KPIX-TV
KPIX-TV (channel 5), also known as CBS Bay Area, is a television station licensed to San Francisco, California, United States, serving as the San Francisco Bay Area's CBS network outlet. It is owned and operated by the network's CBS News and Stations division alongside independent station KPYX (channel 44), also licensed to San Francisco. The two stations share studios at Broadway and Battery Street, just north of San Francisco's Financial District; KPIX's transmitter is located atop Sutro Tower. In addition to KPYX, KPIX shares its building with formerly co-owned radio stations KCBS, KFRC-FM, KITS, KLLC, KRBQ and KZDG, although they use a different address number for Battery Street (865 as opposed to 855).
"KPIX" redirects here. For the AM radio station that used the KPIX call sign from 1994 to 1997, see KZDG. For the FM radio station that used the KPIX call sign from 1994 to 1997, see KGMZ-FM.
- United States
- United States
San Francisco, California
KPIX; CBS News Bay Area
- 5.1: CBS
- for others, see § Subchannels
- CBS News and Stations (Paramount Global)
- (CBS Broadcasting Inc.)
December 22, 1948
KWIS (CP, 1946–1948)[1]
Analog: 5 (VHF, 1948–2009)
"PIX" is an abbreviation of "pictures"
25452
1,000 kW
490.3 m (1,609 ft)
Programming[edit]
Entertainment programs[edit]
KPIX originated the concept for the entertainment and lifestyle program, Evening Magazine. Evening Magazine debuted on the station in August 1976, and within a year, the concept expanded to the other Group W stations. By Fall 1978, the Evening Magazine format was syndicated to stations around the United States that were not owned by Group W as PM Magazine. The entire Evening/PM Magazine format was canceled by the late 1980s, though Evening Magazine was later resurrected on KPIX in 1998. In 2005, Evening Magazine was retitled Eye on the Bay, to focus further on the San Francisco Bay Area. KBCW also aired day-behind reruns of the program in the early 2000s. In 2007, Eye on the Bay began broadcasting in high definition. Eye on the Bay ended its weekday broadcasts on September 7, 2012, and switched to a weekly program on Saturdays thereafter.
Preempted programs[edit]
For most of the time before Westinghouse bought CBS, KPIX was the network's largest affiliate. Despite this, from the mid-1970s until 1994, it was standard practice for KPIX to preempt CBS' daytime programs (for example, the first season of Tattletales was preempted for reruns of Perry Mason and The Price Is Right at one time could be viewed in the Bay Area only through Sacramento affiliate KXTV). Although CBS made in excess of 30 cuts to the violent content of Death Wish, both KPIX and sister station KDKA-TV preempted the network's 1976 airing of the film, having denounced the remaining violent content of the film and, as well, the apparent endorsement by the film of vigilante violence.[17] Despite the preemptions, CBS was mostly satisfied with KPIX as it was among its highest-rated affiliates. In September 1994, two months after CBS signed a long-term affiliation deal with the Westinghouse stations (just before the two companies merged), KPIX began airing the entire CBS schedule without preemptions except for local news emergencies, as per the agreement between Westinghouse and CBS. However, it continued to run CBS prime time programming one hour earlier than typical for the Pacific Time Zone (from 7 to 10 pm, instead of 8 to 11 pm), a practice dating back to 1992. This ended in 1998, and since then KPIX has aired the entire CBS schedule in pattern. KOVR in Sacramento adopted a similar practice after becoming a CBS affiliate in 1995, and has long maintained this practice after CBS bought the station in 2004. Any preempted shows air on CW O&O sister KBCW.
Talk and court shows[edit]
KPIX was also known for the locally produced morning talk show, People are Talking, which began in 1978 with Ann Fraser and Ross MacGowan, and ran until 1991 (the People are Talking format was also syndicated to other Group W stations during this period). On KPIX, the show preempted The Price Is Right for a few years; the game show aired instead on independent stations in the Bay Area such as KOFY-TV (channel 20). At one point, a more celebrity-driven People Are Talking in the Afternoon aired with a small house band. Prior to the launch of the People are Talking franchise, Ann Fraser hosted The Morning Show (essentially a half-hour version of People Are Talking), which replaced The Kathryn Crosby Show, another half-hour talk show hosted by Bing Crosby's wife, Kathryn. Prior to The Kathryn Crosby Show, KPIX aired The Bentley Affair, hosted by Helen Bentley in the late 1960s–early 1970s. During the 1987–88 season, KPIX ran a 90-minute block of court shows from 4:30 to 6 pm: Superior Court, The People's Court and The Judge.[18]
Sports[edit]
During the 1980s, KPIX was the flagship station for the Oakland Athletics baseball team (at times preempting or delaying CBS network shows for the live broadcasts), before the A's broadcasts moved to then-NBC affiliate KRON-TV in the early 1990s; select A's and San Francisco Giants games were aired on KPIX from 1990 to 1993 as part of CBS' MLB broadcast contract (including the A's appearance in the 1990 World Series). KPIX was also the television home of the Golden State Warriors basketball team during the 1990s. KPIX-TV was also the exclusive home of the Bay to Breakers, before it moved to KRON.
From 1956 to 1993, KPIX carried most San Francisco 49ers games locally as part of CBS' broadcast rights to the NFL, which covered the entire pre-merger league until 1970, and the National Football Conference from 1970 to 1993. Two of the 49ers' Super Bowl victories aired locally on KPIX: Super Bowl XVI and Super Bowl XXIV, as well as their appearances in Super Bowls XLVII and LVIII. KPIX lost the 49ers to KTVU (channel 2) in 1994 (a year after fan favorite Joe Montana was traded to the Kansas City Chiefs), when the NFC package moved to Fox. However, in 1998, the American Football Conference package moved to CBS from NBC, and KPIX has aired most Raiders games (both in Oakland and Las Vegas) since. However, KPIX will still air 49ers afternoon games if the team plays against an AFC team at Levi's Stadium. KPIX has also broadcast 49ers games in the immediate Bay Area market if the team plays on ESPN's Monday Night Football. In 2014, with the institution of the NFL's new 'cross-flex' rules, any games that involve the 49ers playing an NFC opponent can be moved from KTVU, and aired on KPIX. The station also provided local coverage of Super Bowl 50, which was played at Levi's Stadium.
Captain Fortune[edit]
During the 1950s, KPIX produced a local children's program, Captain Fortune, on weekday afternoons and Saturday mornings. In addition to a number of live segments with an in-studio children's audience, the program featured the animated television episodes of Crusader Rabbit. Brother Buzz, a feature from the Latham Foundation (an Oakland-based organization dedicated to the concept of humane education), with marionettes created and operated by Ralph Chesse and company, were a weekly segment starting in 1952 (and later became its own separate, stand-alone program which ran for several more years on KPIX and KGO). The "captain" sometimes drew pictures to illustrate his stories. He had another segment called "wiggly lines", where he would ask a child to draw a wiggly line and ask him or her what they wanted Captain Fortune to draw and he would convert the line into the drawing. Captain Fortune was actually a talented artist named Peter Abenheim.[19] Abenheim authored a book, published in 1959 by Nourse Publishing of San Carlos, California, Captain Impossible at Sea.[20] Abenheim wrote the screenplay for a 1962 science fiction film, This Is Not a Test (also released as Atomic War Bride).[21] He was born in England on January 26, 1912. He came to San Francisco in 1932 and attended the California School of Fine Arts. He worked as an educational filmmaker. He died in San Francisco on May 2, 1988.[22]
Dick Stewart[edit]
From 1956 to 1959, Davenport, Iowa, native Dick Stewart (born 1927) hosted a weekday variety program at KPIX. Due to the popularity of the film Gidget in 1959, the station decided to run a "Miss Gidget" contest on Dick Stewart's television program. The contest was won by Barbara Bouchet, who would become one of the "Regulars" on his later program Dance Party. She would later go on to be a famous star in her own right.
From 1959 to 1963, Stewart hosted Dance Party for KPIX, a program that invited local teenagers to come and dance to recorded music in the KPIX studios. Besides playing current recordings, Stewart sometimes welcomed popular recording stars to the program. Following the custom of American Bandstand, the singers would lip-sync to their recordings. Stewart also hosted a number of High School Salute programs on Saturdays that spotlighted area high schools with interviews with students and faculty, as well as filmed segments from each school.[23]
News operation[edit]
KPIX-TV presently broadcasts 35 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with six hours each weekday, and 2+1⁄2 hours each on Saturdays and Sundays). For most of the last 30 years, KPIX has been a solid runner-up to KGO-TV in the Bay Area news ratings. KPIX uses a doppler weather radar system called "Hi-Def Doppler" during weather segments, which is located on Mount Vaca.
As the Bay Area's first television station, KPIX was a pioneer in local television news coverage in the region. Like most television stations, it presented a 15-minute evening news program until 1963, when the networks began expanding their evening newscasts to 30 minutes. One of KPIX's innovating program directors, Ray Hubbard, created The Noon News. The anchors were John Weston, "Channel 5's Guy on the Go", and Wanda Ramey (one of the first female news anchors on U.S. television), "Channel 5's Gal on the Go". From 1965 to 1994 and again from 1995 to 2013, KPIX used the Eyewitness News format originally adopted by Philadelphia sister station KYW-TV. KGO-TV also uses a similar format for its newscasts, but KPIX had the Eyewitness News name first; KGO adopted its version of the format from its New York City sister station WABC-TV. In 1966, KPIX hired the first African-American news reporters in the San Francisco television market: Ben Williams, who had been the first Black reporter for the San Francisco Examiner a few years earlier, and Belva Davis, the first female African-American reporter on the West Coast.[24][25]
In February 1992, the station moved its 11 p.m. newscast to 10 p.m. and expanded the program to one hour, as part of KPIX's early prime time programming experiment which moved CBS's prime time lineup one hour early. Then-NBC affiliate KRON-TV also experimented with a 7-10 p.m. prime time block and ran a newscast at 10 p.m. during this time, but for most of that period, its newscast ran for only a half-hour. Under pressure from NBC, KRON switched back to the standard 8-11 p.m. prime time scheduling after only a year; KPIX did not revert to the standard Pacific Time Zone prime time scheduling until 1998, after failing to make a dent in the ratings for long-dominant KTVU's 10 p.m. newscast.
KPIX was also home to 30 Minutes Bay Area, a half-hour news magazine produced in consultation with 60 Minutes creator Don Hewitt after he retired from the national show. The "30 Minutes" concept was originally planned to air on many CBS-owned stations, but KPIX was the only station to implement the concept. 30 Minutes Bay Area was discontinued in early 2007. KPIX also was one of the first U.S. television stations to provide full-time environment reporting in its newscasts—"The Greenbeat" ran from 2007 to 2010, and featured reports by Jeffrey Schaub on environmental sustainability, green technology and earth awareness issues.
In 2007, Wendy Tokuda (who co-anchored channel 5's evening newscasts from 1978 to 1992), returned to KPIX and brought it "Students Rising Above" feature reports that she originated during her nine-year tenure with KRON-TV to the station; Tokuda founded the "Students Rising Above" student scholarship program in 1998. On January 28, 2008, KPIX became the third Bay Area television station to begin broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition (behind KGO-TV and KTVU); most field reports were initially still broadcast in 4:3 standard definition (albeit pillarboxed); KPIX started using HD cameras for its field reports in September 2010; however, not all of the station's news footage is shot in HD.
In September 2010, KPIX introduced new graphics for its newscasts, a standardized package that was also rolled out to CBS's other news-producing O&O stations; this included the addition of "The Enforcer" music package by Gari Media Group, the basic theme of which has been used on many CBS-owned stations since the mid-1970s, when it was introduced by WBBM-TV. In January 2011, KPIX expanded its weekday morning newscast by a half-hour to 4:30 am. On January 8, 2012, KPIX began producing a Sunday morning newscast for sister station KBCW.[26]
On January 14, 2019, KPIX moved the half-hour CBS Evening News from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. The 5 p.m. local newscast was expanded to a full hour; the 6 p.m. local newscast was shortened to a half-hour. By early February 2019, a new half-hour local newscast was airing at 7 p.m.
KPIX launched a streaming news service, CBSN Bay Area (now CBS News Bay Area) on November 18, 2019, as part of a rollout of similar services (each of them localized versions of the national CBSN service) across the CBS-owned stations.[27]
On September 27, 2021, KPIX launched a half-hour 3 p.m. newscast, followed by the live East Coast feed of the CBS Evening News.
On September 12, 2022, KPIX launched a half-hour 9 a.m. newscast, with the second half-hour streaming on CBS News Bay Area.
Technical information[edit]
Subchannels[edit]
The station's signal is multiplexed: