KMBC-TV
KMBC-TV is a television station in Kansas City, Missouri, United States, affiliated with ABC. It is owned by Hearst Television alongside CW affiliate KCWE. The two stations share studios on Winchester Avenue near Swope Park in southeast Kansas City, Missouri; KMBC-TV's transmitter is located at 23rd Street and Topping Avenue, east of downtown in the Blue Valley area.
Channel 9 began broadcasting on August 2, 1953. For the first ten months, two stations operated on the channel: KMBC-TV, associated with KMBC radio, and WHB-TV, the television adjunct of WHB radio. The stations had separate studios and staffs, alternating every 90 minutes on the air, but shared transmitter facilities and an affiliation with CBS. The two stations were combined in 1954 when Cook Paint and Varnish Company, owner of WHB radio and television, bought out KMBC radio and television and retained the KMBC facilities and designation. In 1955, a multi-market affiliation switch by the Meredith Publishing Company forced KMBC-TV to switch from CBS to ABC.
Metromedia acquired the KMBC stations in 1961, selling KMBC radio off in 1967. Under Metromedia, KMBC-TV became a competitive station in the market, at first in non-news programming—where its offerings sometimes resembled one of Metromedia's own independent stations—and later in news in the 1970s. This began to change at the end of the decade, as KCMO-TV mounted a ratings challenge, and one of Metromedia's last substantive decisions as owner of the station was a watershed. In 1981, KMBC-TV fired anchorwoman Christine Craft after seven months on the air, claiming negative audience acceptance. Believing she was fired because of her looks, which the news director did not like, Craft sued Metromedia in a highly watched sex discrimination case; while she ultimately lost, the trial embarrassed KMBC-TV, whose manager testified that appearance was "at the top of the list" of qualities desired in a news anchor, and spotlighted the unequal treatment of women in TV news.
KMBC-TV was sold to Hearst in 1981 to make room for Metromedia's purchase of WCVB-TV in Boston. The news department, which had initially weathered the loss of Craft in the ratings, fell to third place. In the late 1980s, under general manager Dino Dinovitz, the station orchestrated a turnaround, commanding a news ratings lead in the market throughout the 1990s. KMBC-TV began programming channel 29 in 1996. In 2007, the stations moved out of their longtime home—the historic Lyric Theatre building—and to their present studios in southeast Kansas City. KMBC continues to compete for first place in local news ratings.
History
Share-time operation with WHB-TV and early years
Kansas City, Missouri, radio station KMBC was the fourth to apply to the Federal Communications Commission for permission to establish a television station, filing for channel 9 in January 1948. A second application for the channel was received in June from the 20th Century-Fox movie studio, 20th Century-Fox had five applications pending at the FCC—for stations in Boston, Kansas City, St. Louis, San Francisco, and Seattle—by July 1948. The FCC held up all of 20th Century Fox's applications while it investigated recent antitrust findings against it and other studios. The company withdrew all five applications in January 1950 to focus on applications for TV in theaters. By that time, all new television station grants were frozen by the commission. Also applying prior to the 1948 freeze was Kansas City radio station WHB, which initially sought channel 5 along with KCMO and the New England Television Company. The FCC lifted the freeze in April 1952, by which time KMBC and KCKN in Kansas City, Kansas, both sought channel 9. By September, KCKN had switched its application to channel 5 and WHB to channel 9.Facing the possibility of a lengthy hearing delaying either party getting a station on the air, in June 1953, KMBC and WHB asked the commission to let them share time on channel 9, with alternating schedules. The FCC granted construction permits to both stations on June 25, 1953. KMBC-TV and WHB-TV would share an affiliation with CBS—KMBC radio was the sixth-oldest CBS affiliate—as well as a transmitter facility, at first atop the Kansas City Power and Light Building and later a jointly financed facility at 23rd Street and Topping. However, KMBC-TV and WHB-TV would each have their own studios; KMBC originated from the Playhouse at 11th and Central streets, while WHB-TV used temporary facilities on the 26th or 30th floor of the Power and Light Building. Channel 9 began broadcasting on August 2, 1953, with a CBS network program broadcast from KMBC-TV. The two stations alternated presenting the programs throughout the day. With a full-time CBS affiliate, many new CBS programs were seen in Kansas City, while WDAF-TV relinquished its CBS programs and replaced them with shows from its primary network, NBC. KMBC-TV and WHB-TV were the first share-time stations in the United States to go into service, though there had been proposals in other communities. The stations jointly promoted themselves as "channel 9" and had to liaise on efforts from news to promotion to avoid duplication. WHB-TV employees found themselves going back and forth between the studio and the Scarritt Building, which housed WHB radio; the company paid for an hourly shuttle service but hoped to build a common facility for WHB radio and television at some other site.
Cook Paint and Varnish Company, the owner of WHB, agreed in April 1954 to purchase KMBC radio and television from Midland Broadcasting Company, retain the KMBC stations and their studio facility, and sell WHB radio to the Mid-Continent Broadcasting Company of Omaha, Nebraska. A driving factor in the transaction was the share-time situation on channel 9. The principals of Cook and Midland issued a joint statement reading, "We have learned that shared-time operation of a television channel can be successfully accomplished, but we have learned also that the difficulties of such shared time can be eliminated by one ownership." On June 13, 1954, channel 9 became solely KMBC-TV; WHB-TV's staff and equipment were folded into the expanded operation, and the Power and Light Building studio was closed. In November 1954, the final transmitter facility was activated, bringing KMBC-TV's effective radiated power to the maximum of 316,000 watts and improving reception of the station.
In January 1955, the Meredith Publishing Company, owner of KCMO-TV, reached a group affiliation deal with CBS covering most of its radio and television properties. The agreement saw KCMO radio and television become CBS secondary outlets with immediate effect. The news was received, per a report in Variety, with "puzzlement" in Kansas City, given KMBC's long association with CBS. KCMO-TV joined CBS and KMBC-TV joined ABC on September 28, 1955, with their radio counterparts exchanging affiliations on December 1.
Cook Paint acquired KDRO-TV, an ABC affiliate in Sedalia, Missouri, in 1958. The call sign was changed to KMOS-TV on February 6, 1959. Cook operated KMOS-TV as a semi-satellite of KMBC-TV, simulcasting the Kansas City station about 40% of the time. The Kansas City studio building became home to the Victoria Theater and was converted to the Capri, a movie house, in 1959. It also housed other offices and a restaurant.
Metromedia ownership
Cook Paint announced on December 23, 1960, that it was selling KMBC radio and television to the Metropolitan Broadcasting Corporation for $10.25 million. Metropolitan did not retain KMOS-TV, which was concurrently sold to Jefferson Television Company, owner of KRCG in Jefferson City. The sales marked Cook Paint's exit from broadcasting after 30 years to focus on its paint manufacturing business. The transactions closed in August 1961, with Metropolitan Broadcasting having renamed itself Metromedia the preceding April. Under Metromedia and new general manager Al Krivin, the station moved from a third-place position locally to a slight first-place lead by 1963. KMBC-TV began presenting local programming in color in 1966. In 1967, the KMBC radio stations were spun off to Bonneville International Corporation, with KMBC AM changing its call sign to the similar-sounding KMBZ.In its early years under Metromedia ownership, KMBC-TV was a comparatively high pre-empter of ABC network programs. Writing for Variety in 1963, Les Brown noted that KMBC-TV had 14 of the market's top 15 syndicated programs, reportedly owned "as much as syndicated film as an independent station|independent , and reputedly programs in the manner of an indie". This was particularly apt for Metromedia, which had become known as a quality operator of major-market independent stations. In 1968, Variety Bill Greeley reported that one Metromedia sales executive had recommended to his bosses that the station drop its network affiliation, while some speculated that Metromedia could trade with Cox Broadcasting for its independent in Oakland, California, KTVU, giving Metromedia another independent and Cox another network affiliate. In 1969, Ellis Shook moved from Metromedia's WTTG in Washington, D.C., to run KMBC-TV. He put an end to the independent-style programming and pre-emptions while launching a series of new local programs: Dimensions in Black and the talk show Etcetera. During his tenure, KMBC began airing the ABC Evening News, which previously had not aired in Kansas City. In 1980, when ABC debuted the late-night newscast Nightline, KMBC-TV delayed it to show reruns after its late newscast; this practice of deferring ABC's late-night programming lasted until January 2015.
The theater inside the KMBC building was used by the Kansas City Lyric Theatre beginning in 1970 and renamed the Lyric Theatre in 1974.
Hearst ownership
Metromedia agreed to buy WCVB-TV in Boston in 1981 for $220 million, then the single most expensive TV station sale in history. FCC ownership rules of the time limited one station group to five VHF TV stations; Metromedia was already at the maximum and needed to sell one, with speculation leaning toward a sale of KMBC-TV over WTCN-TV in Minneapolis. The Hearst Corporation agreed to purchase KMBC for $79 million that September, representing the second-most expensive single-station sale. Hearst sold the studio building to the Lyric organization in 1991, a year and a half after damage closed the theater, with the goal of eventually moving KMBC-TV to another space. KMBC was the broadcaster of Kansas City Chiefs preseason football from 1989 through 1996.Hearst helped put a new Kansas City TV station on the air on September 14, 1996. KCWB, an affiliate of The WB, was programmed by the company under a local marketing agreement. A month after launching, KMBC and KCWB obtained rights to Kansas City Royals baseball in a 50-game agreement sublicensed from Fox Sports Rocky Mountain; 15 games were slated for airing on channel 9. After an affiliation exchange with KSMO-TV in 1998, KCWB became KCWE, a UPN affiliate. It affiliated with The CW in 2006, the same year Hearst-Argyle was approved to buy it outright, creating Kansas City's third duopoly.
In 2007, KMBC and KCWE moved from the downtown studios into a facility at the Winchester Business Center, near Swope Park in southeastern Kansas City, Missouri. The facility, five years in the planning and under construction since 2005, was designed after the buildings at Country Club Plaza. It enabled the KMBC–KCWE operation to operate more efficiently. Prior to the relocation, offices spilled out from the Lyric into an annex across the street. It also offered a helipad and secure parking, unlike the Lyric.