 1996
1996 in baseball
-Major League Baseball:*World Series: New York Yankees over Atlanta Braves ; John Wetteland, MVP*American League Championship Series MVP: Bernie Williams**American League Division Series*National League Championship Series MVP: Javy López...
, some Giants Saturday afternoon games (as well as certain postseason games like the entire 2002 World Series
2002 World Series
The 2002 World Series was a best-of-seven playoff series to determine the champion of Major League Baseball for the 2002 season. It was the 98th such contest between the champions of the American League and National League , and featured the AL champion Anaheim Angels against the NL champion San...
) have been carried via the Fox Network, which had won broadcast rights to Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball is the highest level of professional baseball in the United States and Canada, consisting of teams that play in the National League and the American League...
(currently, the Fox network coverage marks the only times the Giants and/or the A's appear on KTVU).
KTVU has also been the home of most San Francisco 49ers
San Francisco 49ers
The San Francisco 49ers are a professional American football team based in San Francisco, California, playing in the West Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League . The team was founded in 1946 as a charter member of the All-America Football Conference and...
games since 1994
1994 NFL season
The 1994 NFL season was the 75th regular season of the National Football League. To honor the NFL's 75th season, a special anniversary logo was designed and each player wore a patch on their jerseys with this logo throughout the season...
(early on in the Steve Young
Steve Young
Steve Young is an American football quarterback.Steve Young may also refer to:*Steve Young , country music singer, songwriter and guitarist*Steve Young , industrial rock music songwriter and guitarist...
era), when Fox
NFL on FOX
NFL on Fox is the brand name of the Fox Broadcasting Company's coverage of the National Football League's National Football Conference games, produced by Fox Sports...
won the contract to carry the National Football Conference
National Football Conference
The National Football Conference is one of the two conferences of the National Football League . This conference and its counterpart, the American Football Conference , currently contain 16 teams each, making up the 32 teams of the NFL.-Current teams:Since 2002, the NFC has comprised 16 teams,...
games (the first season KTVU carried the 49ers, the team won Super Bowl XXIX
Super Bowl XXIX
Super Bowl XXIX was an American football game played on January 29, 1995 at Joe Robbie Stadium in Miami, Florida to decide the National Football League champion following the 1994 regular season...
, which aired locally on KGO-TV
KGO-TV
KGO-TV, channel 7, is an owned-and-operated television station of the Walt Disney Company-owned American Broadcasting Company, based in San Francisco, California...
). KTVU also airs the Oakland Raiders
Oakland Raiders
The Oakland Raiders are a professional American football team based in Oakland, California. They currently play in the Western Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...
when they are hosting an NFC team, and if they are sold out (under NFL broadcast rules, this forces the 49ers to either play in a national TV slot, or have a bye week; NFL rules also state that non-sold out games cannot be aired on local television). They (along with sister station KICU) also carry Oakland Raiders preseason games.
The San Francisco/Golden State Warriors
Golden State Warriors
The Golden State Warriors are an American professional basketball team based in Oakland, California. They are part of the Pacific Division of the Western Conference in the National Basketball Association...
also aired many of their games on KTVU through the years, on several occasions: 1962-1963, 1965–1968, 1969–1983, and the late 1990s to 2001.
News operation
The station has been well known in the Bay Area for its locally-produced news, public affairs and children's programming, especially The Ten O'Clock News, which for years had been the only television news broadcast in the Bay Area at that hour. Throughout the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, The Ten O'Clock News was often referred to as "the number one prime timePrime time
Prime time or primetime is the block of broadcast programming during the middle of the evening for television programing.The term prime time is often defined in terms of a fixed time period—for example, from 19:00 to 22:00 or 20:00 to 23:00 Prime time or primetime is the block of broadcast...
newscast in the country", which was true based on the number of viewers at that hour. KTVU's 10 p.m. newscast was such a force to be reckoned with that KBWB cancelled its own 10 p.m. news in 2002
2002 in television
The year 2002 in television involved some significant events.Below is a list of television-related events in 2002.For the American TV schedule, see: 2002–03 United States network television schedule.-Events:-Debuts:-1940s:...
after having no luck competing with KTVU. KBCW has since debuted a primetime newscast produced by KPIX in March 2008, however, that newscast is only 30 minutes long instead of one hour.
When KRON-TV became an independent station, it also scheduled its new prime time newscast at 9 p.m. so as to not compete directly with KTVU. In the early 1990s, KRON, along with KPIX (throughout the 1990s), did have 10 p.m. newscasts, which have since been moved back up to the 11 p.m. time slot. During the period, KTVU branded its late newscast as The Original Ten O'Clock News. The retirement of KTVU's long-time news director Fred Zehnder
Fred Zehnder
Fred Zehnder was the long time news director of KTVU Channel Two in the San Francisco Bay Area. While he led this newsroom, it was honored with a number of awards and identified the lead newscast, The Original Ten O'Clock News, as the number one prime time newscast in the country.Fred Zehnder is...
brought changes to the newsroom but in 2000 it was ranked as the highest quality local newscast in the nation by the Project for Excellence in Journalism under his immediate successor, Andrew Finlayson, while maintaining number one ratings at ten and throughout the noon and morning newscasts. Varying prime time numbers and improvements at competitors have since lead to a decline in the once dominant news operation's ratings.
The Ten O'Clock News is also one of the few syndicated local newscasts in the United States. It also airs on co-owned Fox affiliate KRXI-TV
KRXI-TV
KRXI-TV is the Fox-affiliated television station for Northwestern Nevada's Truckee Meadows licensed to Reno. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 44 from a transmitter on Peavine Peak. The station can also be seen on Charter channel 11 and in high definition on digital...
in Reno, Nevada
Reno, Nevada
Reno is the county seat of Washoe County, Nevada, United States. The city has a population of about 220,500 and is the most populous Nevada city outside of the Las Vegas metropolitan area...
, and also airs on MyNetworkTV
MyNetworkTV
MyNetworkTV is a television broadcast syndication service in the United States, owned by the Fox Entertainment Group, a division of News Corporation...
affiliate KRVU-LP in the Chico
Chico, California
Chico is the most populous city in Butte County, California, United States. The population was 86,187 at the 2010 census, up from 59,954 at the time of the 2000 census...
/Redding
Redding, California
Redding is a city in far-Northern California. It is the county seat of Shasta County, California, USA. With a population of 89,861, according to the 2010 Census...
market, and MyNetworkTV affiliate KEMY in the Eureka
Eureka, California
Eureka is the principal city and the county seat of Humboldt County, California, United States. Its population was 27,191 at the 2010 census, up from 26,128 at the 2000 census....
/Arcata
Arcata, California
-Demographics:-2010 Census data:The 2010 United States Census reported that Arcata had a population of 17,231. The population density was 1,567.4 people per square mile...
market. KRVU and KEMY are not owned by KTVU parent company Cox. Some of the stations also carry KTVU's earlier newscasts and Mornings on 2. KTVU had used the "KTVU News Theme" by Michael Randall as its news theme starting in 1987, until it was replaced on June 23, 2010 by a new music package called "Icon News Music Package", produced by 615 Music
615 Music
615 Music is a broadcast production music company based in Nashville, Tennessee. 615 Music composes television news music packages and custom image campaigns for many television networks around the world. 615 Music also operates out of Los Angeles...
. KTVU was the last Bay Area news station at one point not to use a news helicopter; In the 2000s, the station began to utilize a news helicopter, which is branded News Chopper 2.
Before its current station status, KTVU had only the 10 p.m. newscast; this was common of most independent-turned Fox affiliates back then to have more syndicated programming and children's programming than it did news. That changed when the station decided to go head-to-head with competitors KRON, KPIX, KGO-TV
KGO-TV
KGO-TV, channel 7, is an owned-and-operated television station of the Walt Disney Company-owned American Broadcasting Company, based in San Francisco, California...
and KNTV
KNTV
KNTV, channel 11, is the NBC owned-and-operated television station in the Bay Area market. It is licensed to San Jose, with its transmitter located on San Bruno Mountain, just south of San Francisco. It shares facilities in San Jose with NBC Universal sister station KSTS and CNBC's Silicon...
by leaning more towards a news-intensive format which took years to take effect. The noon newscast, originally called 2 at Noon, was added in 1986, displacing syndicated game shows. The original morning newscast, Mornings on 2, debuted in January 1991 in the 7 to 9 a.m. slot. Fox has not had any national network newscasts and continues not to have any to this day, but it still motivated its affiliates, including KTVU, to air more local news. An additional morning newscast was added in 1996, which would later expand to two hours from one hour, then a 6 p.m. newscast would be added in 2000, and finally in 2005, an hour-long 5 p.m. newscast.
Today, KTVU currently broadcasts a total of 47 hours of local newscasts each week (eight hours on weekdays and 3½ hours on Saturdays and Sundays), second only to MyNetworkTV affiliate KRON-TV for the most hours of local news in the San Francisco Bay Area; the station now has newscasts at noon, 5 and 6 p.m., in addition its morning and 10 p.m. broadcasts (however as is standard with Fox stations that carry early evening weekend newscasts, KTVU's Saturday 6 p.m. and Sunday 5 p.m. newscasts are subject to preemption or delay due to sports coverage from Fox). KTVU however is the largest Fox station not owned by the network without a newscast in the traditional 11 p.m. timeslot, and the fifth-largest Fox station in the United States without an 11 p.m. newscast. KTVU also produces Bay Area News at 7 for sister station KICU, presented by Gasia Mikaelian, weeknights at 7 p.m., and a rebroadcast of The Ten O'Clock News is shown at KICU at 11:30 p.m.
On January 22, 2011, KTVU launched two-hour weekend morning newscasts on Saturdays and Sundays from 7 to 9 a.m., making KTVU the largest Fox affiliate and the second-largest Fox station – behind Fox-owned KDFW
KDFW
KDFW, virtual channel 4 , is the Fox owned-and-operated television station in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex designated market area....
in Dallas-Ft. Worth – to carry a weekend morning newscast, with Mike Mibach and Claudine Wong as anchors. On January 24, KTVU expanded its weekday morning newscast to 4½ hours, with a half-hour extension of the newscast at 4:30 a.m. The additions expanded KTVU's weekly newscast output to 47 hours of local newscasts each week, with eight hours on weekdays and 3½ hours on weekends.
Ratings
For the month of August 2010, KTVU's newscasts ranked #1 in viewers 25-54, beating KPIX, KGO, KNTV, and KRON.Newscast titles
- The Ten O'Clock News (March 3, 1958–present)
- The Tuck and Fortner Report (1970s)
- Action News (1970s-1980)
- Mornings on 2 (morning newscast; 1991–present)
- 2 at Noon (noon newscast; 1986–2000)
- KTVU Channel 2 News (2000–present)
Station slogans
- There's Only One 2 (early 1980s-1987)
- The 10 o'clock News Hour. If You're That Interested, We're That Good. (1987 - source: ad in 9/12/87 TV Guide, San Francisco Metropolitan Edition)
- First in the Bay Area (1987–2000)
- You're Watching KTVU Channel 2, the Bay Area's Fox Affiliate! (c. 1991)
- The Bay Area is Watching (1999–2001)
- Complete Bay Area News Coverage (2001–present)
Current on-air staff
Current anchors- Tori Campbell - weekday mornings "Mornings on 2" (7-9 a.m.) and noon
- Pam Cook - weekday mornings (4:30-7 a.m.); also business reporter
- Dave Clark - weekday mornings (4:30-7 a.m.) and "Mornings on 2" (7-9 a.m.)
- Julie Haener - weeknights at 6 and 10 p.m.
- Heather Holmes - Saturdays at 6, Sundays at 5 and weekends at 10 p.m.; also weekday reporter and fill-in anchor
- Mike Mibach - weekend mornings "Mornings on 2 Weekend Edition"; also weekday reporter and fill-in anchor
- Gasia Mikaelian - weeknights at 5 and 7 p.m. (on KICU)
- Frank Somerville - weeknights at 5, 6 and 10 p.m.
- Ken Wayne - Saturdays at 6, Sundays at 5 and weekends at 10 p.m.; also weekday reporter and fill-in anchor.
- Claudine WongClaudine WongClaudine Wong is a news reporter who currently reports for KTVU, the San Francisco Bay Area's FOX affiliate. She is a regular reporter and fill-in anchor for "KTVU Channel 2 Morning News," "Mornings On 2," and the "KTVU Channel 2 News at Noon."...
- weekend mornings "Mornings on 2 Weekend Edition"; also weekday reporter and fill-in anchor
Weather team
- Bill Martin (AMSAmerican Meteorological SocietyThe American Meteorological Society promotes the development and dissemination of information and education on the atmospheric and related oceanic and hydrologic sciences and the advancement of their professional applications. Founded in 1919, the American Meteorological Society has a membership...
Certified Broadcast MeteorologistCertified Broadcast MeteorologistCertified Broadcast Meteorologist is a rating for meteorologists given by the American Meteorological Society.The Certified Broadcast Meteorologist program was established to raise the professional standard in broadcast meteorology and encourage a broader range of scientific understanding,...
and NWANational Weather AssociationThe National Weather Association is an American professional association with a mission to support and promote excellence in operational meteorology and related activities...
Seals of Approval) - chief meteorologist; weeknights at 5, 6 and 10 p.m. - Steve Paulson - meteorologist; weekday mornings
- Mark Tamayo (AMS Certified Broadcast Meteorologist and NWA Seals of Approval) - meteorologist; Wednesdays and Thursdays noon and 7pm (KICU), weekend evenings; fill in
- Rosemary Orozco - meteorologist; weekend mornings "Mornings on 2 Weekend Edition", Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays noon and 7pm (KICU), also weekday fill in.
Sports team
- Mark Ibáñez - sports director; weeknights at 6 and 10 p.m.
- Joe Fonzi - sports anchor; Saturdays at 6, Sundays at 5 and weekends at 10 p.m.
- Fred Inglis - sports reporter; also fill-in anchor
Reporters
- Allison Burns - Washington D.C. bureau reporter
- Sal CastanedaSal CastanedaSal Castaneda is an award-winning television news reporter currently reporting for KTVU-TV the Fox affiliate in the San Francisco Bay Area. Castaneda has been with KTVU since 1999...
- weekday morning traffic anchor, and weeknight 5 and 6 p.m. reporter - Rosy Chu - Bay Area People host; also community affairs director
- Priya David-Clemens - general assignment reporter
- Kraig Debro - general assignment reporter; also fill-in anchor
- John Fowler - health and science editor; general assignment reporter
- Diane Guerrazzi - general assignment reporter
- Carol Han - Washington D.C. reporter
- Robert Handa - general assignment reporter
- Jade Hernadez - general assignment reporter
- Jana Katsuyama - general assignment reporter
- Lloyd LaCuesta - South Bay Bureau chief
- Amber Lee - general assignment reporter
- Patti Lee - general assignment reporter
- Scott MacFarlane- Washington D.C. reporter
- Bob MacKenzie - general assignment reporter
- Tara Moriarty - general assignment reporter; also fill-in traffic anchor
- Maureen NaylorMaureen NaylorMaureen Helen Naylor is an American television news anchor and previouly did the weekend newscasts for Fresno's KFSN ABC 30 Action News in HD from March, 2005 to March, 2008. She is now a reporter for KTVU in Oakland/San Francisco.-Early life:...
- general assignment reporter - Allie Rasmus - general assignment reporter
- Eric Rasmussen- special assignment reporter
- Rob Roth - general assignment reporter
- John Sasaki - general assignment reporter; also fill-in anchor
- David Stevenson - general assignment reporter
- Tom Vacar - consumer editor; also occasional general assignment reporter
- Noelle Walker - general assignment reporter
- Rita Williams - general assignment reporter
Notable former on-air staff
- Larry BeilLarry Beil-Biography:From 1996 to 1998, he was an anchor on SportsCenter, the flagship program of ESPN. Beil, who graduated from the University of Hawaii, introduced a new catch phrase after showing a home run: "Aloha means goodbye." He also appeared in a This is SportsCenter ad in which he was introduced by...
(now at KGO-TV/KOFY) - Brian CopelandBrian CopelandBrian Copeland is an American actor, comedian, radio talk show host, playwright and author based in the San Francisco Bay Area.Copeland has been the opening act for artists such as Ray Charles, Natalie Cole, Aretha Franklin and Ringo Starr. For the past 12 years he has hosted a radio program for...
- morning feature reporter (currently on KGO-AM) - Mark CurtisMark Curtis (broadcaster)Mark Corrigan Curtis is a well-known American TV journalist, author and political analyst. In January 2009, Curtis published his first book; a first-person account of the historic 2008 Presidential campaign. “Age of Obama: A Reporter’s Journey with Clinton, McCain and Obama in the Making of the...
- anchor/reporter (now a political analyst) - Ron FortnerRon FortnerRonnie Fortner was an American radio and television anchor.-Career:Fortner spent more than thirty years as a broadcaster, working alongside veteran California newscaster Michael Tuck both in San Diego and San Francisco...
- co-anchor on The Tuck and Fortner Report (deceased) - Leslie GriffithLeslie GriffithLeslie Griffith is a writer and journalist who began her career in the newspaper business for the Associated Press and The Denver Post. She spent the next 25 years as a television journalist including as news anchor at KTVU....
- 10 p.m. anchor - Judd HambrickJudd HambrickJudd Hambrick is an American former Emmy-award winning television newscaster/reporter.Hambrick grew up in Mount Pleasant, Texas.- Career, accomplishments, and awards :...
- anchor - Walt HarrisWalt HarrisWalt Harris is a former American football player and coach in the United States. Harris served as the head football coach at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California from 1989 to 1991, the University of Pittsburgh from 1997 to 2004, and at Stanford University from 2005 to 2006,...
- sports, roller derby and wrestling - Al Helmso - original anchor
- Kim HunterKim HunterKim Hunter was an American film, theatre, and television actress. She won both an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award, each as Best Supporting Actress, for her performance as Stella Kowalski in the 1951 film A Streetcar Named Desire...
- reporter - Ray JacobsRay JacobsHerschel Ray Jacobs is a former professional American football defensive tackle in the American Football League. He played seven seasons for the Denver Broncos , the Miami Dolphins , and the Boston Patriots ....
- original anchor & station manager (deceased) - Bob March - Host of Captain SatelliteCaptain SatelliteCaptain Satellite was an afternoon TV program on KTVU-2 in Oakland, California. Like many kids' shows of this period, it took advantage of the interest engendered by science fiction and the early space program. The Captain was played by Bob March, a local TV personality...
children's show, Dialing for DollarsDialing for DollarsDialing for Dollars was a franchised format local television program in the United States and Canada, popular in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s.-Format:...
, and weather reporter - Pat McCormickPat McCormick (television personality)Pat McCormick is a retired local television personality in San Francisco, California's KGO-TV, and Oakland's, KTVU channel 2 in the San Francisco Bay Area, where among many jobs he was the nightly news' weatherman, hosted the midday movie Dialing for Dollars program, and co-hosted the local...
- Host of Dialing for DollarsDialing for DollarsDialing for Dollars was a franchised format local television program in the United States and Canada, popular in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s.-Format:...
, Charlie and Humphrey children's show - Steve Physioc - sports director (now with Fox Sports)
- Dennis RichmondDennis RichmondDennis Richmond is a retired American former news anchor who spent 40 years with Oakland, CA-based KTVU.-Early life:A Vietnam War veteran, Richmond grew up in Rossford, Ohio and graduated from Rossford High School. He attended Wayne State University in Detroit...
- 6 and 10 p.m. anchor (retired May 21, 2008) - Ted RowlandsTed Rowlands (newscaster)Ted Hugh Rowlands , an American newscaster. He is currently employed by CNN.-Personal:Rowlands graduated with a degree in communication arts from the University of Wisconsin–Madison....
- reporter (now at CNN) - Don SherwoodDon Sherwood (disc jockey)Don Sherwood was an American radio personality. He was a San Francisco, California disc jockey during the 1950s and 1960s. Billed as "The World's Greatest Disc Jockey," Sherwood spent most of his career hosting a 6 to 9 a.m...
- talk show host (late 1950s; deceased) - Barbara SimpsonBarbara Simpson-Coast to Coast AM and KSFO :Simpson was a fairly prominent television news anchor in San Francisco and Los Angeles from about the late 1970s through the 1990s, but is most notable as the host of Coast to Coast AM on Saturday nights from about 2000 until about 2003, alternating with George Noory;...
- anchor (now weekends on KSFO Babe in the Bunker) - John StanleyJohn Stanley-Leaders:* John I Stanley of the Isle of Man , Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and King of Mann* John II Stanley of the Isle of Man , Knight of the Garter and King of Mann-Politicians:...
- replaced Bob Wilkins as host of Creature FeaturesCreature FeaturesCreature Features was a generic title for a genre of horror TV format shows broadcast on local U.S. television stations throughout the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s... - Thuy VuThuy VuThuy Vu is an Emmy award-winning anchor and reporter for CBS-5 "Eyewitness News" in San Francisco. She currently cohosts "Eye on the Bay". Thuy was born in Vietnam and fled Vietnam by boat with her family as Saigon fell to the Communists at the end of the Vietnam War. She holds a Bachelor's...
- anchor/reporter (left to anchor at KGO-TV, now at KPIX) - Bob Wilkins - original host of Creature FeaturesCreature FeaturesCreature Features was a generic title for a genre of horror TV format shows broadcast on local U.S. television stations throughout the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s...
, Captain CosmicCaptain CosmicCaptain Cosmic was a TV show aired in the San Francisco Bay Area from 1977 to 1980. The show, hosted by Bob Wilkins in the guise of Captain Cosmic would air serials, primarily featuring Japanese superheroes...
children's show (deceased) - Ross McGowan- host of "Mornings on Two" until his retirement in 2009. Also hosted "People Are Talking" on KPIX.
External links
- KTVU website
- Station History KTVU.com
- Project for Excellence in Journalism reference
- KTVU Mention at TVParty.com
- IMDB - Elaine Corral-Kendal
}
}