, channel 11, is an owned-and-operated television station of the
News Corporation -owned
Fox Broadcasting Company , located in
Los Angeles, California . Serving the vast
Los Angeles Metropolitan Area , KTTV is a sister station to
KCOP (channel 13), Los Angeles'
MyNetworkTV affiliate. The two stations share studio facilities within the
Fox Television Center in
West Los Angeles , and KTTV's transmitter is located on
Mount Wilson .
In the few areas of the western United States where viewers cannot receive Fox network programs over-the-air, KTTV is available on satellite via
DirecTV .
KTTV signed on-the-air on
January 1 1949 . The station was co-owned by the ''
Los Angeles Times '' and
CBS , and KTTV was the original Los Angeles affiliate of the CBS television network. In fact, during their partnership the ''Times'' turned down several offers CBS made to purchase KTTV outright. Their relationship lasted exactly two years, until January 1,
1951 , when CBS sold its 50 percent stake in channel 11 back to the ''Times''. CBS then moved its programming to newly-acquired KTSL (channel 2, later KNXT and now
KCBS-TV ). From that point, KTTV carried many of the programs from the
DuMont Television Network for the next three years.
In
1954 DuMont moved its affiliation to KHJ-TV (channel 9, now
KCAL-TV ), and KTTV began its status as an independent television station. In
1958 , channel 11 became the television home of the
Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team (which had relocated from
Brooklyn, New York to Los Angeles that year), and the relationship between KTTV and the Dodgers would last until
1992 . The ''Los Angeles Times'' sold the station to
Metromedia in
1963 .
By the 1970s KTTV offered the traditional independent schedule of the 10:00 p.m. newscast, drama shows, plus older movies on weekends. They did very well with this format which was similar to other Metromedia stations. From 1976 to '77, the station ran an off-beat satirical news program, "Metronews, Metronews" in the time slot following "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman".
{Link without Title} For a time during the mid-1980s, KTTV aired an 8 p.m. newscast, and dropped its ''10 O'Clock News'' in favor of an 11:00 p.m. newscast to compete with
KABC-TV ,
KNBC-TV , and
KCBS-TV . The ''8 O'Clock News'' was dropped and the 11 p.m. newscast was reverted to its 10 p.m. slot shortly after Fox took over. The station, along with
KTLA ,
KCOP , and KHJ-TV were seen on various cable television outlets in the
Southwestern United States during the 1970s and into the 1980s, most notably in
El Paso, Texas .
.]]
Australia n newspaper publisher
Rupert Murdoch and his company, the News Corporation (who were controlling owners of the
20th Century Fox film studio), purchased KTTV and the other Metromedia television stations in
1986 , and those stations formed the basis for his new
Fox Television Network . The format except for some prime time Fox programs initially was unchanged. But as time went on KTTV dropped the morning cartoons for a new morning news show called , which premiered in
1993 . Though ''Good Day L.A.'' was created in response to KTLA's ''
Morning News '' (which premiered two years earlier), it was inspired by sister station
WNYW 's ''Good Day New York'', which was launched in
1988 . They also added more first-run syndicated shows such as talk shows, court shows, and reality shows. For a while they continued with afternoon cartoons from the network, known as ''
Fox Kids '', as well as top rated off-network sitcoms in the evenings.
In Fall 2001, channel 11 dropped the weekday version of ''Fox Kids'' and moved it to its longtime rival and new sister station, KCOP (channel 13). The ''Fox Kids'' weekday block was ended altogether in January 2002. With the lineup left to air Saturday mornings under the name change to ''Fox Box'', then ''
4Kids TV '', KTTV brought Fox children's programming back to the lineup and continues to air it today.
KTTV offers around 35 hours per week of local news, and its 10 p.m. newscasts have been the top-rated in that time period for much of the last decade. However, channel 11 is the largest Fox-owned station (in terms of market-size) not yet offering an early evening and midday newscast (which they did in the early to mid-1980s). They still run many syndicated sitcoms in the evenings, such as (as of 2006) ''
The Simpsons '', ''
King Of The Hill '', ''
Malcolm In The Middle '', and ''
Married... With Children ''.
On an ironic note, KTTV also runs daily reruns of another sitcom, ''
I Love Lucy ,'' which had premiered months after the station lost its CBS affiliation. Reruns of the sitcom, which was filmed in Hollywood, are still popular among Southern California viewers and have continued to air in the L.A. area endlessly since the series ceased production in
1957 , thus making KTTV only the second station in Los Angeles (KCBS-TV was the other) to continue airing the sitcom after it ended almost 50 years ago.
In
1996 , the station's longtime home on
Sunset Boulevard in
Hollywood , known as "
Metromedia Square " (and later renamed the "Fox Television Center") was vacated. KTTV relocated to
New Studios a few miles away on South Bundy Drive in
West Los Angeles , near the Fox network headquarters (the network's headquarters are on the lot of
20th Century Fox studios). The historic television studio at Metromedia Square, once home to
Norman Lear 's Tandem Productions, also produced hit programs such as ''
The Jeffersons '', ''
Mama's Family '', ''
Diff'rent Strokes '', ''
One Day At A Time '', ''
Hello, Larry '', ''
Soul Train '', ''
Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman '', ''
Small Wonder '' and the groundbreaking sketch comedy ''
In Living Color ''. It was demolished in
2003 to make way for a new middle school being built by the
Los Angeles Unified School District .
On
April 17 ,
2006 , KTTV launched a new look for its newscasts, including new theme music and graphics, as well as a new station logo. Similar in style to the
Fox News Channel , this look has been standardized by other Fox owned-and-operated stations. The station also launched a new website based on Fox Television Stations' new ''MyFox'' interface on
May 16 ,
2006 ; this format will becomed standardized on all Fox-owned station sites by the end of 2006.
KTTV and KCOP are currently the only VHF stations in the Los Angeles market that do not broadcast their newscasts, public affairs programming, and non-network sports in high definition.
On September 4, 2007, KTTV announced that Carlos Amezcua, the longtime anchor of KTLA's '''s death. (
{Link without Title} ),
(
{Link without Title} )
- Rick Dickert - ''Fox 11 Morning News'' (also traffic reporter, ''Good Day L.A.'')
- Mark Thompson - weeknight meteorologist
- Amy Murphy-Weekends
(a partial listing)
(D) - deceased
SkyFox
Eurocopter A-Star 350 B-1
KTTV operates two helicopters. One helicopter, which was previously operated by KTLA, was lost in 2000 after covering the Academy Awards and crashed at
Van Nuys Airport . The helicopter was known back then as "Sky Fox 2."
Desiree Horton - popular pilot/reporter now flying for KNBC, has also flown for KTTV. She was not, however, piloting Sky Fox when it crashed.
- ''Metro News'' (1970s)
- ''LA 11 News'' (Early 1980s)
- ''Channel 11 News'' (1980s)
- ''The 10 O'Clock Report'' (1982-1983)
- ''The 8 O'Clock News'' (1984-1986)
- ''The 11 O'Clock News'' (1984-1986)
- ''The 10 O' Clock News '' (1986-1987)
- ''Fox News'' (1987-1994)
- ''Fox 11 News'' (1995-present)
