KRCW-TV

KRCW-TV

Salem / Portland, Oregon
Branding	NW 32 TV (general, pronounced as "Northwest Thirty-Two TV") NewsChannel 8 (newscasts)
Channels	Digital: 33 (UHF) Virtual: 32 (PSIP)
Subchannels	32.1 The CW 32.2 Antenna TV 32.3 Universal Sports
Translators	KRCW-LP 5 (VHF) Portland
Owner	Tribune Company (Tribune Broadcast Holdings, Inc.)
First air date	May 8, 1989
Call letters' meaning	Rose City CW
Former callsigns	KUTF (1989-1992) KEBN (1992-1995) KWBP (1995-2006)
Former channel number(s)	Analog: 32 (UHF, 1989-2009)
Former affiliations	Independent (1989-1995) The WB (1995-2006) The Tube (on DT2, 2006-2007)
Transmitter power	1,000 kW
Height	523 m
Facility ID	10192
Transmitter coordinates	45°30′58″N 122°43′58″W / 45.51611°N 122.73278°W / 45.51611; -122.73278
Website	nw32.com

KRCW-TV is the CW-affiliated television station for Portland, Oregon that is licensed to Salem. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 33 from a transmitter in the Sylvan-Highlands section of Portland. Owned by the Tribune Company, KRCW has studios on Southwest Arctic Drive in Beaverton. Syndicated programming on the station includes: Seinfeld, Two and a Half Men, Family Guy, and Friends. It operates a low-powered repeater, KRCW-LP channel 5, that has a transmitter co-located with KRCW's digital signal.

History

The station was launched on May 8, 1989 under the call sign KUTF which stood for "Keep Up The Faith" with its original transmitter located outside Molalla. The programming was almost entirely religious. It was originally operated by Dove Broadcasting then sold to Eagle Broadcasting on July 17, 1991. On February 11, 1992, the call sign was changed to KEBN for "Eagle Broadcasting Network". The previous KUTF calls now reside on the TeleFutura affiliate in Logan, Utah. On April 26, 1992 it was announced KEBN was moving in a non-religious programming direction as "Oregon's New Eagle 32". On October 1, the station went off the air but returned on September 5, 1994 airing a number of infomercials, public domain movies, and brokered shows in an eight hour day (it expanded to 24 hours by Labor Day of that year). James R. McDonald owned the station via Channel 32, Inc.

KWBP logo under ACME ownership used until 2003.

KEBN became a charter The WB affiliate on January 11, 1995 and changed its call letters to KWBP to reflect its new affiliation on October 2. By the Fall of that year, bartered syndicated programming (including cartoons and some older sitcoms and dramas) were added to the station's schedule. It also relayed the O. J. Simpson trial from future sister station KTLA in Los Angeles. KWBP was soon able to purchase new-to-syndication programming adding other sitcoms and talk shows to its lineup starting in 1996. It grew even further after being purchased by ACME Communications in 1997. At that point, a low-power relay, KWBP-LP (originally on channel 4 but now on channel 5) was established in Downtown Portland to address signal issues in that area.

KWBP logo after purchase by Tribune used from 2003-2006.

On December 30, 2002, ACME sold KWBP and KPLR-TV in St. Louis, Missouri to the Tribune Company for $270 million ($70 million of which was declared as the purchase price for KWBP). This station's ratings increased following some key programming moves done by both ACME and Tribune. It was also helped in part by the decline of KPDX after its flip to UPN that Fall. Since Tribune was a part-owner of The WB, KWBP was considered to have been a WB owned-and-operated station.

On January 24, 2006, The WB and UPN announced they would end broadcasting and merge. The newly combined network would be called The CW. The letters would represent the first initial of its corporate parents: CBS (the parent company of UPN) and the Warner Bros. unit of Time Warner. The merger took effect on-air on September 18 and KWBP was announced as Portland's CW affiliate. KPDX (owned by the Meredith Corporation) is now affiliated with MyNetworkTV another new network created by News Corporation as a result of the formation of The CW.

KRCW "Portland's CW" logo used from 2006-2009.

On September 16, KWBP changed its call letters to the current "KRCW". Today, it is the over-the-air television station for the Seattle Mariners in the Portland market. Unlike its CW sister stations owned by Tribune, this station did not do away with its current logo and branding to de-emphasize the network. That changed on April 6, 2009 as KRCW is now re-branded as "NW 32 TV". Its website was also changed.

KRCW-LP

In 1993, a small low-power station by the call letters K04OG was launched. It was licensed to Reedville with a transmitter on Cooper Mountain and aired America One programming. Originally broadcasting on channel 4, then-KWBP-LP moved to channel 5 when Paxson Communications petitioned the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to move KPXG's digital signal from channel 20 to channel 4. On December 1, 1998, the call letters were changed to KENY-LP to reflect the founder of the station, Kenny J. Seymour. In 2000, KENY was bought by ACME Communications and became a repeater station for KWBP. The transmitter was moved to Sylvan-Highlands to provide better coverage to the Downtown Portland area. The station changed its calls to KWBP-LP. In 2006, to coincide with its parent call letter change, the repeater became KRCW-LP.

Digital programming

The digital signal of KRCW-TV is multiplexed in the following manner:

Channel	Video	Programming
32.1	1080i	Main KRCW programming / The CW
32.2	480i	Antenna TV
32.3		Universal Sports

In addition to KRCW's main channel, channel 32.3 (Universal Sports) is carried on local digital cable systems (Comcast channel 303 and Frontier FiOS digital channel 463) and channel 32.2 (Antenna TV) is carried on Comcast channel 304 and Frontier FiOS digital channel 462.

Translators

In addition to its rebroadcast on KRCW-LP, KRCW-TV is repeated on the following low-power translator stations:

Call letters	Channel	City of license
K16GA	16	Hood River
K20ES	20	Pendleton
K24DX	24	Monument
K26FG	26	Wasco
K31GN	31	La Grande
K31HK	31	Longview, Washington
K50IK	50	Newport

Future Translators

Call letters	Channel	City of license
K16GI	16	Tillamook
K21GY	21	Nehalem
K35HE	35	The Dalles
K39HO	39	Astoria

Newscasts

Image from KRCW's news opening sequence.

KRCW produces local news and weather cut-ins under the name Portland's Morning News for the nationally-broadcast Eye Opener program. Premiering to the Portland market on November 14, 2011, Portland's Morning News features anchor Ken Ackerman in the studio and meteorologist Tim Joyce in the weather center.

In addition to Portland's Morning News, KRCW features primetime news broadcasts from NBC affiliate KGW. From 2003 until 2005, KGW produced a nightly 10 o'clock newscast called Northwest NewsChannel 8 at 10 on PAX for the area's affiliate, KPXG (which is now with Ion Television). It moved over to KWBP on October 3, 2005. Renamed as Northwest NewsChannel 8 at 10 on Portland's WB, it was the first news of any kind on this station since its inception. The program title was changed on September 18, 2006 when KRCW made the affiliation switch to The CW. On January 21, 2008, KGW became the first station in the Portland market to broadcast its newscasts in high definition and the KRCW broadcast was included in the upgrade.

The prime time production originates from KGW's studios on Southwest Jefferson Street in Downtown Portland and competes with the 10 o'clock broadcast that airs on Fox affiliate KPTV. KGW advertises the KRCW newscast as having the most important news of the day along with an updated weather forecast in the first ten minutes of the program. In turn, KPTV promotes its broadcast as having the first weather forecast at 10. The KGW news on KRCW is a similar operation to the Tribune-outsourced news that airs on sister-station WPHL-TV.

KGW NewsChannel 8 at 10 on NW 32 TV (10 to 10:30 p.m.)
Weeknights

• Anchors
  • Joe Donlon
  • Laural Porter
• Weather:
  • Matt Zaffino
• Sports:
  • Michael Berk

Weekends

• Anchor:
  • Wayne Havrelly
• Weather:
  • Rod Hill
• Sports:
  • Joe Becker

KRCW features additional news personnel from KGW. See that article for a complete listing.

External links

• KRCW-TV "NW 32 TV"
• KGW "NewsChannel 8"
• Query the FCC's TV station database for KRCW-TV
• Query the FCC's TV station database for KRCW-LP