KSMO-TV

Infobox_Broadcast
call_letters = KSMO-TV
city =
station_
station_slogan =
station_branding = My KSMO TV
analog = 62 (UHF)
digital = 47 (UHF)
other_chs =
affiliations = MyNetworkTV
CBS (alternate)
network =
founded =
airdate = December 7, 1983
location = Kansas City, Missouri
callsign_meaning = KansaS and MissOuri
(postal abbreviations)
former_callsigns = KEKR-TV (1983-1985)
KZKC (1985-1991)
former_channel_numbers =
owner = Meredith Corporation
licensee =
sister_stations = KCTV
former_affiliations = Independent (1983-1995)
UPN (1995-1998)
The WB (1998-2006)
effective_radiated_power = 1,795 kW (analog)
1,000 kW (digital)
HAAT = 341 m (analog)
356 m (digital)
class =
facility_id = 33336
coordinates = coord|39|5|25.8|N|94|28|19.2|W|type:landmark_scale:2000
homepage = [http://www.myksmotv.com/ myksmotv.com]

KSMO-TV, channel 62, is the MyNetworkTV-affiliated television station for the Kansas City metropolitan area, licensed to the Missouri Kansas City. Its transmitter is located in Independence. Owned by the Meredith Corporation, the station is sister to CBS affiliate KCTV. The two stations share studios on Shawnee Mission Parkway in Fairway, Kansas. KSMO is known on-air as "My KSMO TV". The station runs first-run shows from MyNetworkTV, sitcoms, first-run talk / reality shows, and movies. The station also takes on the responsibility of airing CBS programming whenever KCTV is not able to do so such as in a news-related emergency or the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon.

History

Channel 62 signed on September 12, 1983 as KEKR-TV. Its call letters came from the congressman who helped the station obtain an FCC license. It was locally owned and ran a general entertainment format consisting of cartoons, drama shows, old movies, religious shows, westerns, and sitcoms. The new station's slogan was "Super 62" but the launch was anything but that. It only had three local commercials on its first day of operation that included: a "Candelite Music" LP collection of Elvis songs, a "Candelite" collection of country songs, and an ad for a modeling school. These commercials ran in nearly every break if the station was not showing a slide of their logo. The picture was substandard with a mysterious black bar at the top of most programs and commercials. In 1985, the station was sold to Media Central and renamed KZKC. It added more sitcoms and movies and moved away from religious shows.

The station experimented with a "complete and uncut" gimmick for airing movies. That policy led to trouble when the station ran a sex comedy called "Private Lessons" and was fined by the FCC after a viewer complaint about frontal nudity. The violation made TV Guide's annual J. Fred Muggs awards (a list of those in television who "made monkeys of themselves"). The station remained unprofitable and was later sold to Abry in 1988 and later renamed KSMO in 1991. The new ownership put ballots in the local television guide asking for programming advice, hence the checkmark in the "O" of KSMO's new logo. Under Abry, the station began to turn a profit. It failed to land the Fox affiliation which went to KSHB-TV but held its own with a syndication lineup of cartoons, sitcoms, a few talk, reality shows, and movies. KSMO picked up some of KSHB's programming (including Fox Kids) in 1994 after KSHB became an NBC affiliate and the new Fox affiliate, WDAF-TV, opted for Saturday morning news.

That year, Abry merged with the Sinclair Broadcast Group. KSMO took the UPN affiliation starting on January 16, 1995. However, it still essentially programmed as an independent station since UPN only provided programming for a few nights out of the week at that time. KSMO became a WB affiliate in January of 1998 after Sinclair cut an affiliation deal with The WB switching most of its independent stations and UPN affiliates to that network. The former WB affiliate KCWB, now KCWE, would not pick up the UPN affiliation for another month. Meredith Corporation bought the station in 2005 and made KSMO a sister station to CBS affiliate KCTV. On January 24, 2006, The WB and UPN announced that they would cease broadcasting and merge. The new 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.

On February 22, News Corporation announced that they would start up another new broadcast television network called MyNetworkTV. The new network, which would be sister to Fox, would be operated by Fox Television Stations and its syndication division, Twentieth Television. MyNetworkTV was created in order to give UPN and WB stations, not mentioned as becoming CW affiliates, another option besides becoming independent. It was also created to compete against The CW. It was confirmed on March 7 that KCWE would become Kansas City's CW affiliate after an announcement by the network and channel 29's owner, Hearst-Argyle Television. Two days later, on March 9, KSMO was announced as Kansas City's MyNetworkTV affiliate and branded as "My KSMO TV". The last day WB programming aired on KSMO was on September 4. It continued to air WB daytime programming until September 15. KCWE began broadcasting The CW on September 18. Since MyNetworkTV does not air programming on Sunday nights, KSMO normally airs movies from 7 to 9 P.M., or on occasion, CBS programming during times when KCTV is unable to do so usually during breaking news alerts.

Newscasts

In the fall of 2005, KCTV began producing a nightly 9 o'clock newscast for KSMO to compete with WDAF's 9 P.M. newscast. Eventually, an hour long extention of KCTV's weekday morning news was added to KSMO.

"KCTV 5 More in the Morning"
"(Weekday Mornings 7 to 8 A.M.)"
*Anchors:
**Chris Pisano
**Carolyn Long
*Weather:
**Gary Amble
*Traffic:
**Randy Miller

"KCTV 5 News at 9" "(9 to 9:30 P.M)"
"Weeknights"
*Anchors:
**Brad Stephens
**Karen Fuller
*Weather:
**Katie Horner
*Sports (broadcasted out of Metro Sports):
**Leif Lisec

"Weekends"
*Anchors:
**Craig Nigrelli
**Amy Anderson
*Weather:
**Devon Lucie
*Sports (broadcasted out of Metro Sports):
**Erin Bajackson

"KSMO uses additional news personnel from KCTV. See that atricle for a complete listing."

Trivia

*KSMO-TV's former KZKC callsign was used in fictional form on the sitcom Malcolm and Eddie (which was set in Kansas City). KZKC was the name of the fictional radio station where Malcolm-Jamal Warner's character Malcolm McGee worked during the first couple of seasons of the show. Ironically, when the series went on the air in 1996, KSMO was an affiliate of UPN, the network which carried Malcolm and Eddie, though the KZKC callsign was changed to the current calls five years earlier.

External links

* [http://www.myksmotv.com/ KSMO-TV/DT]
* [http://www.kctv.com KCTV channel 5]
*TVQ|KSMO