4 general news 4 st. louis newscasts my tv st. louis dt3 slogan news 4 never stops watching out for you channels digital 24 uhf virtual 4 psip affiliations .1 cbs .2 metv .3 mynetworktv owner meredith corporation founded april 1954 first air date july 8 1954 ; 62 years ago 1954 07 08 call letters meaning disambiguation of former kmox tv callsign ; v stands for former owner viacom former callsigns kwk tv 1954 1958 kmox tv 1958 1986 former channel number s analog 4 vhf 1954 2009 digital 56 uhf until 2009 former affiliations secondary abc 1954 1955 transmitter power 1000 kw height 341 m 1 119 ft facility id 70034 transmitter coordinates 38 31 47 n 90 17 58 w 38.52972 n 90.29944 w 38.52972 ; 90.29944 licensing authority fcc public license information profile cdbs website www.kmov.com kmov virtual channel 4 uhf digital channel 24 is a cbs affiliated television station located in st. louis missouri united states . the station is owned by the meredith corporation . kmov maintains studio and office facilities located at the gateway tower at 1 memorial drive in downtown st. louis near the gateway arch and its transmitter is located in lemay . contents 1 history 1.1 early history 1.2 as a cbs owned and operated station 1.3 viacom ownership 1.4 belo corporation ownership 1.5 changing hands 2 digital television 2.1 digital channels 2.2 analog to digital conversion 3 programming 4 local programming 4.1 news operation 4.2 on air staff 4.2.1 notable current on air staff 4.2.2 notable former on air staff 4.3 other locally produced programming 5 references 6 external links history edit early history edit the station first signed on the air on july 8 1954 as kwk tv . at its launch channel 4 was owned by a consortium that included jointly owned by robert t. convey 28 % and the newhouse newspapers published st. louis globe democrat 23 % who jointly operated kwk radio 1380 am now kxfn ; elzey m. roberts sr. former owner of kxok radio 630 am frequency now occupied by kyfi which had to be sold as a condition of the license grant which was sold in accordance with merger agreement 23 % ; and missouri valley television inc. made up of saint paul minnesota based hubbard broadcasting 23 % and several st. louis residents combined 3 % . 1 each of the station s part owners had competed individually for the channel 4 construction permit before agreeing to merge their interests only three months before the station went on the air . 2 upon signing on kwk tv took the cbs affiliation from belleville illinois licensed wtvi channel 54 now ktvi channel 2 . until 1955 it also aired abc programs that wtvi declined to broadcast . the station s original studios built by kwk radio in anticipation of television were located on cole street in downtown west . 3 as a cbs owned and operated station edit however cbs was planning to operate its own television station in st. louis alongside its powerhouse radio station kmox 1120 am . the network originally won the permit to build a new station on channel 11 the last remaining commercial vhf channel in st. louis in january 1957 . 4 but after being approached with an offer cbs decided in august of that year to buy kwk tv instead for us 4 million . 5 the agreement required cbs to give up its construction permit for channel 11 and the federal communications commission transferred it to one of the failed applicants a group led by st. louis hotelier harold koplar for no financial consideration . 6 almost immediately the deal was held up after the st. louis amusement company another of the original applicants for channel 11 protested to the united states court of appeals in january 1958 . 7 the u.s. supreme court ultimately upheld the decision in november of that year . 8 cbs had already taken control of channel 4 s operations that march and changed its call letters to kmox tv in reference to its new radio sister . 9 the following april channel 11 signed on as independent station kplr tv . 10 in july 1968 cbs opened a new studio and office facility in downtown st. louis to house the kmox stations which until that point had been operating from separate locations kmox radio was headquartered near forest park . 11 channel 4 moved from cole street into the new facility known as one memorial drive and remains there to the present day ; the cole street studio was soon acquired by kdnl tv channel 30 which has operated from there since it signed on in june 1969 . viacom ownership edit by late 1985 cbs was in rough financial straits an after effect of successfully fending off a hostile takeover attempt by ted turner the year before . cbs spent the latter portion of 1985 repurchasing a large portion of its stock to help block the turner takeover . once turner sold his stock cbs was saddled with significant debt and needed to raise money . 12 not long after laurence tisch became the company s chairman cbs decided to sell kmox tv at the time its smallest owned and operated television station by market size . 13 on may 16 1986 former cbs subsidiary and future parent company viacom through its viacom international television inc. subsidiary completed its 122.5 million purchase of the station and slightly modified its callsign replacing the x with a v calling themselves kmov almost a month later on june 18 . 14 15 despite the sale channel 4 s operations continued to be based alongside kmox radio at their downtown studios on memorial drive ; kmox would relocate from that building in 2012 . as a cbs owned station channel 4 cleared the entire network schedule . when viacom took over in 1986 this changed rather drastically . kmov began signing off the air at night thus preempting the overnight news program cbs news nightwatch . a barrage of scattered primetime preemptions later followed that was so rampant the station earned a mention in ken auletta s 1991 book three blind mice . kmov randomly replaced cbs prime time shows with programming such as billy graham crusades and national geographic specials syndicated movie packages and occasional sporting events all of which allowed the station and viacom full control of the ad time airing during the pre emptions . according to auletta kmov preempted 103 hours of cbs primetime programs in 1987 accounting for nearly 10 percent of the network primetime schedule . 16 in the 1990s the primetime preemptions eased as all networks began to tighten down contractually on heavy pre emptions and currently the station only occasionally preempts a cbs primetime show usually only for breaking news reasons . the station also resumed a 24 hour broadcast schedule in the early 1990s . viacom purchased paramount pictures in 1993 and merged its five station group kmov ; whec tv in rochester new york ; wnyt in albany new york ; wvit in new britain connecticut ; and ksla tv in shreveport louisiana into the paramount stations group . however in 1994 the company decided to divest itself of all of its major network affiliates to focus on stations that carried its then upstart upn network . 17 belo corporation ownership edit dallas texas based a. h. belo corporation which was later renamed belo corporation in 2002 acquired kmov in a three way deal also involving two stations in the seattle tacoma market . as part of the transaction a. h. belo which spun off its broadcast holdings into a separate similarly named company in 2008 sold kiro tv included in the deal because the company had recently acquired that market s nbc affiliate king tv to cox enterprises who concurrently sold its existing seattle tacoma station kstw to viacom . 18 19 the deal was consummated on june 1 1997 . the station also aired blues nhl games during the 1996 97 season until their over the air telecasts moved back to kplr for the 1997 98 season . in the spring of 2013 a permanent lighted sign with the kmov logo was installed on the top of the south face of gateway tower which not only gives the station visibility on the st. louis skyline but is also visible in center field of wide shots of busch stadium during st. louis cardinals games . 20 changing hands edit on june 13 2013 the gannett company owner of nbc affiliate ksdk channel 5 announced that it would acquire belo . as the deal would violate fcc regulations that disallow common ownership of two of the four highest rated stations in a single market kmov and ksdk have ranked as the top two stations in the st. louis market in total day ratings for several years gannett would retain ksdk while it would spin off kmov to sander media llc owned by former belo executive jack sander . gannett intended to provide services to the station through a shared services agreement kmov s operations were to remain largely separate from ksdk including separate and competing news and sales departments . 21 however on december 16 2013 the united states department of justice threatened to block the merger unless gannett belo and sander completely divested kmov to a government approved third party company that would be barred from entering into any agreements with gannett . the doj claimed that gannett and sander would be so closely aligned that gannett would have dominated spot advertising in st. louis . 22 on december 23 2013 shortly after the gannett belo deal was approved and completed 23 des moines iowa based meredith corporation which already had a broadcasting presence in missouri through its ownership of fellow cbs affiliate kctv in kansas city announced that it would purchase kmov along with ktvk and kasw in phoenix the latter of which meredith would later sell to the nexstar broadcasting group for 407.5 million . 24 the sale of kmov was completed on february 28 2014 . 25 more than a year later on september 8 2015 richmond virginia based media general announced that it would acquire meredith for 2.4 billion . if it had been completed it would have marked kmov s third ownership shift since 2013 . 26 27 media general would eventually shelve the meredith deal in favor of a counter offer by nexstar . 28 29 digital television edit digital channels edit the station s digital channel is multiplexed channel video aspect psip short name programming 30 4.1 1080i 16 9 kmov hd main kmov programming cbs 4.2 480i kmov me metv 4.3 kmov my mynetworktv on february 17 2014 kmov dropped the live well network as meredith planned on using the bandwidth utilized from digital channel 4.3 for the station s atsc m h mobile dtv signal . 31 on november 17 2014 kmov relaunched 4.3 as mytv st. louis returning mynetworktv and some syndicated programming to the market after a nine month absence due to former affiliate wrbu channel 46 s sale to ion media networks and that station s wholesale conversion into an ion television owned and operated station . 32 analog to digital conversion edit kmov shut down its analog signal over vhf channel 4 on june 12 2009 the official date in which full power television stations in the united states transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate . the station s digital signal relocated from its pre transition uhf channel 56 which was among the high band uhf channels 52 69 that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition to uhf channel 24 which was previously used for the analog signal of knlc . 33 34 through the use of psip digital television receivers continues to display the station s virtual channel