Today September 10th marks 23 years since Denver's 3 major TV stations switched network affiliations.
The switch happened after Saturday Night Live ended at 12:07AM, it was due to FOX gaining the NFL's NFC Football rights from CBS. It also allowed KDVR to launch a news department 5 years latter.
KCNC was an NBC Owned & Operated Station (NBC Stations Management, Inc) it was sold to Group W/CBS the broadcasting division of Westinghouse. This was not by choice, NBC didn't want to give up KCNC because it was a cash cow for the network, it was one of NBC highest rated stations in the country. But it quickly became clear that CBS would potentially have 2 stations in Philly carrying CBS Programing, 1 carrying ABC and there would be no stations carrying NBC Programing. NBC realized that it had to have a station in Philadelphia, so it reluctantly traded KCNC for WCAU in Philly plus KUTV in Salt Lake City which the network had acquired in December 1994, the KUTV part was added to the deal in August. To compensate NBC for the loss of KYW & KCNC, CBS swapped transmitter facilities in Miami with WTVJ. (WTVJ moved to 6 from 4) moving WCIX to channel 4 & changing it's call letters to WFOR.(WCIX moved to 4 from 6, hence the call letters)
KUSA Picked up NBC by default as ABC had cut an affiliation deal with KMGH & McGraw-Hill in June 1995. NBC Was still fighting to keep KCNC, when they cut a deal with Gannett to make KUSA there station.
After the switch occurred, KCNC saw a huge drop in ratings almost right away. It took until approx 2007 for the station to truly recover from the ratings losses suffered from the loss of NBC, meanwhile KUSA's ratings went through the roof during that period. KMGH also saw a significant ratings improvement with ABC, even though KMGH was one of CBS's higher rated stations in the early 1990s.
KCNC Logo from 1993-1995
KUSA Logo from 1984-1995
KUSA Logo from September 1995-October 1995 (They used a version of this without the peacock from October 1995- January 1999, when the peacock was added to the right hand side.)
KMGH Logo 1991-1995
KMGH Logo from 1995-1997
No comments:
Post a Comment