KCOP-TV
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (September 2007) |
| KCOP-TV | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Los Angeles, California | |
| Branding | My13 |
| Slogan | TV for All of Us |
| Channels | Analog: 13 (VHF) |
| Translators | K13WJ Morongo Valley K50HV Daggett K18FH Twentynine Palms K13NF Ridgecrest K49AA Ridgecrest |
| Affiliations | MyNetworkTV |
| Owner | Fox Television Stations (Fox Television Stations, Inc.) |
| Founded | September 17, 1948 |
| Call letters’ meaning | COPley Press (former owners) |
| Sister station(s) | KTTV |
| Former callsigns | KMTR-TV (1948) KLAC-TV (1948-1954) |
| Former affiliations | Independent (1948-1995) DuMont (secondary, 1948-1955) UPN (1995-2006) |
| Transmitter Power | 161 kW (analog) 371 kW (digital) |
| Height | 906 m (analog) 890 m (digital) |
| Facility ID | 33742 |
| Transmitter Coordinates | |
| Website | www.my13la.com |
KCOP-TV, channel 13, is a television station in Los Angeles, California. Owned by Fox Television Stations, a division of the News Corporation, KCOP is a sister station to Fox network outlet KTTV (channel 11), and is an affiliate of the co-owned MyNetworkTV programming service. The two stations share studio facilities in West Los Angeles, and KCOP's transmitter is located on Mount Wilson.
Contents |
[edit] Early history
Channel 13 went on the air on September 17, 1948 as KMTR-TV. The station briefly changed its call letters to KLAC-TV (Los Angeles, California), and adopted the moniker "Lucky 13". It was co-owned with KLAC-AM-FM, which was later co-owned with channel 13's current sister station KTTV. Although it was an independent station, it did run some programming from the DuMont Television Network.[1]
One of KLAC-TV's earlier stars was veteran actress Betty White, who starred in her own live sitcom, Life with Elizabeth. Television personality Regis Philbin and actor-director Leonard Nimoy once worked behind the scenes at channel 13. In 1954, the Copley Press (publishers of the San Diego Union-Tribune) purchased KLAC-TV, and changed its call letters to KCOP. Six years later the NAFI Corporation, which would later merge with Chris-Craft Boats to become Chris-Craft Industries, bought channel 13, creating a relationship with Chris-Craft that lasted over forty years.
Chris-Craft partnered up with various television studios over the years to produce first-run syndicated programming, which gave KCOP some of its best ratings and made channel 13 one of America's leading local television stations. From the 1960s to the early 1990s, KCOP offered a broad range of programs ranging from cartoons to off-network sitcoms, older theatrical and made-for-TV movies, syndicated talk shows, game shows, and even local news.
Charlie O'Donnell, legendary television announcer best known as the off-screen voice of Wheel of Fortune (in which KCOP carried the nighttime version, from 1983 to 1989 until it moved to KCBS-TV), was a news anchor at channel 13 in the 1970s and was the primary voiceover for the station as well.
Despite its success as a general-entertainment independent station, its newscasts were one of the lowest rated in the market. In the 1990s, the station began to focus more on first-run talk shows, court shows, reality shows, and newsmagazine shows as well as off-network drama shows.
[edit] UPN affiliation
In 1995, Chris-Craft and its subsidiary, United Television, partnered with Paramount Pictures to form the United Paramount Network. KCOP became the network's Los Angeles station on January 16, 1995, the day the network was launched.
Chris-Craft/United Television sold its stations to the News Corporation on July 31, 2001. KCOP's news and technical operations were later integrated with the operations of KTTV. Some time later, KCOP abandoned its longtime studios on North La Brea Avenue in Hollywood (once home to the classic game shows The Joker's Wild and Tic Tac Dough) to move into the new Fox Television Center in West Los Angeles. Upon being sold to Fox in 2001, the weekday Fox Kids block moved to KCOP in the mid-afternoons, only for it to be dropped nationwide in January 2002. Soon after, the station ran a one-hour morning cartoon block (from the DIC Entertainment company), but dropped cartoons permanently in September 2006. Channel 13 was the last local television station to air cartoons on weekdays. Like the other local stations, the cartoons were replaced with informercials.
Viacom, the parent company of Paramount since 1994, bought out the other 50-percent stake of UPN from Chris-Craft, and became full owner of the network in 2000. In a separate transaction in 2002, Viacom purchased KCOP's arch-rival, KCAL-TV (channel 9). Rumors persisted that UPN would move to KCAL, making KCOP an independent station once again. However, Viacom said that it would continue to operate KCAL as an independent station (at least for the time being), and UPN would stay on KCOP.
[edit] MyNetworkTV affiliation
On January 24, 2006, the UPN and WB networks announced that they would merge into a new network called the CW Television Network. KTLA (channel 5), which had been a WB affiliate since 1995, was announced as the CW's Los Angeles station.
On January 25, 2006, the day following the announcement of the creation of the CW Network, KCOP removed references to UPN from its station branding, choosing to use the slogan Get it On 13. The station also stopped promoting UPN programing. Similar changes were also made to Fox's other UPN affiliates, as the CW network list did not include any of the Fox-owned UPN stations. The formation of Fox's MyNetworkTV, of which KCOP and the other Fox-owned UPN stations have become affiliates, was announced on February 22, 2006, less than a month later. UPN continued to broadcast on stations across the country until September 15, 2006. While some UPN affiliates who switched to MyNetworkTV (which commenced operations on September 5, 2006) aired the final two weeks of UPN programming outside its regular primetime period, the Fox-owned stations, including KCOP, dropped UPN entirely on August 31, 2006.
In October 2006, the station began identifying itself as MyNetworkTV, Channel 13. The logo changed to a two-column design, with the network logo on the left side and the number 13 on the right. In May 2007, the branding changed again, with My13 Los Angeles appearing on-screen in the bottom right-hand corner. However, most on-air promos for local shows continue to use the two-column brand and expanded description.
Additionally, KCOP may air Fox network programming should it be preempted by KTTV for a breaking news story or any other emergency. If a breaking story continues into the 11:00 p.m. hour, KTTV will usually direct their viewers to switch over to KCOP's 11pm newscast at the end of their 10:00 p.m. broadcast. KCOP and their anchors then take over coverage from their studio, usually with only a graphics change.
[edit] Digital television
| Channel | Programming |
|---|---|
| 13.1 / 66.1 | main KCOP/MyNetworkTV programming |
[edit] Analog-to-digital conversion
After the analog television shutdown and digital conversion, which is tentatively scheduled to take place on February 17, 2009 [2], KCOP will move its digital broadcasts back to its present analog channel number, 13. [3]
[edit] Sports coverage
KCOP holds the television broadcasting rights to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim baseball team. Before that, channel 13 was the broadcasting home of the Los Angeles Dodgers from 2002 to 2005, the NBA's Los Angeles Clippers from 1991 to 1996, and the Los Angeles Marathon 1986 to 2001. Since 2005, KCOP has carried St. Louis Rams preseason games produced by sister stations KTVI and FSN Midwest. It is considered a throwback of sorts, because back in the 1950s during the team's early years in Los Angeles, the station broadcast many Rams regular season games before NFL games became more exclusive to the major broadcasting networks (such as CBS, NBC, and DuMont).
[edit] News operation
For many years, KCOP aired traditional newscast at 10:00 p.m. During the 1980s, the station carried the syndicated Independent Network News (produced by WPIX in New York City), and coupled it with its local 10:00 program. The station's newscast has generally been the lowest rated evening newscast of the seven VHF television stations in the Los Angeles market. The newscast length has varied from 30 minutes to an hour depending on the station budget. For a brief period of time during the late 1990s, KCOP also aired a half-hour newscast at 7:30PM weeknights. However, when the station was purchased by Fox and its operations were merged with KTTV, channel 13's newscast was moved to 11:00 p.m. to avoid direct competition with channel 11 (which runs an hour-long 10 p.m. newscast), and trimmed it from an hour in length down to 30 minutes. The station's news production and resources are now also handled by KTTV.
KCOP currently uses three anchors, Lauren Sanchez, Rick Garcia, and Maria Quiban. Sanchez and Garcia, often present news stories for KTTV, and Garcia has been the lead sports anchor and sports director at channel 11 since 1987. One notable aspect of KCOP's news broadcast is that all three of its anchors are minorities: Sanchez and Garcia are Mexican American, and Quiban is Filipino American.
Since Fox purchased the station, KCOP's late-evening news has taken a more unconventional approach than its network-owned competition, KCBS-TV, KNBC, and KABC-TV. To appeal to a younger audience, it mainly features its female news anchors in slightly more revealing, trendy clothing. Its news stories also tend to be much shorter in detail, in a faster-paced format. In addition, it has become the first station to emphasize entertainment and trend-setting news as a major part of its format, one idea which has attracted a large young demographic. Nevertheless, channel 13's newscast continually places fourth in the ratings, as it did when the station was competing at 10 p.m. against KTTV, KTLA, and KCAL-TV. However, KCOP's news draw substantially higher ratings among young people, especially young Latinos.
On April 10, 2006, KCOP's newscast was expanded from 30 minutes to a full hour, which made it the only Los Angeles station with a full-hour newscast at 11 p.m. On August 14, 2006, the newscast was rebranded as my 13 news.
As of January 2008, KCOP is one of the three network-affiliated stations in Los Angeles that is yet to start broadcasting local news and programming in High Definition (the other two being KNBC and KTTV). KNBC will start broadcasting their newscasts in High Definition by the end of the 2nd quarter of 2008.
With the purchase by Fox, many of KCOP's former staff have since either left the station or been released, reporter Hal Eisner is one of the few remaining staffers who has been with KCOP since the Chris-Craft era, beginning there in the early 1990s. Before that, however, he had worked at KTTV for a time during 1987 and 1988. Today, Eisner also files reports for KTTV.
[edit] Current personalities
- Michael Brownlee - weekend co-anchor and weeknight reporter
- Hal Eisner - reporter
- Cristy Fajardo - reporter
- Rick Garcia - weeknight co-anchor
- Gigi Graciette - reporter
- Liz Habib - fill-in anchor, sports anchor, and reporter
- Ed Laskos - reporter and fill-in anchor
- Amy Murphy - reporter and fill-in weather anchor
- Maria Quiban - weekend co-anchor, weeknight weather anchor, and style reporter
- Lauren Sanchez - weeknight co-anchor
- Mark Thompson - fill in weather anchor
[edit] Notable alumni
|
|
[edit] Newscast titles
- News 13 (1970s, mid 1980s and for a short time in 1999)
- World Network News Los Angeles (early 1980s)
- Real News (1990s)
- UPN News 13 (1995-2002)
- UPN 13 News (2002-2006)
- Channel 13 News (January-August 2006)
- My 13 News (August 2006-present)
[edit] Station brandings
- Channel 13, KCOP Los Angeles (1980s)
- L.A.'s Very Independent Channel 13 (1989-1994)
- UPN 13 (2000s)
- Channel 13 (2006)
- My Network TV Channel 13 (2006-2007)
- My 13 (2007-present)
[edit] Station presentation
KCOP-TV has gone under several changes in station presentation, reflecting different call-signs, styles, themes, network affiliations, and different owners. Below are some of the logos from KCOP-TV's past, from 1948 to today.
 KCOP-TV's first logo, from 1948 as "KLAC-TV, Lucky Channel 13" |
 KCOP-TV's second logo as KLAC-TV used until 1960 |
 Current Final logo of KLAC-TV since 1960 |
 KCOP-TV's logo, from 1975-1977 |
 KCOP-TV's logo from 1977-1979. Compare the new color variations with the logo from 1975. |
 KCOP-TV's logo from 1979-1984 |
 KCOP-TV's logo from 1984-1985 |
 KCOP-TV's logo from 1985-1995. Compare with the UPN logo. |
 KCOP-TV's logo from January 1995-December 1997, as a UPN affiliate. |
 KCOP-TV's logo from January 1998-September 2002, showing the "Silver Shapes" UPN logo, as opposed to the colored "Shapes" logo in 1995. |
 KCOP-TV's logo from September 2002-August 2006, with the "UPN Circle" logo (UPN logo removed January). |
[edit] Notes
[edit] External links
- KCOP Website
- Photos of KCOP's news set
- KCOP-TV logos and screenshots from 1950s to the present day
- KCOP-TV at the Internet Movie Database
- Query the FCC's TV station database for KCOP-TV
|
||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
