is the
Fox Owned And Operated Station in
St. Louis, Missouri . KTVI operates on channel 2 while KTVI-DT (KTVI's digital channel) operates on channel 43. Its transmitter is located in
Sappington, Missouri in a field behind Lindbergh High School.
KTVI broadcasts in stereo and broadcasts a Secondary Audio Program (
SAP ) channel, used mainly for Descriptive Video Service (
DVS ).
KTVI airs about 42 hours of local news per week.
KTVI began on
August 13 ,
1953 as WTVI, channel 54 in
Belleville, Illinois , a suburb of St. Louis. It was the
CBS affiliate for St. Louis, with a secondary
ABC affiliation. When KWK-TV (now
KMOV ) signed on and took the CBS affiliation, WTVI became a full ABC affiliate. It moved its studios and license across the
Mississippi River to St. Louis on
April 9 ,
1955 and became KTVI, broadcasting on channel 36. KTVI moved to channel 2 on
April 15 ,
1957 , where it remains to this day.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Times Mirror owned the station. As part of a group deal, KTVI was sold to Argyle Broadcasting in
1993 . In
1994 ,
New World Communications bought KTVI along with
KDFW in
Dallas ,
WVTM in
Birmingham and
KTBC in
Austin in
1994 . New World had cut a business deal with Fox and intended to switch all four stations to that network. In the summer of 1995 New World closed on these purchases. The new owners moved Fox programming to KTVI in July of 1995, allowing the former Fox affiliate,
KDNL channel 30, to become St. Louis' ABC affiliate. However, KTVI didn't pick up
Fox Kids at first, so it moved to
KNLC .
In the fall of
1996 , due to Reverend Larry Rice's refusal to air commercials on Fox Kids (replacing them with ministry messages), Fox pulled Fox Kids from
KNLC and was picked up by KTVI. At the time, KTVI was one of only 2 New World stations to take Fox Kids. Shortly thereafter, KTVI and the New World Fox affiliates were sold to Fox' parent,
News Corporation , becoming Fox O&Os. (However, like many of their FOX sister stations including those in
Tampa ,
Cleveland , and
Atlanta , KTVI still use "NEW WORLD COMMUNICATIONS INC." as their end tag after their newscasts) Programming changed very slightly as Fox began buying more expensive syndicated shows for KTVI.
In the fall of
1998 , KTVI reduced the weekday Fox Kids programs to just two hours (from three) and, in 2000, dropped weekday Fox Kids completely. Saturday mornings were continued. At the end of 2001, Fox Kids weekdays ended nationwide. The weekends were revamped as
4Kids TV . KTVI now airs Fox's entire schedule including 4Kids TV.
KTVI's introduced its current logo on
April 10 ,
2006 . The station is the fourth to use this logo style (which is similar to that of the
Fox News Channel ), which is gradually being adopted by the other Fox O&Os.
KTVI leads the the 9pm news ratings race against
KPLR but comes in third behind
KSDK and
KMOV 's 10pm news. KTVI is able to emphasize a broad array of stories from major national and local reports to small-town local stories/investigations because of the many extra hours of news (7.5 hours per day as opposed to 5 on
KSDK and
KMOV ) that need to be filled.
Before
Dick Ford retired in
December 2005 , all four of KTVI's main male anchors (Dick Ford,
Tom O'Neal ,
Dan Gray and
John Pertzborn ) were once anchors at
KSDK .
- ''FOX2 News in the Morning'' - 5:00am-9:00am
- ''FOX2 News at 11am'' - 11:00am-12:00pm
- ''FOX2 News at 5'' - 5:00pm-6:00pm
- ''FOX2 News at 6'' - 6:00pm-6:30pm
- ''FOX2 News at 9'' - 9:00pm-10:00pm
- ''FOX2 News Saturday Morning'' - 9:00am-10:00am (Began April 29th)
- ''FOX2 News at 5'' - 5:00pm-6:00pm
- ''FOX2 News at 9'' - 9:00pm-9:40pm
- ''SportsFinal'' - 9:40pm-10:00pm
- ''FOX2 News Sunday Morning'' - 8:00am-9:00am
- ''FOX2 News at 5'' - 5:00pm-5:30pm
- ''FOX2 News at 9'' - 9:00pm-9:30pm
- ''SportsFinal'' - 9:30pm-10:00pm
Since 1998, KTVI has refreshed the news set approximately four times. The news desk has stayed the same since the original remodel, but the background behind the anchors has been updated about every two to three years.
KTVI's graphics have also been updated about three times since 1998. Initially KTVI completely overhauled the old graphics. Since the graphics were completely changed the first time, they have been updated and altered about as often as the backdrop behind the news desk.
On and the old weather center was donated to the
University Of Missouri-St. Louis . The new set, along with new graphics, music, and a new logo, debuted for ''FOX2 News at 9'' on Monday,
April 10 ,
2006 .
The theme music that KTVI is using is the
WTVT NewsEdge Theme, which is also being used by the other stations that have made identical modifications to their identity.
