KNXV-TV

Infobox_Broadcast
call_letters = KNXV-TV
city =
station_
station_slogan = Make the Switch to ABC 15
ABC 15, Your Valley News Leader
station_branding = ABC 15 (general)
ABC 15 News (newscasts)
analog = 15 (UHF)
digital = 56 (UHF)| other_chs = (see article)
affiliations = ABC
network =
founded =
airdate = September 9, 1979
location = Phoenix, Arizona
callsign_meaning = New Broadcasting Company
(original owner)
XV (15)
former_callsigns =
former_channel_numbers =
owner = E. W. Scripps Company
licensee = Scripps Howard Broadcasting Company
sister_stations =
former_affiliations = Primary:
independent (1979-1986)
ON-TV (1979-1983?)
Fox (1986-1994)
Secondary:
ABC (secondary 1994-January 1995)
effective_radiated_power = 750 kW (analog)
500 kW (digital)| HAAT = 521 m (analog)
509 m (digital)| class =
facility_id = 59440
coordinates = coord|33|19|59.9|N|112|3|48.4|W|type:landmark_scale:2000
homepage = [http://www.abc15.com/ www.abc15.com]

KNXV-TV, channel 15, is the ABC television affiliate in Phoenix, Arizona. Its transmitter is located on South Mountain in Phoenix. It can be seen on Channel 15 in Phoenix and can be viewed in Northern Arizona, albeit on different channels due to different transmitter locations.

History

On September 9, 1979, KNXV-TV came to life under pioneering UHF broadcaster Ed Cooperstein, doing business as the New Broadcasting Company. Its programming originally consisted of first-run and off-network syndicated shows and children's programming during the day, and the ON-TV Subscription Television service in the evening and late-night hours. One of the station's most memorable early promotions was the "Bluebird of Happy News," with the voice of Elroy "Buzz" Towers in a helicopter taking jabs at local news on other stations. An early station master control/videotape operator was the voice of "Buzz".

ON-TV lasted a couple years until cable television began to prosper across the Phoenix area. KNXV eventually became a full-time independent station, and ran a number of cartoons, old sitcoms, old movies, and drama shows. It pulled mediocre ratings, and lagged behind longtime independent station KPHO 5. Cooperstein sold the station to The E. W. Scripps Company in 1984, and the deal was closed in early 1985.

Under Scripps, KNXV began to purchase more recent sitcoms, often outbidding KPHO for strong shows. Scripps Howard also promised local newscasts would be added to the station, and as a result the station gained the FOX affiliation at the network's inception in 1986. The first offering from the FOX network was an evening talk show hosted by Joan Rivers. KNXV kicked off the affiliation with a promotional campaign centered around the slogan "Light Up The Night With Late Night Fireworks".

Also in 1986, KNXV began producing "Friday Night At The Frights" starring Edmus Scarey (real name Ed Muscare), decidedly campy B-movie wrap arounds. Ed Muscare had previously hosted shows for KNXV's Scripps owned sister station KSHB-TV in Kansas City. Stuart Powell, General Manager of KNXV in the late eighties, coaxed Mr. Muscare out of retirement. Muscare abruptly left the air under cloudy circumstances, which eventually became a front page story for the Phoenix based New Times weekly newspaper.

By 1990, KNXV nearly tied KPHO in the ratings, even though the station still produced no local news.

Becoming an ABC affiliate

It was announced in 1994 that longtime CBS affiliate KSAZ-TV was to become a Fox affiliate. The CBS affiliation, in turn, moved to KPHO, leaving KNXV without an affiliation. As a result, Scripps began to negotiate an affiliation agreement with ABC. In order for Scripps to keep ABC on Scripps' two biggest stations, WXYZ-TV in Detroit and WEWS-TV in Cleveland, ABC agreed to affiliate with KNXV (along with WMAR in Baltimore and WFTS in Tampa; WCPO-TV in Cincinnati was also part of the Scripps/ABC deal, but had to wait for ABC's affiliation contract with WKRC-TV to expire in June 1996 to switch), thus displacing longtime ABC affiliate KTVK. In turn, KNXV agreed to produce the same amount of local news as KTVK had been as an ABC affiliate. KNXV also agreed to not pre-empt any ABC programming except for local news emergencies.

ABC's affiliation agreement with KTVK did not expire until late 1994, but KTVK had already begun to drop ABC shows. As a result, the ABC affiliation migrated to KNXV in stages, and the station carried programming from both ABC and Fox for a while-with ABC as a temporary secondary affiliation (of note, KECY-TV in Yuma currently carries Fox primary and ABC on a digital subchannel). "Good Morning America" was the first ABC program shown on KNXV, following the first round of changes at the end of August 1994. KNXV then picked up "World News Now", "Nightline", and ABC's Saturday morning cartoons in December. The rest of ABC's programming moved to KNXV in January 1995. KNXV kept about one third of its syndicated programming, with much of the rest moving to KTVK (and eventually ending up on KASW), KSAZ and KUTP.

By 1995, KNXV was running newscasts at 6-7 a.m., 11 a.m., 5 p.m., 6 p.m. and 10 p.m..

In subsequent years, KNXV added more first-run syndicated shows. The station added Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! in 2004 (taken from independent station KTVK, itself having taken those shows from KSAZ [while Channel 10 was still CBS and under the KTSP call letters] ). Today, KNXV is a fairly typical ABC affiliate, producing a decent amount of local news.

KNXV has begun installations at its transmission facilities which will double the station's digital / high definition signal output power. Work began in June 2005.

KNXV has also added a 4pm newscast, the first in the market. This newscast was created on 11 September 2006 to complement the new season of Jeopardy!, which it precedes. Before this, a Jeopardy! rerun was shown in the 4pm timeslot.

In June of 2007, the station became the fourth in Arizona (after KPNX, KTVK, and KVOA in Tucson) to produce high-definition newscasts, with new HD graphics created by Renderon Broadcast Design.

ABC News anchor Bob Woodruff worked in this station before going national.

KNXV also airs preseason games of the National Football League's Arizona Cardinals. During the 2007 Little League World Series, this caused a conflict with ABC's coverage of one of the preliminary-round games. The plan was to move the baseball game to ESPN, thereby interrupting the national feed on Cox Communications and other cable providers in the market. Those getting KNXV by way of satellite would watch the baseball game on an alternate channel. Meanwhile, the Cardinals would play the Houston Texans in a preseason game on KNXV beginning at 1 p.m. local time. KNXV would then rebroadcast the LLWS game on tape delay at about 4:30 p.m. that afternoon. [cite web |url=http://www.littleleague.org/media/tv_lineup_07.asp |title=What’s on TV? Little League Dominates August Lineup |work=Little League Online |date=2007-08-01 |accessdate=2007-11-04]

Helicopter crash

On July 27 2007 at around 12:45pm Mountain Standard Time, helicopters from KNXV-TV and KTVK collided above Steele Indian School Park, near Third Street and Indian School Road, after following a police car pursuit in downtown Phoenix. [cite web |title=4 Dead As 2 Helicopters Tracking Police Pursuit Collide |date=2007-07-27 |url=http://www.kpho.com/news/13770683/detail.html |work=KPHO-TV website |accessdate=2007-07-27] All four people on both helicopters were killed, including KNXV pilot Craig Smith and photographer Rick Krolak. [cite web |title=4 dead in ABC15, Channel 3 chopper crash |date=2007-07-28 |url=http://www.abc15.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=3440f3ba-b741-47ee-948b-d82997dcdeda |work=KNXV-TV website |accessdate=2007-07-28 ] The ABC15 helicopter was broadcasting live at the time of the collision and footage of this broadcast subsequently circulated on media-sharing sites such as YouTube. The cause of the crash is being investigated.

Digital television

The station's digital channel is multiplexed:

Analog-to-digital conversion

After the analog television shutdown and digital conversion, which is scheduled to take place on February 17, 2009 http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-06-1082A2.pdf] , KNXV-TV will move its digital broadcasts back to its present analog channel number, 15. [http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/ws.exe/prod/cdbs/forms/prod/cdbsmenu.hts?context=25&appn=101257182&formid=387&fac_num=59440 CDBS Print ] ]

On-air

Anchors

*Bill Bellis, Chief Meteorologist (NWA/AMS)
*Jennifer Burgess, Weathercaster; Daybreak Anchor; General Assignment Reporter
*Rich Dahlquist, Weekend Meteorologist (AMS-CBM)
*Lori Jane Gliha, Weekend Co-Anchor/Reporter
*Craig Fouhy, Weeknight Sports Anchor/Reporter/Sports Director
*Jeff Heisner, Weekend Sports Anchor/Reporter
*Steve Irvin, 4PM, 5PM, 6PM, & 10PM Anchor/Reporter
*Kaley O'Kelley, Daybreak Weathercaster/Sonoran Living Live Contributor & Co-Executive Producer
*Katie Raml, 4PM, 5PM, 6PM, & 10PM Anchor/Reporter
*Rebecca Thomas, Daybreak Anchor
*Stephanie Sandoval, Sonoran Living Host & Co-Executive Producer; Substitute Daybreak Anchor

Reporters

* Tony Arranaga
* Nicole Beyer
* Christina Boomer
* Joe Ducey
* Angie Holdsworth
* Fritz Holley (Day Break/Evening Chopper 15 Pilot/Reporter)
* Chris Kline( Web Reporter)
* Jose Miguel
* Daphne Munro(Smart Shopper Reporter)
* Corey Rangel
* Mary Ellen Resendez
* Christopher Sign
* Tim Vetscher
* Josh Bernstein. [cite web |url=http://washington.bizjournals.com/sacramento/stories/2007/11/05/newscolumn1.html |author=Melanie Turner |title=KCRA's Bernstein moving on to bigger market |work=Sacramento Business Journal |date=2007-11-02 |accessdate=2007-11-04]

Past personalities

*Andi Barness, Daybreak Anchor/Traffic Reporter/Sonoran Living Live contributor
*Marc Bailey, Anchor; 1995-1998; now at XETV-TV in San Diego
*Manuel Bojorquez, General Assignment Reporter; serving in the same capacity for WSB-TV in Atlanta (September 2006-present)
*Kim Dillon, Meteorologist; To early 2000s; Moved to KTVK, but terminated following conviction on theft charges in Phoenix, Arizona.
*Jonathan Elias, Anchor; 2002-2007; moved to WBZ-TV in Boston in June 2007
*Christina Estes, General Assignment Reporter. Started own public relations business.
*Lisa Fletcher, Anchor; 2002-2007; now a national correspondent for ABC News
*Darya Folsom, Anchor; now at KRON-TV, San Francisco
*Kaj Goldberg, Weekend Weather Anchor from 2005 - 2007; moved to KCBS-TV in Los Angeles
*Tracy Kornet, Daybreak Co-Anchor, co-host of Sonoran Living Live; a lifestyle program following ABC 15 Daybreak weekdays; now weeknight Anchor at KTXA
*Rob Koebel, General Assignment Reporter until 2004; terminated after revelations that he violated ethical standards by running a story favorable to Sheriff Joe Arpaio during his reelection campaign. It was also revealed that Koebel made financial contribution to Arpaio's campaign. [cite web|url=http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2007-01-25/news/boob-s-tube/|title=Boob's Tube: Here's how publicity hound Joe Arpaio used a TV station to try to destroy rival Dan Saban with a bogus rape claim|last=Rubin|first=Paul|date=25 January, 2007|work=Phoenix New Times|publisher=Village Voice Media|language=English|accessdate=2008-09-25]
*Tony Kovaleski, Investigative Reporter 1994-1997; moved to KPRC in Houston and KMGH in Denver
*Kris Long, Anchor; currently Anchor/Managing Editor at KPSP-LP Palm Springs, CA
*Christi Paul, Anchor, General Assignment Reporter, Weather Presenter; now a CNN Headline News anchor based in Atlanta, Georgia
*Cary Pfeffer, Weekend Reporter/Anchor; To 2006; Started own communication business. Occasionally presenting Horizon program on KAET.
*Craig Smith, Chopper15 Pilot/Morning Reporter; killed in a helicopter crash on July 27, 2007.
*Ken Smith, Chopper15 Pilot/Reporter; currently the helicopter reporter at KLAS-TV in Las Vegas
*Amy Troy, Weekend Anchor/Reporter, 2002-2005, moved to KGW-TV in Portland, OR in 2005.
*Bob Woodruff, General Assignment Reporter; To 1996; Co-anchored ABC World News briefly in 2006 before being seriously injured during an explosion in Iraq.

Logos

tation name and slogan over the years

*We're # (number) Fun (1979-early 1980s)
*"FOX15" (1988-1994)
*"ABC News15 - No Chit-Chat, More News" (mid 1990s)
*"News15: We Won't Waste Your Time" (1990s)
*"ABC15" (No Slogan Afterwards) (to early 2000s)
*"ABC15, Your Valley News Leader" (2002-present)
*"Make the Switch to ABC15" (2005-Present)
*"Always On." (website promotion, present)

Translators

* [http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/tvq?call=K29EC K29EC] Blythe, California
* [http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/tvq?call=K49EU K49EU] Chloride
* [http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/tvq?call=K44CN K44CN] Cottonwood
* [http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/tvq?call=K41BZ K41BZ] Dolan Springs
* [http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/tvq?call=K52CM K52CM] Flagstaff
* [http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/tvq?call=K44DK K44DK] Kingman
* [http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/tvq?call=K57FY K57FY] Kingman
* [http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/tvq?call=K39FV K39FV] Lake Havasu City
* [http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/tvq?call=K38GR K38GR] Meadview
* [http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/tvq?call=K31HY K31HY] Needles, California / Bullhead City
* [http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/tvq?call=K47DJ K47DJ] Prescott
* [http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/tvq?call=K59BP K59BP] Verde Valley/Camp Verde

Notes

* KNXV is the 3rd station in the Phoenix market to air Jeopardy! & Wheel of Fortune. The 2 shows were first seen on KSAZ from 1983/1984-1994, then on KTVK from 1994-2004.

References

External links

* [http://www.abc15.com/ ABC 15 Website]
*TVQ|KNXV-TV
*BIA|KNXV|TV|TV
*TitanTV|KNXV
* [http://www.youtube.com/v/s1PgIlSoM5U YouTube: Transition from KNXV commercial programming to ON-TV service]
* [http://video.ap.org/v/Legacy.aspx?partner=en-ap&g=e1d10fc7-0e67-4e80-8d4d-d1e0ed78c015&t=m318&p=ENAPus_ENAPus&f=VACUL& Raw video of KNXV helicopter crash as witnessed by pilot-reporter Don Hooper of Fox 10 News] .
* [http://www.abc15.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=86CFE3A8-0646-4477-AFF8-1A8A14558AD0 Obituary of Craig Smith]
* [http://www.abc15.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=F32361C0-4790-4C78-979F-BFFCFBA7D0AB Obituary of Rick Krolak]