| Kansas City, Missouri-Kansas | |
|---|---|
| Branding | Fox 4 (general) Fox 4 News (newscasts) |
| Slogan | Working for You (general/news) The Calm During the Storm (weather) |
| Channels | Digital: 34 (UHF) Virtual: 4 (PSIP) |
| Subchannels | (see article) |
| Affiliations | Fox Antenna TV (DT2) |
| Owner | Local TV LLC (WDAF License, Inc.) |
| First air date | October 16, 1949 |
| Call letters' meaning | Sequentially assigned to former AM sister;[1] unofficially means Why Dial Any Further? |
| Former channel number(s) | Analog: 4 (VHF, 1949-2009) |
| Former affiliations | Primary: NBC (1949-1994) Secondary: CBS (1949-1952) DuMont (1949-1952) ABC (1949-1953) |
| Transmitter power | 1000 kW |
| Height | 295 m |
| Facility ID | 11291 |
| Website | www.fox4kc.com/ |
WDAF-TV, virtual channel 4.1, is the Fox-affiliated television station serving the Kansas City, Missouri-Kansas designated market area. The station is owned by Local TV LLC, the media arm of private equity firm Oak Hill Capital Partners. Its studios and transmitter are located in the Signal Hill neighborhood of Kansas City. The station broadcasts a digital signal on UHF channel 34, using its former analog channel assignment of channel 4 as its virtual digital channel via PSIP. On cable, WDAF can be seen in standard definition on channel 6 on Time Warner Cable and Surewest and in high definition on digital channel 1006 on Time Warner and digital channel 640 on Surewest.
WDAF-TV is a news-intensive Fox station with close to 60 hours a week of locally produced newscasts, as well as first-run prime time, late night and sports programming from Fox. It also runs off-network sitcoms, talk shows, reality shows and court shows.
WDAF-TV, along with a few other television and radio stations in the United States, is an exception to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rule that call signs must start with K west of the Mississippi River and W east of it. This is because Kansas City was located to the east of the original K/W line.
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WDAF began operation on October 16, 1949 as the second television station in Missouri (following KSDK in St. Louis, which signed on the air two years earlier) and the first in Kansas City. The station was originally owned by the Kansas City Star along with WDAF radio (then at 610 AM, now occupied by KCSP; now at 106.5 FM), which began operations in 1922. It was affiliated with all four major networks of the time: NBC, CBS, ABC, and DuMont. It was a primary NBC affiliate, owing to WDAF radio's long affiliation with NBC Radio.
Randall Jessee was the station's first anchorman. Several other notables, including Shelby Storck (WDAF-TV's first weathercaster) and future Hollywood character actor Owen Bush, did announcing for the station during the early 1950s. For years, the station signed on and off each day to a recording of Gordon MacRae singing "The Lord's Prayer." When KMBC-TV (channel 9) signed on in 1953, CBS and DuMont programming moved there. WDAF shared ABC with KMBC until later in 1953, when KCMO-TV (channel 5, now KCTV) signed on as the ABC affiliate. WDAF then became an exclusive NBC affiliate (KMBC and KCMO swapped affiliations two years later). The station pre-empted moderate amounts of NBC programming, usually some daytime shows and occasionally a prime time show.
In 1953, the federal government began antitrust action against the Star over WDAF-AM-TV. The investigation was reportedly opened at the behest of Harry Truman, who had a long-running feud with the Star. The court ruled against the Star in 1955. After appeals failed, it signed a consent decree in 1957 requiring it to sell its broadcasting properties.
In 1958, WDAF-AM-TV was sold to National-Missouri Broadcasters. In 1960, National-Missouri merged with Transcontinent Broadcasting of Buffalo, New York. Under Transcontinent, the two stations picked up an FM sister at 102.1 (later KYYS and now KCKC). Transcontinent merged with Taft Broadcasting on April 1, 1964. On July 13, 1984, WDAF-TV became one of the first 20 NBC stations in the country to receive network programming via satellite. In 1986, WDAF-TV also became the first television station in Kansas City to broadcast in stereo. Taft was renamed Great American Broadcasting on October 12, 1987. By that year, WDAF had overtaken KMBC as the dominant station in Kansas City, as was the trend at many NBC affiliates. Great American became Citicasters in 1993.
In 1993, Fox won the rights to broadcast the NFC football package from CBS,[2] after which New World Communications signed a long-term deal to switch most of its stations to Fox, starting in the fall of 1994.[3] In the spring of 1994, Citicasters sold WDAF-TV, along with KSAZ (channel 10) in Phoenix, to New World, separating the station from WDAF radio (which Citicasters retained). Two other stations owned by Citicasters, WBRC (channel 6) in Birmingham and WGHP (channel 8) in Greensboro, North Carolina, were placed in a blind trust and later sold directly to Fox; in the case of WBRC, it was because New World already owned Birmingham's NBC affiliate WVTM (channel 13) after its purchase of Argyle Television and could not keep it due to FCC rules at the time that did not permit television duopolies.[4]
WDAF-TV became a Fox affiliate on September 12, 1994 (three days after New World officially closed on its purchase of WDAF-TV and KSAZ-TV), and the NBC affiliation moved to KSHB (channel 41), Kansas City's original Fox affiliate; with NBC agreeing to affiliate with KSHB on the condition that KSHB run as much local news as WDAF did under its NBC affiliation. The switch to Fox ended channel 4's status as the unofficial "home" station of the Kansas City Chiefs (which is ironic because in other markets, New World-owned stations would continue relationships with NFL teams). The station had aired most Chiefs games as part of the American Football League/American Football Conference package since 1965, when NBC began airing AFL, and later AFC games. WDAF is one of two former New World stations that switched to Fox that is located in an AFC market (the other being WJW in Cleveland). WDAF is also the only former New World-owned station that switched from NBC to Fox; New World's two other NBC affiliates, WVTM in Birmingham and KNSD (channel 39), remained with the network and were subsequently sold to NBC; KNSD is still owned by NBC Universal Television Group, while WVTM is now owned by Media General. The majority of the New World stations that changed their affiliation to Fox were CBS affiliates, with eight of the stations being affiliated with CBS and three of them being ABC affiliates.
After the affiliation switch, WDAF-TV did not purchase any of KSHB's syndicated programming inventory and declined to run the Fox Kids weekday afternoon and Saturday morning programming blocks; those programs ended up on then-independent station KSMO (channel 62, now a MyNetworkTV affiliate). WDAF also increased its local news programming from about 30 hours a week to nearly 50 hours — including expansions in morning and evening newscasts. WDAF-TV was the first station in Kansas City to use a helicopter for traffic and news reporting. The station added talk shows to round out their schedule.
Fox Television Stations bought most of the New World Communications stations in the fall of 1996,[5] officially making WDAF a Fox owned-and-operated station, and the first major network O&O in the Kansas City market since DuMont's brief operation of KCTY in 1954.[6] Following the completion of the acquisition on January 22, 1997, WDAF changed its branding from "Newschannel 4" (which was adopted by the station while still an NBC affiliate) to "Fox 4" on January 26 (coinciding with Fox's telecast of Super Bowl XXXI).[6] However until 2007, the station used "New World Communications of Kansas City, Inc.", as their end tag during their newscasts. New World Communications was used as a licensing purpose corporation for all of WDAF's sister stations as well until 2007. However, as of June 2009, WDAF's former New World sister stations which are still owned by Fox are now once again using the licensee names "New World Communications of <city or state>, Inc." or "NW Communications of <city or state>, Inc." — but by that time, WDAF and a few other ex-New World stations were no longer owned by Fox.
On September 23, 2005, WDAF-TV began broadcasting in full-power high definition, going from an HD signal rated at 1.2 Kilowatts to a signal strength of 1000 Kilowatts. On December 22, 2007, Fox entered into an agreement to sell WDAF and seven other Fox O&O stations[7] to Oak Hill Capital Partners' Local TV LLC, which currently owns nine stations formerly of The New York Times Company. The sale was closed on July 14, 2008.[8]
After three years, WDAF-TV debuted its new website on January 27, 2009 to remove itself from the MyFox umbrella since Fox no longer owned the station. The new WDAF-TV website is operated by Tribune Interactive, which also operates the websites of most of the former Fox O&Os owned by Local TV and the websites of Tribune-owned stations. The other Local TV-owned stations phased in the new Tribune-run websites during late January and into February 2009, partially severing their membership with WorldNow although WorldNow continues to provide streaming video technology to Tribune Interactive.
| Channel | Video | Aspect | Programming |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4.1 | 720p | 16:9 | Main WDAF programming / FOX |
| 4.2 | 480i | 4:3 | Antenna TV |
The station became a charter affiliate of Tribune Broadcasting's new digital multicast channel Antenna TV on February 13, 2011, it is carried on digital subchannel 4.2.[9][10] The network, whose programming consists of classic sitcoms and drama series from the 1950s to the 1990s during the afternoon and evening, and movies during the morning and late night hours, debuted on some Local TV, LLC-owned stations in other markets as well as most stations owned by the network's parent Tribune Company on January 1, 2011; with other stations being added later.
WDAF-TV ended analog operations on June 12, 2009, as part of the DTV transition in the United States. The station remained on its pre-transition channel 34. Through the use of PSIP, WDAF-TV's virtual channel is displayed as 4.
WDAF-TV clears the entire Fox network schedule (nightly primetime, Saturday late night, and Fox Sports programming, and the political talk show Fox News Sunday; except for Fox's Saturday morning infomerical block, Weekend Marketplace, which airs on KMCI). However, the Saturday late night lineup (currently reruns of the current Fox primetime series Fringe and the 2002-2003 Fox series 30 Seconds to Fame) airs a half-hour later than on most affiliates airing at 10:30 p.m., due to its 10 p.m. newscast on Saturday evenings. WDAF, like most Fox stations, airs a mix of talk/court/reality shows in the daytime and sitcoms in the evening. WDAF is one of numerous Fox stations that carry Divorce Court, Judge Alex, Judge Joe Brown and Judge Judy (which airs before the 5 p.m. newscast) and Seinfeld (which airs in late night). The station also airs TMZ on TV weeknights after the 10 p.m. newscast and Access Hollywood after the 6 p.m. newscast, and airs weekend telecasts of House and Bones.
Like most of its former New World-owned sister stations, WDAF opted not to run Fox Kids programming since affiliating with Fox; Fox Kids was not considered to be part of the Fox network itself, but a group of programs syndicated by it. Fox affiliates were given right of first refusal, but did not have to carry it if another station in the same market agreed to carry Fox Kids programming; beginning in 2001, affiliates were no longer compelled to run the programming even if another station could not be found. In Kansas City, Fox Kids aired on KSMO-TV (channel 62, now a MyNetworkTV affiliate) as Fox Kids from 1994 to 1998; KCWE (channel 29) from 1998 to 1999, as a UPN affiliate (it is now a CW affiliate); and then on independent station KMCI (channel 38) as Fox Kids from 1999 to 2001, Fox Box from 2001–2002, and 4Kids TV from 2002 to 2008; Not airing Fox Kids was common among WDAF's newer Fox sister stations as well in the same timeframe since the mid-1990s (WDAF instead aired syndicated children's programming in place of Fox's children's block). Fox discontinued children's programming on December 28, 2008 (it is unknown if Fox will resume children's programming in the future). The station currently carries the minimum amount of educational and informational children's programming, as the stations airs syndicated children's shows such as Wild About Animals, Mystery Hunters, Animal Atlas and Awesome Adventures on weekend mornings.
The station was the over-the-air flagship station of the Kansas City Royals for many years, long after many Big Three affiliates dropped regular coverage of local sports. It lost the broadcast rights for the games in 1992, marking the end of a 13-year business relationship. The station also produced and aired Kansas City Chiefs pre-season games from 1997 to 1999, upgrading the local production presentation to network quality standards. The contract ran through the 1999 season.
WDAF-TV broadcasts a total of 59½ hours of local news per week (with ten hours on weekdays, 4½ hours on Saturdays, and five hours on Sundays), giving the station more hours of local news than any other station in Kansas City; however as is standard with Fox stations that carry early evening weekend newscasts, WDAF's Sunday 5 p.m. newscasts are subject to preemption due to sports coverage (though the Saturday 5 p.m. newscast is usually delayed to 6 p.m. during baseball season). Until October 2011, it was the last remaining Big Four network affiliate in the Kansas City market that still started its weekday morning newscast at 5 a.m. (KSHB and KMBC moved the start time of their morning newscasts to 4:30 a.m. in August 2010, with KCTV also doing so the following month). WDAF would eventually expand its weekday morning newscast to 5½ hours in length, from 4:30-10 a.m. on October 3, 2011, becoming the last station in the Kansas City market to expand its weekday morning newscast to the 4:30 a.m. slot.[11]
Since WDAF became a Fox affiliate in 1994, the station has placed more emphasis on its newscasts and has maintained a newscast schedule very similar to a ABC, CBS or NBC affiliate, having added additional newscasts from 7-9 a.m. and 5:30-6 p.m. on weekdays, the extension of its noon newscast to one hour and adding an hour-long nightly primetime newscast at 9 p.m.[12] In 1996, WDAF attempted to relaunch the 5:30 p.m. newscast as Your World Tonight, a locally-produced newscast featuring national and international news, to compete with the network news programs; the concept was not successful, and on January 3, 1997 it was canceled in favor of returning to a traditional local newscast in the timeslot.[13] The station is one of a steadily growing number of Fox stations with a newscast in the traditional late news timeslot (in WDAF's case, at 10 p.m. Central time), in addition to the primetime (9 p.m.) newscast, along with one of the few to continue their Big Three-era 10 p.m. newscast after the affiliation switch and one of the few Fox stations to run a 10 p.m. (or 11 p.m.) newscast seven nights a week.
The station also has a Hummer called "Storm Fox" equipped to track and chase severe weather along with Sky Fox. WDAF-TV has gained notice in the Kansas City market for its investigative team created in 2003, called the "Fox 4 Problem Solvers", helping people who have been ripped off by businesses and uncovering various scams. Until August 31, 2009 WDAF-TV used a news helicopter, called "Sky Fox" for traffic and breaking news reporting, and severe weather coverage. WDAF is working on alternative methods for covering breaking news from the air.
Beginning in 2006, the Fox-owned stations revamped their sets and graphics, and created standardized logos similar to Fox News Channel's, and changed their websites to use the "MyFox" name and interface (which has also been adopted by all the other Fox O&Os). WDAF-TV debuted the new logo (which retains the "4" logo used since 1992 under NBC affiliation), graphics and music package on October 23, 2007, starting with its noon newscast. Minor changes were made in the studio to match the new theme. WDAF-TV and most of the other former Fox O&Os that were acquired by Local TV still use the logo, graphics, and news music implemented under Fox ownership. Minor changes were made in the studio to match the new theme.
In April 2007, WDAF-TV began simulcasting the 7-9 a.m. portion of its weekday morning and nightly 9 p.m. newscasts on Fox affiliate KTMJ-CA (channel 43) in Topeka, Kansas and its three repeaters KTLJ-CA (channel 6) in Junction City, KMJT-CA in Ogden (channel 15) and KETM-CA (channel 17) in Emporia even though WDAF-TV and the signals of other Kansas City area VHF stations adequately cover the Topeka area. In November 2008, after KTMJ's purchase by New Vision Television (owners of Topeka NBC affiliate KSNT, channel 27) was complete, the simulcasts were dropped and replaced with morning and 9 p.m. newscasts produced by KSNT.
On August 14, 2010, WDAF-TV aired its final broadcast from its existing news set, and began broadcasting the next day from the newsroom while a new, larger set was being installed for their high definition broadcasts. The station began broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition on October 12, 2010, with the noon newscast, making it the last of the major broadcast network-affiliated stations in the city to broadcast in HD.[14] On March 24, 2011, WDAF-TV expanded its weekday morning newscast to five hours as the newscast expanded into the 9 a.m. hour[15]; a few weeks later on April 11, WDAF-TV also became the first Fox station in the country (and one of only a handful of television stations in the Central and Mountain time zones) to broadcast its late evening 10 p.m. newscast to one hour.[16]
Dating back to when WDAF was an NBC affiliate, the station has usually battled Hearst-owned KMBC (and at times, KCTV also) for the #1 spot in local news in Kansas City. During the late 1970s and into the 1980s, WDAF-TV was in second place behind KMBC, but the station ended the latter decade as number one station in the Kansas City market. As soon as the station switched from NBC to Fox, KMBC made a short resurgence to number one in the market. WDAF-TV has since rotated between first and second place with either KMBC or KCTV in various timeslots since the late 1990s after the network switch. WDAF-TV is just one example of a few Fox stations that have actually outcompeted NBC, ABC and CBS affiliates in local newscasts.
According to Nielsen Media Research, as of February 2011, WDAF-TV had Kansas City's #1 newscast in the mornings and in primetime and placed second overall amongst all area stations. On weekday mornings during the February sweeps period, it led all area stations in the 7-9 a.m. time period with a 6.7 household rating and tied with KMBC in the 6 a.m. hour with a 5.4 rating; the 9 p.m. newscast carried a 6.8 rating, easily beating the KCTV-produced newscast on KSMO, the KMBC-produced newscast on KCWE and network programming on KMBC, KSHB and KCTV. WDAF-TV placed second against both KCTV at noon and KMBC-TV in the 5 p.m. time period.[17]
Anchors
4WARN Weather
Sports team
Reporters
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