ksdk

Freezing rain advisories remain in effect for northern sections of the NewsChannel 5 viewing area Sunday.

A Freezing Rain Advisory for counties just north and west of St. Louis, including the city of St. Louis is in effect until noon today. An Ice Storm Warning for far western and northwestern counties until 6:00 p.m. Sunday.Advertisement



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Icy conditions have already created minor problems for drivers in the bi-state area. The Missouri Department of Transportation reopened the Discovery Bridge on Highway 370 just after 7:00 Saturday night. The bridge was closed due to an accident.

While responding to a car accident Saturday night, a Warrenton fire truck was involved in a crash on Highway M east of Warrenton. Chief Michael Owenby says a car traveling in the opposite direction lost control as the car approached the fire truck. Owenby says one firefighter and the driver of the car were transported to a hospital.

In Alton, the Illinois Department of Transportation closed the Lewis and Clark Bridge briefly this afternoon, when a car lost control because of the slick conditions. IDOT dispatched 50 trucks in the Metro East area Saturday evening.

Up to a quarter inch of ice is possible from St. Charles County northward into Iowa. Stay with NewsChannel 5, KSDK.com and WeatherPlus for the latest information.
KMOV Channel 4 and KSDK Channel 5 each claimed multiple ratings period titles during the November sweeps month, according to Nielsen Media Research.

KMOV took the top 10 p.m. newscast slot with a 14.3 rating compared to KSDK's rating of 13.0 and KTVI Channel 2's 4.3 rating. KTVI premiered its 10 p.m. newscast in September.

At noon, KMOV was also the No. 1 newscast in St. Louis. Its half-hour newscast drew a 6.7 rating. KSDK's full-hour noon to 1 p.m. newscast had a 6.6 rating. KTVI does not have a noon newscast. Its 11 a.m. to noon newscast drew a 3.3 rating.

KSDK was No. 1 in St. Louis for both the 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. newscasts. The station pulled in a 12.7 rating for its 5 p.m. newscast beating KMOV's 9.2 and KTVI's hour-long newscast rating of 6.4.

At 6 p.m., KSDK had a rating of 13.2 compared to KMOV's 8.7 and KTVI's 4.6.

KTVI's hour-long 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. newscast drew an 8.8 rating. The other local news competition during that period is CW 11, which had a 3.6 rating for its 9 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. newscast.

Regarding the morning newscasts, from 5 a.m. to 5:30 a.m., KSDK pulled in a 4.1 rating with KTVI's 2.3 rating in second. From 5:30 a.m. to 6 a.m., KSDK recorded a 4.7 rating compared to KTVI's 3.5. KMOV's hour-long broadcast from 5 a.m. to 6 a.m. drew a 1.8 rating.

KSDK, KTVI and KMOV each have an hour-long newscast from 6 a.m. to 7 a.m. During that period, KSDK was again No. 1 with a 7.5 rating followed by KTVI's 5.1 and KMOV's 3.8.

Each rating point represents 1 percent of viewers in the surveyed area. Ratings information from last year was not immediately available.

KSDK
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KSDK

St. Louis, Missouri
Branding NewsChannel5
Slogan Where the News Comes First; St. Louis' News Leader
Channels Analog: 5 (VHF)
Digital: 35 (UHF)
Affiliations NBC
NBC Weather Plus (DT2)

Owner Gannett
(Multimedia KSDK, Inc.)
Founded February 8, 1947
Call letters meaning K
S
D
K: to differenciate from KSD-AM/FM (AM now KTRS)
Former callsigns KSD-TV (1947-83)
Former affiliations DuMont (1947-56)[2]
CBS (secondary, 1947-55)
ABC (secondary, 1947-54)
Website www.ksdk.com

KSDK "NewsChannel 5" is the NBC television affiliate in St. Louis, Missouri. Owned and operated by Gannett, the station's transmitter is located in Shrewsbury, Missouri.

The station broadcasts in stereo and broadcasts a Secondary Audio Program (SAP) channel that is used mainly for Descriptive Video Service (DVS). KSDK operates on channel 5; KSDK-DT (KSDK's digital channel) operates on channel 35 with NBC Weather Plus on channel 5.2. The NBC Weather Plus broadcast appears on Charter Cable channel 127. KSDK produces and airs about 35 hours of local news and other local programming per week, all in high-definition and streamed live online on KSDK's website.

Contents
1 History
2 News operations
2.1 KSDK in the community
2.2 Awards
2.3 News/Station Presentation
2.3.1 News environments, graphics packages, and music
2.3.1.1 Newscast Titles
2.3.1.2 Station Slogans
2.4 Personalities
2.4.1 Current On-Air Talent
2.4.2 Former On-Air Talent
3 Other programming
4 References
5 External links
5.1 Affiliated Websites



[edit] History
Channel 5 first went on the air on February 8, 1947 as KSD-TV. It was owned by the Pulitzer Publishing Company along with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and KSD-AM 550 (now KTRS). It was the 7th television station in the United States, the first television station in Missouri, and the second west of the Mississippi River (after Los Angeles' KTLA-TV). Due to an FCC-imposed freeze, it was the only St. Louis television station until 1953 when KTVI signed on.

Channel 5 has always been an NBC affiliate, owing to KSD-AM's long affiliation with NBC radio. It is currently NBC's longest-tenured affiliate. However, it also carried secondary affiliations with CBS, DuMont and ABC at various times. KSD was also the first St. Louis television station to broadcast in color. KSD-TV was traded to Multimedia, Inc. for WFBC-TV in Greenville, South Carolina (now WYFF-TV) in 1983. It was a rare instance of one company's flagship station being traded for another. Multimedia changed the calls to the current KSDK.

KSD's first year on the air was also the beginning of a long association with the St. Louis Cardinals. On May 8, 1966, in the ceremony for the opening of Busch Stadium II, Bill Houska flew home plate from Sportsman's Park to the new stadium in "Chopper 5". After nearly forty years, KSDK lost the rights to KPLR in 1988, but regained them 19 years later (see below for details).

During the 80s and 90s, KSDK was the best-performing NBC affiliate in the country. To this day, KSDK is the highest-rated NBC affiliate in the top 30 markets. It is currently the longest-tenured affiliate of any network.

KSDK has had a long history of producing popular local TV programs, including the Wranglers Club, with Texas Bruce (1950-1963), Corky's Colorama, with Clif St. James playing Corky the Clown (1963-1980), Newsbeat, hosted by Dick Ford and John Auble (1976-1984) and Midday A.M. (c. 1979-1986).

During the mid-1980s, Sally Jessy Raphaël's talk show originated from St. Louis. In 1989, KSDK dropped the "Eyewitness News" branding to become "NewsChannel 5," and also began broadcasting 24 hours a day.

In 1995, Multimedia Inc. merged with Gannett and on September 5, 1995, KSDK began producing and airing Show Me St. Louis from 3–3:30pm each weekday. The multiple award-winning program highlights local attractions and events that are family oriented. In 1998, KSDK debuted the Window on St. Louis, a streetside studio located in the same downtown St. Louis building that also houses KSDK's other studios. Show Me St. Louis is aired from this studio that welcomes the public to take part in the broadcasts. The Window on St. Louis is modeled on Today's Window on the World.

In 2000, KSDK launched its website: www.ksdk.com

In an attempt to provide St. Louisans with local and national election results available during the 2004 elections, KSDK partnered with KETC, St. Louis' PBS affiliate, to simulcast election coverage. The partnership was first utilized to broadcast a gubernatorial debate between Missouri's then-Secretary of State Matt Blunt (R) and then-State Auditor Claire McCaskill (D). On election night, KSDK aired NBC's primetime election coverage with Tom Brokaw and Tim Russert as well as segments of local results; on KETC, Mike Bush and Karen Foss hosted three hours of all local election results. Viewers could also watch election results online at ksdk.com and ketc.org.

In 2004, KSDK sponsored and was the official media partner for "Celebrate 2004," a year-long event that commemorated the bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, and the centennial of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition (or, St. Louis World's Fair) and the 1904 Summer Olympics (The Games of the III Olympiad, which were the first Olympic Games held in the United States). Throughout 2004 there were special events held to honor the anniversaries.

Celebrate 2004 began on New Year's Eve 2003 with "'04 Eve," which was held in Forest Park. Beginning with '04 Eve, and throughout 2004, a giant Ferris wheel was constructed in Forest Park much like the one that existed for the 1904 World's Fair. River Splash were a series of concerts held on the St. Louis riverfront beneath the St. Louis Arch featuring a "waterwall" upon which there were laser shows and projections. The newly remodled St. Louis Eads Bridge was transformed into the "Eats Bridge" when local restaurants opened on it to serve customers. The Missouri History Museum opened a Lewis and Clark exhibit and the United States Postal Service issued a commorative bicentennial stamp. On its way to Athens, Greece, the Olympic Flame arrived for an overnight stop in Forest Park amid much fanfare in July (KSDK anchors Rene Knott and Kelly Jackson were among the torchbearers). St. Louis also hosted the U.S. Women's Marathon Trials in April as well as the U.S. Diving Trials. Celebrate 2004 came to a close on New Year's Eve 2004.

When NewsChannel 5 WeatherPLUS debuted in June of 2005, KSDK became the first local St. Louis television station to launch a secondary channel on cable. WeatherPlus forecasts are available on ksdk.com, on digital channel 5-2, the secondary channel within KSDK's digital transmission, and on Charter Cable channel 127 in the St. Louis area.

The KSDK/KETC partnership continued through September 2005 when, along with radio partners KYKY (Y98, 98.1FM) and KEZK (Soft Rock, 102.5FM), a telethon for Hurricane Katrina relief was simulcast that raised more than $5 million. The telethon featured an appearance by John Goodman, a native of Affton, Missouri who now calls New Orleans home and whose family was actually missing for a time during the storm's peak. Sheryl Crow, a native of Kennett, Missouri, and her then fiancé Lance Armstrong urged viewers to call when they were interviewed by phone from the region.

On September 12, 2005, KSDK began airing Today at Ten, an additional half-hour long weekday mid-morning news program. Beginning at 10am, Today at Ten, airs immediately following NBC's Today.

The first broadcast of any local program in St. Louis in high-definition was the St. Louis Thanksgiving Day Parade on November 24, 2005. Incidentally, the 2005 parade also marked the end of an era for KSDK; the parade, which had been a Thanksgiving Day tradition on KSDK, moved to KMOV for the 2006 edition.

On February 6, 2006, KSDK became the first St. Louis television station, and seventh station in the country, to broadcast all news and local programming in High-definition television, usually abbreviated as 'HD' (see also: high-definition). KSDK also became the first local St. Louis station to stream all of its news (including Show Me St. Louis) live on its web site www.ksdk.com — previously only breaking news and WeatherPLUS were available online.

On December 7, 2006, KSDK announced that, beginning with the 2007 season, it will once again be the flagship station of the Cardinals Television Network. KSDK signed a multi-year contract with the St. Louis Cardinals that allows the station to broadcast some twenty regular season games per year (including a pre-game and post-game show), two pre-season games, and a weekly half-hour program with Cardinals' news and highlights. The twenty-one regular season games this season will all be broadcast in high-definition.[1]

On August 13, 2007, KSDK debuted Online @ 9, a 10-minute news-webcast tailored to an online audience and streamed exclusively on its website. Online @ 9 is anchored either by Deanne Lane or Mike Bush, and sometimes features live reports from KSDK's reporters.

In 2007, KSDK celebrated 60 years on air with special programming throughout the year.


[edit] News operations
Given its roots in the Post-Dispatch, KSDK has long been a leader in news. The quality news and reporting that has defined KSDK's history in St. Louis has resulted in numerous awards and consistently higher ratings. It has been the ratings leader in St. Louis for most of its history. While KMOX-TV (now KMOV) managed to displace channel 5 from the top spot from the late-1960s to the early-1980s, channel 5 has dominated the ratings since the 1980s.

Perhaps one of the reasons for KSDK's ratings success is consistency. All four of KSDK's main anchors (Jennifer Blome, Mike Bush, Art Holliday, Deanne Lane) have all been at KSDK for more than twenty years.

KSDK is the only local St. Louis television station that operates and maintains a bureau office on the Illinois side of the market. The Illinois Bureau is located in Collinsville, Illinois. For some time KSDK also operated a second bureau in Saint Charles, Missouri, but it was closed by KSDK for unknown reasons.

"Cover Story" has been a fixture on KSDK's NewsChannel 5 at 10 for many years. "Cover Story" features in-depth reports, often investigations, health-related, or consumer stories. Along with the story, KSDK sometimes opens a message board on its website or has phone operators ready to answer viewer questions.

Traditionally at least one newscast ends with local elementary schoolchildren flashing the hand signs for "5" and "1", signifying that, as a promo featuring the kids said, "Even a 2nd grader could tell you that Channel 5 is Number 1."


[edit] KSDK in the community
"A Place to Call Home" is a weekly Emmy Award-Winning segment that features one child who is in need of adoption. Since August 2003, 50% of the children who have appeared on KSDK have been adopted. A secondary program, "Little Wishes" allows viewers to are unable to adopt the child to add a little happiness to the life of a foster child by purchasing a gift for him/her.
"Friend to Friend" is a program that reminds viewers on the fifth of each month to perform a breast self-exam to catch breast cancer in its earliest, most treatable stages. Viewers can also contact KSDK for a packet that includes information and reminders on performing a breast self exam. KSDK is also a major sponsor and partner of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure breast cancer foundation and the St. Louis Race for the Cure, which in 2006 overtook Denver as the largest in the country with more than 64,000 participants, and in 2007 raised more than $2.5 million with more than 65,000 participants.[2]
Volunteer 5 is a weekly, week-long program that features a local charity or other community organization in need of donations, but most importantly volunteers. KSDK's Volunteer 5 operates as a telethon, with phone operators taking calls between 4 and 7pm each weeknight from anyone wishing to donate time or money. Volunteer 5 has provided more than $5 million annually in services and hundreds of thousands of volunteer hours to local non-profit organizations. The program began in 1993 to help those affected by the Great Flood of 1993. Volunteer 5 has been absent on KSDK since November 2005, though it still appears on KSDK's website.
The Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon airs each Labor Day on KSDK. Mike Bush hosts the local telethon that, in September 2007, raised $2 million, of which every penny stays in St. Louis.

[edit] Awards
Main article: List of awards won by KSDK

[edit] News/Station Presentation

[edit] News environments, graphics packages, and music
In 1997, a new news set was introduced, along with a new graphics package, which reinforced KSDK's 1989 rebranding from "Eyewitness News" to "NewsChannel 5." The new set had a backdrop of the newsroom during all newscasts except NewsChannel 5 at 6, during which a backdrop of the St. Louis skyline was inserted; a special backdrop was also used during the Olympics and various local and national elections. The graphics package introduced with the new set was replaced in 2001 with one almost identical as those found at sister station WUSA in Washington, D.C. (the only differences were the station logos and the images of various local buildings in the news opens).

Shortly before Rene Knott was hired to replace Mike Bush as Sports Director in early 2004, the SportsPlus set and graphics package were replaced. Though the logo stayed the same, the title officially changed from Mike Bush's SportsPlus to just SportsPlus. With the addition of Rene Knott to the sports department, SportsPlus became SportsPlus with Rene Knott & Frank Cusumano.

In May 2004, KSDK began broadcasting from a temporary news set while their main news desk and weather center underwent remodeling. There were no major changes besides a change in color scheme and the addition of several plasma screen monitors. The color scheme of the new set shifted from blue and brown to tan, silver, and red to match the colors in the "5" logo. A window with a semi-transparent NBC peacock partially blocked the view of the newsroom behind the anchors. The Volunteer 5 phone-banks were not updated but the rest of the set refreshment was complete in August 2004.

KSDK debuted a new graphic package, music (NBC Flagship), and news environment on February 6, 2006 (consisting of a sit-down interview set, a smaller reporting desk, a color-changing backdrop used for demonstrations like cooking segments, a new main news desk, and a new "Weather Plus Weather Center") due to KSDK's switch to high-definition. The new news graphics were the first in nearly five years (though the Show Me St. Louis and SportsPlus graphics had been updated and the weather graphics were updated in early 2005 with the introduction of WeatherPlus to St. Louis), the Show Me St. Louis and SportsPlus graphics were updated as well. The set occupies the studio space that formerly housed the SportsPlus and Volunteer 5 sets. KSDK also debuted an updated logo that is essentially the same as the current logo but in the new logo the grey has been replaced by shiny silver and the red seems deeper and darker (and is also shiny).

Giant Octopus designed the graphics and Production Design Group designed the new sets. Production Design Group is an Emmy Award-winning design company that has also built sets and studios for MSNBC, NBC Nightly News, Dateline NBC, Extra, SportsCenter, and the National Geographic Channel. The news environment and graphics are extremely similar to what has been introduced on KSDK's sister stations in Washington, D.C. (WUSA), Atlanta (WXIA), and, most recently, Phoenix (KPNX).


[edit] Newscast Titles
Channel 5 Eyewitness News (1970s-September 1990)
NewsChannel 5 (September 1990-present)

[edit] Station Slogans
Where the News Comes First (1993-present)
St. Louis' News Leader (2000-present)
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[edit] Personalities
KSDK has a long history of not renewing the contracts of its most recognizable and experienced personalities. They often move to another St. Louis television station. Rick Edlund, Ruth Ezell, Dan Gray, Jean Jackson, and John Pertzborn are just a few of the most notable in what is quite an extensive list.

Not all of KSDK's past personalities left the station under such circumstances, however. When compared to other St. Louis stations, or other stations of similar market size (DMA # 21), KSDK has had an unusually large number of its former personalities go on to network positions: Paul Goodloe was hired by The Weather Channel in 1999; Janice Huff moved on to KRON and eventually to WNBC where she can be seen occasionally on NBC's Today filling in for Al Roker; Dave Murray eventually became the meteorologist for ABC's Good Morning America, then moved on to KTVI in St. Louis, where he still is today; Ann Thompson is the Chief Environmental Affairs Correspondent for NBC News; Debbye Turner is a contributor on CBS's The Early Show; when Matt Winer and Trey Wingo both moved to SportsCenter on ESPN, many local viewers opined that KSDK was a "farm team" for ESPN.


[edit] Current On-Air Talent