, channel 5, is the
WB affiliated
Television Station in
Los Angeles . The station's signal covers the
Southern California region, as well as being available as a
Superstation via satellite. It is owned by the
Tribune Company .
On
January 24 ,
2006 , the WB and
UPN networks announced that they would merge. The newly combined network would be called , the letters representing the first initial of its corporate parents
CBS (the parent company of UPN) and the
Warner Bros. unit of
Time Warner . The merger would take effect on-the-air in September 2006, and KTLA was announced as the Los Angeles affiliate. Current UPN station
KCOP , owned by the
News Corporation , will become a
My Network TV affiliate.
Originally owned by
Paramount Pictures subsidiary
Television Productions, Inc. , and located on the Paramount studio lot, the station was licensed by the
FCC in 1939 as experimental station , on channel 4, but did not go on the air until September 1942.
Klaus Landsberg , already an accomplished television pioneer at the age of 26, was the station manager. On
January 22 ,
1947 , it was licensed for commercial broadcast as '''KTLA''', channel 5, becoming the first commercial television station to broadcast west of the
Mississippi River . The station originally carried programming from Paramount's partner,
DuMont , but discontinued the practice after the 1947-48 season. Estimates of television sets in the Los Angeles area at the time ranged from 350 to 600. In 1958, KTLA moved to the Paramount Sunset Studios on
Sunset Boulevard in
Hollywood , now the
Warner Sunset Studios .
In 1964, KTLA was purchased by cowboy actor and singer
Gene Autry and merged with his other radio properties into an umbrella company,
Golden West Broadcasters . From 1964 to 1995, the station was the broadcast TV home of the
Angels baseball team. Also, KTLA also carried selected
Los Angeles Lakers games from the early-to-mid 1970s. During the 1970s, KTLA became one of the nation's first superstations, and was eventually carried on cable systems across much of the country west of the Mississippi.
In the 1960s and 1970s, KTLA ran a mix of
Syndicated westerns, drama shows, first-run
Talk Show s, movies, and pro sports. It also launched a 10 PM newscast in the 1960s, simply titled (now KTLA Prime News). In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the station added syndicated
Sitcom reruns into the mix.
KTLA continued with this format into the 1980s. In 1982, Golden West sold KTLA to investment firm
Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. for US$245 million. KKR and Co. in turn sold KTLA to
Tribune Broadcasting in 1985. Under Tribune, they continued to acquire high rated off-network sitcoms as well as talk shows. In
July 1991 , KTLA added the first local morning newscast, , to compete with major network morning shows. At first, The KTLA Morning News suffered from low ratings. However, a number of developing news stories in the morning where KTLA could carry the coverage live made people notice The KTLA Morning News. From that point on, The KTLA Morning News has enjoyed great ratings success generally ranking #1 from 7 a.m. - 9 a.m. In order to catch on this ratings success, rival KTTV started Good Day LA.
In
March 1991 , KTLA was the first station to air the infamous video of the
Rodney King beating by Los Angeles police. From 1994 to 1995 the station aired near gavel to gavel coverage of the
O. J. Simpson Trial .
In
January 1995 , KTLA became a charter affiliate of the
WB Television Network , in which KTLA's parent company Tribune holds a 25% stake (so, in a way, KTLA can be considered a WB O&O). That fall, KTLA added an afternoon
Cartoon block from Kids' WB, entering the kids business for the first time in years. KTLA also broadcasts the annual
Tournament Of Roses Parade live from the
City Of Pasadena as well, with
Bob Eubanks and
Stephanie Edwards as the commentators since 1978. The station has aired the Rose Parade since 1948, and while other local stations also broadcast the parade (most notably, one-time Sunset Boulevard neighbor,
KTTV ) over the years, KTLA remains the sole English-language outlet in the Los Angeles area to continuously broadcast the Rose Parades. The station has also returned as host broadcaster of the Hollywood Christmas Parade (which is
Syndicated to all Tribune and WB stations).
Tribune merged with
Times Mirror , parent company of the ''
Los Angeles Times '', in 2000, bringing the Times into common ownership with KTLA. Ironically, the ''Times'' had been the original owner of Los Angeles'
Fox O&O,
KTTV .
Today, KTLA is a typical WB affiliate running the usual blend of syndicated shows such as first-run talk and reality shows, off-network sitcoms and dramas, cartoons from Kids' WB, first-run prime time programming from WB, early morning and 10PM newscasts, and sports. KTLA is the over-the-air home of the
Los Angeles Clippers ; the station carried Clippers games from 1984 to 1991, and picked them up again in 2002. Although not as wide-spread in national carriage as its Chicago sister station,
WGN-TV , KTLA is available via satellite as a superstation, through out North America on
Ku-band ,
C-band , and
Dish Network systems, as well as on cable systems in selected cities throughout the Southwestern part of the
United States and in
Canada nationwide.
The station launched a new branding campaign in January 2005, which omitted all references to its channel 5 position. It adopted a new logo, and became known on the air as ''KTLA The WB: Where L.A. Lives."
In January 2006, the weekday Monday–Friday Kids' WB block was discontinued in favor airing an afternoon block of off-network programming including ''
ER '' and ''
8 Simple Rules For Dating My Teenage Daughter ''.
KTLA offers around 30 hours per week of local news, and its 10PM newscast was #1 rated for decades until KTTV took the No. 1 spot consistently since 2000. The KTLA Morning News continues to be #1 though. This is one of many major stations in Los Angeles offering plenty of local news. However, they do not yet offer an early evening and midday newscast. They still run many syndicated sitcoms in the evenings, such as ''
Sabrina, The Teenage Witch '', ''
My Wife And Kids '', ''
Friends '', and ''
Everybody Loves Raymond ''.
On January 24, 2006,
Time-Warner and
CBS Corporation announced it would be ceasing operations on its
The WB and
UPN networks in September 2006, and have created a joint-venture to form a network,
The CW . KTLA-TV will become the west-coast flagship of the new network.
