KNBC, channel 4, is an NBC owned-and-operated television station
located in Los Angeles, California, United States. KNBC is owned by the NBC
Owned Television Stations group, and operates as part of a television duopoly
with Corona-licensed KVEA, an O&O of the Spanish-language Telemundo network; both
networks are owned by NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. KNBC's studios
and offices are located in the Universal Studios Hollywood backlot, and its
transmitter is located on Mount Wilson. In the few areas of the western United
States where an NBC station is not receivable over-the-air, KNBC-TV is
available on satellite television through DirecTV.
History Channel 4 first went on the air as KNBH
on January 16, 1949. It was the penultimate VHF station in Los Angeles
to debut, and the last of NBC's five original owned-and-operated stations to
sign on. Unlike the other four, KNBH was the only NBC-owned television station
that did not benefit from having a sister radio station. The NBC Radio
Network had long been affiliated with KFI in Los Angeles, though that
relationship did not extend into television in August 1948 when KFI-TV
signed on the air. When KNBH signed on, it marked the debut of NBC programs on
the West Coast. The station changed its callsign to KRCA
on October 18, 1954. The call letters were changed again on November 11, 1962,
when NBC moved the KNBC identity from its San Francisco radio station and
applied it to channel 4 in Los Angeles. Channel 4 originally broadcast from the
NBC Radio City Studios on Sunset Boulevard and Vine Street in Hollywood.
In November 1962, the station relocated to the network's color broadcast studio
facility in suburban Burbank. NBC Color City, as it was then known, had been in
operation since March 1955, and was at least four to five times larger than
Radio City, and could easily accommodate KNBC's locally produced studio
programming. NBC Radio's West Coast operations eventually followed channel 4
to Burbank not too long after. On October 11, 2007, NBCUniversal
announced that it would put its Burbank studios up for sale and construct a new,
all-digital facility near the Universal Studios backlot in Universal City, in an
effort to merge all of NBCUniversal's West Coast operations into one area. As
a result, KNBC, KVEA and NBC News' Los Angeles bureau moved to a new digital
facility on the Universal lot formerly occupied by Technicolor SA. The studio
opened on February 1, 2014. In fall 2007 with digital broadcast roll
out, the station began broadcasting a 24/7 newschannel News Raw on a
subchannel. On January 16, 2009, KNBC celebrated its 60th anniversary with an
hour-long tribute to the station, featuring past and present anchors,
hosts, other popular on-air staff, and major news stories. KNBC and its other
NBC owned-and-operated stations introduced a new layout for their
websites in July 2009. Digital television
= Digital channels = The station's digital signal is
multiplexed: KNBC also maintains a Mobile DTV feed of
subchannel 4.1, labelled "KNBC-4.1", broadcasting at 1.83 Mbit/s.
On January 1, 2012, Universal Sports transitioned into a cable- and
satellite-exclusive service, causing its affiliates to replace the network and
remove the channel from their digital signals entirely, with KNBC deleting
digital subchannel 4.4 as result of the loss of Universal Sports.
= NBC California Nonstop = KNBC operated NBC California Nonstop, a
collaboration between KNBC and two other NBC-owned stations in California which
launched on May 3, 2011 and replaced programming from NBC Plus on the second
digital subchannels of all three stations. In the case of KNBC, it was
the second news-oriented digital channel operated by the station, as digital
channel 4.2 featured a rolling news format under the name NewsRaw, prior to
the launch of California Nonstop. Each station produced a local newscast at 7
p.m. that was tailored to their respective market. For the Los Angeles
feed of the channel, Colleen Williams anchored the hour-long Nonstop News LA.
NBC California Nonstop ended on December 20, 2012 when Cozi TV was launched.
= Analog-to-digital conversion = KNBC shut down its analog signal, over
VHF channel 4, on June 12, 2009, as part of the federally mandated transition
from analog to digital television. The station's digital signal remained on its
pre-transition UHF channel 36, using PSIP to display KNBC's virtual channel
as 4 on digital television receivers. Since the station qualified for the
nightlight clause in the DTV Delay Act, it was required to keep its analog
signal on for two weeks from June 12 to 26, 2009 to inform viewers of the
digital television transition, consisting of a loop of digital
transition public service announcements, while the digital channel was used for
normal programming. Community Affairs
KNBC has a legacy of participating in the community. The station supports many
social causes including health and wellness, the environment, diversity and
supports under-served populations like the homeless, veterans, at-risk youth
and women’s issues. KNBC has been recognized by many nonprofit
organizations for its community work, and has partnerships with several
prominent organizations including the L.A. Alliance of Boys & Girls Clubs,
Court Appointed Special Advocates Los Angeles, California Community
Foundation, American Red Cross Los Angeles, March of Dimes, American Heart
Association, American Cancer Society, Hispanic Scholarship Foundation and
others. The station also produces a news series called “Life Connected” which
airs Sundays during the News at 11 p.m. and repeats on Mondays during the News
at Noon. Life Connected tells stories of meaningful connections between
individuals, and celebrates the diverse communities that make up Southern
California. The station launched the “NBC4 Life Connected Award” to further
spotlight these individuals at community events.
Syndicated programming Syndicated programming seen on KNBC
includes The Ellen DeGeneres Show, The Meredith Vieira Show, The Steve Harvey
Show, Extra and KNBC co-produces Access Hollywood and its daytime talk show
spinoff Access Hollywood Live, both of which also air on KNBC and other NBC
owned-and-operated stations. As of August 2010, KNBC is one of three
NBC-owned stations that distributes programming either nationally and/or
regionally. News operation
KNBC presently broadcasts 37½ hours of locally produced newscasts each week.
The station's newscasts has historically more of a "serious" tone covering issues
than other Los Angeles area newscasts. In 2010, the Norman Lear Center at the
University of Southern California found KNBC to have the least coverage of crime
and the second highest coverage of local government and sports and weather,
compared to other Los Angeles stations. As part of a 2012 investment by parent
company Comcast, KNBC's newscasts added 18 employees and produced more
enterprise reporting. The station runs a special hour-long
newscast on Sunday nights following the Fred Roggin-hosted sports-themed game
show The Challenge, during the NFL season where NBC Sunday Night Football
telecasts preempt the 6 p.m. newscast. On election nights, KNBC runs a special
extended edition of its 11 p.m. newscast to show early election results.
NBC4’s Investigative Team features former KCBS reporter Joel Grover as its
lead investigator. In 2013, NBC4 Southern California won the prestigious
Investigative Reporters & Editors award for “In Harm’s Way,” a series of reports
on transportation safety, which resulted in changes to the rise in tour bus
accidents and government policing of the industry including exposing one company
and regulators shutting down six others. KNBC has had a very stable news team
over the years: weeknight anchor Colleen Williams, sports anchor Fred Roggin, and
chief weathercaster Fritz Coleman have each been at the station more than 25
years. Former KNBC anchor Paul Moyer worked two stints at channel 4; first
from 1972 to 1979 and from July 1992 until his May 2009 retirement. Like
Moyer, anchor Chuck Henry was also a mainstay at KABC-TV, before making the
move to channel 4 in January 1994. He currently produces the travelogue series
Travel Cafe, which airs weekends on KNBC. Kelly Lange, Stu Nahan, John
Schubeck, Tritia Toyota, Jess Marlow, David Sheehan, John Beard and Nick
Clooney are other notables who have worked on KNBC's newscasts in the past.
For most of the last 30 years, KNBC has waged a spirited battle with KABC-TV for
the top-rated local newscast in Southern California, becoming a three-way race
with KCBS-TV's ratings resurgence in 2006. Throughout the late 1980s and into
the early 2000s, KNBC's newscasts were the most-watched in the region, beating
out every other station viewership-wise, which coincided with NBC's overall
ratings at the time. Channel 4's 11 p.m. newscast currently sits in third place;
most of the station's other newscasts, including its once-popular morning news
program, Today in L.A., the area's first local morning newscast, now rate at or
near the bottom of the local news ratings.
Former Today co-host and NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw began his NBC
career as an anchor and reporter for KNBC from 1966 until leaving to work
exclusively for the network in 1973. Others of note who have worked at KNBC
early in their careers include Bryant Gumbel, Pat Sajak, Kent Shocknek, Bob
Abernethy, Keith Morrison, Tom Snyder and consumer reporter David Horowitz,
whose long-running syndicated series, Fight Back!, began on channel 4 and was
produced and distributed by NBC and Group W. In 1987 during an afternoon
newscast, a gun-wielding mental patient gained access to NBC Studios, and took
Horowitz hostage live on-air. With the gun pressed to his side, Horowitz calmly
read the gunman's statements on camera. The unidentified man was caught with a
toy gun, and was arrested by local police. It led Horowitz to start a
successful campaign to ban "look-alike" toy guns in several states, including
California and New York. Channel 4's news programs were known as
KNBC News Service during the late 1960s and early 1970s, before adopting the
NewsCenter 4 title in the mid-1970s. NBC made similar changes to newscasts in
other markets around the same time, and channel 4 shared the NewsCenter title
with its sister stations in New York, Washington, D.C. and Chicago. KNBC's
newscasts were the last to drop the NewsCenter moniker, rebranding to News 4
LA in 1982 before becoming Channel 4 News in 1985. While KNBC became known
on-air as NBC 4 in 1995, the Channel 4 News branding was so well established in
Southern California that the title was retained for 26 years until 2011, when
it became NBC 4 News. In 2006, KNBC launched a local news
channel on digital channel 4.4 called News Raw, that provided hourly news
updates, additional information on breaking news stories and previewed news
stories scheduled to air on the main channel's newscasts. After Universal
Sports was launched in 2008, News Raw became a part-time channel, and was
later dropped when KNBC expanded Universal Sports programming on the
former subchannel to 24 hours a day. Mekahlo Medina, the host of News Raw,
has received national attention for his integration of social media into local
newscasts. For many years, KNBC produced a late
afternoon newscast at 4 p.m., which was dropped in 2002, in favor of Dr. Phil.
The station also had an hour-long 11 a.m. newscast, which later was trimmed
to a half-hour before ultimately being canceled at the start of the 2010 Winter
Olympics. The station revived its midday newscast as a half-hour program at noon
in early 2012, which expanded to one hour that September. KNBC became the
fifth station in the Los Angeles market to begin broadcasting its local
newscasts in high definition on July 14, 2008. On December 6, 2011, KNBC entered
into a partnership with public radio station KPCC as part of a larger effort
by NBCUniversal to partner with non-profit news organizations following
its acquisition by Comcast. = News team =
Current on-air staff Anchors
Whit Johnson Daniella Guzman
Carolyn Johnson Chuck Henry
Colleen Williams Robert Kovacik
Kathy Vara Weather team
Fritz Coleman – Weathercaster Crystal Egger – Meteorologist
Sports team Fred Roggin – sports director
Reporters Joel Grover – Investigative Reporter
Conan Nolan - Chief Political Reporter Robert Kovacik - Anchor/Reporter
= Notable former on-air staff = Rebroadcasters
KNBC is rebroadcast on the following translator stations:
References External links
Official website Query the FCC's TV station database for
KNBC