KTLA (channel 5) is a television station in Los Angeles, California, United States, serving as the West Coast flagship station of The CW. It is the largest directly owned property of the network's parent company, Nexstar Media Group, and is the second-largest operated property after WPIX in New York City. KTLA's studios are located at the Sunset Bronson Studios on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, and its transmitter is located atop Mount Wilson.
KTLA was the first commercially licensed television station in the western United States, having begun operations in January 1947.KCBS-TV originated in 1931 as W6XAO under an experimental license. It was commercially licensed in 1948. Although not as widespread in national carriage as its Chicago sister station WGN-TV, KTLA is available as a superstation via DirecTV and Dish Network (the latter service available only to grandfathered subscribers that had purchased its a la carte superstation tier before Dish halted sales of the package to new subscribers in September 2013), as well as on cable providers in select cities within the southwestern United States and throughout Canada.
As of 2015, KTLA operates a streaming-only news radio channel on iHeartRadio.
History Experimental years The station was licensed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 1939 as experimental station W6XYZ, broadcasting on VHF channel 4; it did not sign on the air until September 1942. The station was originally owned by Paramount Pictures subsidiary Television Productions, Inc., and was based at the Paramount Studios lot. Klaus Landsberg, already an accomplished television pioneer at the age of 26, was the original station manager and engineer.
Early years as a commercially licensed station On January 22, 1947, the station was licensed for commercial broadcasting as KTLA on channel 5, becoming the first commercial television station in California, the first in the city of Los Angeles, the first to broadcast west of the Mississippi River, and the eighth commercial television station in the United States. Estimates of television sets in Los Angeles County at the time ranged from 350 to 600, since experimental station W6XAO (later KTSL and KNXT, now KCBS-TV) was already in operation broadcasting with a regular schedule. Bob Hope served as the emcee for KTLA's inaugural broadcast, titled as The Western Premiere of Commercial Television, which was broadcast live that evening from a garage on the Paramount Studios lot and featured appearances from many Hollywood luminaries. Hope delivered what was perhaps the most famous line of the telecast when, at the program's start, he identified the new station as "KTL" – mistakenly omitting the "A" at the end of the call sign. A 10-minute fragment from KTLA's first broadcast exists at the Paley Center for Media.
KTLA was originally affiliated with the DuMont Television Network, of which Paramount held a minority stake; it disaffiliated from the network in 1948 and converted into an independent station. Despite this, the FCC still considered Paramount as controlling manager of DuMont due to the strength of the company's voting stock and their influence in managing the network.Weinstein, David (2004). The Forgotten Network: DuMont and the Birth of American Television (pp. 24–25). Philadelphia: Temple University. As a result, the agency did not allow DuMont to buy additional VHF stations—a problem that would later play a large role in the failure of DuMont, whose programming was splintered among other Los Angeles stations—including KTSL, KHJ-TV (channel 9, now KCAL-TV), KTTV (channel 11), and KCOP-TV (channel 13)—until the network's demise in 1956. Paramount even launched a short-lived programming service, the Paramount Television Network, in 1948, with KTLA and WBKB-TV (now WBBM-TV) in Chicago serving as its flagship stations.White, Timothy R. (1992). "Hollywood on (Re)Trial: The American Broadcasting-United Paramount Merger Hearing" Cinema Journal, Vol. 31, No. 3. (Spring, 1992), pp. 19–36.Jajkowski, Steve (2001). "Advertising on Chicago Television". Chicago Television History. Retrieved January 10, 2007. The service never gelled into a true television network, but during KTLA's early years, the station produced over a dozen series that were syndicated in much of the U.S., including Armchair Detective, Bandstand Revue, Dixie Showboat, Frosty Frolics, Hollywood Reel, Hollywood Wrestling, Latin Cruise, Movietown, RSVP, Olympic Wrestling, Sandy Dreams, and Time for Beany.
In 1958, KTLA moved its operations into the Paramount Sunset Studios on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. For many years, those who have worked on Stage 6 at KTLA were told that it was the site where Al Jolson's landmark film The Jazz Singer was shot in 1927, when the lot was known as the Warner Bros. Sunset Studios; Mark Evanier, who wrote for one such show in 1978, points out on his website that Stage 6 did not even exist at the time that The Jazz Singer was produced and that it was actually probably filmed at what is now Stage 9. The former Warner Bros./Paramount lot is now known as Sunset Bronson Studios, where KTLA's facility remains based to this day, and where shows such as WKRP in Cincinnati, Judge Judy, Hannah Montana, The Gong Show, Solid Gold, Name That Tune, Family Feud, The Newlywed Game, MADtv and Let's Make a Deal have been produced over the years. KTLA is currently the only Los Angeles area broadcaster that remains based in Hollywood as many other television and radio stations have moved to other parts of the region.
KTLA has the distinction as being the first news station to use a helicopter as a news broadcasting platform. KTLA engineer John D. Silva pioneered the use of a Bell 47G-2 outfitted with transmitters to relay live breaking news back to the KTLA transmitter receiver on Mount Wilson to scoop their competitors, making their first successful in-flight broadcast on July 4, 1958.
Golden West Broadcasters ownership In November 1963, KTLA was purchased by actor and singer Gene Autry for $12 million; upon the sale's finalization in May 1964, Autry merged the station with his other broadcasting properties, including KMPC radio (710 AM, now KSPN) into an umbrella company known as Golden West Broadcasters."Golden West gets KTLA(TV) for $12 million." Broadcasting, November 4, 1963, pp. 68–69. "FCC okays Golden West purchase of KTLA(TV)." Broadcasting, May 18, 1964, pg. 65. During the 1970s, KTLA was uplinked to satellite and became one of the nation's first superstations; the station was eventually carried on cable providers across much of the United States located west of the Mississippi River.
KTLA sought a different programming strategy from its competitors during the late 1960s and 1970s, emphasizing syndicated reruns of off-network hour long dramas with a heavy emphasis on western-themed programs such as The Gene Autry Show, Bonanza, The Big Valley, first-run talk shows, movies, and sports programming. Children's programs, with the exception of weekend morning Popeye cartoons (which originally came from former parent Paramount,Paramount but had been sold off to what became the syndication arm of United Artists Television), were also phased out. Popeye continued Sunday mornings but with only the 1960s King Features episodes. Later in the 1970s, more drama shows like Kung Fu, Wonder Woman and Starsky & Hutch were added. In 1979, KTLA acquired much of the programming inventory of struggling independent competitor KBSC-TV (channel 52, now Telemundo owned-and-operated station KVEA) including The Little Rascals, The Three Stooges, The Munsters, The Addams Family, Gilligan's Island, and Leave It to Beaver, among others. These shows ran weekend mornings and weekend early afternoons. In 1979, KTLA acquired Happy Days, in 1981 Laverne & Shirley, Little House on the Prairie, in 1982 Taxi, and CHiPs, among other shows. The station continued to emphasize hour-long dramas during the day on weekdays, but began to run recent sitcoms in the evenings.
Tribune Broadcasting ownership In November 1982, Golden West sold KTLA to investment firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR) for $245 million."Autry, Signal principal players in record TV deal." Broadcasting, November 1, 1982, pp. 23–24. "KTLA(TV) to change hands in largest station sale ever." Broadcasting, April 4, 1983, pg. 131. In May 1985, KKR sold the station to Chicago-based Tribune Broadcasting, for a then-record price of $510 million, which beat the station's earlier record sale price set by the 1982 acquisition by KKR."$510 million's the mark to beat now." Broadcasting, May 20, 1985, pp. 39–40. "FCC gives go-ahead to KTLA(TV) sale." Broadcasting, October 7, 1985, pg. 32. Under Tribune, KTLA continued to acquire high rated off-network sitcoms as well as talk shows for its schedule.
KTLA became an affiliate of the MGM/UA Premiere Network, a film-based ad hoc television network, with the showing of Clash of the Titans. The station added the syndicated Action Pack programming block to its schedule starting in mid-January 1994.
KTLA spent much of the early and mid-1980s battling KTTV (channel 11) for the spot of the top-rated independent station in Southern California, offering a variety of general entertainment programs including movies, sports and off-network reruns; it took the top spot among the market's independents full-time after KTTV became a Fox charter station upon that network's start-up in October 1986. The station stayed out of the kids' business throughout the 1980s, unlike other Tribune stations but acquired stronger programming like Charles in Charge, Full House, Cheers, Punky Brewster, and Silver Spoons. The station also mixed in a few classic sitcoms weekday early mornings as well as on weekends. In the summer of 1991, the station debuted a two-hour weekday morning newscast. Sitcoms ran on the station 9 a.m. to noon weekdays.
WB affiliation
On November 2, 1993, the Warner Bros. Television division of Time Warner and the Tribune Company announced the formation of The WB Television Network. Due to the company's ownership interest in the network (initially a 12.5% stake, later expanding to 22%), Tribune signed its seven existing independent stations (one such station, Atlanta's WGNX, joined CBS instead one month prior to The WB's launch), along with an eighth that the company had acquired the following year, to serve as The WB's charter affiliates.Warner Bros., Tribune Broadcasting & Jamie Kellner to Launch WB Network in 1994 , TheFreeLibrary.com. Retrieved October 12, 2010.Tribune Broadcasting Joins with Warner Bros. to Launch Fifth Television Network , TheFreeLibrary.com. Retrieved October 12, 2010. With this, KTLA became a network affiliate for the first time in 47 years when The WB launched on January 11, 1995.
Like with other WB-affiliated stations during the network's first four years, KTLA initially continued to essentially program as a de facto independent station as The WB had broadcast only a two-hour prime time schedule on Wednesday nights at the network's launch; the station continued to broadcast films in prime time along with some first-run syndicated scripted series on nights when network programs did not air. The WB would eventually carry prime time shows six nights a week (Sunday through Friday) by September 1999. In September 1995, KTLA added afternoon cartoons and Saturday morning cartoons from the network's newly launched Kids' WB block, bringing weekday children's programs back to channel 5 for the first time in close to 25 years. The station continued use the "Channel 5" brand it used prior to its WB affiliation (with The WB logo simply tacked onto the station's "Gold 5" logo) until 1997, when the station overhauled its on-air branding to "KTLA 5, L.A.'s WB".