Channel 12 News Phoenix Az
Channel 12 News Phoenix Az
KPNX is a full-service television station serving the Phoenix, Arizona television market as the NBC affiliate. Its studios and offices are located in Phoenix and its transmitter is on South Mountain in Phoenix but it is licensed to the suburb of Mesa. It is owned by the Gannett Company which also owns The Arizona Republic newspaper.
The station broadcasts on VHF channel 12. As a full-service station it is carried on all local cable television systems and appears on the local stations lineup on all of the satellite television systems. It is rebroadcast on full power satellite station KNAZ-TV in Flagstaff and on a network of low-power translators throughout northern and central Arizona.
History
KPNX is the only major English-language commercial television station in Phoenix to never change its primary affiliation. It was founded in 1953 as KTYL-TV , owned by the Harkins Theatre Group and was a sister station to KTYL radio AM 1490, now KXAM, and FM 104.7, now KZZP. The original studios were located in Mesa, its city of license. Its appearance brought the metro Phoenix area a full-time NBC affiliate; the other three networks shared time on KPHO-TV, as did NBC prior to 1953. Channel 12 carried some DuMont programming prior to that network's demise in 1956.
John J. Louis, owner of KTAR-AM 620, bought channel 12 in 1955 and changed its calls to KVAR . The station then became KTAR-TV four years later. It moved into its current facility in Phoenix in 1959, after the FCC allowed stations to locate their studios outside the city of license. Over the years the Louis family bought several other broadcasting outlets, including WQXI-TV in Atlanta, Georgia (now WXIA-TV) and WPTA-TV in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Eventually, the Louis family's broadcasting interests became known as Pacific & Southern Broadcasting, headquartered in Phoenix with KTAR-AM-TV as the flagship stations.
Advertising mogul Karl Eller bought Pacific & Southern in 1968 and combined it with his existing business to form Combined Communications. Eller was also one of the original founding owners of the city's first major professional sports team, the Phoenix Suns of the National Basketball Association. Channel 12 carried Suns games for years from the team's 1968 inception until the 1980s when Suns telecasts moved to KNXV-TV channel 15.
KTAR-TV was the Phoenix pioneer of what some call "happy-talk" news when it debuted "Action News" in late 1973, with long-time anchor Ray Thompson paired up with Bob Hughes, weatherman Dewey Hopper (lately with Air America Radio affiliate KPHX 1480, and a long-time weather forecaster in Sacramento) & sportscaster Ted Brown.
Combined Communications merged with Gannett in 1979, in what was at that time the biggest media merger in U.S. history. Combined's ownership of KTAR-AM-TV had been grandfathered earlier in the decade when the FCC forbade common ownership of television and radio stations in the same market, but with the Gannett merger, KTAR-AM-TV lost its grandfathered protection. Gannett opted to keep channel 12 and sell off the radio station. KTAR-TV then renamed itself KPNX, since the radio station had held the call letters first.
The station had ranked third in the ratings for many years behind ABC affiliate KTVK and CBS affiliate KTSP (now KSAZ). That changed in 1994, when every major English-language commercial station in Phoenix changed affiliations except KPNX. After the market shake-up, KPNX finally reached the number one position in the ratings, dropping former leader KTVK to second place.
In 1997, the FCC allocated UHF channel 36 as the station's digital companion channel, and construction began the following year. KPNX launched its digital channel in June 2000. On December 29, 2005, the station began carrying NBC Weather Plus on subchannel 12.2, making it the first station in Phoenix to offer a 24-hour local weather channel. KPNX achieved another first in Arizona on November 2, 2006, when it began broadcasting local news programming in high definition with a set designed by broadcast powerhouse Jack Morton Design/PDG and fabricated by HD specialists blackwalnut, llc.
On February 24, 2009, it was announced that KTVK, KPHO-TV and KPNX will share a helicopter starting March 1, 2009.
In March 2009, KPNX switched its weather subchannel system to The Local AccuWeather Channel. KNXV already implements this service, but its GoAZ.tv product focuses on traffic. KPNX offers a more traditional Local AccuWeather product with the Weather Plus brand name.
Digital television
The station's digital channel is multiplexed:
Digital channels
KPNX ceased analog broadcasts at 10:12PM on June 12, 2009, the day mandated by the Federal government for TV stations to cease analog transmissions across the country. The switch occurred during the station's 10PM newscast. After the analog switchoff , KPNX returned its digital broadcasts to channel 12 at 10:38PM.
News and programming
KPNX's news operations ( 12 News ) is among one of the highest rated news operations in Arizona during primetime news hours. Its evening newscasts have dominated ratings for the several ratings periods.
While rivals KSAZ and KTVK produce dramatically more local news per week, KPNX airs the largest amount of news (local and national) in the market, running about 30 hours a week of local news, along with 25 hours a week of national news from NBC (Today Show, NBC News, etc.). It also runs syndicated first-run talk and reality shows ( Live with Regis & Kelly being one of them, which has aired on Channel 12 since its debut in the 1980s) along with the entire NBC schedule.
Between the late 1970s and 1985, channel 12's news department was known as Action News, a title used on other stations in the Gannett station group. After the 1995 affiliation switch, an unaffected KPNX coupled with a resurgent NBC put 12 at the top of the ratings, where it has stayed ever since, only wavering as NBC has experienced its own network troubles; in November 2009, KPNX was beaten by KPHO at 10pm a rare loss for a channel 12 that trumpeted more than 50 straight sweeps victories back into the mid-1990s. Although KPNX has traditionally been known as THE news channel in the Phoenix market, it has noticeably been putting much less effort into its newscasts. Nearly all of its long-tenured reporters have left; most recently, long-time consumer reporter Rick DeBruhl retired in November 2009.
KPNX produces two daily local lifestyle shows. Arizona Midday , a general lifestyle show with paid segments hosted by Jan D'Atri and Destry Jetton, runs weekdays at 1pm. A new lifestyle program, 12 News Valley Dish , hosted by former morning anchor Tram Mai, airs weekdays at 4:30pm, replacing a more traditional newscast. 12 News Valley Dish is primarily focused on food around the Valley with cooking segments, interviews with restaurant chefs, and other light fare.
KPNX-DT2 airs programming from NBC Weather Plus, a 24-hour weather service showing national forecasts and weather conditions, on its 12.2 subchannel, and on a separate channel on the local cable systems. Weather Plus also has local inserts, shown at right, allowing KPNX weather staff to show conditions and forecasts for the Phoenix market, including northern Arizona. In addition, weather conditions and forecasts from around the region are displayed on the left and at the bottom of the screen (known as an "L-bar").
Station identification
Over the years, KPNX has used a legal station identification that did not comply with FCC regulations, which require that in the legal identification broadcast aurally or visually, a station must state its call sign, followed by its city of license. For many years KPNX identified as "Phoenix/Mesa" rather than "Mesa/Phoenix" as required, but beginning in 2008, has begun using a new, FCC-compliant station ID on its analog and primary digital channels (shown at right, top). On its Weather Plus programming on 12.2, KPNX still identifies using non-compliant ID, and does not air separate ID at the top of the hour (shown at right, bottom).
News/Station presentation
Newscast titles
- Action News (1977-1985)
- Channel 12 News (1985-1992)
- 12 News (1992-present)
Station slogans
- Arizona's Full Color Station (1960s)
- Channel 12, Proud as a Peacock! (1979-1980; localized version of NBC ad campaign)
- It's All Right Here (early 1980s)
- Hello Phoenix / Hello Arizona (1980s; used during period station used Frank Gari's "Hello News")
- We're Going Where You're Going (mid-1980s)
- Come on Home to Channel 12 (1987-1988; localized version of NBC ad campaign)
-
Come Home to the Best, Only on Channel 12
(1988-1990; localized version of NBC ad campaign)
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