Coordinates | 21°28′14″N158°12′51″N |
---|---|
call letters | KCBS-TV |
station logo | |
station slogan | Only CBS 2 (general)Coverage You Can Count On (newscasts)Always On(newscasts) |
station branding | CBS 2 (general)CBS 2 News (newscasts) |
digital | 43 (UHF)Virtual: 2 (PSIP) |
subchannels | 2.1 CBS |
other chs | (see article) |
affiliations | CBS Television Network |
airdate | May 6, 1948 |
location | Los Angeles, California |
callsign meaning | KColumbiaBroadcastingSystem(former legal name of CBS) |
former callsigns | KTSL (1948-1951)KNXT (1951-1984) |
owner | CBS Corporation |
licensee | CBS Broadcasting, Inc. |
sister stations | KAMP-FM, KCAL-TV, KCBS-FM, KFWB, KNX, KROQ-FM, KRTH, KTWV |
former affiliations | DuMont (1948-1951) |
former channel numbers | Analog1 (VHF, 1933-1946)2 (VHF, 1946-2009)Digital60 (UHF, 1998-2009) |
effective radiated power | 1000 kW |
haat | 950.9 m |
facility id | 9628 |
coordinates | |
homepage | www.cbsla.com/ }} |
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 (channel 9) inside CBS Studio Center in the Studio City section of Los Angeles, and its transmitter located atop Mount Wilson.
By 1939, with the image improved to 441 lines, an optimistic estimate of the station's viewership was 1,500 people in a few hundred homes. Many of the receiver sets were built by television hobbyists, though commercially made sets were available in Los Angeles. The station's six-day weekly schedule consisted of live talent four nights, and film two nights. During World War II, programming was reduced to three hours, every other Monday. The station's frequency was switched from Channel 1 to Channel 2 in 1945 when the FCC decided to reserve Channel 1 for low-wattage community television stations.
The station was granted a commercial license (the second in California, behind KTLA) as KTSL on May 6, 1948, and was named for Thomas S. Lee, the son of Don Lee. The station became affiliated with the DuMont Television Network later that year.
In 1948, KNXT had launched Peter Potter's Jukebox Jury a musical/quiz series which went national in the 1953-1954 season on ABC. Many later well-known entertainers appeared on the program to judge the latest releases from the recording companies.
In 1960, KNXT created the nation's first one-hour local newscast, The Big News, which featured Jerry Dunphy, one of Southern California's most beloved news icons, along with legendary weatherman Bill Keene and sportscaster Gil Stratton. Also featured were Special Assignment reporter Maury Green and "Human Predicament" essayist Ralph Story. This helped make KNXT the number-one news station in Los Angeles. At times, a quarter of Los Angeles televisions were tuned into The Big News, the highest ratings ever for a television newscast in the area. The station eventually added such reporters as Howard Gingold and Saul Halpert, among others, and added news bureaus in Sacramento, San Francisco and Orange County, each with full-time correspondents and camera crews. Eventually, KNXT expanded to two-and-a-half hours of live local news, as well as a late-night newscast. However, in the mid 1970s, rival KABC-TV began gaining ratings at KNXT's expense. In 1975, KNXT fired Dunphy (who was quickly hired by KABC) and adopted a format similar to KABC-TV's Eyewitness News with its "happy talk" between anchors. However, the change went nowhere. Just as most of its fellow CBS O&Os; were dominating their cities' ratings, KNXT rapidly fell into last place.
For a time during the 1980s and 1990s, KNXT/KCBS-TV had several locally produced programs such as "2 on the Town," a local show similar to Evening Magazine and KABC-TV's Eye on L.A., and Kid Quiz, a Saturday morning children's game show hosted by longtime weathercaster Maclovio Perez. For a time in the mid-2000s, its sister station KCAL-TV did a show called 9 on the Town.
For most of the period from 1975 to 2006, KNXT/KCBS-TV was not a factor in the Los Angeles television ratings. The exceptions were a brief surge to first place in the early 1980s and another in the mid-1990s.
During the period, Channel 2 had frequently changed formats to styles that often became unsuccessful and even controversial. In September 1986, Channel 2 implemented a news-wheel format with each half-hour of news devoted to certain topics and themes. For example, there was Entertainment and Lifestyle news early on and harder news later on. This format was heavily panned by critics and audiences alike, and cancelled after only a month.
The late 1980s and early 1990s brought in the Action News format, which featured a tabloid-type newscast; the style grated on the news staff, which circulated a memo that resulted in the eventual firing of news director John Lippmann. Lippmann was heavily criticized by many, and reportedly had many confrontations with news staff, notably a shoving match between him and anchor Michael Tuck. The station's ratings quickly declined.
CBS management, highly embarrassed at KCBS' subpar performance, responded by bringing in Bill Applegate as general manager. Applegate had previously been general manager at WBBM-TV, and ironically been a reporter there in the early 1970s. While Applegate had been criticized for making WBBM's newscasts flashier than they had previously been, he set about toning down KCBS's newscasts. One of his strategies involved bringing in popular news anchors and reporters from other stations including the return of Jerry Dunphy, 20 years after he was fired from the station. Dunphy went on to anchor at KABC-TV and KCAL-TV achieving high ratings at both stops. Also joining Dunphy were colleagues Ann Martin, Dr. George Fischbeck, Paul Dandridge and Marc Coogan from KABC-TV, and Larry Carroll who worked with Dunphy at KABC and KCAL. Linda Alvarez of KNBC-TV also joined the team.
The station's ratings improved, but Applegate was eventually a casualty of CBS' merger with the Westinghouse corporation in 1996; he'd bickered with Westinghouse over syndicated programming not long after he'd arrived. Westinghouse executives never forgot this, and Applegate was one of the first executives to be let go. Channel 2's momentum ground to a halt, and it soon dropped into last place. The Action News branding was dropped in 1997 and renamed CBS 2 News. That year, Dunphy returned to KCAL.
KCBS began making another attempt to get out of the ratings basement at the start of the 21st century. In 2000, former KNBC Today in L.A. anchor Kent Shocknek joined KCBS to become its morning co-anchor. Then in 2001 the station hired Harold Greene, longtime anchor at KABC, as its 5 and 11 p.m. anchor. A year later, he was joined by his former partner at KABC, Laura Diaz. In 2004, Paul Magers, longtime anchor at KARE in the Twin Cities, replaced Greene on the 5 p.m. and 11 p.m. news, bumping Greene to the 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. newscasts. The 4 p.m. newscast moved to KCAL-TV with the arrival of Dr. Phil on KCBS. At the beginning of 2005, longtime KABC weatherman Johnny Mountain moved to KCBS, surprising many since it appeared that he was going to retire.
At first, it seemed that none of these changes brought KCBS any closer to becoming a factor in the Los Angeles news race. However, in April 2006, KCBS grabbed the #2 spot at 5 PM from KABC due to a strong lead-in from Dr. Phil. More importantly, KCBS shot past both KABC and KNBC to take first place at 11 p.m. for the first time in 30 years.
On April 21, 2007, KCBS and KCAL-TV moved from historic CBS Columbia Square in Hollywood to an all-digital facility at the CBS Studio Center in Studio City. The move marks many changes at KCBS and KCAL-TV. Several news personalities have departed, including David Jackson, a respected news anchor who returned to the duopoly after fronting KCAL's Prime 9 News in the early 1990s, Kerry Kilbride, reporter Jay Jackson, Paul Dandridge, Dilva Henry, Linda Alvarez, sports anchor Alan Massengale, and Dave Clark, who left for KTVU. Both stations began broadcasting all their newscasts, sports shows, and public affairs programming in high definition, becoming the third and fourth station in Los Angeles to do so; the other being KABC-TV in February 2006, and KTLA in January 2007. In addition, KCBS and KCAL-TV now operate in a completely tapeless newsroom. This newsroom is named in honor of Jerry Dunphy, who previously worked at both stations in the past.
With the move, KTLA and KCET are the only stations (either in radio or television) in Los Angeles to broadcast from Hollywood.
On April 1, 2008, CBS's owned-and-operated television stations division ordered widespread budget cuts and staff layoffs from its stations, among the largest budget cuts in television history. CBS O&Os; across the country have laid off numerous staff members with KCBS and KCAL-TV being no exception. As a result of the budget cuts, roughly 10-15 staffers were released by the duopoly. The 6pm anchor team, Harold Greene and Ann Martin, decided to retire from television news after many years in the business. Greene and Martin (who both also anchored KCAL-TV's 4 p.m. newscast) were slated to have their contracts expire in June, and both were considered for layoffs. Additionally, longtime KCBS reporter Jennifer Sabih, and reporters Greg Phillips and Jennifer Davis were let go by the station.
On December 10, 2009, CBS brought in Steve Mauldin to replace Patrick McClenahan as president and general manager of the duopoly. That week, the duopoly ultimately rescinded the NewsCentral branding, reverting to the "CBS2 News" and "KCAL9 News" identities. The NewsCentral graphics, mic flags and logos remained in the interim, though on-air talent no longer used the NewsCentral identity.
Channel (virtual/physical) | ! Programming |
2.1/43.1 | main KCBS-TV programming / CBS HD |
In Los Angeles, national news from the major networks air at 6:30 p.m., an hour later than most West Coast affiliates. This includes the CBS Evening News on KCBS. During the 1980s, the CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News (broadcast by KNBC) and ABC World News Tonight (broadcast by KABC-TV) aired on their respective stations at 7 p.m. From 1988 to 1999 KCBS aired the CBS Evening News at 5:30 p.m. (the timeslot the newscast typically airs in the Mountain and Central time zones).
KCBS carried Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! at 7:00 and 7:30 PST from 1989 until 1992, when rival KABC-TV added it to its lineup. Before 1989, both Wheel and Jeopardy! were shown on KCOP-TV. Today the 7 p.m. hour carries Entertainment Tonight and The Insider. Jeopardy! initially aired during the afternoon hours on KCBS in 1984, before KCOP picked it up a year later.
From 1986 to 1987, KCBS had a 7 p.m. newscast, airing CBS Evening News immediately beforehand at 6:30 p.m. KCBS was also the last station in the Los Angeles area to offer a 6:30 p.m. local newscast, when its 6 p.m. newscast ran for an hour, until KTLA launched one in January 2009.
Sports director Jim Hill may well be the station's most notable current personality. Hill, a former San Diego Charger was a sportscaster for CBS Sports during his first stint at KNXT/KCBS-TV, from 1976 to 1987. Hill then left to become sports director at KABC-TV, but returned to KCBS-TV in 1992 and has remained sports director at the station since. Other ex-athletes who are also sportscasters for KCBS and KCAL-TV are Eric Dickerson, James Worthy and Eric Karros.
2View Weather
Sports team
Timesaver Traffic
Reporters
CBSLA.com
Sky 2
Category:CBS network affiliates Category:CBS Corporation television stations Category:Television stations in California Category:Channel 43 digital TV stations in the United States Category:Channel 2 virtual TV stations in the United States Category:Television channels and stations established in 1948
fr:KCBS-TV pt:KCBS-TVThis text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
The World News (WN) Network, has created this privacy statement in order to demonstrate our firm commitment to user privacy. The following discloses our information gathering and dissemination practices for wn.com, as well as e-mail newsletters.
We do not collect personally identifiable information about you, except when you provide it to us. For example, if you submit an inquiry to us or sign up for our newsletter, you may be asked to provide certain information such as your contact details (name, e-mail address, mailing address, etc.).
When you submit your personally identifiable information through wn.com, you are giving your consent to the collection, use and disclosure of your personal information as set forth in this Privacy Policy. If you would prefer that we not collect any personally identifiable information from you, please do not provide us with any such information. We will not sell or rent your personally identifiable information to third parties without your consent, except as otherwise disclosed in this Privacy Policy.
Except as otherwise disclosed in this Privacy Policy, we will use the information you provide us only for the purpose of responding to your inquiry or in connection with the service for which you provided such information. We may forward your contact information and inquiry to our affiliates and other divisions of our company that we feel can best address your inquiry or provide you with the requested service. We may also use the information you provide in aggregate form for internal business purposes, such as generating statistics and developing marketing plans. We may share or transfer such non-personally identifiable information with or to our affiliates, licensees, agents and partners.
We may retain other companies and individuals to perform functions on our behalf. Such third parties may be provided with access to personally identifiable information needed to perform their functions, but may not use such information for any other purpose.
In addition, we may disclose any information, including personally identifiable information, we deem necessary, in our sole discretion, to comply with any applicable law, regulation, legal proceeding or governmental request.
We do not want you to receive unwanted e-mail from us. We try to make it easy to opt-out of any service you have asked to receive. If you sign-up to our e-mail newsletters we do not sell, exchange or give your e-mail address to a third party.
E-mail addresses are collected via the wn.com web site. Users have to physically opt-in to receive the wn.com newsletter and a verification e-mail is sent. wn.com is clearly and conspicuously named at the point of
collection.If you no longer wish to receive our newsletter and promotional communications, you may opt-out of receiving them by following the instructions included in each newsletter or communication or by e-mailing us at michaelw(at)wn.com
The security of your personal information is important to us. We follow generally accepted industry standards to protect the personal information submitted to us, both during registration and once we receive it. No method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100 percent secure, however. Therefore, though we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.
If we decide to change our e-mail practices, we will post those changes to this privacy statement, the homepage, and other places we think appropriate so that you are aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it.
If we make material changes to our e-mail practices, we will notify you here, by e-mail, and by means of a notice on our home page.
The advertising banners and other forms of advertising appearing on this Web site are sometimes delivered to you, on our behalf, by a third party. In the course of serving advertisements to this site, the third party may place or recognize a unique cookie on your browser. For more information on cookies, you can visit www.cookiecentral.com.
As we continue to develop our business, we might sell certain aspects of our entities or assets. In such transactions, user information, including personally identifiable information, generally is one of the transferred business assets, and by submitting your personal information on Wn.com you agree that your data may be transferred to such parties in these circumstances.