KDNL-TV is the ABC-affiliated television station for St. Louis, Missouri. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 31 from a transmitter in Shrewsbury. The station can also be seen on Charter channel 12 and in high definition on digital channel 780. Owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group, KDNL has studios on Cole Street in the Downtown West section of St. Louis. Syndicated programming on KDNL-TV includes: The Simpsons, Judge Mathis, and Maury. The station also features a Secondary Audio Program channel used mainly for Descriptive Video Service.

Digital television[link]

The stations digital signal is multiplexed. Beginning on October 1, 2010, KDNL began carrying TheCoolTV on digital subchannel 30.2. KDNL-DT2 is available on Charter digital channel 158.

By October 28, Sinclair reached an agreement with The Country Network, which began airing on digital subchannel 30.3.^{[1] [2]}

Analog-to-digital conversion[link]

The station terminated regular analog programming on February 17, 2009 and offered nightlight programming for two weeks before it permanently shut-off analog service.

History[link]

The station started broadcasting on June 8, 1969 as the first UHF television station in the St. Louis market. It began as an independent station owned by Evans Broadcasting. KDNL ran a format of business news, religious shows, rejected network programming from KSDK and KTVI, and old movies. Several years later, it offered Japanese live-action and cartoons dubbed into English including: Johnny Sokko, Speed Racer, Marine Boy, and Ultraman.

By 1976, the station ran religious shows in the early-morning, rejected network shows in the late-morning, and business news in the early-afternoon. This was followed by a couple of cartoons in the late-afternoon, westerns and some old sitcoms in the evening, and a few older movies during prime time and late night. Also in 1976, KDNL began televising St. Louis Blues hockey games for five seasons.

In 1977, the business news was gradually eliminated and made way for a few more second-hand classic sitcoms. The Japanese English dubbed shows were phased out as well. The station finally moved to a more conventional independent format but rated far behind established independent KPLR-TV (channel 11). Its big disadvantage was that at the time, it was the only St. Louis station on UHF. Evans sold the station to Cox Enterprises in 1981. Programming continued to consist of classic sitcoms, a couple rejected network shows, and some religious programs during the day. Some of the shows during this time included The Brady Bunch, The Little Rascals, I Love Lucy, The Andy Griffith Show, Good Times, What's Happening!!, and The Honeymooners.

Beginning on June 1, 1982, Preview ran on KDNL during the nighttime hours, leaving KPLR as the only full-time independent station in the St. Louis market. Nine months later, Preview was dropped and the station resumed running the usual primetime fare of movies and classic sitcoms until 1 or 2 a.m. KDNL regained the rights to the Blues games in 1983 for an additional three seasons. In 1984, cartoons had been added to the lineup and the station cut back on the religious shows. Also under Cox ownership, the station won bids for stronger off-network sitcoms. On October 6, 1986, KDNL joined Fox as a charter affiliate (after KPLR turned the network affiliation down), going under the brand name "Fox 30". Fox wouldn't air a full week's worth of programming until 1993, meaning the station was still programmed essentially as an independent. Still, during this time it began edging closer to KPLR in the ratings after having been well behind channel 11 for most of its first two decades on the air. In 1991, Cox sold KDNL to St. Louis-based River City Broadcasting.

In 1994, New World Communications bought St. Louis' longtime ABC affiliate KTVI (channel 2) and three other stations from Argyle Television. New World had made an affiliation deal to switch all of its stations, including KTVI, to Fox. ABC originally wanted to affiliate with longer-established KPLR. However, KPLR opted instead to affiliate with The WB. More or less by default, ABC cut a deal to affiliate with KDNL and moved its programming there on August 7, 1995. Soon after joining the network, KDNL began showing UPN programming during ABC programming off-hours. Despite its size, the St. Louis market did not have enough willing commercial stations at the time to support a full-time UPN affiliate.

After becoming an ABC affiliate, KDNL also began to air more first-run syndicated programs and reduced its reliance on older sitcoms. In 1996, River City merged wtih Sinclair. KDNL dropped UPN programming in 1997, and religious station KNLC (channel 24) and KPLR began sharing programming from the network. St. Louis did not have a full-time UPN affiliate until WRBU (channel 46) in East St. Louis, Illinois took on the affiliation in April 2003. In 2004, KDNL preempted the movie Saving Private Ryan following the lead of other Sinclair-owned ABC affiliates. The company had refused to allow Charter to carry KDNL's high definition signal being the longest hold out in the area (not counting CBS affiliate KMOV (channel 4)'s pulling of its HD signal in January 2007), until April 2007 when Sinclair and Charter came to a national retransmission agreement for three years until 2010. Subsequently, KDNL-DT began airing on digital channel 780 on Charter systems on April 19, 2007.^[3]

For most of its tenure as an ABC affiliate, KDNL has been among its weakest affiliates. In stark contrast, KTVI was one of ABC's strongest affiliates. For the better part of a decade, KDNL's schedule has more closely resembled that of an independent station than that of a Big Three network affiliate in a major market. The station's schedule is heavy on mainstays of syndication seen more on netlet stations such as The Simpsons, along with a heavy schedule of paid and religious programming, leaving the ABC schedule without many lead-ins. Several ABC shows, such as Good Morning America and World News with Diane Sawyer, garner ratings so low in the St. Louis market that A.C. Nielsen can't rate them due to a sample too small to classify with a ratings number. The station also has a habit of preempting ABC prime time programming for paid programming. ^[4] As a result, it regularly rates fifth in the St. Louis market behind KPLR. ^[5]

Ironically, given its status, KDNL was actually the local broadcaster for the St. Louis Rams' victory in Super Bowl XXXIV, which had aired on ABC.^[6]

There has also been regular talk of Tribune Broadcasting pursuing the ABC affiliation for KPLR after KDNL's affiliation agreement expired due to that station's management agreement with Local TV, LLC-owned KTVI and their playing down of The CW as part of the branding, along with experimentation with The CW schedule to maximize ratings. However, the network did extend their affiliation agreement with KDNL and Sinclair's other ABC affiliates for five years on March 26, 2010 which will keep KDNL affiliated with ABC until at least August 2015.^[7] On June 23, 2011 KDNL changed its severe weather ticker, which now does not have to downconvert HD programming to SD.

News operation[link]

KDNL aired hourly news cut-ins for most of its first 25 years on the air. Shortly after the ABC affiliation was announced in 1994, KDNL established a full news department. Initially, local news was offered every night at 9 p.m. that debuted January 1, 1995. The original anchors were Jim Wicks who came to St. Louis from Winnipeg, and Leslie Lyles, who had been anchoring in Charleston, S.C.

When the station switched to its ABC affiliation on August 8, 1995, the station began airing more newscasts; it added newscast weeknights at 5 and 6 p.m., and weekends at 5 p.m., along with weekday morning cut-ins during Good Morning America; the 9 p.m. newscast was also moved to 10 p.m. At the same time, the station made an anchor change; Jim Wicks was fired and long-time KTVI anchor reporter Don Marsh joined Leslie Lyles for all three weekday evening newscasts. Ratings plummeted and did not match what Channel 2 had been doing in those time periods when it was still an ABC affiliate. The first Nielsen sweep month in the fall averaged only a 2 rating and 5 share. KDNL was never competitive with KMOV, KSDK (both have had at least 20% shares over the years), or even KTVI due to the fact that many of the on-air talent came from out-of-town and were unfamiliar with viewers. In KDNL's defense, the station was unable to hire locally since talent on competing stations had either six month or one year non-compete mandates in their contracts. The early evening newscast on weeknights had its time slot fluctuate between 5 and 6 and was even canceled for a time. Turnover in the newsroom was very high and this showed in the ratings.

In spring 2001, a transmitter failure left KDNL off-the-air for a number of days (or at least broadcasting at lower power than normally). What little audience there was for its newscasts switched to other sources and never returned. The station finally shuttered its news department altogether on October 12, 2001. For the next nine years, KDNL was one of the very few major network affiliates that did not have a local news operation. Although KDNL did not carry local shows, it continued to air national news programming from ABC News. Until January 2011, the station had been the largest (in terms of DMA) of any major network affiliate without local newscasts (CBS O&O WWJ-TV in Detroit was the largest until May 5, 2009 when it launched a weekday morning show produced in partnership with the Detroit Free Press). Most major network affiliates are contractually obligated to air local news but KDNL's affiliation agreement does not have such a clause.

KDNL occasionally employs its former news set for commentary on sporting events. It also has local weather cut-ins on weekday mornings during Good Morning America. These updates were formerly compiled and presented by meteorologist Tony Pagnotti at Sinclair's News Central headquarters on Beaver Dam Road in Hunt Valley, Maryland. The forecasts are now compiled and presented from Columbus, Ohio sister operation WSYX/WTTE by those station's evening meteorologists.

On November 11, 2010, KDNL announced NBC-affiliate KSDK (owned by Gannett) would begin producing half-hour newscasts weeknights at 5 and 10 through a news share agreement that began January 3, 2011. All broadcasts air in high definition from a virtual set in front of a green screen at KSDK's studios on Market Street in Downtown St. Louis and required the hiring of additional personnel. ^[8] KDNL General Manager Tom Tipton stated that the station did not want to run simulcasted or re-purposed newscasts in its efforts to return daily news broadcasts to the station.

The KSDK-produced newscasts on KDNL are pre-taped in advance.^[9] There is no sports report given. The news share agreement between the two channels is quite unusual given the rarity of a big three network affiliate producing newscasts of another big three station. In this case, KDNL and KSDK actually compete against one another. There is still no local news on weekends, but the station airs replays of KSDK's entertainment/features program Show Me St. Louis.

Newscast titles[link]

• TV-30 Newswatch (1970s)
• TV-30 News (1980s–1994)
• News 30 Now (January–August 1995)
• News 30 (August 1995–1997)
• ABC News 30 (1997–1999)
• ABC 30 News (1999–2001)
• STL Now on ABC 30 powered by NewsChannel 5 (2011–present)

Station slogans[link]

• "It's on Us" (late 1980s–early 1990s)
• "It's the News That Matters Most" (1998–1999)
• "You Get More" (1999–2000)
• "Bringing News Home" (2000–2001)
• "St. Louis' Leader in Entertainment Programming" (2006–present)

News music packages[link]

• "KOVR News Package" (1995–1998)
• "Counterpoint" by Stephen Arnold Music (1995–1999)
• "Finale" by Stephen Arnold Music (1999–2000)
• "Third Coast" by Stephen Arnold Music (2000–2001)

News team[link]

Current[link]

• Jerry Martz - rotating weekday morning meteorologist (WSYX/WTTE)
• Dana Turtle - rotating weekday morning meteorologist (WSYX/WTTE)
• Cindy Preszler - chief meteorologist; seen weeknights (KSDK)
• Jeff Small - fill-in news anchor (KSDK)
• Ashley Yarchin - news anchor (KSDK)

References[link]

External links[link]

• ABCStLouis.com (Official Website)
• KSDK "NewsChannel 5"
• Query the FCC's TV station database for KDNL-TV