KTVT, virtual channel 11, is a CBS owned-and-operated television station licensed to Fort Worth, Texas, and serving the Dallas-Fort Worth designated market area. The station is co-owned with independent station KTXA (virtual channel 21), and the two stations share facilities in Dallas and Fort Worth. Prior to joining CBS in 1995, KTVT was the leading independent station in the Dallas-Fort Worth market.

Digital programming[link]

Analog-to-digital transition[link]

On June 12, 2009, KTVT moved its digital broadcasts from channel 19 to channel 11. Due to widespread reception problems and a resulting loss of 57 percent of KTVT viewers, the station was granted permission via special temporary authorization by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to move back to channel 19 on July 23, 2009.^[1] On the same day, sister station KTXA was given permission via an STA to move back to channel 18, its transition period channel.^[2] The channel change went into effect on August 4, 2009. Prior to the channel change, KTXA was simulcasting KTVT's programming on 21.2. KTVT broadcasts on channel 11 and on channel 19 and both stations use the virtual channel "11.1" causing many digital TV receivers to show channel 11.1 twice when tuning sequentially.

On September 10, 2009, the FCC issued a Report & Order, approving KTVT's move from channel 11 to channel 19.^[3] On October 21, 2009, it filed a minor change application for its new allotment, for which the FCC granted a construction permit on November 19, 2009.^[4] Once construction of KTVT's maximized facilities ends, and file a License to Cover afterwards, then KTVT can terminate operations on channel 11 and operate solely on channel 19 permanently.

History[link]

As an independent station[link]

Channel 11 first went on the air on September 11, 1955 as KFJZ-TV, the first independent station in Texas. It was founded by the Texas State Network and was a sister station to KFJZ radio (1270 AM, now KFLC; unrelated to the present-day KFJZ at 870 AM), and later (in 1959) KFJZ-FM (97.1 MHz., now KEGL). During the late 1950s, the station was briefly affiliated with the NTA Film Network.^[5] In 1960, the station's original owners sold channel 11 to NAFI Telecasting Corporation (who also owned Chris-Craft Industries at the time), who changed the call letters to the current KTVT.

The Oklahoma City-based WKY Television System, a subsidiary of Oklahoma Publishing Company, purchased KTVT in 1971. Oklahoma Publishing later renamed its broadcasting arm Gaylord Broadcasting. Under Gaylord's watch, channel 11 (or "The Super Ones", as it were later referred to in continuity) became the leading independent station in the Southwest, carrying a broad range of cartoons, off-network sitcoms and westerns, drama shows, movies, and public affairs programming. KTVT was further aided in its status as it was a VHF station, whereas its future competitors were UHF stations. KTVT's main competitor in the 1970s was KXTX-TV (channel 39), which was owned by the Christian Broadcasting Network and ran a number of religious shows. While the station gained three additional competitors in the 1980s, KTVT was the only independent station that was profitable.

KTVT's popularity also spread outside of the Metroplex, as it attained superstation status along the lines of Atlanta's WTBS, Chicago's WGN-TV, and WOR-TV in New York City. KTVT broadcast its signal via satellite to C-band users and to 400 cable systems across the country, mostly in the southwestern United States, from the late 1970s through the early 1990s. This status would later hamper Oklahoma Publishing president Edward L. Gaylord's efforts to purchase a controlling interest in the Texas Rangers baseball team, whose games were carried on KTVT from 1985 (Gaylord purchased a minority share of the team that same year) until 1995.

Channel 11 was also the flagship station of Saturday Night Wrestling, a highly-popular Dallas pro wrestling show, and aired a two-hour Saturday night wrestling program titled Championship Sports.

Transition to CBS[link]

In late 1993 Gaylord announced that KTVT, along with sister stations KHTV (now KIAH) in Houston, and KSTW in Tacoma, Washington, would become charter affiliates of the new WB Television Network, which was launched in January 1995. But not long after, longtime CBS affiliate KDFW (channel 4) announced it would be joining the Fox Broadcasting Company, as part of a longterm affiliation deal between Fox and KDFW's new owners, New World Communications. About to find itself without an affiliate in the Metroplex, CBS approached Gaylord, and the two parties came to an agreement—CBS picked up both KTVT and KSTW as affiliates. Upset by Gaylord's blindsided move, The WB later went to court in an effort to dissolve their arrangement; the WB later signed KXTX-TV as its Metroplex station.^[6]

CBS' full schedule of programs moved from KDFW to KTVT on July 1, 1995, marking one of the largest television station shuffles in United States history (similar to the 2001 Vancouver TV realignment in British Columbia, Canada). On that same day the WB changed stations once again, moving from KXTX to KDAF (channel 33), the former Fox-owned station. Channel 11 had already been carrying some CBS shows for about a year prior to the affiliation switch; it had picked up The Price Is Right and The Bold and the Beautiful when KDFW dropped them in favor of Donahue and an expanded midday newscast.

By the time the station transitioned from independent to network affiliate, KTVT's superstation status was a thing of the past. It expanded its news department and began acquiring local rights to more first-run syndicated programs. Gaylord sold KTVT to CBS in 1999. A year later, Viacom bought CBS, making KTVT a sister station to then-UPN station KTXA. As part of the deal, KTXA moved from its studios in Dallas to KTVT's facility in Fort Worth.^[7]

On September 24, 2007 KTVT began broadcasting its newscasts in high-definition, becoming the third Dallas-Fort Worth television station to do so.

Programming[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

Currently, KTVT carries shows such as Inside Edition, Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune, all of which are distributed by corporate cousin CBS Television Distribution, formerly King World Productions.

KTVT is also the 'official station' of the Dallas Cowboys, airing shows involving the team, including the head coach's weekly show, the Dallas Cowboys post-game show and specials, such as the Making of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders Calendar and post-season team reviews. In the regular season, however, KTVT will only air the Cowboys if they are hosting an American Football Conference team in the afternoon, in accordance with the National Football League's contract with CBS. KTVT airs such a game every other year on Thanksgiving Day as part of the Thanksgiving Classic - they aired the Miami Dolphins visiting the Cowboys in 2011.

KTVT is one of the few CBS affiliates in the Central Time Zone to carry The Young and the Restless at 11:30 a.m.; most prefer to air it at 11 a.m. as a lead-in to their local noon news. Others which do this are WBBM in Chicago (like KTVT, CBS owned-and-operated), WTVF in Nashville, KOLR in Springfield, MO, and WHBF in Quad Cities, IL-IA. (In the Pacific Time Zone, which follows the Central Time daytime pattern of 10 a.m.-3 p.m., Young and the Restless airs at 11:30 a.m. on CBS-owned KCBS in Los Angeles).

News operation[link]

This section requires expansion.

KTVT broadcasts a total of 28 hours of local news a week (five hours each weekday, one hour on Saturdays and two hours on Sundays). In addition, the station produces two sports programs on Sunday nights after the 10 p.m. newscast, the sports wrap-up show The Score and the football highlight program Blitz: Cowboys/Desperados Report, both hosted by sports director Babe Laufenberg.

During its years as an independent station, On August 20, 1990, KTVT was the first station in Dallas to offer a primetime newscast, airing at 9 p.m. (KDFW did not launch a 9 p.m. newscast until it switched from CBS to Fox in 1995, and KDAF did not air a 9 p.m. newscast until that station regained a news department in 1999). After switching to a CBS affiliation in 1995, KTVT added morning (6-7 a.m.), 6 p.m., and 10 p.m. newscasts. During the first few years of its CBS affiliation, KTVT used the "11 on Eleven" title for its 10 p.m. newscast, used to emphasize that the day's top headlines and the first weather forecast would be aired in the first 11 minutes of the newscast, before the first commercial break. In 1996, the station added noon and 5 p.m. newscasts to their lineup.

Since affiliating with CBS, the only newscasts to be dropped were the weekday noon (which debuted in 1996) and weekend morning newscasts (the latter of which were cut during budget cutbacks imposed by CBS Corporation in 2006, and as such KTVT is the only one of the Big Four stations in the market without a weekend morning newscast). On January 11, 2010 KTVT expanded its 4 p.m. newscast from a half-hour to a full hour leading into the 5 p.m. newscast; even though the newscast itself debuted in 2000, was dropped in 2002, returned as an hour-long newscast in 2004, was cut to a half-hour in 2005, and finally re-expanded to an hour in 2010.

In 2010, KTVT switched to the new CBS O&O uniform graphics package, originally used by WCBS-TV in New York City and KCBS-TV in Los Angeles, and began using the CBS Enforcer News Music Collection by Frank Gari as its news theme. In June 2011, when a thunderstorm knocked CBS 11 off the air during the 5 p.m. newscast, meteorologist Larry Mowry decided to try to tweet his forecast instead.

Ratings[link]

For most of the time since joining CBS, KTVT has been one of the network's weaker stations in terms of viewership. However in the February 2011 sweeps period, the station's 6 and 10 p.m. timeslots placed first in total viewers for the first time in the station's history.^[8]

According to the local Nielsen ratings for the May 2011 sweeps period, the 10 p.m. newscast was in second place with total viewers and adults 25-54, seeing gains in both demos; the morning newscast placed in a distant fourth with 25- to 54-year-olds, and also ranked fourth (separated by only approximately 9,000 viewers, behind WFAA) in total viewership, though it lost viewers in both demos for morning news like WFAA and KXAS (Fox station KDFW, meanwhile, made gains in both total viewers and the adults 25-54 demographic for its morning newscasts). The 5 and 6 p.m. newscasts increased in total viewers and placed second, behind KDFW; however among adults 25-54, the 6 p.m. newscast was the only one of the two to lose viewers in that demographic for the timeslot. KTVT overall had ran second in both measurements by small margins for the first time in station history; this is in comparsion to the May sweeps period a year before, in which Channel 11 won in both total viewers and 25-to-54-year-olds.^[9]

News/station presentation[link]

Newscast titles[link]

• Metroplex News at Noon/Metroplex Newsreel (1970s)
• 11 News Magazine (1980s)
• Newswatch Eleven (8/20/90–1992)
• The Nine O'Clock News (1992–1995)
• 11 News (1995–2000; after switch to CBS affiliation)^[10]
• 11 on Eleven at Ten (1995–1998; 10 p.m. newscast)
• CBS 11 News (2000–present)^[11]

Station slogans[link]

• "Channel 11, The Super Ones" (1980s–1995)
• "The Eye of Texas" (1995–2004; used as secondary slogan from 2002–2004)
• "Looking Out For You" (1997–2000; news slogan)
• "Reporting the News" (2002–2003; news slogan)
• "Coverage You Can Count On" (2003–present; primary news slogan)^[12]
• "CBS 11 is Always On" (2008–present; general slogan)
• "People You Can Count On" (2009–present; secondary news slogan)
• "Only CBS 11" (2009–present; secondary general slogan; localized version of CBS campaign)

This film, television or video-related list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it with reliably sourced additions.

News team[link]

[edit] Current on-air staff (as of May, 2012)^[13]

Anchors

• Karen Borta - weeknights at 5, 6 and 10 p.m.; also reporter
• Doug Dunbar - weeknights at 5, 6 and 10 p.m.; also reporter
• Keith Garvin - weekday mornings CBS 11 News This Morning
• Tracy Kornet - weekdays at 4 p.m., and weeknights on First in Prime (7-7:30 p.m.; on KTXA)
• Sharrie Williams - Saturdays at 6, Sundays at 5:30, and weekends at 10 p.m.; also weeknight reporter

CBS 11 Storm Team

• Larry Mowry (AMS Certified Broadcast Meteorologist Seal of Approval; member, NWA) - chief meteorologist; weeknights at 5, 6, and 10 p.m.
• Jeff Jamison (AMS Certified Broadcast Meteorologist Seal of Approval) - meteorologist; weekdays at 4 p.m.
• Jeff Ray (AMS Seal of Approval) - meteorologist; Saturdays at 6, Sundays at 5:30, and weekends at 10 p.m.
• Garry Seith - meteorologist; weekday mornings CBS 11 News This Morning

Sports team (shared with KTXA)

• Babe Laufenberg - sports director; weeknights at 6 and 10 p.m., also "The Score" and "Blitz: Cowboys/Desperados Report" host
• Bill Jones - sports anchor; Saturdays at 6, Sundays at 5:30, and weekends at 10 p.m.
• Gina Miller - sports anchor; weeknights on TXA 21 News: The FAN (6:30-7:30 p.m.; on KTXA); also sports reporter
• Steve Dennis - sports reporter
• Derek Harper - sports reporter

Reporters

• Rance Adams - entertainment reporter/on-air personality
• Ginger Allen - investigative reporter
• Katherine Blake - general assignment reporter
• Carol Cavazos - general assignment reporter
• Arezow Doost - general assignment reporter
• Jack Fink - general assignment reporter
• Teresa Frosini - weekday morning traffic reporter
• Bud Gillett - senior reporter
• Jay Gormley - general assignment reporter
• Selena Hernandez - general assignment reporter
• Stephanie Lucero - senior reporter
• Marianne Martinez - general assignment reporter
• J.D. Miles - general assignment reporter
• Melissa Newton - freelance general assignment reporter
• Sandie Newton - entertainment reporter
• Robbie Owens - weekday morning reporter
• Steve Pickett - general assignment reporter
• Joel Thomas - general assignment reporter

Notable former on-air staff[link]

• Julie Bologna - meteorologist (2004–2008; WPXI-TV- in Pittsburgh, PAnow at WFAA)
• Candice Crawford - reporter/cohost of Dallas Cowboys focused show The Blitz (?-?)
• Iola Johnson - anchor/host of Positively Texas (2000–2008)
• Curt Menefee - sports anchor (now co-host of Fox NFL Sunday)
• Betty Nguyen - morning anchor (now morning anchor/correspondent for CBS News)
• Uma Pemmaraju - reporter (now Fox News Channel anchor)
• Tracy Rowlett - anchor/reporter/managing editor (1999–2008; left to anchor at now defunct www.Shale.tv)
• Rene Syler - anchor/reporter (?-?; later cohosted The Early Show on CBS)
• Cameron Harper - weeknight anchor (1990–2000); left to anchor at WPTY-TV Memphis
• Kristine Kahanek - former chief meteorologist (1999–2009); now a full-time mom and small business owner

References[link]

• Shannon, Mike (January 2004). Dallas-Fort Worth TV Station History. The History of Dallas-Fort Worth Radio and Television.

External links[link]

Dallas-Fort Worth portal

• Official website
• Query the FCC's TV station database for KTVT
• BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on KTVT-TV
• Program Information for KTVT at TitanTV.com

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (May 2011)

Charles Tracy Rowlett (born June 16, 1942), known professionally as Tracy Rowlett, is an American journalist, formerly anchor and managing editor of the CBS owned and operated station in Dallas-Fort Worth, KTVT, CBS11.^[1]

Rowlett's last broadcast with KTVT was at 5pm on July 11, 2008. Rowlett moved to a start up web news site called Shale.TV, focusing on the development of natural gas plays across the U.S. The site was owned by Branded News of Oklahoma City, but sponsored by Chesapeake Energy. In October, 2008, prior to start up, Chesapeake withdrew funding and the site folded.

Rowlett earned his bachelor's degree from Wichita State University in broadcasting and journalism, and received his master's degree from the University of Texas at Dallas.

Rowlett began his career as a sports reporter for the Wichita Beacon in Wichita, Kansas. He later served in the Air Force, where he was editor of the base newspaper. He was later transferred to Wheelus Air Base in Tripoli, where he worked for Armed Forces Radio and Television.

When John F. Kennedy was assassinated, Rowlett was still serving at Tripoli, and broke the news of the assassination to that part of the middle east. Over the next three days and nights, he reported events surrounding the assassination, Lee Harvey Oswald's murder, and President Kennedy's funeral.

After his military discharge, he worked at KFH Radio, and as news director for KAKE-Radio and TV in Wichita. He went on to become news director at KMNS in Sioux City, Iowa, and later as the State Capitol correspondent for KTOK Radio in Oklahoma City, and the Oklahoma News Network.

In April 1974, he moved to the Dallas/Fort Worth area, working as an investigative reporter for WFAA. In August, 1975, he was teamed with Iola Johnson to anchor the 6 and 10 p.m. news. Tracy left WFAA in 1999 to become the main anchor at KTVT (CBS11).

Tracy Rowlett received more than 100 awards during his career, including two duPont-Columbia Awards, several Emmy Awards, as well as various Associated Press and United Press International awards.

He is very involved in the Dallas/Fort Worth community, serving on various boards for local organizations, and has received many community awards for his charity works.

References[link]