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Wikipedia

KDNL-TV

August 21, 2023

KDNL-TV (channel 30) is a television station in St. Louis, Missouri, United States, affiliated with ABC. Owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, the station maintains studios at the University Tower in the suburb of Richmond Heights and a transmitter in Shrewsbury.

KDNL-TV
Channels
BrandingABC 30
Programming
Affiliations
Ownership
Owner
History
FoundedJune 1966
First air date
June 8, 1969 (54 years ago) (1969-06-08)
Former channel number(s)
Analog: 30 (UHF, 1969–2009)
Technical information
Licensing authority
FCC
Facility ID56524
ERP1,000 kW
HAAT320.5 m (1,051.5 ft)
Transmitter coordinates38°34′50″N 90°19′45″W / 38.58056°N 90.32917°W / 38.58056; -90.32917
Links
Public license information
  • Public file
  • LMS
Websiteabcstlouis.com

Channel 30 in St. Louis was sought on several occasions in the 1950s and early 1960s, though no station materialized. The fourth attempt to build the channel was originally spearheaded by a group of local investors as well as Washington attorney John Dean; after the construction permit for KDNL-TV was sold to Thomas Mellon Evans, the station began broadcasting on June 8, 1969. It served as the second independent station for the St. Louis area, airing syndicated reruns as well as financial news and sports. Cox Broadcasting purchased KDNL-TV in 1981, in part because it held a permit for over-the-air subscription television broadcasting. Cox launched this service on June 1982, but it was a business failure, and Cox shut it down in February 1983. The station continued to be an overall money-loser and a misfit in the Cox station portfolio, even though it became the first local affiliate of Fox in 1986.

Barry Baker and Larry Marcus, former executives of rival independent KPLR-TV who were fired for trying to buy the station, purchased KDNL-TV from Cox in 1989. It became the first station in a St. Louis-based company eventually known as River City Broadcasting, which soon acquired other independent and Fox-affiliated stations. Ratings and revenue improved with the success of the Fox network, with total viewership approaching KPLR-TV, and led the station to start a local news department in January 1995. Under a deal announced in 1994 but carried out in August 1995, KDNL-TV lost its Fox affiliation and switched with KTVI to become the affiliate of ABC in St. Louis.

In 1996, River City merged into Sinclair Broadcast Group. However, KDNL's news department failed to gain traction, hurt by the traditionally poor ratings for ABC programming in the market; high turnover in news talent; a lack of full-day news service; and the resistance to change of many St. Louis viewers. In 1999, Baker left Sinclair and assigned an option to purchase KDNL-TV and six Sinclair-owned radio stations in St. Louis to Emmis Communications; the option resulted in a lawsuit settled with Sinclair retaining the TV station and selling off the radio properties. More critically, it led to neglect of the station's transmitter facility, causing signal issues, and the suspension of early evening newscasts for the struggling news operation. In the wake of the advertising slump after the September 11 attacks, Sinclair closed the KDNL-TV news department in 2001 and laid off all 47 staff. Since then, the station has largely been the fourth- or fifth-rated station in the market, with two short-lived and outsourced attempts at local news programming since the 2001 newsroom closure.

Channel 30 prior to KDNL-TV

Three different attempts were made to start channel 30 in St. Louis. The assignment was added in 1952 when the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ended its four-year freeze on new television stations and introduced assignments in the new ultra high frequency (UHF) band.[1] Applications were filed by the Empire Coil Company and the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod for the channel,[2] with the latter receiving the construction permit in February 1953 after Empire Coil withdrew.[3] The church planned to run KFUO-TV as a noncommercial station in conjunction with its existing radio station.[4] While it initially planned an early 1954 start,[4] the station project was said to still be in consideration by February 1954,[5] and the church surrendered the permit for cancellation in January 1956 after finding the potential for a UHF station poor.[6]

In September 1956, the Plaza Radio and Television Company of New York applied for channel 30.[7] Plaza also applied for authority to broadcast subscription television (STV) programming using the proposed station. The FCC indicated it would need to hold hearings to determine whether the channel should be awarded, even though no other group was seeking channel 30, because Plaza was also sitting on a permit for channel 26 in San Francisco.[8] This application and another for a station in Detroit were dismissed by the FCC in September 1958.[9]

Pre-construction

For the third time, channel 30 in St. Louis was sought when Washington, D.C.–based Globe Television Corporation filed to build the station in June 1964. The two leading stockholders in Globe were lawyers: Vincent B. Welch and Edward P. Morgan of the Washington firm of Welch, Mott & Morgan.[10] Welch had founded the communications law firm in 1946,[11] and Welch and Morgan were applying for new television stations nationwide, including Minneapolis; Columbus, Ohio; and Henderson, Nevada. The Welch–Morgan group was awarded the St. Louis permit and stations in Miami and San Jose, California, in October 1964.[12][13] Globe Television renamed itself the Continental Summit Television Corporation after the permit was awarded; in June 1965, the company requested an extension of time to build. It stated that the Missouri Pacific Building, its intended transmitter site, was inadequate, as downtown office buildings interfered with the signal in the Illinois portion of the metropolitan area. It also requested that its application be switched from channel 30 to 24, which was inserted as part of a national overhaul of the UHF table of allocations that year.[14][a]

Boyd Fellows, the former general manager of educational station KETC and assistant to the president of Continental, then left that company to become the president of a new firm seeking channel 30, the Greater St. Louis Television Corporation. Other officers included a Black dentist, Dr. Benjamin F. Davis, and a Washington attorney, John Dean; his then-wife, Karla Hennings, was also a stockholder.[17] Dean had participated in the formation of Greater St. Louis Television Corporation in January, while he was still employed by Welch & Morgan; when the firm found out about the work, it dismissed Dean for what Welch called "unethical conduct". Though characterizations of his dismissal varied, one former associate told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that he was ordered to leave immediately and not given time to pack up his belongings.[18] This story came to light during the Watergate hearings, during which Dean was a crucial witness as to the cover-up of the Watergate scandal, and was first reported by syndicated columnist Jack Anderson.[16][18]

The Greater St. Louis Television Corporation received the construction permit for channel 30 on June 7, 1966,[19] and took the call sign KDNL-TV.[20]

Evans Broadcasting ownership

Citing "unanticipated difficulties and unexpected changed circumstances", the stockholders of Greater St. Louis Television Corporation filed in April 1968 to sell the construction permit to financier Thomas Mellon Evans.[21] The transfer was granted by the FCC in late July.[22] At the time, Evans was in the middle of a push into UHF television, buying dormant construction permits for stations from Dallas to Worcester, Massachusetts.[23]

Under Evans, construction activity finally commenced. The former studios of KMOX-TV at 13th and Cole streets were acquired to house channel 30, while the station was approved to build a tower in Shrewsbury, on land that was part of the Kenrick Seminary of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Louis.[24][25] In April, a 1,100-foot (340 m) mast began rising on the site.[26]

KDNL-TV debuted on June 8, 1969. Its program schedule was dominated by syndicated reruns of former network shows as well as a daytime financial news program, TV 30 Financial Observer.[27][28] Channel 30 was the first station built by the newly formed Evans Broadcasting Corporation, which had plans to start activating additional stations.[29] KDNL-TV trailed the established independent station in the St. Louis market, KPLR-TV, and had less than half of its audience share as of July 1972.[30]

In 1977, KDNL added coverage of St. Louis Blues hockey road games,[31] which aired through the 1980–81 season; after that, the games moved to KSDK (channel 5).[32]

Evans made one attempt at expanding the reach of KDNL-TV deeper into Illinois. In June 1979, a subsidiary company, Southern Illinois Broadcasting Corporation, was granted the permit to build channel 13 at Mount Vernon, Illinois, for which it had filed two years prior. However, the Evans proposal attracted protests from southern Illinois residents who feared the channel would merely be used to rebroadcast KDNL-TV programming and wanted to see a full-fledged local station for their area.[33] A farmer in Salem, Illinois, went as far as to refuse to lease her land for transmitter site construction when she learned of Evans's plans for channel 13.[34] Though Evans had secured another site and even shipped the 1,000-foot (300 m) tower to Salem to be erected, the FCC responded to the residents' concerns by rescinding the permit grant in November 1979. In February 1980, citing the potential for years of litigation, it withdrew its attempt to build channel 13.[35]

In April 1976, Evans Broadcasting applied for authority to broadcast over-the-air subscription television (STV) programming using KDNL-TV.[20] The application languished because another company, Midwest St. Louis, had filed for channel 24 and proposed the same type of programming, and at the time the FCC only permitted one STV station per market.[36] Despite that, the possibility of reaching the large, then-uncabled St. Louis market with pay TV programming excited interest from buyers in the STV space. Time Inc., which through its American Television and Communications unit had cable and pay TV operations, entered into negotiations to purchase the station from Evans.[37] Evans reached an agreement to sell the station to Buford Television, a Texas company in the process of moving into subscription programming with stations such as WBTI in Cincinnati, in September 1979.[38] With that sale pending, in February 1980, the FCC granted subscription authority to KDNL-TV.[39] Though the FCC granted the Buford deal on April 30, the agreement was withdrawn on May 8.[20]

Cox Broadcasting ownership

Evans announced in March 1981 that he had sold KDNL-TV for $13.2 million to Cox Broadcasting, which at the time owned no UHF stations and only one independent, KTVU in Oakland, California.[40] Upon completing the purchase in January 1982, Cox announced its plans to debut subscription television service on the station later in the year, once it had acquired sufficient equipment and personnel to handle the new operation. Cox Broadcasting president William A. Schwartz believed that the service could be viable even if just 15 to 20 percent of residents signed up for it, citing the large market and relatively low cable penetration.[41] Beginning on June 1, 1982, KDNL-TV replaced its prime time and late night lineup with Preview, a subscription service featuring first-run movies and late night adult programming.[42] Subscribers paid $24.90 a month plus a $49.95 installation fee.[43]

Preview failed in St. Louis due to poor economic conditions and a lack of sports rights (though seven St. Louis Cardinals baseball games were telecast[44]), in addition to a faster-than-anticipated wiring of the area for cable. In October, the company began aggressively discounting installation fees for new subscribers, causing it to lose money for every subscriber that signed up for Preview. Amid losses estimated at $100,000 a month and with just 10,000 households signed up, Cox announced in December 1982 that it would cease subscription television service on February 28, 1983.[45] The Preview operation also hurt the station's ability to sell commercial advertising; advertisers were put off by the lost ad inventory and adult programming. Michael S. Kievman told a panel at the 1983 conference of the Association of Independent Television Stations (INTV) that he had received comments like "No one watches you, you're not really a TV station."[46]

Emerging from Preview, Cox invested $2 million in updating the station's facilities.[47] Blues hockey returned to the station,[47] though it moved to KPLR-TV in 1986.[48] KDNL-TV became a charter affiliate of Fox at its launch in October 1986.[49] However, at the outset, Fox programming was little help for the station, which in May 1987 was tying KETC in the critical early evening period and was being beaten by KPLR by a factor of six-to-one.[50] The network's flagging The Late Show with Joan Rivers was pulled from KDNL-TV's schedule two months before its cancellation.[51]

River City Broadcasting ownership

Building a media group

I said [to Cox], 'What does an outfit like yours want with that loser? It's never going to be No. 1.' That's all that mattered to them, being No. 1. They didn't see how the station could fit in. They didn't see the potential.

Barry Baker, on how he convinced Cox to sell KDNL-TV[52]

In the fall of 1988, two former senior executives of KPLR-TV owner Koplar Communications—Barry Baker and Larry Marcus—formed Better Communications Inc. to acquire television and radio stations. They first offered to buy KPLR-TV and were then fired by company president Ted Koplar. Instead, their first purchase was KDNL, acquired from Cox. In selling channel 30, Cox Broadcasting president Stanley G. Mouse noted that the station "[did] not fit the profile of our other television stations", which included five network affiliates plus two independents in larger markets (KTVU and WKBD-TV in Detroit), all of which broadcast local news; another Cox source noted that the station had been a money-loser for Cox, in part because of the failed Preview service in 1982–1983. At the time of the purchase, KDNL had a total sign-on to sign-off share of five percent, trailing KPLR at 11 percent.[53]

For Barry and Marcus, the purchase of KDNL-TV was the first act in the construction of a broadcasting group. In May 1989, a deal was struck to acquire KABB, an independent station in San Antonio, Texas, under the name River City Television Partners,[54] which came to represent the entire group.[55] The firm then expanded into radio broadcasting when it acquired St. Louis radio station KSTZ out of bankruptcy in 1990. River City changed the call letters and branded the station as "The Fox", a complement to his Fox affiliate.[56] With the addition of the radio station, the company became River City Broadcasting (RCB).[57]

KDNL finally took flight under River City ownership. Within a year, aided in part by the introduction of meters to measure ratings, the station doubled its total-day audience share from five to eleven percent, narrowly behind KPLR, as well as its revenue.[58][59] By December 1993, it was the fourth highest-rated Fox affiliate in the nation, with an intensive focus on children's programming, counterprogramming the other stations, and Fox network programming.[52] The 1994 edition of its Fox 30 Kids Fair, featuring guest appearances by two Power Rangers, attracted more than 50,000 attendees.[60]

In February 1994, River City announced it would take the next step in growing KDNL-TV by starting a local half-hour 9:00 p.m. newscast to air beginning in early 1995. General manager Gregg Filandrinos credited the decision to start a newscast to Fox's acquisition of National Football League television rights.[61] Renovation work estimated at more than $3 million began later that year to add news facilities to the channel 30 studios.[62]

Affiliation switch to ABC and launch of local news

Further information: 1994–1996 United States broadcast television realignment

The arrival of NFL football to Fox, however, also triggered a massive realignment in television station affiliations which began in earnest on May 23, 1994, when New World Communications announced it would switch 12 of its stations affiliated with ABC, CBS, and NBC to Fox. Included were three stations New World had just agreed to acquire from Argyle Television, including KTVI, the then-ABC affiliate in St. Louis. With KTVI switching to Fox, the ABC affiliation was now up for grabs. KSDK and KMOV, the two strongest stations in the market, both were in long-term agreements with their respective networks.[63] This left two primary contenders: KPLR and KDNL, plus home shopping station WHSL (channel 46). Though KPLR was the stronger-rated independent and a VHF station unlike KDNL, it was heavily committed to sports with contracts for Cardinals baseball and Blues hockey games that would lead to significant preemptions of network prime time programming, and it had also signed on to affiliate with The WB when it launched in 1995.[64][65] The sports preemptions hurt KPLR in its negotiations with ABC.[62]

On August 26, 1994, ABC announced that KDNL-TV would become its St. Louis affiliate beginning in mid-1995. Once that took place, KDNL-TV planned to scale up its nascent news operation to a level befitting a "Big Three" affiliate. An already-planned 9 p.m. newscast would shift to 10 p.m. and be joined by new 5 and 6 p.m. newscasts.[62] The agreement was concurrent with a renewal for two of the three ABC stations River City was buying at the time: WSYX-TV in Columbus, Ohio, and WLOS in Asheville, North Carolina. The third station, KOVR in Sacramento, California, was excluded because it was losing its ABC affiliation to a station owned by the Belo Corporation.[66]

In its last months with Fox, on January 1, 1995, KDNL began airing a 9 p.m. newscast, News 30 Now. It was the first new television newsroom in St. Louis since KPLR went on the air in 1959 and heavily relied on talent from elsewhere. Of the station's anchors and reporters, only one was already working in the market—the station's public affairs director, who doubled as the weekend anchor. The on-air talent came from stations as far away as Winnipeg, Orlando, and Spokane, Washington. Unlike other startup newsrooms of the period at Fox affiliates, KDNL shied away from an offbeat, edgy style in favor of a more straightforward news presentation.[67][68]

In addition, KDNL began airing Star Trek: Voyager in overnight hours in 1995 after becoming a secondary affiliate of UPN.[69][70] KDNL dropped UPN programming in January 1998, leaving the network without a St. Louis affiliate until 1999, when Christian station KNLC briefly began airing some of its programming.[71][72]

KDNL-TV became the new ABC affiliate in St. Louis on August 7, 1995, with its level of network programming increasing from 35 to 85 hours a week.[73] KDNL aired all ABC programming that KTVI had aired, but maintained KTVI's preemption of the soap opera Loving.[74] Fox Kids programming did not immediately move to KTVI; KNLC stepped in to pick up the shows,[75] but issues over signal quality and replacement of commercials with public service announcements (including urging children to protest an execution), plus the size of the Fox Kids Club in St. Louis, the nation's largest, resulted in the children's block returning to KTVI in September 1996.[76]

Immediately upon the switch, News 30 moved from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. and debuted a 6 p.m. edition.[74] The station also signed Don Marsh, a veteran St. Louis news anchor who had left KTVI the year before, to anchor its newscasts.[77]

Sinclair Broadcast Group ownership

Purchase of River City

On April 11, 1996, River City announced that it would merge with the Sinclair Broadcast Group for $2.3 billion, creating a company with 29 television and 34 radio stations nationwide. Barry Baker relocated to Baltimore, where Sinclair is headquartered, and remained with the combined company as the president and chief executive officer of its broadcasting division.[78] At the time, KDNL-TV was unsettled in senior management. Original news director Gary Whitaker had left to run a TV station in Springfield, Missouri; the general manager then resigned to produce a syndicated talk show. The station was described by insiders as adrift, poorly rated, and with low morale in the newsroom. Its 10 p.m. newscast was well behind third-place KTVI.[79] Sinclair continued to expand the former River City cluster in St. Louis by adding three radio stations being spun off by Heritage Media in 1997.[80]

However, KDNL-TV's news efforts gained little traction and were plagued by high turnover as well as a reputation for sensationalized reporting.[81] Tripp Frohlichstein, writing in the St. Louis Journalism Review, found the news department insufficiently staffed and the anchor team lacking chemistry; of the station's two daily newscasts, he wrote that KDNL-TV "gives the impression that it is not serious about the news".[82] Don Marsh left the television news business in August 1998 when he failed to come to terms with Sinclair on a contract renewal; he was replaced by Patrick Emory, who had worked for CNN as well as KMOV-TV and KSDK.[83] The other main anchor, Leslie Lyles—who had been with the station since the news department started—exited in 1999 and returned to Charleston, South Carolina, where she had been working prior to joining the KDNL news team.[84] The station had three news directors in less than three and a half years, one of them—David Cohen—resigning in the wake of a racist joke he made at a news meeting.[85] He told a Black reporter proposing a story on heart disease that "anyone who eats fried chicken and mashed potatoes is going to have heart disease".[86] Gail Pennington of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch would later comment that the constant changes in on-air personnel were anathema to viewers, noting that "St. Louis doesn't like change."[87] Frohlichstein concurred, writing, "More than most cities, St. Louis viewers stick with what they know."[88]

Emmis option dispute

In February 1999, Barry Baker quit his position at Sinclair, where he was the "heir apparent" to company president David D. Smith, to become the president and chief operating officer of USA Networks.[89] His employment agreement with Sinclair gave him the option to buy back Sinclair's media properties in one of two markets—St. Louis or Greenville, South Carolina—if exercised before August 8, 1999.[90][91] In June, Baker transferred the option agreement to Emmis Communications, an Indianapolis-based radio and television station group that already owned three St. Louis radio stations, which then proceeded to attempt to exercise the agreement to purchase KDNL-TV and Sinclair's six local radio stations.[91][92][b]

The manner in which the option agreement was transferred and executed instead led to a legal fight. In January 2000, Sinclair sued Emmis and Baker in its home state of Maryland and charged that the proposed buyer had no rights to acquire the stations, saying the option was too vague to take effect and was not designed to allow a party other than Baker to purchase them.[93] In the lawsuit, Sinclair noted that Emmis asked Sinclair to pay millions of dollars to replace KDNL's transmitter and in employee severance costs, as well as to assign its ABC affiliation agreement unchanged to Emmis.[94] The lawsuit was read by one Wall Street analyst as a stalling tactic to allow it to keep the cash flow from the radio stations for as long as possible before selling them.[95] Two months later, Baker and Emmis filed a countersuit against Sinclair, accusing Sinclair of interfering with their agreement and engaging in "gross mismanagement" of the St. Louis stations.[93] In June, Sinclair and Emmis settled the legal actions; Sinclair retained KDNL-TV and sold the St. Louis radio stations, the last ones it owned,[96] to Emmis for $220 million.[97]

The effect of the option agreement dispute was to leave KDNL-TV in a state of limbo and neglect for a year. Maintenance of the station's equipment fell off, and after a late 1999 fire affecting the transmission line on its Shrewsbury mast, the transmitter repeatedly failed, forcing KDNL off the air. Because of this and work to install KDNL's digital signal, which signed on January 2, 2001,[98] the station operated on severely reduced power, leaving many non-cable homes without KDNL or ABC programming.[99] The news department downsized from 5 and 10 p.m. newscasts, having abandoned the 6 p.m. timeslot in 1996,[100] to just the 10 p.m. edition. While the early report was reinstated in December 2000, it could not regain the viewers it had, with more than twice as many St. Louis-area households watching Sabrina, The Teenage Witch on KPLR-TV. Despite this turmoil, KDNL shocked industry observers by winning the regional Emmy Award for best large-market newscast.[101]

Discontinuation of local news

...in St. Louis, the landscape for news is always treacherous, especially for a station like KDNL. News viewership here is deeply entrenched, with television watchers overwhelmingly choosing KSDK and KMOV. Read a ratings report from 10 years ago, or even 20, and the substance is very much the same: Channel 5 in first place, and Channel 4 battling to go ahead but never quite managing.

Gail Pennington, television critic, St. Louis Post-Dispatch[102]

On September 28, 2001, KDNL-TV general manager Tom Tipton informed the staff and the public that the station would cease airing local news on October 12, laying off all 47 staffers in its newsroom. Tipton cited "the increased competitive landscape and current market conditions" that "made it increasingly difficult to operate a competitive news operation". Other factors included a negative jolt to advertising revenue compounded by the September 11 attacks and financial trouble within Sinclair itself.[101][99] At the time, Sinclair was closing down some of its underperforming news departments across the country. In November 2000, it shut down the newsroom at WTWC-TV in Tallahassee, Florida; it also had cut back the newsroom at WXLV-TV in Winston-Salem, North Carolina,[103] before closing it altogether in January 2002.[104][105] As a result of closing its news department, KDNL-TV became the only Big Four-affiliated station in the 25 largest media markets in the United States not to offer any local news.[103]

Sinclair once again tried to sell the station in June 2002 as part of the company's eventually aborted attempt to sell all seven of its ABC-affiliated stations to focus on its Fox and WB stations.[106]

Even without local news, KDNL has largely been among the weakest affiliates of ABC since switching to the network and generally ranks fifth in total ratings.[106] The network's difficulty in St. Louis was not new: the market had always been an underperformer for the network, even when KTVI was the affiliate, though NBC and CBS had higher-than-average viewership.[102][81]

In 2017, Sinclair entered into an agreement to acquire Tribune Media, owner of KTVI and KPLR. The two stations were in the top four in ratings, but KDNL was not; Sinclair proposed to own KTVI and KDNL while providing services to KPLR. In February 2018, it amended its proposal to specify a spin-off of KPLR to an independent buyer.[107] On April 24, 2018, the Meredith Corporation, owner of KMOV, announced that it would purchase KPLR-TV for $65 million;[108] the bid was soon scratched amid objections by the Department of Justice, with Sinclair instead proposing to sell KPLR to a divestiture trust.[109] The larger Sinclair–Tribune deal never progressed; after the FCC designated it for hearing by an administrative law judge, Tribune called off the deal and sued Sinclair in August 2018.[110][111]

Local news programming since 2001

News share agreement with KSDK (2011–2014)

Further information: KSDK § News operation

On January 3, 2011, NBC affiliate KSDK began producing weeknight 5:00 and 10:00 p.m. newscasts for KDNL through a news share agreement. The newscasts, known as STL Now on ABC 30, were produced from a virtual set at KSDK's Market Street studios in Downtown St. Louis and required the hiring of additional personnel.[112] KDNL general manager Tom Tipton stated that the station did not want to run simulcast or repurposed newscasts in its efforts to return daily news broadcasts to the station. The KSDK-produced newscasts on KDNL were pre-taped in advance.[113] There was no sports report featured during the program. The news share agreement between the two stations was quite unusual given the rarity of a Big Three network affiliate producing newscasts for another Big Three station. In this case, KDNL and KSDK competed against one another in both timeslots. Although KDNL only aired local news programming on weekdays, the station did air replays of KSDK's entertainment/features program Show Me St. Louis on weekends. The agreement with KSDK was to end on December 31, 2013,[114] but it continued into January 2014.[115]

The Allman Report (2014–2018)

On February 10, 2014, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that the station intended to restart an in-house news department, with 5:00 and 10:00 p.m. newscasts slated to be anchored by KFTK (97.1 FM) morning host and former KMOV reporter Jamie Allman.[115] On November 24, 2014, KDNL officially announced that it would launch its new news program, The Allman Report, in January 2015. KDNL and Allman described the program as an extension of his radio show, with a conservative, "debate-driven format" that focused on local headlines and issues. The Allman Report originated from the studios of Pelopidas in Brentwood rather than from KDNL's facilities.[116]

The program continued until April 9, 2018, when it was canceled by KDNL amid calls for a viewer and advertiser boycott. The cancellation took place two weeks after Allman tweeted a message alluding to him wanting to assault David Hogg, a student who was on campus at the time of the Parkland high school shooting, with a fireplace poker for his gun control activism. Allman was fired from KFTK and took his Twitter account private.[117] Allman was later re-hired by Salem Media Group-owned radio station KXFN in February 2019, though the program was short-lived after KXFN's sale to Relevant Radio, which converted it to a Spanish-language Catholic talk format in the fall of the same year. After converting his show to a self-distributed podcast, he now hosts mornings on KTLK-FM (104.9) after iHeartMedia converted that station to a conservative talk format in August 2021.[118]

Local programming

 
In 2022, KDNL-TV moved its studios from downtown St. Louis to the University Tower in Richmond Heights.

KDNL-TV's local programming, as of June 2023, includes City Corner, a weekly public affairs program; a selection of St. Louis-area church services; and Them Yo People, a man-on-the-street interview program produced in St. Louis and also aired in other nearby markets.[119][120]

Technical information

Subchannels

The station's signal is multiplexed:

Subchannels of KDNL-TV[121]
Channel Res. Aspect Short name Programming
30.1 720p 16:9 ABC Main KDNL-TV programming / ABC
30.2 480i TBD TBD
30.3 Charge Charge!
30.4 Stadium Stadium
11.2 480i 16:9 CourtTV Court TV (KPLR-DT2)
  Broadcast on behalf of another station

Analog-to-digital conversion

KDNL-TV shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 30, on February 17, 2009, the original date on which full-power television stations in the United States were scheduled to transition from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate (the official date was pushed back to June 12).[122] The station's digital signal continued to broadcast on its pre-transition UHF channel 31, using virtual channel 30.[123] The analog signal was kept on the air for a short time after to provide transition information under the SAFER Act.[124]

Notes

  1. ^ The channel 24 station, permitted with the call sign KGSL-TV, never took to the air. Continental was successful in building KGSC-TV in San Jose and, per Welch, learned that television "is a very expensive business with extreme losses". Welch noted that the recession of 1969–1970 made it impossible to obtain financing.[15] The permit was canceled in March 1971.[16]
  2. ^ The radio stations: KPNT (105.7 FM); KXOK-FM (97.1 FM, now KFTK-FM); WVRV (101.1 FM, now WXOS); WRTH (1430 AM, later KZQZ); WIL-FM (92.3); and KIHT (96.3 FM, now WFUN-FM).

References

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  2. ^ "Firm Files New Application For New TV Station Here". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. November 25, 1952. p. 8A. from the original on July 24, 2023. Retrieved July 23, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  3. ^ "Lutheran Synod Authorized To Use Channel 30 For TV". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. February 5, 1953. p. 3A. from the original on July 23, 2023. Retrieved July 23, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. ^ a b "3 of 5 UHF-TV Stations in Area Plan to Be in Operation by 1954". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. June 14, 1953. p. 6H. from the original on July 24, 2023. Retrieved July 23, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. ^ "FCC to Hear Oral Testimony Of 3 VHF TV Applicants Here". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. February 7, 1954. p. 4J. from the original on July 24, 2023. Retrieved July 23, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. ^ "Lutheran Church's UHF TV Permits Are Canceled". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. January 21, 1956. p. 8A. from the original on July 24, 2023. Retrieved July 23, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. ^ "N. Y. Firm Seeks Channel 30 Here". St. Louis Globe-Democrat. September 27, 1956. p. 2A. from the original on July 24, 2023. Retrieved July 23, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. ^ "Use of UHF Channel 30 Here For Pay TV Sought". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. July 3, 1958. p. 7B. from the original on July 24, 2023. Retrieved July 23, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
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External links

  • Official website
  • KDNL-TV Collection Finding Aid at the St. Louis Public Library

August 21, 2023
kdnl, channel, television, station, louis, missouri, united, states, affiliated, with, owned, sinclair, broadcast, group, station, maintains, studios, university, tower, suburb, richmond, heights, transmitter, shrewsbury, louis, missouriunited, stateschannelsd. KDNL TV channel 30 is a television station in St Louis Missouri United States affiliated with ABC Owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group the station maintains studios at the University Tower in the suburb of Richmond Heights and a transmitter in Shrewsbury KDNL TVSt Louis MissouriUnited StatesChannelsDigital 31 UHF Virtual 30BrandingABC 30ProgrammingAffiliations30 1 ABCfor others see SubchannelsOwnershipOwnerSinclair Broadcast Group KDNL Licensee LLC HistoryFoundedJune 1966First air dateJune 8 1969 54 years ago 1969 06 08 Former channel number s Analog 30 UHF 1969 2009 Former affiliationsIndependent 1969 1986 Fox 1986 1995 UPN secondary 1995 1998 Technical informationLicensing authorityFCCFacility ID56524ERP1 000 kWHAAT320 5 m 1 051 5 ft Transmitter coordinates38 34 50 N 90 19 45 W 38 58056 N 90 32917 W 38 58056 90 32917LinksPublic license informationPublic fileLMSWebsiteabcstlouis wbr comChannel 30 in St Louis was sought on several occasions in the 1950s and early 1960s though no station materialized The fourth attempt to build the channel was originally spearheaded by a group of local investors as well as Washington attorney John Dean after the construction permit for KDNL TV was sold to Thomas Mellon Evans the station began broadcasting on June 8 1969 It served as the second independent station for the St Louis area airing syndicated reruns as well as financial news and sports Cox Broadcasting purchased KDNL TV in 1981 in part because it held a permit for over the air subscription television broadcasting Cox launched this service on June 1982 but it was a business failure and Cox shut it down in February 1983 The station continued to be an overall money loser and a misfit in the Cox station portfolio even though it became the first local affiliate of Fox in 1986 Barry Baker and Larry Marcus former executives of rival independent KPLR TV who were fired for trying to buy the station purchased KDNL TV from Cox in 1989 It became the first station in a St Louis based company eventually known as River City Broadcasting which soon acquired other independent and Fox affiliated stations Ratings and revenue improved with the success of the Fox network with total viewership approaching KPLR TV and led the station to start a local news department in January 1995 Under a deal announced in 1994 but carried out in August 1995 KDNL TV lost its Fox affiliation and switched with KTVI to become the affiliate of ABC in St Louis In 1996 River City merged into Sinclair Broadcast Group However KDNL s news department failed to gain traction hurt by the traditionally poor ratings for ABC programming in the market high turnover in news talent a lack of full day news service and the resistance to change of many St Louis viewers In 1999 Baker left Sinclair and assigned an option to purchase KDNL TV and six Sinclair owned radio stations in St Louis to Emmis Communications the option resulted in a lawsuit settled with Sinclair retaining the TV station and selling off the radio properties More critically it led to neglect of the station s transmitter facility causing signal issues and the suspension of early evening newscasts for the struggling news operation In the wake of the advertising slump after the September 11 attacks Sinclair closed the KDNL TV news department in 2001 and laid off all 47 staff Since then the station has largely been the fourth or fifth rated station in the market with two short lived and outsourced attempts at local news programming since the 2001 newsroom closure Contents 1 Channel 30 prior to KDNL TV 2 Pre construction 3 Evans Broadcasting ownership 4 Cox Broadcasting ownership 5 River City Broadcasting ownership 5 1 Building a media group 5 2 Affiliation switch to ABC and launch of local news 6 Sinclair Broadcast Group ownership 6 1 Purchase of River City 6 2 Emmis option dispute 6 3 Discontinuation of local news 6 4 Local news programming since 2001 6 4 1 News share agreement with KSDK 2011 2014 6 4 2 The Allman Report 2014 2018 7 Local programming 8 Technical information 8 1 Subchannels 8 2 Analog to digital conversion 9 Notes 10 References 11 External linksChannel 30 prior to KDNL TV EditThree different attempts were made to start channel 30 in St Louis The assignment was added in 1952 when the Federal Communications Commission FCC ended its four year freeze on new television stations and introduced assignments in the new ultra high frequency UHF band 1 Applications were filed by the Empire Coil Company and the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod for the channel 2 with the latter receiving the construction permit in February 1953 after Empire Coil withdrew 3 The church planned to run KFUO TV as a noncommercial station in conjunction with its existing radio station 4 While it initially planned an early 1954 start 4 the station project was said to still be in consideration by February 1954 5 and the church surrendered the permit for cancellation in January 1956 after finding the potential for a UHF station poor 6 In September 1956 the Plaza Radio and Television Company of New York applied for channel 30 7 Plaza also applied for authority to broadcast subscription television STV programming using the proposed station The FCC indicated it would need to hold hearings to determine whether the channel should be awarded even though no other group was seeking channel 30 because Plaza was also sitting on a permit for channel 26 in San Francisco 8 This application and another for a station in Detroit were dismissed by the FCC in September 1958 9 Pre construction EditFor the third time channel 30 in St Louis was sought when Washington D C based Globe Television Corporation filed to build the station in June 1964 The two leading stockholders in Globe were lawyers Vincent B Welch and Edward P Morgan of the Washington firm of Welch Mott amp Morgan 10 Welch had founded the communications law firm in 1946 11 and Welch and Morgan were applying for new television stations nationwide including Minneapolis Columbus Ohio and Henderson Nevada The Welch Morgan group was awarded the St Louis permit and stations in Miami and San Jose California in October 1964 12 13 Globe Television renamed itself the Continental Summit Television Corporation after the permit was awarded in June 1965 the company requested an extension of time to build It stated that the Missouri Pacific Building its intended transmitter site was inadequate as downtown office buildings interfered with the signal in the Illinois portion of the metropolitan area It also requested that its application be switched from channel 30 to 24 which was inserted as part of a national overhaul of the UHF table of allocations that year 14 a Boyd Fellows the former general manager of educational station KETC and assistant to the president of Continental then left that company to become the president of a new firm seeking channel 30 the Greater St Louis Television Corporation Other officers included a Black dentist Dr Benjamin F Davis and a Washington attorney John Dean his then wife Karla Hennings was also a stockholder 17 Dean had participated in the formation of Greater St Louis Television Corporation in January while he was still employed by Welch amp Morgan when the firm found out about the work it dismissed Dean for what Welch called unethical conduct Though characterizations of his dismissal varied one former associate told the St Louis Post Dispatch that he was ordered to leave immediately and not given time to pack up his belongings 18 This story came to light during the Watergate hearings during which Dean was a crucial witness as to the cover up of the Watergate scandal and was first reported by syndicated columnist Jack Anderson 16 18 The Greater St Louis Television Corporation received the construction permit for channel 30 on June 7 1966 19 and took the call sign KDNL TV 20 Evans Broadcasting ownership EditCiting unanticipated difficulties and unexpected changed circumstances the stockholders of Greater St Louis Television Corporation filed in April 1968 to sell the construction permit to financier Thomas Mellon Evans 21 The transfer was granted by the FCC in late July 22 At the time Evans was in the middle of a push into UHF television buying dormant construction permits for stations from Dallas to Worcester Massachusetts 23 Under Evans construction activity finally commenced The former studios of KMOX TV at 13th and Cole streets were acquired to house channel 30 while the station was approved to build a tower in Shrewsbury on land that was part of the Kenrick Seminary of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St Louis 24 25 In April a 1 100 foot 340 m mast began rising on the site 26 KDNL TV debuted on June 8 1969 Its program schedule was dominated by syndicated reruns of former network shows as well as a daytime financial news program TV 30 Financial Observer 27 28 Channel 30 was the first station built by the newly formed Evans Broadcasting Corporation which had plans to start activating additional stations 29 KDNL TV trailed the established independent station in the St Louis market KPLR TV and had less than half of its audience share as of July 1972 30 In 1977 KDNL added coverage of St Louis Blues hockey road games 31 which aired through the 1980 81 season after that the games moved to KSDK channel 5 32 Evans made one attempt at expanding the reach of KDNL TV deeper into Illinois In June 1979 a subsidiary company Southern Illinois Broadcasting Corporation was granted the permit to build channel 13 at Mount Vernon Illinois for which it had filed two years prior However the Evans proposal attracted protests from southern Illinois residents who feared the channel would merely be used to rebroadcast KDNL TV programming and wanted to see a full fledged local station for their area 33 A farmer in Salem Illinois went as far as to refuse to lease her land for transmitter site construction when she learned of Evans s plans for channel 13 34 Though Evans had secured another site and even shipped the 1 000 foot 300 m tower to Salem to be erected the FCC responded to the residents concerns by rescinding the permit grant in November 1979 In February 1980 citing the potential for years of litigation it withdrew its attempt to build channel 13 35 In April 1976 Evans Broadcasting applied for authority to broadcast over the air subscription television STV programming using KDNL TV 20 The application languished because another company Midwest St Louis had filed for channel 24 and proposed the same type of programming and at the time the FCC only permitted one STV station per market 36 Despite that the possibility of reaching the large then uncabled St Louis market with pay TV programming excited interest from buyers in the STV space Time Inc which through its American Television and Communications unit had cable and pay TV operations entered into negotiations to purchase the station from Evans 37 Evans reached an agreement to sell the station to Buford Television a Texas company in the process of moving into subscription programming with stations such as WBTI in Cincinnati in September 1979 38 With that sale pending in February 1980 the FCC granted subscription authority to KDNL TV 39 Though the FCC granted the Buford deal on April 30 the agreement was withdrawn on May 8 20 Cox Broadcasting ownership EditEvans announced in March 1981 that he had sold KDNL TV for 13 2 million to Cox Broadcasting which at the time owned no UHF stations and only one independent KTVU in Oakland California 40 Upon completing the purchase in January 1982 Cox announced its plans to debut subscription television service on the station later in the year once it had acquired sufficient equipment and personnel to handle the new operation Cox Broadcasting president William A Schwartz believed that the service could be viable even if just 15 to 20 percent of residents signed up for it citing the large market and relatively low cable penetration 41 Beginning on June 1 1982 KDNL TV replaced its prime time and late night lineup with Preview a subscription service featuring first run movies and late night adult programming 42 Subscribers paid 24 90 a month plus a 49 95 installation fee 43 Preview failed in St Louis due to poor economic conditions and a lack of sports rights though seven St Louis Cardinals baseball games were telecast 44 in addition to a faster than anticipated wiring of the area for cable In October the company began aggressively discounting installation fees for new subscribers causing it to lose money for every subscriber that signed up for Preview Amid losses estimated at 100 000 a month and with just 10 000 households signed up Cox announced in December 1982 that it would cease subscription television service on February 28 1983 45 The Preview operation also hurt the station s ability to sell commercial advertising advertisers were put off by the lost ad inventory and adult programming Michael S Kievman told a panel at the 1983 conference of the Association of Independent Television Stations INTV that he had received comments like No one watches you you re not really a TV station 46 Emerging from Preview Cox invested 2 million in updating the station s facilities 47 Blues hockey returned to the station 47 though it moved to KPLR TV in 1986 48 KDNL TV became a charter affiliate of Fox at its launch in October 1986 49 However at the outset Fox programming was little help for the station which in May 1987 was tying KETC in the critical early evening period and was being beaten by KPLR by a factor of six to one 50 The network s flagging The Late Show with Joan Rivers was pulled from KDNL TV s schedule two months before its cancellation 51 River City Broadcasting ownership EditBuilding a media group Edit I said to Cox What does an outfit like yours want with that loser It s never going to be No 1 That s all that mattered to them being No 1 They didn t see how the station could fit in They didn t see the potential Barry Baker on how he convinced Cox to sell KDNL TV 52 In the fall of 1988 two former senior executives of KPLR TV owner Koplar Communications Barry Baker and Larry Marcus formed Better Communications Inc to acquire television and radio stations They first offered to buy KPLR TV and were then fired by company president Ted Koplar Instead their first purchase was KDNL acquired from Cox In selling channel 30 Cox Broadcasting president Stanley G Mouse noted that the station did not fit the profile of our other television stations which included five network affiliates plus two independents in larger markets KTVU and WKBD TV in Detroit all of which broadcast local news another Cox source noted that the station had been a money loser for Cox in part because of the failed Preview service in 1982 1983 At the time of the purchase KDNL had a total sign on to sign off share of five percent trailing KPLR at 11 percent 53 For Barry and Marcus the purchase of KDNL TV was the first act in the construction of a broadcasting group In May 1989 a deal was struck to acquire KABB an independent station in San Antonio Texas under the name River City Television Partners 54 which came to represent the entire group 55 The firm then expanded into radio broadcasting when it acquired St Louis radio station KSTZ out of bankruptcy in 1990 River City changed the call letters and branded the station as The Fox a complement to his Fox affiliate 56 With the addition of the radio station the company became River City Broadcasting RCB 57 KDNL finally took flight under River City ownership Within a year aided in part by the introduction of meters to measure ratings the station doubled its total day audience share from five to eleven percent narrowly behind KPLR as well as its revenue 58 59 By December 1993 it was the fourth highest rated Fox affiliate in the nation with an intensive focus on children s programming counterprogramming the other stations and Fox network programming 52 The 1994 edition of its Fox 30 Kids Fair featuring guest appearances by two Power Rangers attracted more than 50 000 attendees 60 In February 1994 River City announced it would take the next step in growing KDNL TV by starting a local half hour 9 00 p m newscast to air beginning in early 1995 General manager Gregg Filandrinos credited the decision to start a newscast to Fox s acquisition of National Football League television rights 61 Renovation work estimated at more than 3 million began later that year to add news facilities to the channel 30 studios 62 Affiliation switch to ABC and launch of local news Edit Further information 1994 1996 United States broadcast television realignment The arrival of NFL football to Fox however also triggered a massive realignment in television station affiliations which began in earnest on May 23 1994 when New World Communications announced it would switch 12 of its stations affiliated with ABC CBS and NBC to Fox Included were three stations New World had just agreed to acquire from Argyle Television including KTVI the then ABC affiliate in St Louis With KTVI switching to Fox the ABC affiliation was now up for grabs KSDK and KMOV the two strongest stations in the market both were in long term agreements with their respective networks 63 This left two primary contenders KPLR and KDNL plus home shopping station WHSL channel 46 Though KPLR was the stronger rated independent and a VHF station unlike KDNL it was heavily committed to sports with contracts for Cardinals baseball and Blues hockey games that would lead to significant preemptions of network prime time programming and it had also signed on to affiliate with The WB when it launched in 1995 64 65 The sports preemptions hurt KPLR in its negotiations with ABC 62 On August 26 1994 ABC announced that KDNL TV would become its St Louis affiliate beginning in mid 1995 Once that took place KDNL TV planned to scale up its nascent news operation to a level befitting a Big Three affiliate An already planned 9 p m newscast would shift to 10 p m and be joined by new 5 and 6 p m newscasts 62 The agreement was concurrent with a renewal for two of the three ABC stations River City was buying at the time WSYX TV in Columbus Ohio and WLOS in Asheville North Carolina The third station KOVR in Sacramento California was excluded because it was losing its ABC affiliation to a station owned by the Belo Corporation 66 In its last months with Fox on January 1 1995 KDNL began airing a 9 p m newscast News 30 Now It was the first new television newsroom in St Louis since KPLR went on the air in 1959 and heavily relied on talent from elsewhere Of the station s anchors and reporters only one was already working in the market the station s public affairs director who doubled as the weekend anchor The on air talent came from stations as far away as Winnipeg Orlando and Spokane Washington Unlike other startup newsrooms of the period at Fox affiliates KDNL shied away from an offbeat edgy style in favor of a more straightforward news presentation 67 68 In addition KDNL began airing Star Trek Voyager in overnight hours in 1995 after becoming a secondary affiliate of UPN 69 70 KDNL dropped UPN programming in January 1998 leaving the network without a St Louis affiliate until 1999 when Christian station KNLC briefly began airing some of its programming 71 72 KDNL TV became the new ABC affiliate in St Louis on August 7 1995 with its level of network programming increasing from 35 to 85 hours a week 73 KDNL aired all ABC programming that KTVI had aired but maintained KTVI s preemption of the soap opera Loving 74 Fox Kids programming did not immediately move to KTVI KNLC stepped in to pick up the shows 75 but issues over signal quality and replacement of commercials with public service announcements including urging children to protest an execution plus the size of the Fox Kids Club in St Louis the nation s largest resulted in the children s block returning to KTVI in September 1996 76 Immediately upon the switch News 30 moved from 9 p m to 10 p m and debuted a 6 p m edition 74 The station also signed Don Marsh a veteran St Louis news anchor who had left KTVI the year before to anchor its newscasts 77 Sinclair Broadcast Group ownership EditPurchase of River City Edit On April 11 1996 River City announced that it would merge with the Sinclair Broadcast Group for 2 3 billion creating a company with 29 television and 34 radio stations nationwide Barry Baker relocated to Baltimore where Sinclair is headquartered and remained with the combined company as the president and chief executive officer of its broadcasting division 78 At the time KDNL TV was unsettled in senior management Original news director Gary Whitaker had left to run a TV station in Springfield Missouri the general manager then resigned to produce a syndicated talk show The station was described by insiders as adrift poorly rated and with low morale in the newsroom Its 10 p m newscast was well behind third place KTVI 79 Sinclair continued to expand the former River City cluster in St Louis by adding three radio stations being spun off by Heritage Media in 1997 80 However KDNL TV s news efforts gained little traction and were plagued by high turnover as well as a reputation for sensationalized reporting 81 Tripp Frohlichstein writing in the St Louis Journalism Review found the news department insufficiently staffed and the anchor team lacking chemistry of the station s two daily newscasts he wrote that KDNL TV gives the impression that it is not serious about the news 82 Don Marsh left the television news business in August 1998 when he failed to come to terms with Sinclair on a contract renewal he was replaced by Patrick Emory who had worked for CNN as well as KMOV TV and KSDK 83 The other main anchor Leslie Lyles who had been with the station since the news department started exited in 1999 and returned to Charleston South Carolina where she had been working prior to joining the KDNL news team 84 The station had three news directors in less than three and a half years one of them David Cohen resigning in the wake of a racist joke he made at a news meeting 85 He told a Black reporter proposing a story on heart disease that anyone who eats fried chicken and mashed potatoes is going to have heart disease 86 Gail Pennington of the St Louis Post Dispatch would later comment that the constant changes in on air personnel were anathema to viewers noting that St Louis doesn t like change 87 Frohlichstein concurred writing More than most cities St Louis viewers stick with what they know 88 Emmis option dispute Edit In February 1999 Barry Baker quit his position at Sinclair where he was the heir apparent to company president David D Smith to become the president and chief operating officer of USA Networks 89 His employment agreement with Sinclair gave him the option to buy back Sinclair s media properties in one of two markets St Louis or Greenville South Carolina if exercised before August 8 1999 90 91 In June Baker transferred the option agreement to Emmis Communications an Indianapolis based radio and television station group that already owned three St Louis radio stations which then proceeded to attempt to exercise the agreement to purchase KDNL TV and Sinclair s six local radio stations 91 92 b The manner in which the option agreement was transferred and executed instead led to a legal fight In January 2000 Sinclair sued Emmis and Baker in its home state of Maryland and charged that the proposed buyer had no rights to acquire the stations saying the option was too vague to take effect and was not designed to allow a party other than Baker to purchase them 93 In the lawsuit Sinclair noted that Emmis asked Sinclair to pay millions of dollars to replace KDNL s transmitter and in employee severance costs as well as to assign its ABC affiliation agreement unchanged to Emmis 94 The lawsuit was read by one Wall Street analyst as a stalling tactic to allow it to keep the cash flow from the radio stations for as long as possible before selling them 95 Two months later Baker and Emmis filed a countersuit against Sinclair accusing Sinclair of interfering with their agreement and engaging in gross mismanagement of the St Louis stations 93 In June Sinclair and Emmis settled the legal actions Sinclair retained KDNL TV and sold the St Louis radio stations the last ones it owned 96 to Emmis for 220 million 97 The effect of the option agreement dispute was to leave KDNL TV in a state of limbo and neglect for a year Maintenance of the station s equipment fell off and after a late 1999 fire affecting the transmission line on its Shrewsbury mast the transmitter repeatedly failed forcing KDNL off the air Because of this and work to install KDNL s digital signal which signed on January 2 2001 98 the station operated on severely reduced power leaving many non cable homes without KDNL or ABC programming 99 The news department downsized from 5 and 10 p m newscasts having abandoned the 6 p m timeslot in 1996 100 to just the 10 p m edition While the early report was reinstated in December 2000 it could not regain the viewers it had with more than twice as many St Louis area households watching Sabrina The Teenage Witch on KPLR TV Despite this turmoil KDNL shocked industry observers by winning the regional Emmy Award for best large market newscast 101 Discontinuation of local news Edit in St Louis the landscape for news is always treacherous especially for a station like KDNL News viewership here is deeply entrenched with television watchers overwhelmingly choosing KSDK and KMOV Read a ratings report from 10 years ago or even 20 and the substance is very much the same Channel 5 in first place and Channel 4 battling to go ahead but never quite managing Gail Pennington television critic St Louis Post Dispatch 102 On September 28 2001 KDNL TV general manager Tom Tipton informed the staff and the public that the station would cease airing local news on October 12 laying off all 47 staffers in its newsroom Tipton cited the increased competitive landscape and current market conditions that made it increasingly difficult to operate a competitive news operation Other factors included a negative jolt to advertising revenue compounded by the September 11 attacks and financial trouble within Sinclair itself 101 99 At the time Sinclair was closing down some of its underperforming news departments across the country In November 2000 it shut down the newsroom at WTWC TV in Tallahassee Florida it also had cut back the newsroom at WXLV TV in Winston Salem North Carolina 103 before closing it altogether in January 2002 104 105 As a result of closing its news department KDNL TV became the only Big Four affiliated station in the 25 largest media markets in the United States not to offer any local news 103 Sinclair once again tried to sell the station in June 2002 as part of the company s eventually aborted attempt to sell all seven of its ABC affiliated stations to focus on its Fox and WB stations 106 Even without local news KDNL has largely been among the weakest affiliates of ABC since switching to the network and generally ranks fifth in total ratings 106 The network s difficulty in St Louis was not new the market had always been an underperformer for the network even when KTVI was the affiliate though NBC and CBS had higher than average viewership 102 81 In 2017 Sinclair entered into an agreement to acquire Tribune Media owner of KTVI and KPLR The two stations were in the top four in ratings but KDNL was not Sinclair proposed to own KTVI and KDNL while providing services to KPLR In February 2018 it amended its proposal to specify a spin off of KPLR to an independent buyer 107 On April 24 2018 the Meredith Corporation owner of KMOV announced that it would purchase KPLR TV for 65 million 108 the bid was soon scratched amid objections by the Department of Justice with Sinclair instead proposing to sell KPLR to a divestiture trust 109 The larger Sinclair Tribune deal never progressed after the FCC designated it for hearing by an administrative law judge Tribune called off the deal and sued Sinclair in August 2018 110 111 Local news programming since 2001 Edit News share agreement with KSDK 2011 2014 Edit Further information KSDK News operation On January 3 2011 NBC affiliate KSDK began producing weeknight 5 00 and 10 00 p m newscasts for KDNL through a news share agreement The newscasts known as STL Now on ABC 30 were produced from a virtual set at KSDK s Market Street studios in Downtown St Louis and required the hiring of additional personnel 112 KDNL general manager Tom Tipton stated that the station did not want to run simulcast or repurposed newscasts in its efforts to return daily news broadcasts to the station The KSDK produced newscasts on KDNL were pre taped in advance 113 There was no sports report featured during the program The news share agreement between the two stations was quite unusual given the rarity of a Big Three network affiliate producing newscasts for another Big Three station In this case KDNL and KSDK competed against one another in both timeslots Although KDNL only aired local news programming on weekdays the station did air replays of KSDK s entertainment features program Show Me St Louis on weekends The agreement with KSDK was to end on December 31 2013 114 but it continued into January 2014 115 The Allman Report 2014 2018 Edit On February 10 2014 the St Louis Post Dispatch reported that the station intended to restart an in house news department with 5 00 and 10 00 p m newscasts slated to be anchored by KFTK 97 1 FM morning host and former KMOV reporter Jamie Allman 115 On November 24 2014 KDNL officially announced that it would launch its new news program The Allman Report in January 2015 KDNL and Allman described the program as an extension of his radio show with a conservative debate driven format that focused on local headlines and issues The Allman Report originated from the studios of Pelopidas in Brentwood rather than from KDNL s facilities 116 The program continued until April 9 2018 when it was canceled by KDNL amid calls for a viewer and advertiser boycott The cancellation took place two weeks after Allman tweeted a message alluding to him wanting to assault David Hogg a student who was on campus at the time of the Parkland high school shooting with a fireplace poker for his gun control activism Allman was fired from KFTK and took his Twitter account private 117 Allman was later re hired by Salem Media Group owned radio station KXFN in February 2019 though the program was short lived after KXFN s sale to Relevant Radio which converted it to a Spanish language Catholic talk format in the fall of the same year After converting his show to a self distributed podcast he now hosts mornings on KTLK FM 104 9 after iHeartMedia converted that station to a conservative talk format in August 2021 118 Local programming Edit In 2022 KDNL TV moved its studios from downtown St Louis to the University Tower in Richmond Heights KDNL TV s local programming as of June 2023 includes City Corner a weekly public affairs program a selection of St Louis area church services and Them Yo People a man on the street interview program produced in St Louis and also aired in other nearby markets 119 120 Technical information EditSubchannels Edit The station s signal is multiplexed Subchannels of KDNL TV 121 Channel Res Aspect Short name Programming30 1 720p 16 9 ABC Main KDNL TV programming ABC30 2 480i TBD TBD30 3 Charge Charge 30 4 Stadium Stadium11 2 480i 16 9 CourtTV Court TV KPLR DT2 Broadcast on behalf of another station Analog to digital conversion Edit KDNL TV shut down its analog signal over UHF channel 30 on February 17 2009 the original date on which full power television stations in the United States were scheduled to transition from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate the official date was pushed back to June 12 122 The station s digital signal continued to broadcast on its pre transition UHF channel 31 using virtual channel 30 123 The analog signal was kept on the air for a short time after to provide transition information under the SAFER Act 124 Notes Edit The channel 24 station permitted with the call sign KGSL TV never took to the air Continental was successful in building KGSC TV in San Jose and per Welch learned that television is a very expensive business with extreme losses Welch noted that the recession of 1969 1970 made it impossible to obtain financing 15 The permit was canceled in March 1971 16 The radio stations KPNT 105 7 FM KXOK FM 97 1 FM now KFTK FM WVRV 101 1 FM now WXOS WRTH 1430 AM later KZQZ WIL FM 92 3 and KIHT 96 3 FM now WFUN FM References Edit 6 New Television Channels Assigned to St Louis With Lifting of Freeze By U S St Louis Post Dispatch April 14 1952 pp 1A 4A Archived from the original on July 24 2023 Retrieved July 23 2023 via Newspapers com Firm Files New Application For New TV Station Here St Louis Post Dispatch November 25 1952 p 8A Archived from the original on July 24 2023 Retrieved July 23 2023 via Newspapers com Lutheran Synod Authorized To Use Channel 30 For TV St Louis Post Dispatch February 5 1953 p 3A Archived from the original on July 23 2023 Retrieved July 23 2023 via Newspapers com a b 3 of 5 UHF TV Stations in Area Plan to Be in Operation by 1954 St Louis Post Dispatch June 14 1953 p 6H Archived from the original on July 24 2023 Retrieved July 23 2023 via Newspapers com FCC to Hear Oral Testimony Of 3 VHF TV Applicants Here St Louis Post Dispatch February 7 1954 p 4J Archived from the original on July 24 2023 Retrieved July 23 2023 via Newspapers com Lutheran Church s UHF TV Permits Are Canceled St Louis Post Dispatch January 21 1956 p 8A Archived from the original on July 24 2023 Retrieved July 23 2023 via Newspapers com N Y Firm Seeks Channel 30 Here St Louis Globe Democrat September 27 1956 p 2A Archived from the original on July 24 2023 Retrieved July 23 2023 via Newspapers com Use of UHF Channel 30 Here For Pay TV Sought St Louis Post Dispatch July 3 1958 p 7B Archived from the original on July 24 2023 Retrieved July 23 2023 via Newspapers com FCC Dismisses Application For TV Channel 30 Here St Louis Post Dispatch September 30 1958 p 3C Archived from the original on July 24 2023 Retrieved July 23 2023 via Newspapers com UHF TV Station Is Proposed Here St Louis Post Dispatch June 30 1964 p 8A Archived from the original on July 24 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com Welch Leaves FCC For Own Practice Broadcasting July 15 1946 p 66 ProQuest 1014872882 D C lawyers get CP s for 3 TV s Broadcasting October 5 1964 p 64 ProQuest 1014491355 FCC Approves Permit For UHF TV Station Here St Louis Post Dispatch October 1 1964 p 4A Archived from the original on July 24 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com FCC Asked to Extend Permit To Build UHF TV Station Here St Louis Post Dispatch June 10 1965 p 24A Archived from the original on July 24 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com FCC May Cancel Permit For New TV Station Here St Louis Post Dispatch September 13 1970 p 6B Archived from the original on July 24 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com a b White House s Dean tied to UHF dispute Broadcasting April 9 1973 p 41 ProQuest 1285742435 Millstone James C March 19 1966 Channel 30 for UHF Station Here Is Sought by New Company Application Filed With FCC Operation Would Be in Clayton St Louis Post Dispatch p 3A Archived from the original on July 24 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com a b Ottenad Thomas W April 5 1973 Law Firm Fired Dean In 1966 In Dispute Over TV Station Here St Louis Post Dispatch pp 1A 15A Archived from the original on July 24 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com New TV Station Authorized By FCC for UHF Channel 30 St Louis Post Dispatch June 7 1966 p 3 Archived from the original on July 24 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com a b c History Cards for KDNL TV Federal Communications Commission For the Record Broadcasting April 29 1968 p 76 ProQuest 1014517497 Evans Group Granted TV Building Permit St Louis Post Dispatch July 23 1968 p 3B Archived from the original on July 24 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com Evans casts his net for another flock of U s Broadcasting December 16 1968 p 45 ProQuest 1016850371 Shrewsbury Studies UHF Station Plan St Louis Post Dispatch January 17 1969 p 4S Archived from the original on July 24 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com Shrewsbury Acts on TV Tower Plea St Louis Post Dispatch January 31 1969 p 2S Archived from the original on July 24 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com UHF TV Tower Being Erected in Shrewsbury St Louis Post Dispatch April 17 1969 p 1N Archived from the original on July 24 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com UHF Channel 30 KDNL TV Joins St Louis Area Telecasting Scene St Louis Post Dispatch June 8 1969 p Television 5 Archived from the original on July 24 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com Archibald John J August 11 1971 TV Comment Bullish Reaction To Market Show St Louis Post Dispatch p 2F Archived from the original on July 24 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com New York Firm Owns New TV Station Here St Louis Post Dispatch June 8 1969 p 4N Archived from the original on July 24 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com JAmes Edwin H March 5 1973 Special report The hard way to make money in television Broadcasting p 39 ProQuest 1014538304 Blues TV Schedule St Louis Post Dispatch September 4 1977 p 2B Archived from the original on July 25 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com KSDK To Televise 15 Blues Games St Louis Post Dispatch August 4 1981 p 2C Archived from the original on July 25 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com Group fights to keep area s TV channel 13 Southern Illinoisan July 30 1979 p 3 Archived from the original on July 24 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com Bean Ed August 19 1979 Will proposed area TV outlet be more than satellite Southern Illinoisan p 27 Archived from the original on July 24 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com Bean Ed February 24 1980 Independent TV Channel 13 A step nearer to reality Southern Illinoisan p 28 Archived from the original on July 24 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com Archibald John J June 20 1977 A Flick Of The Knob And It s Hollywood Subscribers Here Turned On No Time Outs For Commercials St Louis Post Dispatch pp 1A 4A Archived from the original on July 24 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com Mink Eric P June 11 1979 Time Inc Negotiating For Purchase Of Channel 30 St Louis Post Dispatch p 1C Archived from the original on July 24 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com Texas Firm To Buy KDNL TV St Louis Post Dispatch September 17 1979 p 12A Archived from the original on July 24 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com Mink Eric P February 29 1980 Action By FCC Allows Subscription Television Here St Louis Post Dispatch pp 1A 9A Archived from the original on July 24 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com Atlanta Firm Agrees To Buy KDNL TV Here St Louis Post Dispatch March 3 1981 p 9A Archived from the original on July 24 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com Harrison Connie S January 21 1982 Cox Acquires KDNL Plans Subscription Television St Louis Post Dispatch p 7C Archived from the original on July 24 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com Plott Monte June 2 1982 Channel 30 Scrambles For Extra Pay TV Dollars St Louis Post Dispatch p 7D Archived from the original on June 28 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com Kesler Lori October 7 1982 Adult movies help Preview in St Louis Electronic Media p 17 Special Report Baseball 1983 Broadcasting February 28 1983 pp 51 54 56 58 60 66 70 ProQuest 963236690 Mink Eric December 17 1982 Preview Pay TV Operation To Shut Down St Louis Post Dispatch p 12A Archived from the original on July 14 2019 Retrieved July 13 2019 Troubled times for some STV operators Broadcasting January 24 1983 pp 72 73 ProQuest 1016905408 a b KDNL s Manager Fights Rerun Image Bill Viands takes pride in offering viewers alternative program St Louis Post Dispatch November 20 1985 p 3E Archived from the original on July 25 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com Blues send four down The Daily Journal Associated Press September 19 1986 p 5 Archived from the original on July 25 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com Fox network begins to take shape PDF Broadcasting August 4 1986 pp 44 45 ProQuest 963254490 Archived PDF from the original on January 27 2022 Retrieved March 11 2023 Mink Eric June 22 1987 Channel 5 Still Rules Ratings Roost St Louis Post Dispatch p 7D Archived from the original on July 25 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com Mink Eric November 13 1987 Fox TV Series Definite Mixed Bag St Louis Post Dispatch p 9G Archived from the original on July 25 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com a b Shinkle Florence December 23 1993 Barry Baker Money Maker River City Broadcasting s CEO does it as an outsider who loves the battle St Louis Post Dispatch pp 1G 7G Archived from the original on July 25 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com Former KPLR Executives Agree To Purchase KDNL St Louis Post Dispatch February 22 1989 pp 1A 8A Archived from the original on July 25 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com St Louis Group Buys TV Station In Texas St Louis Post Dispatch May 2 1989 p 6C Archived from the original on July 25 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com Owner Of KDNL TV Sues Firm Over Delay In Selling Station St Louis Post Dispatch September 15 1989 p 7C Archived from the original on July 25 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com Berger Jerry July 8 1990 Talbot s Petites Coming To Plaza Frontenac In September St Louis Post Dispatch p 1C Archived from the original on July 25 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com McWhorter Darrell October 11 1990 KSTZ s Buyers Put Faith In New Partner St Louis Post Dispatch p 7E Archived from the original on July 25 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com Rosen Gary Alan February 26 1990 Executive boosts ratings of former rival TV station Electronic Media p 8 Desloge Rick January 22 1990 Switching channels KDNL KPLR increase revenues due to change in measuring viewership St Louis Business Journal Gale A8340251 Schmuckler Eric April 18 1994 Oh what a beautiful morning Mediaweek p 22 ProQuest 213631082 Gallagher Jim February 18 1994 Channel 30 Is Planning To Start Own Newscast St Louis Post Dispatch p 10D Archived from the original on July 25 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com a b c Goodman Adam Berger Jerry August 27 1994 ABC OKs Move To KDNL Channel 30 Gains 10 Year Agreement St Louis Post Dispatch pp 1A 4A Archived from the original on July 25 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com Cohen David H September 1994 A lot of history behind ABC s move to Channel 30 St Louis Journalism Review Gale A16109705 Gallagher Jim May 24 1994 Deal May Let Fox Go To Channel 2 St Louis Post Dispatch pp 1A 5A Archived from the original on July 25 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com Gallagher Jim May 29 1994 Channel Scramble At Least Two Stations Seek ABC Alliance St Louis Post Dispatch pp 1E 3E Archived from the original on July 25 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com At Press Time Electronic Media August 29 1994 p 2 Pennington Gail December 29 1994 Birth of the News After 12 month gestation Channel 30 s baby goes on the air at 9 p m Sunday St Louis Post Dispatch pp 1G 5G 6G Archived from the original on July 25 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com MacBryde Ian November 1994 Channels St Louis Journalism Review Gale A16501934 Voyager wins ratings in big TV markets The Belleville News Democrat August 31 1995 p 6C Archived from the original on July 25 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com Wentworth John November 30 1994 United Paramount Network significantly boosts coverage as 22 new affiliates sign on Press release PR Newswire ProQuest 447730881 Channel 24 joins UPN Star Trek Voyager returns St Louis Post Dispatch May 30 1999 p C9 Archived from the original on July 25 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com Pennington Gail September 13 2000 UPN is left homeless in St Louis after Channel 24 cuts ties St Louis Post Dispatch pp E1 E8 Archived from the original on July 25 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com Kaufman Doug August 6 1995 The Big Switch Channel 2 and Channel 30 adopt new identities The Belleville News Democrat pp 1C 11C Archived from the original on July 25 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com a b Pennington Gail August 1 1995 For Some Viewers 2 Doesn t Go Into 30 St Louis Post Dispatch p 6D Archived from the original on May 3 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com Pennington Gail August 13 1995 Dynamic Duo Rev Rice Fox Kids Shows St Louis Post Dispatch p 6D Archived from the original on July 25 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com Pennington Gail August 8 1996 Fox Kids Programming Moves To Channel 2 St Louis Post Dispatch p 6G Archived from the original on July 25 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com Pennington Gail August 6 1995 Marsh Back As Anchor At KDNL St Louis Post Dispatch p 1D Archived from the original on July 25 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com McClellan Steve April 15 1996 Sinclair s 2 3B powerhouse Broadcasting amp Cable ProQuest 225360423 via ProQuest Frohlichstein Tripp April 12 1996 Channel 30 Staffing News One Job Filled Another Not St Louis Post Dispatch p 8E Archived from the original on July 25 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com Song Kyung M July 17 1997 3 Radio Stations Bought By Group WIL FM Is Among Sinclair Additions St Louis Post Dispatch p 1C Archived from the original on July 25 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com a b Bishop Ed May 1997 Bumpy road for Channel 30 news St Louis Journalism Review Gale A19601931 Frohlichstein Tripp May 1997 Channel 30 news image falls short St Louis Journalism Review Gale A19601937 Berger Jerry October 18 1998 Local TV moves Edlund will exit Emory returns St Louis Post Dispatch p A2 Archived from the original on July 25 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com Lipman Lisa August 22 1999 Solo slot surprise for Lyles The Post and Courier p 1F Pennington Gail August 27 1998 Don Marsh leaves Channel 30 ending his TV news career St Louis Post Dispatch p A2 Archived from the original on July 25 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com Bishop Ed September 1998 Do you really trust Channel 30 St Louis Journalism Review Gale A21159933 Wenner Kathryn S November 2001 Darkened Set American Journalism Review Frohlichstein Tripp Bishop Ed October 2001 Channel 30 pulls the plug on local news St Louis Journalism Review Gale A79412920 Carey Christopher February 19 1999 Local broadcast figure becomes USA Networks president St Louis Post Dispatch pp A1 A10 Archived from the original on July 25 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com Berger Jerry May 12 1999 Ex owner of Channel 30 is facing a big deadline St Louis Post Dispatch p A2 Archived from the original on July 25 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com a b Pennington Gail June 26 1999 Emmis buys KDNL TV 6 radio outlets St Louis Post Dispatch p 24 OT Archived from the original on July 25 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com Emmis to buy Sinclair stations here St Louis Business Journals American City Business Journals June 25 1999 Archived from the original on July 12 2015 Retrieved July 11 2015 a b Ribbing Mark March 21 2000 Sinclair faces 300 million countersuit Ex executive rival firm object of 40 million suit The Baltimore Sun p 2C Archived from the original on July 25 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com Gallagher Jim January 20 2000 Sinclair sues to block sale of six area radio stations St Louis Post Dispatch p C1 Archived from the original on July 25 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com Bachman Katy January 24 2000 Emmis singing the blues over Sinclair Mediaweek p 14 ProQuest 213630592 Crawford Amanda J June 23 2000 Sinclair selling last 6 of its radio stations The Baltimore Sun p 2C Archived from the original on July 25 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com Sinclair to sell six radio stations to Emmis St Louis Business Journal American City Business Journals June 22 2000 Archived from the original on July 12 2015 Retrieved July 11 2015 KDNL DT 2006 p A 1322 a href Template Cite book html title Template Cite book cite book a work ignored help a b Pennington Gail October 12 2001 After tonight s shows it s lights out for Channel 30 news 47 lose their jobs St Louis Post Dispatch pp B1 B4 Archived from the original on July 25 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com Davis Hudson Eileen March 5 2001 St Louis Mediaweek pp 15 18 ProQuest 213633382 a b Pennington Gail September 29 2001 Channel 30 will drop its local news broadcasts St Louis Post Dispatch p 14 Archived from the original on July 25 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 via Newspapers com a b Pennington Gail September 30 2001 Dominant foes KO d newscasts on KDNL St Louis Post Dispatch pp C1 C6 Archived from the original on July 25 2023 Retrieved May 4 2023 via Newspapers com a b Trigoboff Dan October 8 2001 KDNL s St Louis news blues Broadcasting amp Cable p 22 ProQuest 225299908 Kritzer Jamie January 3 2002 WXLV to pull plug on newscast The ABC affiliate has consistently had the smallest audience among the area s four network affiliates during the past six years Greensboro News amp Record pp A1 A6 Archived from the original on July 25 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 Biesecker Michael January 3 2002 ABC 45 will end its news shows Official says station was unable to make broadcasts profitable Winston Salem Journal pp B1 B6 Archived from the original on July 25 2023 Retrieved July 24 2023 a b Desloge Rick June 30 2002 KDNL for sale could fetch 100 million St Louis Business Journals American City Business Journals Archived from the original on July 12 2015 Retrieved July 11 2015 Jessell Harry A February 21 2018 Sinclair Unveils Tribune Merger Spin Off Plan TVNewsCheck NewsCheck Media Archived from the original on February 22 2018 Retrieved August 9 2018 KPLR among 23 stations being sold to clear Sinclair s takeover of Tribune Media St Louis Post Dispatch Lee Enterprises April 24 2018 Archived from the original on April 24 2018 Retrieved April 24 2018 Jacobson Adam May 22 2018 Exclusive Meredith Bid For Sinclair Station Iced Radio amp Television Business Report Archived from the original on May 18 2019 Retrieved May 22 2018 Shields Todd July 16 2018 Sinclair and Tribune Fall as FCC Slams TV Station Sale Plan Bloomberg News Archived from the original on October 4 2018 Retrieved July 19 2018 Miller Mark K August 9 2018 Tribune Kills Sinclair Merger Files Suit TVNewsCheck NewsCheck Media Archived from the original on March 29 2022 Retrieved August 9 2018 NewsChannel 5 to produce original content for KDNL ABC 30 KSDK Gannett Company Archived from the original on July 13 2012 Retrieved September 6 2012 Buss Will November 13 2010 Local newscasts scheduled to return to KDNL The Belleville News Democrat p B3 Archived from the original on July 25 2023 Retrieved July 25 2023 via Newspapers com Brown Lisa June 20 2013 KSDK to stop producing newscasts for KDNL St Louis Post Dispatch Archived from the original on August 21 2014 Retrieved June 22 2013 a b Holleman Joe February 10 2014 KDNL plans to resurrect its own newscasts St Louis Post Dispatch Archived from the original on August 28 2014 Retrieved February 11 2014 Pennington Gail November 24 2014 KDNL will launch non traditional newscast in January St Louis Post Dispatch Archived from the original on March 16 2017 Retrieved November 24 2014 Rice Rachel April 9 2018 Jamie Allman loses Channel 30 show amid controversy over Tweet threatening student activist St Louis Post Dispatch Archived from the original on April 11 2018 Retrieved April 10 2018 Allman back on morning radio at new conservative talk station St Louis Post Dispatch August 17 2021 Archived from the original on January 1 2022 Retrieved January 1 2022 Holleman Joe July 30 2017 Spotlight Them Yo People focuses on St Louisans for laughs lessons St Louis Post Dispatch Archived from the original on July 25 2023 Retrieved July 25 2023 KDNL ABC 30 Quarterly Issues and Programming Report PDF Public Inspection File Federal Communications Commission June 30 2023 TV Query for KDNL TV RabbitEars Archived from the original on December 27 2013 Retrieved December 26 2013 List of TV stations ending analog broadcasts NBC News Associated Press February 17 2009 Archived from the original on January 6 2023 Retrieved March 20 2023 DTV Tentative Channel Designations for the First and Second Rounds PDF Federal Communications Commission May 23 2006 Archived from the original PDF on August 29 2013 Retrieved August 29 2021 UPDATED List of Participants in the Analog Nightlight Program PDF Federal Communications Commission June 12 2009 Archived from the original on February 1 2014 Retrieved June 4 2012 External links EditOfficial website KDNL TV Collection Finding Aid at the St Louis Public Library Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title KDNL TV amp oldid 1171439684, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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