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KTLA

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KTLA-TV (Channel 5) is the WB affiliated television station in Los Angeles. It is the network's West Coast flagship. The station's signal covers the Southern California region, as well as being available as a superstation via satellite. It is owned by the Tribune Company.

On January 24, 2006, the WB and UPN networks announced they would merge. The newly combined network would be called The CW, the letters representing the first initial of its corporate parents CBS (the parent company of UPN) and the Warner Bros. unit of Time Warner. The merger would take effect on-the-air in September 2006, and KTLA was announced as the Los Angeles affiliate. Current UPN station KCOP, owned by the News Corporation, will likely revert to independent status.

History

Originally owned by Paramount Pictures subsidiary Television Productions, Inc., and located on the Paramount studio lot, the station was licensed by the FCC in 1939 as experimental station W6XYZ, on channel 4, but did not go on the air until September 1942. Klaus Landsberg, already an accomplished television pioneer at the age of 26, was the station manager. On January 22, 1947, it was licensed for commercial broadcast as KTLA, channel 5, becoming the first commercial television station to broadcast west of the Mississippi River. Estimates of television sets in the Los Angeles area at the time ranged from 350 to 600. In 1958, KTLA moved to the Paramount Sunset Studios on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, now the Warner Sunset Studios.

In 1964, KTLA was purchased by cowboy actor and singer Gene Autry and merged with his other radio properties into an umbrella company, Golden West Broadcasters. From 1964 to 1995, the station was the broadcast TV home of the Angels baseball team. Also, KTLA also carried selected Los Angeles Lakers games from the early-to-mid 1970s. During the 1970s, KTLA became one of the nation's first superstations, and was eventually carried on cable systems across much of the country west of the Mississippi.

In the 1960s and 1970s, KTLA ran a mix of syndicated westerns, drama shows, first-run talk shows, movies, and pro sports. It also launched a 10 PM newscast in the 1960s, simply titled News at Ten (now KTLA Prime News). In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the station added syndicated sitcom reruns into the mix.

KTLA continued with this format into the 1980s. In 1982, Golden West sold KTLA to an investment firm, Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts & Co. for US$245 million. KKR and Co. in turn sold KTLA to Tribune Broadcasting in 1985. Under Tribune, they continued to acquire high rated off-network sitcoms as well as talk shows. In July 1991, KTLA added an early morning newscast, The KTLA Morning News, which became Southern California's first morning news program, and has often been successful in ratings against national morning shows and KTTV's Good Day L.A.

In March 1991, KTLA was the first station to air the infamous video of the Rodney King beating by Los Angeles police. From 1994 to 1995 the station aired near gavel to gavel coverage of the O. J. Simpson Trial.

In January 1995, KTLA became a charter affiliate of the WB Television Network, in which KTLA's parent company Tribune holds a 25% stake (so, in a way, KTLA can be considered a WB O&O). That fall, KTLA added an afternoon cartoon block from Kids' WB, entering the kids business for the first time in years. Channel 5 also broadcasts the annual Tournament of Roses Parade live from the city of Pasadena as well, with Bob Eubanks and Stephanie Edwards as the commentators since 1978. The station has aired the Rose Parade since 1948, and while other local stations also broadcast the parade (most notably, one-time Sunset Boulevard neighbor, KTTV) over the years, KTLA remains the sole English-language outlet in the Los Angeles area to continuously broadcast the Rose Parades. The station has also returned as host broadcaster of the Hollywood Christmas Parade (which is syndicated to all Tribune and WB stations).

Tribune merged with Times Mirror, parent company of the Los Angeles Times, in 2000, bringing the Times into common ownership with KTLA. Ironically, the Times had been the original owner of Los Angeles' Fox O&O, KTTV.

Today, KTLA is a typical WB affiliate running the usual blend of syndicated shows such as first-run talk and reality shows, off-network sitcoms and dramas, cartoons from Kids' WB, first-run prime time programming from WB, early morning and 10PM newscasts, and sports. KTLA is the over-the-air home of the Los Angeles Clippers; the station carried Clippers games from 1984 to 1991, and picked them up again in 2002. Although not as wide-spread in national carriage as its Chicago sister station, WGN-TV, KTLA is available via satellite as a superstation, through out North America on Ku-band, C-band, and Dish Network systems, as well as on cable systems in selected cities throughout the Southwestern United States.

The station launched a new branding campaign in January 2005, which omitted all references to its channel 5 position. It adopted a new logo, and became known on the air as KTLA The WB: Where L.A. Lives.

In January 2006, the weekday Monday–Friday Kids' WB block was discontinued in favor airing an afternoon block of off-network programming including ER and 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter.

KTLA offers around forty hours per week of local news, and its 10PM newscast was #1 rated for decades until KTTV took the #1 spot consistently since 2000. The KTLA Morning News continues to be #1 though. This is one of many major stations in Los Angeles offering plenty of local news. However, they do not yet offer an early evening and midday newscast. They still run many syndicated sitcoms in the evenings, such as Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, My Wife and Kids, Friends, and Everybody Loves Raymond.

On January 24, 2006, Time-Warner and CBS Corporation announced it would be ceasing operations on its The WB and UPN networks in September 2006, and have created a joint-venture to form a network, The CW. KTLA-TV will become the west-coast flagship of the new network.

Logos

News operation

Several of its well-known evening news anchors include Hal Fishman and the late Larry McCormick, who died after a long illness in September 2004. Its veteran field reporters are Stan Chambers and Warren Wilson. Stu Nahan and Ed Arnold (who now anchors KOCE-TV's Real Orange) were formerly the sports anchors. Accompanying his news anchoring career, McCormick also hosted KTLA's own public affairs production called Making It!, which featured stories on the entrepreneurial successes of ethnic minorities.

KTLA News has a special partnership with the Los Angeles Times, which has been co-owned with the station since 2000. In 2005 according the Nielsen ratings KTLA's Morning News Show was #1 in Los Angeles, beating Good Day L.A. on KTTV 11.

Over the years, KTLA's newscasts have become more tabloid-based in nature, perhaps to compete with KTTV. Both stations have rivaled eachother in ratings for many years. As part of the change, KTLA has placed more emphasis in entertainment news, and has featured personalities including Mindy Burbano-Stearns, Zorianna Kitt, and recently Ross King as entertainment reporters. In 2004, KTLA debut a reality show segment on its morning news titled The Audition, in which several actors and actresses competed for a role as weathercaster on KTLA's 10pm Newscast. Ross King was the winner in the first installment, and Jessica Holmes, of Nickelodeon fame, won in the second. Although KTLA does not cover police pursuits like other stations, they have put more emphasis in local crime stories, as opposed to politics, health, and other serious news. As part of the 2005 graphics change, KTLA's graphics were significantly modernized, and a new, futuristic-looking set was constructed for their newscasts.

Trivia

KTLA gained a bit of notoriety among fans of the television show Mystery Science Theater 3000 on November 30, 1991 with the airing of their mockery of the movie War of the Colossal Beast. In the movie, there are scenes of a KTLA news anchor predicting where the title character Glen Manning will end up next. The anchor ends up pronouncing the station's call letters as "KIT-lah". In a skit segment later in the show, Joel Robinson, portrayed by Joel Hodgson, mocks the anchor's "KTLA Predicts" style of newsreading. The phrase "KTLA Predicts" became a catchphrase among fans of the show.

Personalities

Present

Past

Newscasts

Weekdays

  • KTLA Morning News: First Edition - 5:00 AM to 6:00 AM
  • KTLA Morning News: Early Edition - 6:00 AM to 7:00 AM
  • KTLA Morning News - 7:00 AM to 9:00 AM
  • KTLA Prime News - 10:00 PM to 11:00 PM

Saturday

  • KTLA Prime News - 10:00 PM to 11:00 PM

Sunday

  • Pacesetters (public affairs) - 6:00 AM to 6:30 AM
  • MAKING IT! (public affairs) - 6:30 AM to 7:00 AM
  • KTLA Prime News - 10:00 PM to 10:30 PM
  • Sports Plus - 10:30 PM to 11:00 PM

Previous Owners

See also

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