KTXL
Encyclopedia
KTXL, channel 40, is a Fox Broadcasting Company
-affiliated television station in Sacramento, California
, owned by the Tribune Company
. Its studios and offices are located in South Sacramento, and its transmitter is near Walnut Grove, California
.
, CBS
, NBC
and the DuMont Television Network
. KCCC's first broadcast was the 1953 World Series
. The station became a primary ABC affiliate by 1955, after KCRA-TV
and KBET-TV (now KXTV
) signed on, respectively taking over NBC and CBS full time; and dropped DuMont after that network folded in 1956. http://www.webcitation.org/query?url=http://www.geocities.com/jehobden/tvgnca.html&date=2009-10-26+00:46:18 It was the Sacramento-Stockton
-Modesto area's first television station. However, as a UHF station, it suffered in the ratings because TV sets were not required to have UHF tuning until 1964. Although its fate was sealed when the first VHF stations signed on in the area, it managed to hang on until 1957. The ABC affiliation moved to KOVR
after KCCC signed off when an agreement was made between KCCC-TV and KOVR to merge operations and end KCCC programming. The now-silent channel 40 was then sold to a group of broadcasters who would return the station to the air in 1959 as KVUE, broadcasting from studios near the old California
state fairgrounds off Stockton Boulevard. The station operated for about six months before falling silent again. This time, the station's license was returned to the Federal Communications Commission
.
In the mid-1960s the FCC began to accept bids for a new station on channel 40. Camellia City Telecasters, a group headed by Jack Matranga, former owner and co-founder of KGMS
radio in Sacramento, was granted the license. On October 26, 1968, KTXL signed on for the first time, operating as an independent station for nearly the first two decades of its existence. It was then known as TV 40. The station gained a huge advantage early on when its original owner won the local syndicated rights to a massive number of movies, including classic and contemporary films. At one point, it had one of the largest film libraries in the Sacramento area. In addition, KTXL ventured into in-house productions, such as the children's program "Captain Mitch", Horror Movie TV Host Bob Wilkins and "Big Time Wrestling". The latter show aired until 1979, and was syndicated to several stations in California, Utah
, Alaska
and Hawaii
. Channel 40 was one of the few stations to hold syndicated rights to the entire Merrie Melodies
/Looney Tunes
cartoon libraries (up until recently, different companies held different components of the cartoon output).
In 1974, KTXL became the first area station to air a 10pm newscast (originally only five days a week, and later seven days a week—the station's news history is noted below under Newscasts), and in 1977 began a summer tradition by showcasing some of the greatest films ever made in annual "Summer Film Festivals".
In 1981, channel 40 made television history by showing the 1978 movie The Deer Hunter
(and later many other movies) uncut and unedited, complete with objectionable material—this kind of policy has been tightened somewhat in succeeding years.
All of this made KTXL one of the leading independent stations in the West. It also attained regional-superstation
status via land-microwave relay to nearly every cable system north of the Bay Area, as well as several cable systems in Oregon
, Nevada
, Utah
, Idaho
and Montana
.
KTXL has long been known for ending a program or movie before the closing credits, and viewers should know this is not the way these shows/films were intended to be seen.
KTXL started broadcasting from its new 2000-foot "Monster Tower" in October 1985, significantly increasing its signal strength and adding stereo capability. Initially, the station would only turn on the stereo signal during stereo programming. This sometimes resulted in the staff forgetting to turn it on right at the beginning of a stereo program.
In 1986, KTXL became a charter affiliate of the newly-formed Fox Broadcasting Company
, and eventually took on the branding as FOX40 from then on. In the following year, Camellia City Telecasters sold KTXL to Renaissance Broadcasting
. Currently, the morning and nightly newscasts follow a "Smart News and Analysis" format, while following the lead of many ten o'clock newscasts by reserving its sportscasts for the final segment (in an attempt to lure many viewers to all-night cable sports channels such as ESPN
, Comcast Sports Net, and Fox Sports Net
for further sports coverage). Most Fox affiliates, since the mid-1990s, have moved their daytime programming lineup away from classic sitcoms and cartoons toward a talk show format. However, for more years until recently, KTXL was among a few stations to be an exception to this: the daytime lineup was still filled with sitcoms to this day, even still holding syndication rights to The Andy Griffith Show
after many decades, though many shows from the 1980s and 1990s air, but a few talk shows and reality/court shows were known to fill the lineup. In place of the station's own children's lineup after Captain Mitch's retirement, the station aired Fox Kids
until the network eliminated the lineup in 2002.
KTXL, along with NBC-affiliate KCRA-TV, are the only two stations in Sacramento to retain affiliation with the same network from the beginning, unaffected by network swaps in 1995 and 1998.
KTXL became a Tribune-owned station when the company purchased Renaissance Broadcasting in 1997. When the station's new owners took over, they bulk-erased a lot of old locally-produced programming, and threw all the 16 mm film in the dumpster. Most of the film was rescued by collectors though, and some of these promo films (as well as other videotaped openings and promos from throughout KTXL's history) can be seen on YouTube
.
KTXL installed the first high-power digital TV transmitter in Sacramento operating on Channel 55 in November 1999. On June 12, 2009, turned off its analog signal upon the switch to digital television and moved its digital signal to channel 40, and the tower height was increased to 2,030 feet.
The station became a charter affiliate of parent company Tribune Broadcasting
's new digital multicast channel Antenna TV
upon its launch on January 1, 2011, it is carried on digital subchannel 40.2. The network, whose programming will consist of classic sitcoms from the 1950s to the 1990s during the afternoon and evening, and movies during the morning and late night hours, debuted on Tribune-owned stations in other markets as well as stations owned by Local TV, LLC
on the same date.
as news anchor, Jan Jeffries as weather and news anchor, and Ken Gimblin as sports anchor. When Preston left for unknown reasons, Jeffries was left to do the news with substitute weather anchors. Other news and sports anchors continued the format until 1979, when the news was revived by Pete Wilson
as NewsPlus, in a format that went beyond regular newscasts (hence the "Plus" in the show's title). Such anchor teams as Andy Asher and Regina Cambell, and later Lauraine Woodward and Ted Mullins helmed the now-hour-long newscast until KTXL began its Fox affiliation, and evolved into the current format of what is now known as FOX40 News at 10.
In the summer of 2005, KTXL debuted the FOX40 Morning News, which originally ran from 6:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. opposite KMAX's Good Day Sacramento, and the first hour of KQCA's morning newscast. On September 8, 2008, the newscast was reformatted to FOX40 Live and was expanded to 4.5 hours from 4:30 to 9 a.m. The station hired well-known former Sacramento morning radio personality Paul Robins as presenter; and introduced a new news set adorned with flat-screens and an accompanying kitchen set. KTXL joins KCRA and KMAX with 4:30am newscasts.
KTXL now competes at 10:00 p.m. with KOVR and the KCRA-produced half-hour news program on KQCA
. Channel 40 tops the ratings in "demos", and often comes in first or second in overall viewership at 10 p.m. On September 8, 2008, longtime KCAL-TV
/KCBS-TV
Los Angeles anchor-reporter Jaime Garza joined Donna Cordova as co-anchor of the weeknight "FOX40 News at Ten."
On September 14, 2009, KTXL debuted an 11 a.m. midday newscast (which competes against KXTV) and a 5:30 p.m. weeknight newscast to its newscast schedule. For over a decade, Fox, which has no network newscasts aside from its cable news division
, has motivated its affiliates and stations to air more local news; the Tribune-owned Fox affiliates (including KTXL) did not yet follow this practice until recently.
On December 18, 2009, KTXL announced the station would begin broadcasting every newscast in high definition within a month. On January 7, KTXL launched its high definition broadcast during its 10 p.m. newscast. Though KTXL was technically the last English-language station in the Sacramento market to launch a high definition newscast, it was the first station to broadcast all local news video in 720p
HD.
For its high definition transition, KTXL upgraded its live broadcasting trucks, its satellite truck, studio and field cameras and other equipment to send and receive full high definition video and audio. This is in contrast to two other English stations in town – KCRA and KXTV – who broadcast widescreen, standard definition video during field reports (KOVR also shoots field video in high definition but downconverts much of the field footage to widescreen standard definition). Thus, KTXL is the only station in the market to broadcast all of its local video in true high definition.
2010 Winter Olympic luge accident before several other media outlets and posted the video to its website. KTXL made the editorial decision to post the video to its website, FOX40.com ahead of several major national and international outlets. The video clip has raised some controversy among editorial board at news organizations and journalism critics as to whether the footage should be broadcast or posted online at all (for a brief period of time, the footage was available on YouTube.com, but was removed several times throughout the day after the International Olympic Committee
filed copyright take-down notices). A station staff member told a Seattle newspaper the decision to post the video clip, and leave it on the website, was made after questions arose as to the safety of the luge track, citing fair use of the video. The station also aired the complete video, though with occasional pauses, over commentary by the station's sports anchor, during its 5:30 p.m. newscast that evening.
The video was later syndicated out under the "FOX40.com" branding to several other Tribune-owned websites.
(In alphabetical order)
FOX40 Weather Team
(In order of rank)
Sports Team
(In order of rank)
Reporters
(In alphabetical order)
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 in Sacramento, California
Sacramento, California
Sacramento is the capital city of the U.S. state of California and the county seat of Sacramento County. It is located at the confluence of the Sacramento River and the American River in the northern portion of California's expansive Central Valley. With a population of 466,488 at the 2010 census,...
, owned by the Tribune Company
Tribune Company
The Tribune Company is a large American multimedia corporation based in Chicago, Illinois. It is the nation's second-largest newspaper publisher, with ten daily newspapers and commuter tabloids including Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Hartford Courant, Orlando Sentinel, South Florida...
. Its studios and offices are located in South Sacramento, and its transmitter is near Walnut Grove, California
Walnut Grove, California
Walnut Grove is a census-designated place in Sacramento County, California, United States. It is part of the Sacramento–Arden-Arcade–Roseville Metropolitan Statistical Area...
.
History
The channel 40 frequency in Sacramento was first occupied in September 1953 by KCCC-TV, affiliated with all four television networks: ABCAmerican 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...
, 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...
, 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...
and the DuMont Television Network
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...
. KCCC's first broadcast was the 1953 World Series
1953 World Series
The 1953 World Series matched the four-time defending champion New York Yankees against the Brooklyn Dodgers in a rematch of the 1952 Series. The Yankees won in six games for their fifth straight title—a mark which has not been equalled—and their sixteenth overall...
. The station became a primary ABC affiliate by 1955, after KCRA-TV
KCRA-TV
KCRA-TV, channel 3, is a television station in Sacramento, California, United States. KCRA-TV is owned by Hearst Television, a subsidiary of the Hearst Corporation, and is an affiliate of the NBC television network...
and KBET-TV (now KXTV
KXTV
KXTV, channel 10, is an ABC affiliate television station in Sacramento, California. It is owned and operated by the Gannett Company. Its transmitter tower is located in Walnut Grove, California, and studios are located on Broadway, just south of Business Loop 80 at the south edge of downtown...
) signed on, respectively taking over NBC and CBS full time; and dropped DuMont after that network folded in 1956. http://www.webcitation.org/query?url=http://www.geocities.com/jehobden/tvgnca.html&date=2009-10-26+00:46:18 It was the Sacramento-Stockton
Stockton, California
Stockton, California, the seat of San Joaquin County, is the fourth-largest city in the Central Valley of the U.S. state of California. With a population of 291,707 at the 2010 census, Stockton ranks as this state's 13th largest city...
-Modesto area's first television station. However, as a UHF station, it suffered in the ratings because TV sets were not required to have UHF tuning until 1964. Although its fate was sealed when the first VHF stations signed on in the area, it managed to hang on until 1957. The ABC affiliation moved to KOVR
KOVR
KOVR, channel 13, is an owned-and-operated station of the CBS Television Network located in Sacramento, California and licensed to Stockton. KOVR-TV shares its offices and studio facilities with sister station KMAX-TV in West Sacramento, California, and its transmitter is located in Walnut Grove,...
after KCCC signed off when an agreement was made between KCCC-TV and KOVR to merge operations and end KCCC programming. The now-silent channel 40 was then sold to a group of broadcasters who would return the station to the air in 1959 as KVUE, broadcasting from studios near the old California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
state fairgrounds off Stockton Boulevard. The station operated for about six months before falling silent again. This time, the station's license was returned to the Federal Communications Commission
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, created, Congressional statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the...
.
In the mid-1960s the FCC began to accept bids for a new station on channel 40. Camellia City Telecasters, a group headed by Jack Matranga, former owner and co-founder of KGMS
KTKZ
KTKZ is a conservative talk radio station based in Sacramento, California, United States. The on-air lineup is similar to those on other Salem stations throughout the country....
radio in Sacramento, was granted the license. On October 26, 1968, KTXL signed on for the first time, operating as an independent station for nearly the first two decades of its existence. It was then known as TV 40. The station gained a huge advantage early on when its original owner won the local syndicated rights to a massive number of movies, including classic and contemporary films. At one point, it had one of the largest film libraries in the Sacramento area. In addition, KTXL ventured into in-house productions, such as the children's program "Captain Mitch", Horror Movie TV Host Bob Wilkins and "Big Time Wrestling". The latter show aired until 1979, and was syndicated to several stations in California, 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...
, Alaska
Alaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
and Hawaii
Hawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
. Channel 40 was one of the few stations to hold syndicated rights to the entire Merrie Melodies
Merrie Melodies
Merrie Melodies is the name of a series of animated cartoons distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures between 1931 and 1969.Originally produced by Harman-Ising Pictures, Merrie Melodies were produced by Leon Schlesinger Productions from 1933 to 1944. Schlesinger sold his studio to Warner Bros. in 1944,...
/Looney Tunes
Looney Tunes
Looney Tunes is a Warner Bros. animated cartoon series. It preceded the Merrie Melodies series and was Warner Bros.'s first animated theatrical series. Since its first official release, 1930's Sinkin' in the Bathtub, the series has become a worldwide media franchise, spawning several television...
cartoon libraries (up until recently, different companies held different components of the cartoon output).
In 1974, KTXL became the first area station to air a 10pm newscast (originally only five days a week, and later seven days a week—the station's news history is noted below under Newscasts), and in 1977 began a summer tradition by showcasing some of the greatest films ever made in annual "Summer Film Festivals".
In 1981, channel 40 made television history by showing the 1978 movie The Deer Hunter
The Deer Hunter
The Deer Hunter is a 1978 drama film co-written and directed by Michael Cimino about a trio of Russian American steel worker friends and their infantry service in the Vietnam War. The film stars Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, Meryl Streep, John Savage, John Cazale, and George Dzundza...
(and later many other movies) uncut and unedited, complete with objectionable material—this kind of policy has been tightened somewhat in succeeding years.
All of this made KTXL one of the leading independent stations in the West. It also attained regional-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...
status via land-microwave relay to nearly every cable system north of the Bay Area, as well as several cable systems in 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...
, 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...
, 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...
, Idaho
Idaho
Idaho is a state in the Rocky Mountain area of the United States. The state's largest city and capital is Boise. Residents are called "Idahoans". Idaho was admitted to the Union on July 3, 1890, as the 43rd state....
and Montana
Montana
Montana is a state in the Western United States. The western third of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges. Smaller, "island ranges" are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains. This geographical fact is reflected in the state's name,...
.
KTXL has long been known for ending a program or movie before the closing credits, and viewers should know this is not the way these shows/films were intended to be seen.
KTXL started broadcasting from its new 2000-foot "Monster Tower" in October 1985, significantly increasing its signal strength and adding stereo capability. Initially, the station would only turn on the stereo signal during stereo programming. This sometimes resulted in the staff forgetting to turn it on right at the beginning of a stereo program.
In 1986, KTXL became a charter affiliate of the newly-formed Fox Broadcasting Company
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...
, and eventually took on the branding as FOX40 from then on. In the following year, Camellia City Telecasters sold KTXL to Renaissance Broadcasting
Renaissance Broadcasting
Renaissance Broadcasting, founded in 1982 by Michael Finkelstien, was a company that owned several UHF television stations, it was sold to Tribune Broadcasting in 1997...
. Currently, the morning and nightly newscasts follow a "Smart News and Analysis" format, while following the lead of many ten o'clock newscasts by reserving its sportscasts for the final segment (in an attempt to lure many viewers to all-night cable sports channels such as ESPN
ESPN
Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, commonly known as ESPN, is an American global cable television network focusing on sports-related programming including live and pre-taped event telecasts, sports talk shows, and other original programming....
, Comcast Sports Net, and Fox Sports Net
Fox Sports Net
The Fox Sports Regional Networks, or simply Fox Sports Net , are a collection of cable TV regional sports networks in the United States owned and operated by News Corporation.- Beginnings :...
for further sports coverage). Most Fox affiliates, since the mid-1990s, have moved their daytime programming lineup away from classic sitcoms and cartoons toward a talk show format. However, for more years until recently, KTXL was among a few stations to be an exception to this: the daytime lineup was still filled with sitcoms to this day, even still holding syndication rights to The Andy Griffith Show
The Andy Griffith Show
The Andy Griffith Show is an American sitcom first televised by CBS between October 3, 1960, and April 1, 1968. Andy Griffith portrays a widowed sheriff in the fictional small community of Mayberry, North Carolina...
after many decades, though many shows from the 1980s and 1990s air, but a few talk shows and reality/court shows were known to fill the lineup. In place of the station's own children's lineup after Captain Mitch's retirement, the station aired 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...
until the network eliminated the lineup in 2002.
KTXL, along with NBC-affiliate KCRA-TV, are the only two stations in Sacramento to retain affiliation with the same network from the beginning, unaffected by network swaps in 1995 and 1998.
KTXL became a Tribune-owned station when the company purchased Renaissance Broadcasting in 1997. When the station's new owners took over, they bulk-erased a lot of old locally-produced programming, and threw all the 16 mm film in the dumpster. Most of the film was rescued by collectors though, and some of these promo films (as well as other videotaped openings and promos from throughout KTXL's history) can be seen on YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
.
Digital television
| Channel | Callsign | Programming |
|---|---|---|
| 40.1 | KTXL-TV | Main KTXL programming / FOX |
| 40.2 | ANT TV | Antenna TV Antenna TV Antenna TV is an American digital broadcast television network, primarily featuring classic television series from the 1950s to the 1990s, along with some feature films. It is owned by Tribune Broadcasting, a division of the Chicago-based Tribune Company... |
KTXL installed the first high-power digital TV transmitter in Sacramento operating on Channel 55 in November 1999. On June 12, 2009, turned off its analog signal upon the switch to digital television and moved its digital signal to channel 40, and the tower height was increased to 2,030 feet.
The station became a charter affiliate of parent company Tribune Broadcasting
Tribune Broadcasting
The Tribune Broadcasting Company is a group of radio and television stations located throughout the United States which are owned and operated by the Tribune Company, a media conglomerate based in Chicago, Illinois and named for the flagship Chicago Tribune newspaper.- History :Tribune Broadcasting...
's new digital multicast channel Antenna TV
Antenna TV
Antenna TV is an American digital broadcast television network, primarily featuring classic television series from the 1950s to the 1990s, along with some feature films. It is owned by Tribune Broadcasting, a division of the Chicago-based Tribune Company...
upon its launch on January 1, 2011, it is carried on digital subchannel 40.2. The network, whose programming will consist of classic sitcoms from the 1950s to the 1990s during the afternoon and evening, and movies during the morning and late night hours, debuted on Tribune-owned stations in other markets as well as stations owned by Local TV, LLC
Local TV
Local TV LLC is a limited liability corporation, owned by Oak Hill Capital Partners , which operates 18 local network-affiliated television stations in the United States.-History:...
on the same date.
News operation
In 1974, KTXL initiated the Sacramento area's first Ten O'Clock News, with Dave PrestonDave Preston
Richard David "Dave" Preston is a former professional American football player who played running back for six seasons for the Denver Broncos....
as news anchor, Jan Jeffries as weather and news anchor, and Ken Gimblin as sports anchor. When Preston left for unknown reasons, Jeffries was left to do the news with substitute weather anchors. Other news and sports anchors continued the format until 1979, when the news was revived by Pete Wilson
Pete Wilson (broadcaster)
Peter James "Pete" Wilson was an American broadcaster born in Wisconsin. For more than 20 years prior to his death, he worked in the San Francisco Bay Area...
as NewsPlus, in a format that went beyond regular newscasts (hence the "Plus" in the show's title). Such anchor teams as Andy Asher and Regina Cambell, and later Lauraine Woodward and Ted Mullins helmed the now-hour-long newscast until KTXL began its Fox affiliation, and evolved into the current format of what is now known as FOX40 News at 10.
In the summer of 2005, KTXL debuted the FOX40 Morning News, which originally ran from 6:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. opposite KMAX's Good Day Sacramento, and the first hour of KQCA's morning newscast. On September 8, 2008, the newscast was reformatted to FOX40 Live and was expanded to 4.5 hours from 4:30 to 9 a.m. The station hired well-known former Sacramento morning radio personality Paul Robins as presenter; and introduced a new news set adorned with flat-screens and an accompanying kitchen set. KTXL joins KCRA and KMAX with 4:30am newscasts.
KTXL now competes at 10:00 p.m. with KOVR and the KCRA-produced half-hour news program on KQCA
KQCA
KQCA is the MyNetworkTV-affiliated television station for Sacramento, California, USA. Licensed to Stockton, the station broadcasts a digital-only signal on UHF channel 46. KQCA's transmitter is located northeast of Walnut Grove. The station is owned by Hearst Television as part of a duopoly with...
. Channel 40 tops the ratings in "demos", and often comes in first or second in overall viewership at 10 p.m. On September 8, 2008, longtime KCAL-TV
KCAL-TV
KCAL-TV, channel 9, is an independent television station in Los Angeles, California, USA, owned by the CBS Corporation. KCAL-TV shares its studio facilities with KCBS-TV inside CBS Studio Center in the Studio City section of Los Angeles, and its transmitter is located atop Mount Wilson.-Digital...
/KCBS-TV
KCBS-TV
KCBS-TV, channel 2, is an owned-and-operated television station of the CBS Television Network, located in Los Angeles, California. KCBS-TV shares its offices and studio facilities with sister station KCAL-TV inside CBS Studio Center in the Studio City section of Los Angeles, and its transmitter...
Los Angeles anchor-reporter Jaime Garza joined Donna Cordova as co-anchor of the weeknight "FOX40 News at Ten."
On September 14, 2009, KTXL debuted an 11 a.m. midday newscast (which competes against KXTV) and a 5:30 p.m. weeknight newscast to its newscast schedule. For over a decade, Fox, which has no network newscasts aside from its cable news division
Fox News Channel
Fox News Channel , often called Fox News, is a cable and satellite television news channel owned by the Fox Entertainment Group, a subsidiary of News Corporation...
, has motivated its affiliates and stations to air more local news; the Tribune-owned Fox affiliates (including KTXL) did not yet follow this practice until recently.
On December 18, 2009, KTXL announced the station would begin broadcasting every newscast in high definition within a month. On January 7, KTXL launched its high definition broadcast during its 10 p.m. newscast. Though KTXL was technically the last English-language station in the Sacramento market to launch a high definition newscast, it was the first station to broadcast all local news video in 720p
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...
HD.
For its high definition transition, KTXL upgraded its live broadcasting trucks, its satellite truck, studio and field cameras and other equipment to send and receive full high definition video and audio. This is in contrast to two other English stations in town – KCRA and KXTV – who broadcast widescreen, standard definition video during field reports (KOVR also shoots field video in high definition but downconverts much of the field footage to widescreen standard definition). Thus, KTXL is the only station in the market to broadcast all of its local video in true high definition.
Nodar Kumaritashvili crash video controversy
On February 12, 2010, KTXL obtained a video copy of the infamous Nodar KumaritashviliNodar Kumaritashvili
Nodar David Kumaritashvili was a Georgian luger, who suffered a fatal crash during a training run for the 2010 Winter Olympics competition in Vancouver, Canada, on the day of the opening ceremony...
2010 Winter Olympic luge accident before several other media outlets and posted the video to its website. KTXL made the editorial decision to post the video to its website, FOX40.com ahead of several major national and international outlets. The video clip has raised some controversy among editorial board at news organizations and journalism critics as to whether the footage should be broadcast or posted online at all (for a brief period of time, the footage was available on YouTube.com, but was removed several times throughout the day after the International Olympic Committee
International Olympic Committee
The International Olympic Committee is an international corporation based in Lausanne, Switzerland, created by Pierre de Coubertin on 23 June 1894 with Demetrios Vikelas as its first president...
filed copyright take-down notices). A station staff member told a Seattle newspaper the decision to post the video clip, and leave it on the website, was made after questions arose as to the safety of the luge track, citing fair use of the video. The station also aired the complete video, though with occasional pauses, over commentary by the station's sports anchor, during its 5:30 p.m. newscast that evening.
The video was later syndicated out under the "FOX40.com" branding to several other Tribune-owned websites.
Newscast titles
- The Ten O'Clock News (1974–1979 and 1986–1995)
- Ten O'Clock News Plus (1979–1986)
- FOX40 News (1995–present)
Station slogans
- The Exciting World of TV-40 is Bringing It Home to You (1979–1981)
- Take Off with Forty! (1984–1985)
- TV-40, Go For The Stars (1985–1986)
- Northern California's First Primetime News (1995–2008)
- We Report to You (2008–2010)
- What Matters to You (2010–present)
- Northern California's Breaking News Source (online slogan; 2009–present)
Current on-air staff
Anchors(In alphabetical order)
- Teri Cox - weekends at 10 p.m.; also weekday reporter (1989)
- Stefanie Cruz - weeknights at 5:30 and 10 p.m. (2010)
- Bethany Crouch - weekday mornings (4:30-10 a.m.); also reporter (2007)
- Eric Harryman - weeknights at 5:30 and 10 p.m. (2011)
- Joe Orlando - weekday mornings (4:30-7 a.m.); also reporter (2002)
- Paul Robins - weekday mornings (4:30-10 a.m.) (2008)
FOX40 Weather Team
(In order of rank)
- Kristina Werner - Chief Meteorologist; weeknights at 5:30 and 10 p.m. (1999)
- Dennis Shanahan - Meteorologist; weekends at 10 p.m.; also reporter (2008)
Sports Team
(In order of rank)
- Jim Crandell - Sports Director; weeknights at 10 p.m. (1984)
- Mark Demsky - Sports Anchor; weekends at 10 p.m. (2004)
Reporters
(In alphabetical order)
- Chris Biele - general assignment reporter (2010)
- Andria Borba - general assignment reporter (2009)
- Ama Daetz - general assignment reporter (2009)
- Ben Deci - general assignment reporter (2009)
- Elissa Harrington - general assignment reporter (2010)
- Annalee Penny - interactive reporter/producer (2008)
- Rowena Shaddox - Solano County Bureau Chief (2002, on-air 2006)
- Lonnie Wong - general assignment reporter (1980)
Former on-air staff
- Michelle FranzenMichelle FranzenMichelle Franzen is a national correspondent for NBC News. She has reported on a wide range of issues and events for various television stations, as well as MSNBC, The Today Show, and NBC Nightly News...
- reporter/fill-in anchor (1995–1998; now with NBC NewsChannel in New York) - Mike BondMike BondMike Bond is an American novelist, war and human rights journalist, and poet.Bond was a studDemocratic candidate for the United States Senate in Montana in 1982, and served in Al Gore's 2000 Presidential campaign as head of Colorado Business Leaders for Gore and as a spokesman in several western...
- reporter (1989–2005, whereabouts unknown) - Adam HousleyAdam HousleyAdam Housley joined Fox News Channel in 2001 as a Los Angeles-based correspondent.-Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami:...
- reporter (1999–2001; now a Los Angeles bureau reporter at Fox News) - Gary RadnichGary RadnichGary Radnich is the host of the 9 a.m. to noon slot on KNBR radio in San Francisco, California, and is also the lead sports anchor on KRON television.-Early life:...
- sports anchor (now at KRON-TVKRON-TVKRON-TV, virtual channel 4 , is a television station in San Francisco, California, serving as the Bay Area affiliate of the MyNetworkTV programming service; the station is owned by Young Broadcasting...
and KNBRKNBRKNBR, The Sports Leader, is the on-air branding used by two AM radio stations in the San Francisco, California, area broadcasting a sports radio format, owned by Cumulus Media....
radio in San Francisco) - Rick ReynoldsRick ReynoldsRick Reynolds is an American comedian known for his one-man shows Only the Truth Is Funny and All Grown Up...and No Place to Go.-Personal life:...
- reporter (1984–1988; later news director at KOVRKOVRKOVR, channel 13, is an owned-and-operated station of the CBS Television Network located in Sacramento, California and licensed to Stockton. KOVR-TV shares its offices and studio facilities with sister station KMAX-TV in West Sacramento, California, and its transmitter is located in Walnut Grove,...
from 1991–2001) - Pete WilsonPete Wilson (broadcaster)Peter James "Pete" Wilson was an American broadcaster born in Wisconsin. For more than 20 years prior to his death, he worked in the San Francisco Bay Area...
- NewsPlus creator/co-anchor (1979–1983; later at KGO-TVKGO-TVKGO-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 KRON-TVKRON-TVKRON-TV, virtual channel 4 , is a television station in San Francisco, California, serving as the Bay Area affiliate of the MyNetworkTV programming service; the station is owned by Young Broadcasting...
in San Francisco; died of heart attack in July 2007) - Monica WoodsMonica WoodsMonica Marie Woods-Gray is the morning weekday meteorologist at an ABC affiliate in Sacramento, California KXTV News10. Starting May 31st, 2011 she will become the Chief Meteorologist at KXTV and will be moved to the evening news at 5pm, 6pm and 11pm...
- chief meteorologist (1995–1999; now at KXTVKXTVKXTV, channel 10, is an ABC affiliate television station in Sacramento, California. It is owned and operated by the Gannett Company. Its transmitter tower is located in Walnut Grove, California, and studios are located on Broadway, just south of Business Loop 80 at the south edge of downtown...
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