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KTVI is the Fox owned and operated station in St. Louis, Missouri. Its transmitter is located in Sappington, Missouri, in a field behind Lindbergh High School. Its studios are located off Interstate 64 at the intersection of Oakland and Hampton in southwest St. Louis. KTVI broadcasts in stereo and broadcasts a Secondary Audio Program (SAP) channel, used mainly for Descriptive Video Service (DVS). KTVI airs also about 42 hours of local news per week.
History KTVI began on August 13, 1953 as WTVI, channel 54 in Belleville, Illinois, a suburb of St. Louis. It was the CBS affiliate for St. Louis, with a secondary ABC affiliation. When KWK-TV (now KMOV) signed on and took the CBS affiliation, WTVI became a full ABC affiliate. It moved its studios and license across the Mississippi River to St. Louis on April 9,1955 and, kept the last few letters of the callsign as "TVI," dropped the W for K, thus KTVI, broadcasting on channel 36. KTVI moved to channel 2 on April 15, 1957, where it remains to this day. WTVI are currently the call letters of a PBS member affiliate in Charlotte, North Carolina. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Times Mirror owned the station. As part of a group deal, KTVI was sold to Argyle Broadcasting in 1993. In 1994, the Fox network took over the contract from CBS to carry the NFC game package. This inspired a conglamerate called New World Communications to reach an affiliation agreement with the network by switching all of its stations to Fox in the winter of 1994. Then New World bought out Argyle, and cut another deal to switch KTVI and sister stations KDFW in Dallas, WVTM in Birmingham and KTBC in Austin in the summer of 1995. (But WVTM would remain an NBC affiliate because former ABC affiliate WBRC was directly sold to Fox; WVTM would be subsequently sold to NBC Universal, then to that station's current owner Media General). The new owners moved Fox programming to KTVI on August 7, 1995, allowing the former Fox affiliate, KDNL channel 30, to become St. Louis' ABC affiliate. Distinctively, when New World merged with Fox Television Stations Group under Newscorp in 1996, KTVI was the first major network O&O in St. Louis since KMOX-TV was sold by CBS to Viacom, and became KMOV in 1986. It stayed that way until 2003 when KPLR was sold to Tribune. KTVI didn't pick up Fox Kids at first, so it moved to KNLC. However, in the fall of 1996, due to Reverend Larry Rice's refusal to air commercials on Fox Kids (replacing them with ministry messages), Fox pulled Fox Kids from KNLC and was picked up by KTVI. KTVI was the only New World station to take Fox Kids. Shortly thereafter, KTVI and the New World Fox affiliates were sold to Fox' parent, News Corporation, becoming Fox O&Os. (However, like many of their FOX sister stations including those in Tampa, Cleveland, and Atlanta, KTVI still use "NEW WORLD COMMUNICATIONS INC." as their end tag after their newscasts) Programming changed very slightly as Fox began buying more expensive syndicated shows for KTVI. In the fall of 1998, KTVI reduced the weekday Fox Kids programs to just two hours (from three) and, in 2000, dropped weekday Fox Kids completely while Saturday mornings were continued. At the end of 2001, Fox Kids weekdays ended nationwide, and the weekends were revamped as 4Kids TV. KTVI now airs Fox's entire schedule including 4Kids TV; as of Fall 2006 it airs 2 hours earlier than most affiliates now to accomodate an expanded newscast lineup on Saturday Mornings. KTVI's introduced its current logo on April 10, 2006. The station is the fourth to use this logo style (which is similar to that of the Fox News Channel), which is gradually being adopted by the other Fox O&Os. News Operations KTVI leads the 9 p.m. news ratings race against KPLR but comes in third behind KSDK and KMOV's 10 p.m. news. KTVI is able to emphasize a broad array of stories from major national and local reports to small-town local stories/investigations because of the many extra hours of news (7.5 hours per day as opposed to 5 on KSDK and KMOV) that need to be filled. Before Dick Ford retired in December 2005, all four of KTVI's main male anchors (Dick Ford, Tom O'Neal, Dan Gray and John Pertzborn) were once anchors at KSDK. Weekdays Saturdays Sundays News Sets/Graphics Packages On March 31, 2006, KTVI used their set, originally constructed in 1998, for the last time; at 10:00 p.m. crews began tearing down the set and weather center. Fox 2 broadcasted from the newsroom and a temporary set while a new set and weather center were under construction in the old studio. The old news desk was donated to Southern Illinois University-Carbondale and the old weather center was donated to the University of Missouri-St. Louis. The new set, along with new graphics, music, and a new logo, debuted for FOX2 News at 9 on Monday, April 10, 2006. The theme music that KTVI uses is OSI Music's FOX O&O News Theme, formerally known as WTVT NewsEdge Theme. This theme is being used by other FOX O&O stations that have made identical modifications to their identity. With the new set, music, and graphics that first aired in April 2006, the weather graphics were altered in September 2006 with a new background, and other features to better fit the MyFox theme. Current Anchors Sports Weather Past Contact KTVI KTVI-TV 5915 Berthold Avenue St. Louis, MO 63110 (314) 647-2222 * | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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