Wikipedia

WDAF-TV

This article is about the television station in Kansas City, Missouri. For its sister station in Dallas–Fort Worth, Texas, see KDAF.

WDAF-TV (channel 4) is a television station in Kansas City, Missouri, United States, affiliated with the Fox network. Owned by Nexstar Media Group, the station maintains studios and transmitter facilities on Summit Street in the Signal Hill section of Kansas City, Missouri.

WDAF-TV
Channels
BrandingFox 4 Kansas City
Programming
Affiliations
Ownership
Owner
History
First air date
October 16, 1949 (75 years ago) (1949-10-16)
Former channel number(s)
  • Analog: 4 (VHF, 1949–2009)
Call sign meaning
Derived from WDAF radio
Technical information[1]
Licensing authority
FCC
Facility ID11291
ERP1,000 kW
HAAT347 m (1,138 ft)
Transmitter coordinates39°4′21″N 94°35′46″W / 39.07250°N 94.59611°W / 39.07250; -94.59611
Links
Public license information
Websitefox4kc.com

History

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As an NBC affiliate

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On January 30, 1948, The Kansas City Star Co. – the locally based parent company of the Kansas City Star, which operated as an employee-owned entity at the time – submitted an application to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for a construction permit to build and license to operate a television station that would transmit on VHF channel 4. The FCC granted the license for the proposed television station to the Star Co. on the same day; the company subsequently requested to use WDAF-TV (standing for "Why Dial Any Further?") as its call letters, applying the base call sign originally assigned to its radio station on 610 AM (now KFNZ; on radio, the WDAF calls now reside on 106.5 FM through a September 2003 format change that also saw the former's country music format move from the AM station, which adopted a sports talk format). (Channel 4 is among a handful of U.S. broadcast stations that is an exception to an FCC rule that assigns call signs prefixed with a "K" to television and radio stations with cities of license located west of the Mississippi River and call signs prefixed with a "W" to stations located east of the river. The anomaly in the case of the WDAF television and radio stations is due to the fact that Kansas City was originally located east of the original "K"/"W" border distinction defined by the FCC at the time that the WDAF call letters were assigned to both stations.)[2][3][4]

The station commenced test broadcasts on September 11, 1949, with a three-day event held at Kansas City, Missouri's Municipal Auditorium on West 13th and Central Streets, which was presented by Kansas City Star Co. president Roy A. Roberts and WDAF-TV-AM general manager H. Dean Fitzer. Channel 4 informally signed on the air on September 29, when it broadcast coverage of President Harry S. Truman's speech at the Municipal Auditorium.[5] WDAF-TV officially commenced regular programming two weeks later at 6 p.m. on October 16, 1949; the station's first broadcast was The Birth of a TV Station, a special 30-minute documentary inaugurating channel 4's launch, which featured speeches from Roberts and Fitzer as well as topical features on the station's development and a film outlining programs that would air on WDAF.[4] It was the second television station to sign on in Missouri (after KSDK in St. Louis, which debuted in February 1947 as KSD-TV) and the first to sign on in the Kansas City market. WDAF-TV has maintained studio facilities based at 31st and Summit streets in Kansas City, Missouri's Signal Hill neighborhood since its sign-on; the station originally maintained transmitter facilities on a 724-foot (221 m) broadcast tower located atop the building. (Since the transmitter facility was relocated to a tower across the street from the Summit Street studios, on Belleview Avenue near West 30th Street, in 1969, the original tower at the studio facility has remained in use for auxiliary transmissions).

Channel 4 originally operated as a primary affiliate of NBC – an affiliation that was owed to WDAF radio's longtime relationship with the television network's direct predecessor, the NBC Red Network, which it had been affiliated with since 1925 (when the station transmitted on 680 AM) as the network's westernmost affiliate – although it also maintained secondary affiliations with CBS,[6] ABC and the DuMont Television Network. Under Star ownership, the station largely utilized WDAF radio employees to staff the television station; among the notable staffers employed with both stations in its early years included Randall Jessee (who served as WDAF-TV's first news anchor), Shelby Storck (who was the station's first weathercaster), and future Hollywood character actor Owen Bush (who served as an on-staff announcer during the early 1950s). Among the local programs that WDAF aired during its early years included the half-hour daytime talk program The Bette Hayes Show, the 90-minute-long daily children's program Dr. Inventor, and a weekly television program on religion hosted by Arthur Otto Ackenbom that ran from 1955 to 1956.[7] For several years, WDAF-TV's daily sign-on and sign-off sequence was accompanied by a recording of Gordon MacRae's rendition of "The Lord's Prayer".

The station would lose affiliations with three of the networks from which it cherry-picked programs in the late summer of 1953, when WDAF gained its first commercial television competitors in the Kansas City market. Programming from CBS and DuMont moved to WHB-TV and KMBC-TV (channel 9; KMBC became the sole occupant of that channel in June 1954), which shared affiliations with the two networks when both stations signed on under a timesharing arrangement between their respective licensees, the Cook Paint and Varnish Company and the Midland Broadcasting Company, on August 2 of that year. Channel 4 shared the ABC affiliation with WHB/KMBC until September 27, when KCMO-TV (channel 5, now KCTV) signed on as the network's original full-time Kansas City affiliate (KMBC and KCMO would swap affiliations two years later in September 1955); this left channel 4 as an exclusive affiliate with NBC.

Also in 1953, the U.S. Department of Justice initiated an antitrust investigation against the Star over its ownership of WDAF radio and WDAF-TV; the investigation was reportedly opened at the behest of President Truman, who had been engaged in a long-standing feud with the newspaper over its opposition to the Kansas City native's presidency and his policy proposals. The investigation culminated in the Justice Department filing indictment charges against the Star on the grounds that it engaged in monopolistic practices in its sale of advertising for the newspaper and its television and radio stations. The case was taken to court in 1955, two years after the close of the Truman administration, a federal grand jury found the Star guilty at the end of the one-month restraint-of-trade trial. After attempts to appeal the ruling failed, the Star signed a consent decree in 1957 that required it to stop combining advertising and subscription rates for the newspaper and sell off its broadcasting interests. On May 18, 1958, the WDAF stations were sold to National-Missouri Broadcasters, the broadcasting division of National Theaters.

On July 13, 1960, National-Missouri Broadcasters merged with Buffalo, New York–based Transcontinent Broadcasting. Under Transcontinent ownership, the two stations were joined by an additional sister radio station, WDAF-FM (102.1, now KCKC). Transcontinent merged with Cincinnati-based Taft Broadcasting on February 19, 1964; the transaction was finalized on April 1, 1964.

On July 13, 1984, as NBC began transitioning away from using microwave relays for distribution of its programs to the more economically efficient downlink method, WDAF-TV became one of the first 20 NBC stations to begin receiving the network's programs via satellite transmission. In 1986, it also became the first television station in Kansas City to broadcast in stereo, initially broadcasting NBC network programs and certain syndicated shows that were transmitted in the audio format.

On October 12, 1987, company investors completed a hostile takeover of Taft Broadcasting from the family which owned the company; its new owners restructured the group into the Great American Television and Radio Company (also known as Great American Communications). By that year, WDAF-TV had overtaken KMBC as the dominant station in Kansas City, as was the trend during this period at many NBC-affiliated stations, buoyed by the stronger programming slate that helped the network retake first place in the ratings among the Big Three broadcast networks around that time. In December 1993, Great American Communications underwent another financial restructuring following the company's filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Great American then decided to put most of its television stations up for sale.

New World and the Fox affiliation switch

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Main article: 1994–1996 United States broadcast television realignment

As part of a larger corporate restructuring, WDAF-TV and three other Great American stations were sold to New World Communications on May 5, 1994, for $350 million in cash and $10 million in share warrants;[8] Great American retained WDAF and KYYS.[9] This was one of several transactions made by New World owner Ronald Perelman since his takeover of SCI Television in February 1993,[10] as New World purchased four stations from Argyle Television Holdings for $717 million three days earlier.[11]

On May 23, 1994, WDAF-TV was identified as one of twelve present or future New World stations that would switch network affiliations to Fox; WDAF was the lone NBC affiliate affected.[12][13] Fox parent News Corporation purchased a 20 percent equity stake in New World as part of the agreement, which came after the network outbid CBS for partial rights to the National Football League and sought to upgrade their affiliate base.[14] KCTV re-signed with CBS and KMBC re-signed with ABC via larger deals by their corporate parents;[15] KCTV owner Meredith Corporation stood ready to flip the station to NBC if CBS bypassed its Phoenix TV station, KPHO-TV, in a market where CBS was the displaced network.[16] Outgoing Fox affiliate KSHB-TV, one of three Scripps-Howard stations that lost Fox with the New World deal, signed with NBC in late July 1994.[17]

The date of the switch was announced on August 10, 1994, to be September 12, three days after New World's purchase of WDAF was slated to close and initiating a month of programming changes between the stations.[18] Fox Kids, which WDAF declined to carry, went from KSHB to KSMO-TV.[19] WDAF and KSHB quickly began rapid expansions of their news departments, with WDAF adding 21 hours of local news weekly—particularly in the morning and early evening—and hiring an additional 35 staffers, while KSHB readied production of early-evening newscasts.[20] WDAF's 45-year relationship with NBC ended with the switch, but their existing "Newschannel 4" branding was retained.[21]

Fox ownership

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News Corp. agreed to purchase New World Communications in a $2.5 billion deal announced on July 17, 1996, with WDAF-TV joining Fox's owned-station division; talks between the two companies stalled earlier in the year but restarted when Perelman pursued a deal for King World.[22][23][24] On January 26, 1997, four days after the deal was finalized and coinciding with Fox's telecast of Super Bowl XXXI, WDAF-TV rebranded as "Fox 4".[25]

WDAF was one of four stations Fox Television Stations was rumored to divest on June 29, 2001, in order to free up additional ownership cap space as part of Fox's purchase of the Chris-Craft Television group.[26] Black business executive Luther Gatling made an offer to purchase the stations from News Corp., who confirmed the offer but denied any negotiations ever took place.[27] The need for Fox to divest WDAF and the other three stations was nullified after the FCC was mandated by a court ruling to increase the national ownership cap from 35 percent to 39 percent.[28]

Local TV, Tribune and Nexstar ownership

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On December 22, 2007, Fox sold WDAF-TV and seven other owned-and-operated stations to Local TV LLC for $1.1 billion; the sale was finalized on July 14, 2008.[29][30][31] On July 1, 2013, the Tribune Company acquired Local TV LLC for $2.75 billion;[32] the sale was completed on December 27.[33][34]

Sinclair Broadcast Group (which owned KSMO-TV from 1994 to 2005) announced a $3.9 billion purchase of Tribune Broadcasting on May 8, 2017.[35] Tribune terminated the merger on August 9, 2018,[36][37] following a rejection of the deal by FCC chairman Ajit Pai.[38] Following the Sinclair-Tribune merger collapse, Tribune agreed to be purchased by Nexstar Media Group on December 3, 2018, for $6.4 billion.[39]

Programming

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Sports programming

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Channel 4 held broadcast rights to Kansas City Chiefs preseason games from 1997 to 2001; during this period, the on-air production presentation of the locally exclusive telecasts was upgraded to network quality standards by way of WDAF's then-ownership under Fox.[40]

WDAF-TV served as the over-the-air flagship station of the Kansas City Royals from 1979 to 1992. Notable Royals telecasts that the station has aired during its tenures with NBC and Fox have included the team's World Series appearances in 1980, 2014 and 2015, the first having been aired by NBC and the two most recent appearances being carried by Fox, the latter of which saw the franchise win its first world championship title since 1985.

Newscasts

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As of August 2022, WDAF-TV presently broadcasts 67 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with 11+1⁄2 hours on weekdays, 4+1⁄2 hours on Saturdays and five hours on Sundays); in regards to the number of hours devoted to news programming, it is the highest local newscast output among the Kansas City market's commercial television stations. The station operates a Hummer, branded as "Storm Fox", which the station primarily uses as a storm chasing vehicle to cover severe weather events affecting its viewing area.

Local news has always maintained an important presence at WDAF-TV throughout its history, an ideology fitting of a station that was founded by a newspaper. Dating back to its NBC affiliation, channel 4 has long battled KMBC-TV (and at times, KCTV as well) for the most-watched local television newscast in the Kansas City market for the better part of four decades. During the late 1970s and 1980s, WDAF-TV's newscasts sat in second place in the ratings, behind KMBC; however, coinciding with the rise of NBC's ratings fortunes during that period, it ended the latter decade in first place, overtaking KCTV for the top spot. In 1982, WDAF-TV became the first television station in Kansas City to use a helicopter for newsgathering; the helicopter (originally known as "Chopper 4" until 1992, then as "NewsChopper 4" from 1992 to 1999, and later "Sky Fox" thereafter) was used to provide aerial coverage of breaking news and severe weather events, and periodically for traffic reports during its weekday morning and 5 p.m. newscasts; the helicopter was grounded by station management on August 31, 2009, citing budget issues with the leasing of the helicopter.

Also in 1982, WDAF launched a feature titled "Thursday’s Child", a segment that aired weekly during its 10 p.m. newscast, which highlighted Kansas City area children in the foster care system who were seeking adoptive families; the segment was produced by the WDAF news department, in conjunction with the Love Fund for Children, a charity founded through a $1,200 endowment from several WDAF-TV employees. In September 1984, the station debuted a 20-minute local sports news program within the Sunday edition of its 10 p.m. newscast, The Kansas City Sports Machine, which borrowed its title from the syndicated The George Michael Sports Machine, which aired on WDAF from 1982 until it concluded its syndication run in September 2007; the WDAF version lasted until 1999, when it evolved into a conventional sports segment within the Sunday 10 p.m. newscast.

When WDAF-TV adopted the Newschannel 4 brand in April 1992, the station also implemented the "24-Hour News Source" concept (which was enforced in the promotional slogan used by the station until 1999, "Kansas City's 24-Hour Newschannel"). Its iteration of the concept involved both the production of 30-second news updates that aired at or near the top of each hour during local commercial break inserts – even during prime time network and overnight programming – and five-second end-of-break weather updates (consisting of an image of the station's Doppler radar, then known as "Doppler 4 Radar", usually accompanied by a brief voiceover by one of the station's meteorologists illustrating the short-term forecast or teasing the weather segment in an upcoming newscast), during time periods when the station was not airing its regularly scheduled, long-form newscasts. In September 1992, WDAF became the first television station in Kansas City to launch a weekend morning newscast, with the debut of two-hour-long Saturday and Sunday broadcasts that initially aired from 8 to 10 a.m. (both editions would later move to 7 to 9 a.m. in September 1997, with the Saturday edition moving one hour earlier on April 23, 2016).[41]

After WDAF became a Fox affiliate on September 12, 1994, the station underwent a major shift in its programming philosophy that more heavily emphasized its local news programming. It retained a news schedule similar to the one it had as an NBC affiliate, but increased its news output from about 25 hours to nearly 45 hours per week by expanding existing newscasts and adding ones in new time periods (with its weekday news schedule expanding from 3+1⁄2 hours to seven hours per day). In its early years with Fox, local news programming on the station ran on weekdays from 6 to 9 a.m., noon to 1 p.m. and 5 to 6:30 p.m. and nightly from 9 to 10:30 p.m., as well as on weekend mornings and early evenings.[42] The station retained the "24-Hour News Source" format after the affiliation switch, continuing to offer news updates on an hourly basis during commercial breaks until it discontinued the concept in May 1999. With New World Communications heavily investing in the news department's expansion, WDAF increased its news staff from 80 to 120 employees; it hired up to 40 additional employees (including additional reporters and behind-the-scenes staff members) to handle the expanded news coverage that the new news-intensive lineup would allow.

The weekday morning newscast's expansion from one to three hours – with the addition of a two-hour extension from 7 to 9 a.m. – and the consolidation of its half-hour weeknight 5 and 6 p.m. newscasts into a single 90-minute block – although the early-evening block was structured as three separate half-hour broadcasts – filled timeslots vacated by the departures of Today and NBC Nightly News from its schedule as Fox, unlike NBC, does not have daily national news programs. The weekday morning newscast would gradually expand over time, eventually attaining its current 5½-hour format with the addition of an hour-long block at 9 a.m. on March 24, 2011, and a half-hour early extension at 4:30 a.m. on October 3 of that year.[43][44] Since Fox does not provide network programming during that hour, Channel 4 also added an hour-long prime time newscast at 9 p.m. – originally titled Newschannel 4 Primetime until January 1997 and then Fox 4 News: Primetime at 9 until September 1999, when it was renamed as simply Fox 4 News at 9 – to lead into its existing 10 p.m. newscast[42] (WDAF is one of several Fox stations that offer newscasts in both the final hour of prime time and the traditional late news time slot – as well as one of the few affiliated with the network that runs a nightly newscast in the latter slot – and one of ten that continued its Big Three-era late-evening newscast after switching to Fox); the addition marked the first time WDAF had aired a local newscast at that hour since its days as a hybrid NBC/ABC/CBS/DuMont affiliate, when the station aired its late-evening newscast at 9:30 from its sign-on in September 1949 until the program moved to 10 p.m. after the station became a full-time NBC affiliate in September 1953.

On January 15, 1996, WDAF-TV reformatted its 5:30 p.m. newscast as Your World Tonight, a program focusing primarily on national and international news headlines that was modeled similarly to the national news programs of ABC, CBS and NBC (as with the national newscasts that Your World Tonight competed directly against, the program maintained a single-anchor format, with Phil Witt – who joined WDAF in August 1979 as a weekend evening anchor/reporter, before being promoted to main co-anchor of the weekday evening newscasts in 1981, a role in which he remained until Witt retired from broadcasting on June 20, 2017[45][46][47][48] – at the helm). Because Fox did not have a news division – and by association, an affiliate news service – at the time WDAF joined the network, the program – as was the case with WDAF's news department as a whole since the September 1994 switch to Fox – initially relied mainly on external video feeds from CNN Newsource for coverage of national and international news stories, although with the associated launch of Fox News Channel that August, it also added content sourced from Fox's in-house affiliate video service Fox News Edge. The Your World Tonight concept was not successful, and the 5:30 p.m. broadcast was retooled as a traditional local newscast, formatted as an extension of its lead-in 5 broadcast, on January 6, 1997.[49]

Not long after WDAF-TV switched to Fox, KMBC made a short resurgence in news viewership amid viewer confusion caused by the switch, overtaking it for first place among the market's local television newscasts; this situation would further intensify the ratings rivalry between the two stations. Since the late 1990s, WDAF-TV's newscasts have rotated between first and second place with either KMBC or KCTV depending on the time slot, with the station's strongest ratings being logged in the morning and at 9 p.m., where WDAF regularly finishes at No. 1 (in time periods where that station does not have an absolute hold in that position, WDAF competes for second place with CBS affiliate KCTV). Channel 4 has maintained its status as the ratings leader in the 9 p.m. hour, even as it has faced added competition in recent years from a KCTV-produced newscast on MyNetworkTV-affiliated sister station KSMO-TV (which premiered on the latter station as a WB affiliate on September 12, 2005) and a KMBC-produced newscast on that station's CW-affiliated sister KCWE (which began as a half-hour program on September 14, 2010[50]).

In February 2003, WDAF-TV launched an investigative reporting unit, the "Fox 4 Problem Solvers", which conduct investigative reports centering on businesses that have ripped off local consumers and uncovers various consumer scams. In April 2007, fellow Fox affiliate KTMJ-CA in Topeka began simulcasting the 7 to 9 a.m. block of WDAF-TV's weekday morning newscast and its nightly 9 p.m. newscast (ironically, the over-the-air signals of WDAF-TV and several other Kansas City area stations adequately cover most of the nearby Topeka market due to the close proximity of the two markets, Topeka being located 55 miles (89 km) due west of Kansas City). The simulcasts were dropped in November 2008, when KTMJ's earlier purchase by New Vision Television led to their replacement by locally based newscasts produced by its NBC-affiliated sister station KSNT.

On October 12, 2010, WDAF-TV became the fourth (and last) television station in the Kansas City market to begin broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition.[51] On April 11, 2011, the station extended its existing pre-Fox-era late newscast, with the debut of a separate 10:30 p.m. news program on Sunday through Friday nights (Fox late night programming airs on Saturdays during that half-hour); as a result, it became the first Fox station – and one of only a handful of television stations in the Central and Mountain time zones – to expand its 10 p.m. newscast to a full hour, a format more common in that timeslot with prime time newscasts aired on Fox stations and non-major-network outlets in the Eastern and Pacific Time Zones.[52]

Notable former on-air staff

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Technical information

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Subchannels

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The station's signal is multiplexed:

Subchannels of WDAF-TV[55]
Channel Res. Aspect Short name Programming
4.1 720p 16:9 WDAF-DT Fox
4.2 480i ANT TV Antenna TV
4.3 Rewind Rewind TV
4.4 TBD TBD
38.3 480i 16:9 Mystery Court TV (KMCI-TV)
38.4 HSN HSN (KMCI-TV)
  Broadcast on behalf of another station

Analog-to-digital conversion

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WDAF-TV's digital signal was upgraded to full-power high definition on September 23, 2005, increasing its HD signal strength from 1.2 kW to 1,000 kW. The station shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 4, on June 12, 2009, at 9:01 a.m., the official date on which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. WDAF continued to transmit its digital signal on its pre-transition UHF channel 34, using virtual channel 4.[56]

References

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