| Salt Lake City, Utah | |
|---|---|
| Branding | KSL 5 (general) KSL 5 News HD (newscasts) |
| Channels | Digital: 38 (UHF) Virtual: 5 (PSIP) |
| Subchannels | 5.1 NBC 5.2 Live Well Network 5.3 Live 5 Weather Channel |
| Translators | (see article) |
| Owner | Bonneville International (Bonneville Holding Company) |
| First air date | June 1, 1949 |
| Call letters' meaning | Salt Lake |
| Sister station(s) | KSL, KSL-FM, KRSP-FM, KSFI, KUTR (through a sister division it is also related to KBYU-TV and KBYU-FM) |
| Former channel number(s) | Analog: 5 (VHF, 1949–2009) |
| Former affiliations | CBS (1949-1995) ABC (secondary, 1949-1954) DuMont (secondary, 1949–1955) |
| Transmitter power | 546 kW |
| Height | 1267 m |
| Facility ID | 6359 |
| Website | tv.ksl.com |
KSL-TV, virtual channel 5, is an NBC-affiliated television station located in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA. KSL-TV is owned by Bonneville International Corporation, which is in turn owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the LDS, or Mormon Church). KSL-TV is based in the Broadcast House building in Salt Lake City's Triad Center, and transmits from a tower located on Farnsworth Peak west of Salt Lake City. The station has a large network of rebroadcast transmitters which extends its coverage throughout Utah, as well as portions of Arizona, Idaho, Nevada, and Wyoming.
A sister station to KSL radio (1160 AM and 102.7 FM), KSL-TV is also related to KBYU-FM and KBYU-TV in Provo through Brigham Young University (BYU), also owned by the LDS Church.
Contents |
Digital channels
| Channel | Video | Format | Programming |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5.1 | 720p | 16:9 | Main KSL-TV programming / NBC |
| 5.2 | 480i | 4:3 | Live Well Network[1] |
| 5.3 | 16:9 | "Live 5 Weather Channel" |
On June 12, 2009, KSL ended analog broadcasts and began to transmit exclusively digitally.[2] On January 1, 2009 KSL discontinued their version of NBC Weather Plus due to discontinuation of the service by NBC, and relaunched the 5.3 subchannel as a locally-compiled automated weather channel, Live 5 Weather Channel, which unlike most digital weather subchannels airs in 480i widescreen. KSL-TV also carried Universal Sports until it moved exclusively to cable and satellite distribution in January 2012.
KSL-TV came on the air June 1, 1949, operating from studios in the Union Pacific Building on Main Street. It was owned by the Deseret News, who also owned KSL radio (AM 1160 and FM 100.3, now KSFI). It was created as a CBS affiliate, owing to its radio sister's long affiliation with CBS radio. Originally, as a CBS affiliate, the station shared ABC programming with NBC's KDYL-TV (now KTVX). The two stations continued to share ABC programming until KUTV was created, in 1954, as the ABC affiliate in the area. The station also broadcast some DuMont programming, and during the late 1950s, the station was also briefly affiliated with the NTA Film Network.[3]
In 1949, KSL moved to Broadcast House on Social Hall Avenue. In 1952, a 370-foot transmission tower was constructed on Farnsworth Peak in the Oquirrh Mountains to improve coverage all along the Wasatch Front and into Tooele County. It also began building a massive translator network stretching across five states, and now claims the largest coverage of any station in the United States.
KSL-AM-FM-TV was a division of the Deseret News until 1964, when Bonneville International was formed as the parent company for the LDS Church's broadcasting holdings. Soon afterward, channel 5 broadcast in color for the first time. In 1984 the station moved its Broadcast House to the Triad Center.[4]
In 1995, KSL-TV became an NBC affiliate, after the network sold KUTV (which swapped affiliations with what is now KTVX in 1960) to a partnership of CBS and Group W as part of a swap involving stations in Denver, Miami and Philadelphia. Initially, NBC sought to reaffiliate with KTVX; but after KTVX renewed its ABC affiliation, NBC then secured its current affiliation agreement with KSL-TV.
On January 14, 1999 a shooter entered the station's broadcast house in the Triad Center, allegedly looking for a KSL-TV reporter. An employee of another company housed in the building was shot during the incident, resulting in her later death. De-Kieu Duy, a 24-year-old female, was arrested in connection with the incident. Duy was later found mentally incompetent to stand trial and is currently housed in the Utah State Hospital.[5]
In 2002, Bruce Christensen was named the president of KSL-TV; Christensen is the former president of PBS, the former dean of the BYU College of Fine Arts and Communications, as well as a former reporter for KSL-TV. In July 2010, KSL-TV took over the local marketing agreement (LMA) for independent station KJZZ-TV upon the conclusion of the five-year LMA between that station and KUTV.
The station airs a number of syndicated programming. The Today show airs in two segments, with the fourth hour shown after the hour-long noon newscast, and as such, Days of our Lives airs on a one-hour delay. The Rachael Ray Show airs after the first three hours of Today, followed by a locally-produced lifestyle program called Studio 5. Both The Nate Berkus Show and Who Wants to be a Millionaire airs in the mid-afternoons, leading up to the early evening newscast.
KSL-TV airs most of the programming on the NBC schedule, as well as locally produced news and sports programs. It also airs some independent programs relevant to Mormonism, such as History of the Saints, Music and the Spoken Word and Mormon Times. LDS General Conference is also carried live by the station, preempting any programs in the affected time slots.[6] KSL-TV is one of the few remaining television stations in the United States that still signs off at night, doing so at 3:30 am Saturday nights.
Occasionally the station has decided not to air some network programs, such as the short-lived sitcom Coupling and the long-running Saturday Night Live (SNL). SNL is preempted for the local SportsBeat Saturday, a holdover from the station's CBS days (KUCW, a CW affiliate, currently airs SNL instead). As a CBS affiliate KSL-TV aired the drama Picket Fences at 11pm on Saturdays instead of 9pm on Fridays.[7] KSL has refused to carry much of the network's poker programming such as Poker After Dark (now all canceled due to legal complications) due to ownership, Church, and viewership objections against gambling.
On June 12, 2011, KSL-TV announced it had declined to carry the period drama The Playboy Club. The station's president stated the show was "completely inconsistent" with the station's own mission and branding.[8] The station is a sponsor of the "Out in the Light Campaign," which educates people on alleged problems associated with viewing pornography, and the station did not want to be associated with the Playboy brand.[9] MyNetworkTV affiliate KMYU/KUTV-DT2 aired the program in the market at the original 9:00 pm Mountain Time Monday time slot,[10] while KSL-TV carried the locally-produced newsmagazine We Are Utah, which resembles WCVB in Boston's Chronicle in format.[11] However, like Coupling, The Playboy Club was both lambasted and ignored by critics and viewers alike and was the first network cancellation of its television season after only three episodes aired. KSL continued to air already filmed episodes of We Are Utah in the 9pm slot until the October 31, 2011 premiere of Rock Center with Brian Williams.[12]
Even with its tradition of screening possibly objectionable programs, some, such as The Book of Daniel (which was not shown by several other NBC affiliates, especially in Bible Belt states) and a paid political message criticizing the Iraq War (which featured Cindy Sheehan) have been aired by the station.
Despite its roots in the Deseret News and its link to KSL radio, channel 5 was initially an also-ran in news. That changed in 1965, when the station poached sportscaster Paul James (better known as the voice of BYU football and basketball) and weatherman Bob Welti from KCPX-TV and teamed them with anchor Dick Nourse. Within a few months, channel 5 had rocketed into first place. It would be the dominant news station in Utah for most of the next 45 years, garnering some of the highest ratings in the country. Nourse, James and Welti would remain together until 1991, with Nourse staying on as top anchorman until 2007.
In November 2010, KUTV, long a distant runner-up, unseated KSL-TV in most timeslots, though channel 5 remained ahead at 10 p.m. However, in February 2011, KSL-TV lost the lead at 10 p.m. for the first time in recent memory. It remains a solid runner-up to KUTV in most timeslots.
Anchors
Weather team
Sports team
Local program hosts
Reporters
KSL-TV extends its coverage throughout Utah, plus parts of Arizona, Idaho, Nevada and Wyoming, using a network of more than 115 community-owned translator television stations listed below.
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