KOVR

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KOVR
Stockton / Sacramento, California
Branding	CBS 13
Channels	13 (VHF) analog, 25 (UHF) digital
Affiliations	CBS (since 1995)
Owner	CBS Corporation
Founded	September 6, 1954
Call letters meaning	KOVR = covering all of Northern California
Former affiliations	Independent (1954-1957) ABC (1957-1995)
Transmitter Power	316 kW
Website	www.cbs13.com

KOVR ("CBS13") is the CBS owned-and-operated television station (O&O) in Sacramento, California. It is licensed to Stockton, with studios in West Sacramento. Its transmitter, the KXTV/KOVR Tower (shared with KXTV channel 10), is located in Walnut Grove. The tower is among the tallest in the world and is likely the tallest structure in California, allowing KOVR to cover much of the San Joaquin Valley. Along with sister station KMAX-TV, both stations are the only English language network O&O's in the Sacramento market.

[edit] History

KOVR is Sacramento's oldest continuously-operating television station. It first hit the airwaves in September 6, 1954 from the California State Fair. Originally an independent station with a transmitter located on Mount Diablo, its signal reached the San Francisco Bay Area, hence the call letters KOVR. ("covering" all of Northern California)

[edit] As an ABC Affiliate

ABC's original Sacramento affiliate, KCCC (channel 40, which signed on a few months before KOVR), merged its operations with KOVR in May 1957 and went silent. KOVR then became the valley's full-time ABC affliate. That same year, the station moved its transmitter to reduce overlap with ABC's San Francisco O&O, KGO-TV. In 1959, John Kluge's Metropolitan Broadcasting (which later became Metromedia) bought KOVR and owned the station until 1964. In 1960, the station expanded its operations and built a studio in Sacramento on Arden Way. In 1987 KOVR consolidated its operations including the station's main studio (which until that time was on Miner Avenue in Stockton)and the general offices and news operation in from Sacramento to a new building in West Sacramento.

For many years, from 1964 into the late 1970s, the station was owned by McClatchy Newspapers along with The Sacramento Bee and Modesto Bee newspapers, as well as radio stations KWG in Stockton and KFBK in Sacramento. Scoopy, McClatchy's mascot bee (originally designed by Walt Disney, whose namesake company would eventually acquire ABC) was also the mascot for KOVR during the years McClatchy owned the station--short cartoons of the bee bookended KOVR's broadcast day, either ushering in or concluding the day's programming. After McClatchy sold the station to Outlet Communications in the late 1970s, KOVR went into a gradual decline in terms of both ratings and the quality of its programming, and has been in third place in the Sacramento ratings for most of the time since then. The station was then sold to Narragansett Television LP in 1986, then to Anchor Media in 1988. Anchor Media merged with River City Broadcasting by 1993. In 1996, River City merged with Sinclair Broadcast Group.

KOVR does have its high water marks in local broadcasting: it was the first station in Northern California to use videotape (rather than film) for its newscasts, and was the first station in the Sacramento/Stockton area to broadcast in stereo.

Even as an ABC affiliate, KOVR preempted a moderate amount of programming, even the 30 minute soap opera Loving. Even KOVR aired some ABC programming out of pattern: All My Children in the early years used to air at 11 AM. (Half the ABC affiliates air AMC at 11 AM to follow it with their Noon newscasts; the timeslot is secondary compared to airing AMC at Noon traditionally). In the mid-90s, KOVR moved the soap opera to air at 3 PM, a practice continued by KXTV by the network switch until the early 2000's.

[edit] Switching to CBS

On March 6, 1995, CBS affiliate KXTV (then owned by Belo Corporation; now owned by Gannett) took the ABC affiliation, leaving KOVR with the CBS affiliation. Despite becoming a CBS affiliate, KOVR chose not to air Guiding Light, a practice continued from KXTV during its CBS days (due to the show's below-average ratings in the area). Another CBS affiliate, WNEM in Saginaw, Michigan, also did not air the soap opera until the launch of its My Network TV subchannel in 2006.

A more notable oddity with KOVR's affiliation with CBS is that the station runs the network's primetime schedule an hour earlier than typical. CBS programming that is seen from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. in other Pacific Time Zone markets is shown from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. instead on KOVR. When KOVR was an ABC affiliate, the station had an 11 p.m. newscast like most stations on the coasts. Upon the network switch, the station followed the practice of now-sister KPIX in having a 10 p.m. hour-long newscast (KPIX later on moved the newscast back up to 11 p.m. in 1998). As such, KOVR has had the number one primetime newscast ever since, much to the chagrin of longtime primetime newscaster KTXL.

KOVR's previous logo, under Sinclair ownership. This logo is similar to a former logo of another Sinclair-owned station, Portland, Maine's WGME.

[edit] National attention

In August of 2001, KOVR gained national attention of accused Modesto congressman Gary Condit in an interview involving the Chandra Levy murder. The station televised an interview on August 30th, 2001 in which he claims that he did not kill Chandra Levy after a visit with the slain White House Intern. In April 2002, Gary Condit was acquitted of any wrongdoing. Many other TV stations including those in the Bay Area covered the exclusive interview.

[edit] Becoming a CBS O&O

In May 2005, Sinclair sold KOVR to Viacom's television stations unit (now part of CBS Corporation), creating CBS' third California duopoly with O&O KMAX-TV, the local CW station. CBS Corp. was forced to sell KFRC-AM 610 in San Francisco as a condition of the sale, as the station's city-grade signal reaches Sacramento.

[edit] Programming

After the purchase was announced, some had speculated that KOVR would eventually move CBS's primetime lineup back to 8-11 p.m. and add Guiding Light to its schedule, along with dropping The Jerry Springer Show. However, on August 11, 2005, CBS Corp. announced that the 7-10 p.m. prime-time lineup, the 10 p.m. local newscast and the 11 p.m. airing of The Late Show with David Letterman would remain in place. The success that the station has had with the early prime-time schedule and its 10 p.m. newscast is cited as the reason for maintaining the status quo. At that point, they also stated that Guiding Light would not be moving to KOVR for the 2005 season. The station did, however, change its on-air branding from the long-standing "KOVR 13" to "CBS 13" in compliance with the CBS Mandate.

On July 31, 2006, the station received approval from the network to move the weekend lineup back an hour in order to maintain an hour-long 10 p.m. newscast throughout the week. The new weekend schedule, which began August 27, will, for example, have 60 Minutes airing at 6 p.m. on Sunday nights. Also, the station is planning on a new sports wrap-up show to follow their weekend late night newscasts, to begin September 30. KOVR is now the only Pacific Time Zone CBS station to run the entire network primetime lineup beginning at 7 p.m. Technically, they will also be one of two TV stations in the Sacramento market and in the Pacific Time Zone to start their network primetime lineup early, as KQCA started airing its 2-hour My Network TV schedule from 7 to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday, on September 5.

The Late Late Show (which had been airing at 1 a.m.) moved up one hour, pushing back the Midnight showing of The Jerry Springer Show to a later time (which was seen on the station weekdays at 3 p.m. until September 8, 2006). On September 11, 2006, NBC Universal's Jerry Springer was dropped (has moved to sister station KMAX-TV at midnight), and KOVR is now the market's new home of CBS-owned King World's Dr. Phil, which the station now airs at 3 p.m. on weekdays. Montel Williams remains at 2 p.m. weekdays.

KOVR will still not be airing Guiding Light due to facts that the future of the show has not been determined (CBS is considering ending the show), ratings are low to mediocre at best in most markets, and because experience shows that long running soaps that have not been seen in an area over many years have an uphill battle in gaining viewership. Also KOVR management claims that most avid KOVR viewers have sent negative feedback at any prospect of bringing the show back. Only a handful of people have expressed a desire to see the show. The only possibility of bringing the show back would be on overnights and CBS itself would rather a show not air than for it to air on overnights (except for a local news emergency daytime pre-emption). Sacramento is now the only market that does not air Guiding Light. While they justify this due to past ratings, it is practically unheard of for a network O&O to not air all network programs (all ABC, NBC, and Fox O&Os carry all network programming). Some viewers don't care if KOVR shows it or not because they can receive KPIX from San Francisco. Others feel they could at least make the program available to record on KOVR or KMAX at some point in the day.

[edit] News Department

While under Sinclair ownership, KOVR had worked with a small-to-moderate news staff. However, with CBS' purchase, the KOVR and KMAX newsrooms have been combined at KOVR's West Sacramento location. Personalities from KMAX now also make appearances on KOVR and vice versa.

On February 1, 2006, KOVR debuted its new graphics along with new music, a new set, and a new main anchor team of Sam Shane (from MSNBC and KCRA) and Pallas Hupé (from Detroit Fox station WJBK). The evening newscast has instituted a three-anchor format. The program begins with Shane and Hupé anchoring the major news stories of the day, deferring to anchor/reporter Brandi Hitt for World and National News stories. The unique three-anchor setup remains during Weekend prime-time newscasts with rotating anchors.

The news department has also launched a daily Sports segment during its newscasts with Sports Anchors Arran Andersen (from KOLD) and Keith Norton (from WLKY). KOVR has been without a competitive Sports Department since the departure of John Henk in 1997.

The team of news personalities with KOVR has also been overhauled since purchase by CBS. Most KOVR personalities with the station during the Sinclair years have either been fired or have resigned. Dismissals of former lead anchors Paul Joncich and Jennifer Whitney were sudden and unannounced whereas personalities Marcy Valenzuela and Jennifer Krier were allowed to say farewell to viewers on air. As of September 25th, 2006, remaining on-air staff include Anchor Michele Kane, Chief Weatherman Dave Bender, Investigative Reporter Kurtis Ming, Health Reporter Diana Penna, and field reporters John Iander, Dennis Shanahan, and Charlotte Fadipe.

[edit] Newscasts

Monday-Friday

• CBS 13 News at 5 AM 5-6 a.m. (with Michele Kane and Lisa Gonzales with Jeff James on Weather and rotating traffic reports)
• CBS 13 News at 6 AM 6-7 a.m. (with Michele Kane and Lisa Gonzales with Jeff James on Weather and rotating traffic reports)
• CBS 13 News at Noon 12-12:30 p.m. (with Michele Kane and Lisa Gonzales with Nick Toma on National News and Jeff James on Weather)
• CBS 13 News at 4 4-5 p.m. (with Tony Lopez and Kris Pickel with Sam Shane on National News and Dave Bender on Weather)
• CBS 13 News at 5 5-5:30 p.m. (with Sam Shane and Pallas Hupé with Brandi Hitt on National News and Dave Bender on Weather)
• CBS 13 News at 6 6-6:30 p.m. (with Sam Shane and Pallas Hupé with Brandi Hitt on National News, Dave Bender on Weather and Arran Anderson on Sports)
• CBS 13 News at 10 10-11 p.m. (with Sam Shane and Pallas Hupé with Brandi Hitt on National News, Dave Bender on Weather and Arran Anderson on Sports)

Saturday

• CBS 13 News at 5 5-5:30 p.m. (with Ron Jones and Anny Hong with Steve Large on National News and Angelique Frame on Weather)
• CBS 13 News at 10 10-11 p.m. (with Ron Jones and Anny Hong with Steve Large on National News, Angelique Frame on Weather and Arran Andersen on Sports)

Sunday

• CBS 13 News at 5 5-5:30 p.m. (with Ron Jones and Anny Hong with Steve Large on National News and Angelique Frame on Weather)
• CBS 13 News at 10 10-11 p.m. (with Ron Jones and Anny Hong with Steve Large on National News, Angelique Frame on Weather and Arran Andersen on Sports)

[edit] Former newscasters

• Pat De Silva
• Craig Prosser
• Jack Kavanaugh
• Stan Atkinson
• Jennifer Whitney
• Paul Joncich (now at WOIO/WUAB)
• Dan Gray
• John Henk
• Marcy Valenzuela
• Kristine Hanson
• Eric Alvarez
• Gloria Gomez
• George Franco
• Rebecca Somach
• Jon Baird
• Jennifer Krier
• Dewey Hopper
• Bill Kelly
• Tom Loffman
• David Ono (now at KABC)
• Jodi Hernandez (now at KNTV)
• Patrick Emory
• Dave Walker (now at KCRA)
• Lois Hart (now at KCRA)
• Ross Blackstone
• Jason Howe
• Stephanie Nishikawa
• Patti Lee
• Juliette Goodrich (now at KPIX)
• John Lobertini (now at KPIX)
• Claudia Cowan (later moved to KRON)
• Kim Khazei (later moved to WHDH-TV)

[edit] External links

• CBS 13/CW 31 website
• www.cbscorporation.com
• Query the FCC's TV station database for KOVR