KYW-TV
KYW-TV, channel three, is the
CBS owned-and-operated
television station in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. KYW-TV shares studios with sister stations
KYW radio (1060 kHz.) and
WPSG (channel 57) at
Independence Mall East in
Center City Philadelphia, while its transmitter is located in the
Roxborough section of the city.
As WPTZ-TV
The channel 3 facility in Philadelphia is one of the world's oldest television stations. It began in 1932 as
W3XE, an experimental station owned by
Philco. In 1941, it began sharing programs with W2XBS (later WNBT and now
WNBC-TV) in
New York City, becoming
NBC's second television affiliate, and creating a link between the station and the network that would last for 56 years.
On
July 1,
1941, W3XE received a commercial license as
WPTZ-TV. The station signed on for the first time on
September 3. The station originally broadcast from a tower in the suburb of
Wyndmoor. It suspended operations after the U.S. entered
World War II, but returned to the air in
1945. It then became one of three stations (along with WNBT and
WRGB in
Schenectady, New York) that premiered NBC's regular television service in
1946. The
Westinghouse Electric Corporation, owner of Philadelphia's NBC radio affiliate KYW, purchased WPTZ-TV in 1952.
As an NBC-owned station
In late
1955, Westinghouse traded WPTZ-TV and KYW radio to NBC in exchange for
Cleveland's
WNBK television and
WTAM-AM-
FM. NBC, who had long sought an owned-and-operated station in Philadelphia, was at first rebuffed by Westinghouse. NBC remained persistent, as it threatened to cancel its affiliation from WPTZ-TV and Westinghouse's other NBC-TV affiliate,
WBZ-TV in
Boston, unless Westinghouse agreed to the trade.
When NBC took over in February 1956, channel three's calls letters were changed to
WRCV-TV (for the
RCA-Victor record label; KYW radio adopted the WRCV calls as well). Shortly after NBC took control of channel three, the
FCC ruled that most of
Delaware, the
Lehigh Valley and most of southern New Jersey (including
Atlantic City) were part of the Philadelphia market. NBC realized WRCV-TV's existing tower was inadequate for this enlarged market. In
1957, channel three moved to a new 1,100-foot tower in Roxborough. The tower was co-owned with WFIL-TV (channel 6, now
WPVI-TV) and added much of Delaware, the Lehigh Valley and southern New Jersey to the station's city-grade coverage. Along with the transmitter move, NBC upgraded channel three from black-and-white to color transmissions.
However, almost immediately after the trade was finalized, Westinghouse complained to the FCC and the
United States Department of Justice about NBC's
extortion. After a thorough investigation and a protracted legal battle, the FCC ordered the swap reversed without NBC realizing any profit on the deal. Westinghouse had moved the KYW call letters to Cleveland after the swap, and upon regaining control of WRCV-AM-TV on
June 19,
1965, channel three became
KYW-TV.
Group W, as Westinghouse's broadcasting division was known by this time, took over a transmitter facility far superior to the one it relinquished in 1956. To this day, KYW-TV insists that it "moved" to Cleveland in 1956 and "returned" to Philadelphia in 1965 -- in fact, some staffers who worked at KYW-TV in Cleveland (talk show host
Mike Douglas among them) moved to Philadelphia along with the call letters.
As KYW-TV
Despite its status as NBC's largest affiliate, KYW-TV spent much of the next thirty years pre-empting many NBC programs, choosing to air local or syndicated programming instead. The production arm of Westinghouse Broadcasting was partially responsible for the pre-emptions, as channel three aired shows produced and syndicated by Group W, such as
The Mike Douglas Show,
The David Frost Show, and
Hour Magazine. Pre-empted network programming was usually lower-rated daytime game shows, soap operas, or reruns of primetime programs, with an average of two hours per day. At one point, in the fall of 1980, KYW-TV preempted NBC's entire morning schedule after the
Today Show. Over the years, NBC contracted independent stations
WPHL-TV (channel 17),
WTAF/WTXF (channel 29) and
WKBS/
WGTW (channel 48) to air programs pre-empted by channel three.
Like most affiliates that pre-empt poorer performing network programs, KYW-TV used the pre-emptions in order to gain an increase in local advertising rates which potentially come with ratings increases. This proved to be a very profitable decision at first, as KYW-TV was either first or second in the Philadelphia television ratings for most of the 1960s and 1970s. However, the station (and NBC) faltered in the late 1970s, and by 1980 KYW-TV was the lowest-rated network affiliate in Philadelphia. The station continued to pre-empt network programs, and NBC was very peturbed at losing valuable advertising in the nation's fourth-largest market. This was especially the case in the middle 1980s and early 1990s, when channel three was NBC's lowest-rated major-market affiliate during a very successful period for the network as a whole. (As a sidebar, sister station WBZ-TV pre-empted NBC programming almost as often as KYW-TV, but NBC did not seem to mind as much since WBZ-TV was always one of its strongest affiliates.)
In 1994, sister station
WJZ-TV in
Baltimore lost its affiliation with
ABC after that network announced a deal with the
E.W. Scripps Company to switch all but two of Scripps' television stations to ABC. One of the Scripps-owned stations joining ABC was Baltimore's NBC affiliate,
WMAR-TV. Westinghouse was outraged, and as a safeguard began shopping for affiliation deals for the entire Group W television unit. Group W eventually struck an agreement to switch KYW-TV, WBZ-TV, and WJZ-TV to
CBS (Westinghouse's two other stations,
KDKA-TV in
Pittsburgh and
KPIX in
San Francisco were already CBS affiliates). The announcement also meant that CBS would sell its longtime owned-and-operated station in Philadelphia,
WCAU-TV (channel 10), despite that station's stronger ratings performance.
As a CBS-owned station
On
September 10,
1995, KYW-TV and WCAU-TV swapped network affiliations, part of a more complex affiliation/ownership deal involving NBC and a new CBS/Group W partnership. CBS acquired a minority ownership share in channel three, while NBC-owned stations in
Denver and
Salt Lake City became CBS stations, with Group W assuming majority ownership.
NBC and
Group W/CBS also traded broadcasting facilities in
Miami. Westinghouse purchased CBS in early 1996, making channel three a CBS owned-and-operated station.
In 2000, the combined company was purchased by
Viacom. The Viacom deal brought KYW-TV under common ownership with Philadelphia's
UPN station, WPSG, and that station moved into the KYW facility on Independence Mall. On
January 1,
2003, KYW-TV went into compliance with the
CBS Mandate and officially rebranded itself as
CBS 3.
When Viacom spun off
CBS Corporation in 2005, KYW-AM-TV and WPSG, along with the rest of Viacom's broadcasting interests, became a part of the new company. In 2007, KYW-TV and WPSG will move to a new broadcast complex on Spring Garden Street in Center City.
From 1967 to 2003, KYW-TV's logo was a stylized "3" in the distinctive font made famous by Group W. It was the longest continuously-used logo in Philadelphia television history until 2006, when WPVI-TV's simple "6" logo passed it. The only major change came in 1997, when the
CBS Eye was placed in front of the "3". The logo was finally retired after KYW-TV rebranded itself as
CBS 3. In its place, it used a plainer "3" in a font similar to that of other CBS O&Os.
Image:Kyw83.jpg|KYW-TV ident from 1983 to 1989Image:Kyw89.jpg|KYW-TV ident from 1989 to 1991Image:Kyw92.jpg|KYW-TV logo from 1991 to 1994Image:Kyw96.jpg|KYW-TV logo from 1994 to 1997Image:Kyw97.jpg|KYW-TV logo from 1997 to 2003Image:Kyw2003.jpg|The present CBS 3 logo, used since 2003Shortly after Westinghouse regained control of KYW-TV, news director
Al Primo pioneered the
Eyewitness News format. This format has the reporters actually presenting their stories instead of having an anchor read them. Primo used the cue "007" from the film
From Russia with Love as the theme. Within a few years, Group W's other television stations had adopted the format. Around this same time, its radio sister became one of the first
all-news radio stations in the country.
Channel three's newscasts, anchored by Vince Leonard since 1958 (during its stint as NBC-owned WRCV-TV), had long been second behind WCAU-TV, but the new format catapulted KYW-TV to first place. Also seen on the air during that time were future talk show host
Tom Snyder and
Marciarose Shestack. Primo took the concept with him to
WABC-TV in New York in 1968, albeit an improved version which introduced the concept of chatter among the anchors ("happy talk"). It was this modified format that was emulated throughout the United States.
Channel three dominated the ratings for the rest of the 1960s, but faced a new challenger after WFIL-TV introduced
Action News to Philadelphia. For most of the 1970s, KYW-TV traded first place with WFIL/WPVI. In 1972, KYW-TV hired Philadelphia-area native
Jessica Savitch as a reporter, and later co-anchor alongside Leonard.
Mort Crim also joined as an anchor during that period, forming what native Philadelphians called the "Camelot of television news." However, after Savitch left for
NBC News in 1977 and Crim for
WDIV in
Detroit in 1978, KYW's ratings went into rapid decline. By the time Leonard left for
KPNX in
Phoenix in 1980,
Eyewitness News had crashed into last place. For most of the next three decades, KYW-TV was a very distant third behind WPVI-TV and WCAU-TV. Despite the presence of personalities such as
Maria Shriver and
Maury Povich (who anchored briefly in the early 1980s),
Eyewitness News stayed in the ratings basement.
In
1991, KYW-TV rebranded itself as
KYW-3 after being known on-air as simply "channel three" for most of its history. It also abandoned the longstanding
Eyewitness News name after 26 years and experimented with giving each newscast a different name. The morning and noon news became "Newsday," the 6 p.m. news "Newsbeat" (the 5:30 p.m. news was cancelled) and the 11 p.m. news "The News Tonight." It also started using a theme based on the musical signature of its radio sister, one of the top all-news stations in the country and the highest-rated radio station in Philadelphia for most of the last 40 years. Group W hoped to gain the trust of viewers who already associated KYW radio with high-quality news. However, neither of these fixes worked, and channel three stayed in the ratings basement. The experiment with different newscast names ended in 1994, just before it became a CBS station, when the station began calling its news operation "News 3". The
Eyewitness News name was restored in 1998.
|
Chief meteorologist Kathy Orr gives a weather forecast, 2006. |
KYW-TV used music packages based on KYW radio's musical signature until 2003. That year, it adopted
News in Focus by composer
John Hegner as its theme song. This package, like the majority of themes for CBS' owned and operated stations, is based on "Channel 2 News," written in 1975 for sister station
WBBM-TV in
Chicago. It originated at
KCBS-TV in
Los Angeles in 1997. Channel three used an updated version written in 2003 for sister station
WCBS-TV in New York. The change to "News In Focus" came just after KYW began calling itself
CBS 3. Ironically, WCAU-TV used music based on this theme for its last decade as a CBS-owned station. In 2005, KYW-TV ditched "News In Focus" in favor of another "Channel 2 News"-based tune, "The Enforcer" by
Frank Gari.
Also in 2003, KYW-TV became a factor in the Philadelphia news race for the first time in decades. The previous summer, it persuaded WPVI-TV's longtime 5 p.m. anchor,
Marc Howard, to jump ship to anchor its 11 p.m. news. Kathy Orr, weekend weathercaster at WCAU, also moved to channel three. In September 2003 the station added Larry Mendte (from WCAU) and
Alycia Lane (from
WTVJ in
Miami), and they became the station's new top anchor team, anchoring the 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. news. The 5 p.m. news was moved to 4 p.m., anchored by Marc Howard and Denise Saunders. The change proved successful, and for the last two years KYW has waged a spirited battle with WCAU for second place behind longtime leader WPVI. Saunders left the station in 2004 and was replaced by Lane until
January 16,
2006; when Lane in turn was replaced by current anchor
Angela Russell.
In 2005, it introduced a customized graphics package created by
Emmy Award winner
Randy Pyburn of
Pyburn Films. A variant of this is used on
WPSG for its morning news program. Interestingly, the Pyburn graphics package is quite similar to the one it created for WNBC-TV in 2003, which some of NBC's owned and operated stations are currently standardizing around.
KYW-TV cooperates with sister station WCBS-TV in the production and broadcast of statewide
New Jersey political debates. When the two stations broadcast a statewide office debate, such as
Governor or
U. S. Senate, they will pool resources and have anchors or reporters from both stations participate in the debate. Additionally, the two stations cooperate in the gathering of news in New Jersey where their markets overlap; sharing reporters, live trucks, and helicopters.
Like other CBS-owned stations, KYW-TV offers a web only newscast called "CBS 3 At Your Desk", shown weekdays.
Newscasts
WeekdaysEyewitness News This Morning - 5:00-7:00 a.m.
Eyewitness News at Noon - Noon-12:30 p.m.
Eyewitness News at 4 - 4:00-5:00 p.m.
Eyewitness News at 6 - 6:00-6:30 p.m.
Eyewitness News at 11 - 11:00-11:35 p.m.
SaturdayEyewitness News This Morning - 5:30-7:00 and 9:00-10:00 a.m.
Eyewitness News - 6:00-6:30 and 11:00-11:35 p.m.
SundayEyewitness News This Morning - 5:30-8:30 a.m.
Eye on Philadelphia**public affairs program hosted by
Beverly WilliamsEyewitness News - 11:00 a.m.-Noon
Eyewitness News - 6:30-7:00, and 11:00-11:35 p.m.
On-Air Talent
Anchors*
Susan Barnett, weekday mornings
*
Pat Ciarrocchi, noon (also reports early evenings)
*
Marc Howard, 4 p.m.
*
Calvin Hughes, weekend mornings (also reports late nights)
*
Alycia Lane, 6 p.m. and 11 p.m.
*
Cydney Long, weekend mornings (also reports daytime)
*
Larry Mendte, 6 p.m. and 11 p.m.
*
Angela Russell, 4 p.m.
*
Mary Stoker Smith, weekend evenings
*
Lesley Van Arsdall, weekend mornings anchor
*
Ukee Washington, weekday mornings and noon
*
Beverly Williams, Eye on Philadelphia host
Weather*
Carol Erickson, weekend mornings
*
Maria LaRosa, weekend evenings
*
Tom Lamaine, noon
*
Kathy Orr, 4 p.m., 6 p.m. and 11 p.m.
*
Brooks Tomlin, mornings
Sports*
Don Bell, fill-in
*
Steve Bucci, weekends
*
Beasley Reece, weekdays
Additional Reporters*
Stephanie Abrams*Karen Adams
*Brandy Bell
*
Don Bell, sports reporter and fill-in sports anchor
*
Jim Donovan, 3 On Your Side
*Harold Hairston, public safety consultant
*
Walt Hunter, I-Team chief
*
Bob Kelly, traffic
*
Liz Keptner, Lehigh Valley correspondent
*
Valerie Levesque, Bucks County correspondent
*
Cydney Long, New Jersey correspondent
*
Robin Mackintosh*
Sean Murphy, fill-in traffic reporter
*Jim Osman
*
Marge Pala, dayside
*Todd Quinones, evening
*
Robin Rieger*Jamie Smith
*
Dick Standish*
Stephanie Stahl, medical reporter
*
Diane B. Allen*
Mike Douglas*
Max Gomez*
Jack Jones*
Larry Kane*
Ernie Kovacs*
Tom Negovan*
Jerry Penacoli*
Maury Povich*
Jessica Savitch*
Maria Shriver*
Tom Snyder*
KYW-TV Anchors and Reporters*
KYW-TV website*
Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia
