WHO-DT
| 150px | |
| Des Moines, Iowa United States |
|
|---|---|
| Branding | WHO-HD Channel 13 (general) Channel 13 News (newscasts) |
| Slogan | THE Local News Leader |
| Channels | Digital: 13 (VHF) Virtual: 13 (PSIP) |
| Subchannels | 13.1 NBC 13.2 Iowa's Weather Channel 13.3 Antenna TV |
| Affiliations | NBC |
| Owner | Tribune Broadcasting (WHO License, LLC) |
| First air date | April 15, 1954 |
| Call letters' meaning | The question prefix Who |
| Former callsigns | WHO-TV (1954–2009) |
| Former channel number(s) | Analog: 13 (VHF, 1954–2009) Digital: 19 (UHF, 2002–2009) |
| Former affiliations | Secondary: UPN (2003–2006) |
| Transmitter power | 36.5 kW |
| Height | 600 metres (2,000 ft) |
| Class | Full-power commercial digital |
| Facility ID | 66221 |
| Transmitter coordinates | Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. |
| Licensing authority | FCC |
| Public license information: | Profile CDBS |
| Website | www |
WHO-DT (known on air as WHO-HD) is a television station that broadcasts on Channel 13 in Des Moines, Iowa. It is affiliated with the NBC television network and serves most of central Iowa. The station transmits from the WOI Tower in Alleman, Iowa, which is actually owned by WHO-DT's owners, and its studio facilities are located on Grand Avenue in downtown Des Moines. WHO-DT brands itself as WHO-HD on air, indicating its high definition broadcasts, though the legal call letters are WHO-DT.
WHO-DT was repeated on K27CV channel 27 in Ottumwa and K66AL channel 66 in Clarinda. The Ottumwa translator was operated by a local non-profit organization, and the Clarinda translator was owned by the City of Clarinda.
Contents
History
WHO-TV signed on the air on April 15, 1954 as the second television station in Des Moines, after WOI-TV. It was owned by the Palmer family, owners of WHO radio (AM 1040 and FM 100.3, now KDRB). The Palmers had competed with KIOA for the channel 13 license and won it after reaching a settlement.[1] It has always been an NBC affiliate.
The Palmers sold off their broadcast holdings in 1996, with WHO-TV and sister station KFOR-TV in Oklahoma City going to The New York Times Company. Earlier that year, a joint plan by the Sinclair Broadcast Group (at the time in the process of purchasing Oklahoma City's then-UPN affiliate KOCB) and River City Broadcasting (then owner of Fox affiliate KDSM-TV) to purchase Palmer Communications, the Palmer family's holding company, fell through: Sinclair would have purchased WHO outright while River City would have received KFOR. However, River City was in the process of being merged into Sinclair, which would have resulted in duopolies, which were at the time prohibited by Federal Communications Commission ownership rules, in both the Des Moines and Oklahoma City markets. Up to that time, channel 13 had been the last locally owned commercial station in Des Moines. WHO-AM, which was eventually acquired by Jacor Communications (which later merged with Clear Channel Communications), continued to occupy the same building until it moved to another building in 2005. While WHO-TV was co-owned with WHO-AM, it used an owl as its mascot.[2]
Until the 1980s, WHO-TV frequently preempted NBC programming in favor of local shows. For instance, it didn't pick up Days of Our Lives until the soap's 20th season; in the 1960s and 1970s, the station aired a 90-minute movie between 12:30 and 2 p.m.
In 2003, WHO-TV began airing select UPN programs which KPWB had dropped. WHO-TV aired various UPN programs, most notably Star Trek: Enterprise, from midnight-1:00 a.m. on Sunday mornings and WWE Friday Night SmackDown (then called WWE Smackdown) on Sunday nights at 11:30 p.m. This lasted until 2006, when UPN amalgamated with The WB Television Network to form The CW and affiliated with then-WB station KPWB (now KCWI).
On January 4, 2007, the New York Times Company entered into an agreement to sell its entire television stations group to affiliates of the private equity group Oak Hill Capital Partners. On May 7, 2007, Local TV LLC, a new broadcasting company owned by Oak Hill, officially became the owner of the former New York Times stations.[3]
On December 20, 2007, Local TV and Tribune Company entered into a letter of intent to create a third-party broadcast management company to provide shared services to all of the stations Local TV and Tribune Company own respectively. The company will function as a wholly owned subsidiary of Tribune Company, and will provide back-office services, administration, and a number of other functions to the stations. The most noticeable byproducts of this partnership are the redesigned websites of WHO-TV and Local TV's other stations, which were launched during late January and into February 2009, using the Tribune Interactive platform also used by the websites of Tribune-owned stations. However, on March 7, 2012, following the lead of Local TV's Fox-affiliated stations, WHO-DT became the first of Local TV's "Big Three" network-affiliated stations to migrate its Web site away from Tribune Digital (successor to Tribune Interactive) to a new host, WordPress.com VIP. On July 1, 2013, Local TV announced that its stations would be acquired by Tribune.[4]
In 2008, WHO-TV introduced Iowa's Weather Plus, a 24-hour weather channel affiliated with NBC Weather Plus. This station airs on Digital Channel 13.2 and Mediacom Digital channel 246. Although the national feed of NBC's Weather Plus has been discontinued, Channel 13 continues to air its own weather forecasts and radar loops.
On July 1, 2013, Local TV announced that its stations (including sister station KFOR-TV) would be acquired by the Tribune Broadcasting, giving Tribune its first NBC affiliates.[4] The sale was completed on December 27.[5]
Digital television
Digital channels
The station's digital signal is multiplexed:
| Channel | Video | Aspect | PSIP Short Name | Programming[6] |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13.1 | 1080i | 16:9 | WHO-DT | Main WHO-DT programming / NBC |
| 13.2 | 480i | 4:3 | WHO-D2 | Iowa's Weather Channel |
| 13.3 | WHO-D3 | Antenna TV / ACC Network |
Analog-to-digital conversion
WHO-TV launches digital television programming on channel 19 as WHO-DT in 2002. The station shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 13, on February 17, 2009, the original target date in which full-power television stations in the United States were to transition from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate (which was later pushed back to June 12, 2009). The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition UHF channel 19 to VHF channel 13.[7] With it retired the longtime WHO-TV call sign in favor of WHO-DT, a move opposite to what most other TV stations across the country have done (competitor WOI retained its "-DT" suffix as well). In the spring of 2011, the station unofficially changed its call letters to "WHO-HD".
News operation
On September 2, 2008, WHO-TV entered into a news share agreement with Fox affiliate KDSM-TV (owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group). The big three station then began producing a Des Moines-based prime time newscast known as Channel 13 News at Nine on Fox 17. KDSM previously had its 9 p.m. broadcast produced by Sinclair sister outlet KGAN in Cedar Rapids. Originating from WHO-TV's primary set at its facilities on Grand Avenue in Downtown Des Moines (with separate duratrans indicating the Fox show), the nightly prime time program currently airs for an hour on weeknights and thirty minutes on weekends. KDSM features the majority of WHO-TV's on-air team but maintains a separate news anchor on weeknights. Unlike other outsourced news arrangements at Sinclair-owned television stations, KDSM uses the same music and graphics package scheme as seen on this NBC affiliate.
For the better part of its history, WHO-TV was a solid, if usually distant, runner-up to CBS affiliate KCCI in the ratings. It managed to close the gap somewhat at the turn of the century. In February 2010, WHO-TV overtook KCCI in the mornings and at 6 p.m. The latter was significant, as it was the first time that channel 8 had lost the lead at 6 in decades.
In the May 2011 ratings period, WHO-TV surged ahead as Iowa's news leader, claiming a ratings victory in the majority of weekday newscasts (morning, 5 p.m. and 6 p.m.) KCCI continues to hold a narrow lead at 10 p.m.[8] WHO-TV held the lead in most timeslots until February 2013, when KCCI beat WHO-TV by a decisive margin in every timeslot.[9]
WHO-TV has many firsts in the market. It was the first area station to use videotape and the first to broadcast from news events live. It was also the first station to use live Doppler radar and the first to broadcast in high definition (during the 2002 Winter Olympics) and air local news segments in high definition. On April 22, 2009, Channel 13 became the second station in Des Moines broadcasting all in-studio news in widescreen standard definition.[10] On May 19, 2010, WHO-HD became the first commercial station in Des Moines to launch fully into high definition television.[11]
On September 8, 2014 the station premiered a 4 p.m. newscast with Ellen's move to KCCI. The station decided not to fill the timeslot with syndicated programming as all the ad revenue in the hour goes to the station, especially during popular political advertising seasons.[12]
Notable current on-air staff
- Justin Surrency – reporter
Former on-air staff
- Jack Cafferty (later at WNBC in New York City and CNN)
- Jim Zabel (also personality at WHO Radio and play-by-play announcer for the Iowa Hawkeyes radio network)
See also
- The Floppy Show, a long-running children's television series on WHO-TV
References
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ See American Channels: WHO on TVArk
- ↑ NY Times CO. Sell TV Group to Equity Firm for $530M; Second equity group to buy a media business in two weeks., NewsInc. (via HighBeam Research), January 8, 2007.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Company Completes Final Steps of Transaction Announced in July, Tribune Company, 27 December, 2013
- ↑ RabbitEars TV Query for WHO
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ [1] Archived September 27, 2011 at the Wayback Machine
- ↑ http://blogs.desmoinesregister.com/dmr/index.php/2013/08/19/kcci-sweeps-july-ratings-2/article
- ↑ Channel 13 News: Widescreen
- ↑ HD Arrives: Channel 13 Makes History With Iowa's First Commercial High-definition Newscast
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
External links
- No URL found. Please specify a URL here or add one to Wikidata.
- WHO.AntennaTV.tv – Antenna TV Des Moines official website
- WHO-TV historical artifacts at DesMoinesBroadcasting.com
- Query the FCC's TV station database for WHO-DT
- BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on WHO-HD
- Coverage map from TVFool.com
