KIRO-TV (channel 7) is a television station in Seattle, Washington, United States, affiliated with CBS and Telemundo. Owned by Cox Media Group, the station maintains studios on Third Avenue in the Belltown section of Downtown Seattle, and its transmitter is located in the city's Queen Anne neighborhood, adjacent to the station's original studios.
KIRO-TV signed on in 1958 as the last commercial VHF television station for the Seattle metropolitan area; owing to its status as the television extension to KIRO (710 AM), the station immediately took the CBS affiliation from Tacoma-licensed KTNT-TV (now KSTW), but they were forced to share the affiliation for two years after the owners of both stations settled a lawsuit over the affiliation switch. Subsequently owned for more than three decades by the broadcasting division of the LDS Church, KIRO-TV briefly became a UPN affiliate when KSTW reaffiliated with CBS in 1995 during a nationwide affiliation shuffle, but rejoined CBS in 1997 via a three-way trade that involved the two stations.
History Early years After KOMO-TV (channel 4) signed on in December 1953, Seattle's channel 7 was the last commercial VHF channel allocation available in the Puget Sound area. As such, its construction permit was heavily contested among several local broadcast interests. Three radio stations—KVI (570 AM), KXA (770 AM, now KTTH) and KIRO (710 AM)—were locked in a battle for the frequency over several years of comparative hearings at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Following an initial decision in 1955"FCC proposes 3 VHF grants." Broadcasting – Telecasting, April 11, 1955, pg. 96. and a reaffirmation in 1957,"VHFs go to Pittsburgh, Seattle." Broadcasting – Telecasting, July 29, 1957, pg. 60. the matter was decided in favor of Queen City Broadcasting, owners of KIRO radio, who signed-on channel 7 on February 8, 1958."KIRO-TV operating in Seattle after winning court, FCC bouts." Broadcasting, February 17, 1958, pg. 86. Queen City was led by president and general manager Saul Haas, who purchased KIRO radio in 1935 and included U.S. Senator Warren Magnuson and CBS News correspondent Edward R. Murrow amongst its shareholders. The station's original studios were located on Queen Anne Avenue, adjacent to its broadcast tower and directly across the street from KIRO radio.KIRO-AM-FM-TV advertisement. Broadcasting, August 25, 1958, pp. 57–60. The first program shown on channel 7 was the explosion of Ripple Rock, a hazard to navigation in Seymour Narrows, British Columbia.
KIRO radio had been a CBS Radio affiliate for over 20 years and KIRO-TV subsequently became an affiliate of the CBS television network upon signing on. Channel 7 took the CBS affiliation from Tacoma-licensed KTNT-TV (channel 11, now KSTW) prompting that station's owners at the time, the Tacoma News Tribune to file an antitrust lawsuit accusing CBS of having a standing agreement with KIRO to affiliate with the television network before Queen City's permit to build channel 7 was even approved."KTNT antitrust suit asks $15 million of CBS, KIRO, affiliation switch hit." Broadcasting, June 2, 1958, pg. 9. In May 1960, KIRO-TV was forced to share CBS with KTNT-TV as part of a settlement reached between the three parties."CBS' own Northwest compromise." Broadcasting, May 30, 1960, pg. 34. This arrangement lasted for the next two years with KIRO-TV again becoming the market's exclusive CBS affiliate in September 1962."KTNT-TV, CBS to part; KIRO-TV to be primary." Broadcasting, April 30, 1962, pg. 9.
Sale to LDS Church In April 1963, the Deseret News Publishing Company, the for-profit media arm of the Salt Lake City–based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), began purchasing stock in Queen City Broadcasting starting with a 10 percent share from several minority partners including Sen. Magnuson."KIRO minority to Mormons." Broadcasting, April 15, 1963, pg. 5. Six months later the LDS Church purchased an additional 50 percent, giving them majority control of the KIRO stations."Changing hands." Broadcasting, September 9, 1963, pp. 46–47. Along with having earned a handsome return on his original investment of 28 years earlier, Saul Hass subsequently joined the board of the LDS Church's broadcasting subsidiary, which was renamed Bonneville International in 1964."For the record." Broadcasting, August 17, 1964, pg. 90.
Soon after the FCC approved the sale, Bonneville executives Lloyd Cooney and Kenneth L. Hatch arrived in Seattle to lead the renamed KIRO, Inc. division. Upon Cooney's departure to run for U.S. Senate in 1980, Hatch became president, CEO and chairman, positions he held until 1995. Under Hatch's leadership, KIRO, Inc. (which, in addition to KIRO-AM-FM-TV, would later include KING radio and Third Avenue Productions) became one of the nation's premier regional broadcast groups. KIRO's corporate board included many notable leaders including Mary Maxwell (mother of Bill Gates); Pay 'n Save chairman M. Lamont Bean; Washington Mutual chief executive officer Tony Eyring and Gordon B. Hinckley, a future president of the LDS Church. The KIRO stations moved their offices and studios to "Broadcast House" at Third Avenue and Broad Street in Seattle's Belltown district in 1968, where KIRO-TV remains to this day.
Throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s, KIRO-TV still faced competition in some parts of Western Washington from Bellingham-based KVOS-TV (channel 12), which was also then a CBS affiliate. After years of legal challenges and negotiations with CBS and KIRO-TV, KVOS—at the time owned by Wometco Enterprises—began to phase out most CBS programming by 1980. At age 29 in 1979, John Lippman joined KIRO-TV as news director, and he worked there until 1992. During that time, KIRO staff grew increased from 45 to 100, and KIRO-TV was at or near the top of the ratings in the Seattle market for most of the decade.
KVOS retained a nominal affiliation with CBS until 1987 (KVOS gradually became an independent, and is now a Univision affiliate), during which it would run any CBS network programs that were preempted by channel 7.
From CBS to UPN In 1994, CBS found itself without an affiliate in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex after KDFW-TV left the network to become a Fox affiliate as a result of the station's owner, New World Communications, signing an affiliation deal with Fox (it later was purchased outright by the network). Consequently, CBS began to negotiate with Gaylord Broadcasting to secure an affiliation agreement with the independent station it had long owned in Fort Worth, KTVT. As part of the deal, CBS would also affiliate with Gaylord-owned independent KSTW in Tacoma; both KSTW and KTVT had been scheduled to affiliate with The WB Television Network (the network would instead pair up with KTZZ-TV [now KZJO] and KDAF, respectively). The deal was announced on September 15, 1994, and CBS programs that had been preempted by KIRO-TV (such as The Bold and the Beautiful) moved to KSTW soon afterward. Other CBS programs such as The Late Late Show with Tom Snyder were shown on KSTW beginning in January 1995, although the show aired an hour later at 1:35 a.m., whereas other CBS affiliates aired the program directly after the Late Show with David Letterman at 12:35 a.m. Even when channel 11 regained the CBS affiliation for the third time in its history in March 1995, the program continued to air at 1:35 a.m.
Two days before the affiliation switch was announced, Bonneville announced that it would sell KIRO-TV to the Belo Corporation, while retaining ownership of KIRO radio. In addition, in anticipation of the affiliation change, Belo stated that it would run channel 7 as a news-intensive independent station. However, on December 6, the station reached an affiliation deal with another then-forthcoming network, UPN.
More changes descended upon channel 7 after Belo took control of the station on January 31, 1995. The station began carrying UPN programming upon its startup on January 16, 1995; however, until CBS moved completely to KSTW on March 13 of that year, UPN programs generally aired on weekend afternoons, though KIRO-TV did preempt CBS programming so that it could air the series premiere of Star Trek: Voyager in prime time.
Local newscasts on channel 7 expanded during this time to nearly 40 hours each week with expansions to its morning and early evening newscasts to compensate for UPN not having national news programs. Outside of UPN's program offerings, the rest of KIRO-TV's schedule was filled with first-run syndicated talk shows, reality shows, off-network dramas, a couple of off-network sitcoms and movies. This format was unusual for a UPN affiliate (but was becoming standard for a Fox affiliate) as most UPN affiliates had a general entertainment format outside of network programming hours. In 1996, Belo acquired the Providence Journal Company, which owned Seattle's NBC affiliate KING-TV (channel 5). Belo could not own both KING-TV and KIRO-TV under FCC rules at the time, and as a result, the company opted to sell KIRO-TV.
Rejoining CBS Though there was speculation that Belo would swap KIRO-TV to Fox Television Stations in exchange for KSAZ-TV in Phoenix and KTBC-TV in Austin, Texas, Belo announced on February 20, 1997, that it would swap channel 7 to UPN co-owner Viacom's Paramount Stations Group subsidiary (now part of CBS News and Stations), in exchange for KMOV in St. Louis. At the time, Paramount Stations Group was in the process of selling off the CBS and NBC affiliates that it inherited from Viacom through its 1994 purchase of Paramount Pictures.
Concurrently, Paramount/Viacom traded KIRO-TV to Cox Enterprises in exchange for KSTW, just one month after Cox announced it would acquire that station from Gaylord Broadcasting. The trades were completed on June 2, 1997. The two stations retained their respective syndicated programming, but swapped network affiliations once again—with KSTW becoming a UPN owned-and-operated station, and KIRO-TV regaining its CBS affiliation on June 30, 1997.
In February 2019, it was announced that Apollo Global Management would acquire Cox Media Group and Northwest Broadcasting's stations. The sale gave KIRO-TV in-state sisters in Spokane's KAYU-TV, the Tri-Cities' KFFX-TV, and Yakima's KCYU-LD—all of which are Fox affiliates. Although the group planned to operate under the name Terrier Media, it was later announced in June 2019 that Apollo would also acquire Cox's radio and advertising businesses, and retain the Cox Media Group name. The sale was completed on December 17, 2019. The Fox stations were sold off to Imagicomm Communications in August 2022.
Programming Past programming
One of the most famous and longest-running regional children's television programs in the United States, The J.P. Patches Show was produced in-house by KIRO-TV and broadcast steadily from 1958 to 1981. The program starred Chris Wedes as Julius Pierpont Patches, a shabby clown and self-professed mayor of the City Dump and Bob Newman as J.P.'s "girlfriend" Gertrude, in addition to a number of other characters. Nightmare Theatre was KIRO-TV's weekly horror movie series, seen from 1964 to 1978 and hosted by "The Count" (Joe Towey) from 1968 to 1975. Towey, who also directed The J.P. Patches Show, died in 1989.