2 general fox 2 news newscasts fox2now online slogan coverage you can count on weather coverage you can count on weather st. louis newsroom the most powerful name in local news all news slogans channels digital 43 uhf virtual 2 psip affiliations .1 fox .2 antenna tv .3 escape owner tribune broadcasting ktvi license llc first air date august 10 1953 ; 63 years ago 1953 08 10 call letters meaning dual meaning television illinois station originally licensed to belleville illinois television for i variant of the callsign meaning used by ktvu sister station s kplr tv former callsigns wtvi 1953 1955 former channel number s analog 54 uhf 1953 1955 36 uhf 1955 1957 2 vhf 1957 2009 former affiliations primary cbs 1953 1954 abc 1955 1995 secondary dumont 1953 1955 transmitter power 1000 kw height 337 m facility id 35693 transmitter coordinates 38 32 7.1 n 90 22 24.5 w 38.535306 n 90.373472 w 38.535306 ; 90.373472 licensing authority fcc public license information profile cdbs website www.fox2now.com ktvi virtual channel 2 uhf digital channel 43 is a fox affiliated television station located in st. louis missouri united states . the station is owned by the tribune broadcasting subsidiary of the tribune media company as part of a duopoly with cw affiliate kplr tv channel 11 . the two stations share studio facilities located on ball drive in northwestern st. louis county though with a st. louis city address . ktvi s transmitter is located in the unincorporated community of sappington . contents 1 history 1.1 wtvi 1.2 ktvi 1.3 as a fox station 2 digital television 2.1 digital channels 2.2 analog to digital conversion 3 news operation 3.1 on air staff 3.1.1 notable current on air staff 3.1.2 notable former on air staff 4 references 5 external links history edit wtvi edit the station first signed on the air by signal hill telecasting corporation 1 on august 10 1953 as wtvi broadcasting on uhf channel 54 . it was originally licensed to belleville illinois across the mississippi river from st. louis and was the second television station in the st. louis market . the station s first broadcast was a baseball game between the st. louis browns and cincinnati reds announced by buddy blattner bill durney and milo hamilton . it operated as a primary cbs affiliate and held secondary affiliations with abc and dumont . dumont affiliation was agreed to in february 1953 to replace ksd tv . 1 the station was project to sign on may 15 1953 . 1 the station originally operated from studios located in alton illinois . the cbs affiliation moved to kwk tv channel 4 now kmov when it debuted on july 8 1954 ; more or less by default wtvi became a primary abc affiliate . ktvi edit the station moved to uhf channel 36 and relocated its city of license to st. louis on april 9 1955 keeping the base tvi letters as part of its callsign while flipping the first assigned letter from w to k thus changing to the current ktvi . it moved its operations to facilities located in the clayton tamm dogtown neighborhood in west st. louis off present day i 64 us 40 at the intersection of berthold oakland and hampton avenues . however the federal communications commission had recently changed its regulations so that the station could have kept its license in belleville even while moving its main studio to st. louis . the wtvi calls are currently used by a pbs member station in charlotte north carolina . the station lost dumont programming when the network ceased operations in 1956 making ktvi an exclusive abc affiliate . as the fcc would not require television sets to include uhf tuners until 1961 on april 15 1957 ktvi moved to vhf channel 2 something it had attempted to do soon after moving to st. louis the channel 2 allocation had been reassigned from springfield illinois under pressure from the truman administration originally done so as not to interfere with cbs owned wbbm tv in chicago . for many years the station was owned by the newhouse newspaper chain owners of the st. louis globe democrat . in 1980 newhouse exited from broadcasting and sold ktvi to the times mirror company . in 1993 ktvi was sold to argyle television in a group deal with wvtm tv in birmingham alabama ktbc in austin texas and kdfw in dallas . as a fox station edit on december 18 1993 fox was awarded the broadcast rights to the nfl s national football conference television package over cbs . 2 new world communications entered into a 500 million deal on may 23 1994 to switch most of its major network affiliates to fox starting that fall at the earliest . 3 new world subsequently bought argyle television and cut another deal to switch the affiliations of ktvi kdfw and ktbc to fox wvtm did not switch as wbrc which was placed a blind trust was later sold to fox outright as new world could not keep both due to fcc rules at the time that forbade duopolies . ktvi affiliated with fox on august 7 1995 ending its 42 year affiliation with abc which moved to st. louis s original fox affiliate kdnl tv channel 30 . starting that september ktvi became the official home station of the st. louis rams which had recently relocated to the city from los angeles with the exception of select primetime telecasts ktvi broadcast most of the nfl franchise s road games as well as most sold out home games against other nfc teams . the station chose not to carry children s programming from fox kids ; the block instead aired on religious independent knlc channel 24 . however due to a controversial decision by reverend larry rice of knlc owner new life evangelistic center to run ministry messages instead of commercials during the block fox kids moved to ktvi in the fall of 1996 becoming the only new world owned fox station to carry the block . fox television stations acquired new world communications in july 1996 ; 4 upon the completion of the merger on january 22 1997 ktvi became the first network owned station in the market since cbs sold kmox tv now kmov to viacom in 1986 . shortly thereafter programming changed very slightly as fox television stations began acquiring more expensive syndicated programs for ktvi . ktvi stopped carrying the fox kids weekday block in 2000 although the station retained its saturday morning lineup this was despite the fact that fox gave its affiliates the option to push the weekday block to an earlier afternoon timeslot at that period . fox discontinued its weekday block nationwide on december 31 2001 5 while the saturday lineup was contracted out to 4kids entertainment and relaunched as foxbox on september 14 2002 . from september 2006 until the block by then renamed 4kids tv ended on december 27 2008 ktvi aired 4kids tv two hours earlier than most stations to accommodate the station s saturday morning newscast ktvi now airs fox s weekend marketplace infomercial block in its place . ktvi first launched its website on november 1 1999 which featured a design similar to other sites belonging to fox s owned and operated stations at the time and focused on promotional and programming content initially but eventually incorporated news content . the website was migrated to the myfox platform on september 14 2006 . on october 15 2007 ktvi launched stlmoms.com a website aimed at st. louis area moms whose concept spun off from a popular blog featured on the station s main website . on december 22 2007 fox television stations announced that it had agreed to sell ktvi and seven other fox owned and operated stations 6 to local tv a television station group formed by oak hill capital partners that year to acquire nine stations owned by the new york times company ; the sale officially closed on july 14 2008 . on june 2 2008 ktvi launched garagesalestl.com a free website that primarily features a google based map of viewer submitted garage sales the site has since been discontinued . on october 1 2008 local tv began managing cw affiliate kplr tv channel 11 under a local marketing agreement with its owner tribune broadcasting 7 8 through a broadcast management company that was created to provide services to stations owned by both tribune and local tv . though it is the senior partner in the agreement ktvi relocated from its longtime clayton tamm dogtown studios to kplr s facility in maryland heights kplr moved to that building the larger of the two facilities in 2003 ; whereas ktvi had been operating from the berthold studios for nearly 50 years . both stations combined their news departments and began sharing certain syndicated programs . on july 1 2013 the tribune company acquired the local tv stations outright for 2.75 billion ; 9 the sale was completed on december 27 10 11 as the fcc bars duopolies between two of a market s four highest rated stations the resulting common ownership between ktvi and kplr tv was only permissible as historically fifth rated kdnl tv had surpassed kplr for fourth place in the ratings at the time the deal was struck ; st. louis also has only nine full power television stations seven of which are commercial outlets making this the only legal duopoly allowable in the market under fcc rules . on january 11 2016 nfl owners voted 30 2 to approve the move of the rams back to los angeles for the 2016 nfl season ; as such ktvi s status as the team s primary station ended after the 2015 season . digital television edit digital channels edit channel video aspect psip short name programming 12 2.1 720p 16 9 ktvi dt main ktvi programming fox 2.2 480i 4 3 antenna antenna tv 2.3 escape escape ktvi began carrying antenna tv upon its launch on january 1 2011 on digital subchannel 2.2 . 13 as of january 2016 digital subchannel 2.3 started showing colored bars with a pending affiliation to escape . citation needed analog to digital conversion edit ktvi shut down its analog signal over vhf channel 2 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 remained on its pre transition uhf channel 43 . 14 15 through the use of psip digital television receivers display the station s virtual channel as its former vhf analog channel 2 . news operation edit ktvi presently broadcasts a combined 63 hours of locally produced newscasts each week 10 hours on weekdays and 5 hours on weekends ; in regards to the number of hours devoted to news programming it is the highest local newscast output among st. louis s broadcast television stations . ktvi s sunday 5 00 p.m. newscast is subject to preemption due to network sports coverage as is standard with fox stations that carry early evening weekend newscasts though the saturday 5 00 p.m. newscast is usually delayed to 6 00 p.m. due to baseball or college football coverage . as an abc affiliate ktvi s newscasts usually placed third in the ratings behind longtime leader ksdk channel 5 and kmov . however for most of the 1980s and early 1990s the station fought a spirited battle with kmox tv kmov for second place . since 1998 the station s weekday morning newscast has placed first among the newscasts in the st. louis market during that time period . citation needed segments regularly featured on its newscasts include the jaco report featuring an editorial or investigative story presented by charles jaco and you paid for it an investigative segment reported by elliott davis that uncovers city government