KBJR-TV (channel 6) is a
television station
A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity, such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the earth ...
licensed to
Superior, Wisconsin
, native_name_lang = oj
, nickname =
, total_type =
, motto =
, image_skyline = Tower Avenue.jpg
, imagesize =
, image_caption = Downtown Superior
, ima ...
, United States, serving the
Duluth, Minnesota
, settlement_type = City
, nicknames = Twin Ports (with Superior), Zenith City
, motto =
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top: urban Duluth skyline; Minnesota ...
, area as an affiliate of
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an Television in the United States, American English-language Commercial broadcasting, commercial television network, broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Enterta ...
and
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainmen ...
. It is owned by
Gray Television
Gray Television, Inc. is an American publicly traded television broadcasting company based in Atlanta, Georgia. Founded in 1946 by James Harrison Gray as Gray Communications Systems, the company owns or operates 180 stations across the United St ...
alongside
CW+ affiliate
KDLH
KDLH (channel 3) is a television station in Duluth, Minnesota, United States, affiliated with The CW Plus. It is owned by Gray Television alongside Superior, Wisconsin–licensed dual NBC/CBS affiliate KBJR-TV, channel 6 (and its Chisholm, Min ...
(channel 3). Both stations share studios on South Lake Avenue in
Canal Park, downtown Duluth, while KBJR-TV's transmitter is located west of downtown in Hilltop Park.
KRII (channel 11) in
Chisholm, Minnesota
Chisholm is a city in St. Louis County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 4,976 at the 2010 census. The city has been called "The Heart of the Iron Range" due to its location in the middle of the Mesabi Iron Range. History
The city ...
, formerly branded as Range 11, operates as a
semi-satellite
A broadcast relay station, also known as a satellite station, relay transmitter, broadcast translator (U.S.), re-broadcaster (Canada), repeater (two-way radio) or complementary station (Mexico), is a broadcast transmitter which repeats (or tran ...
and has a news bureau and advertising sales office on East Howard Street in
Hibbing
Hibbing is a city in Saint Louis County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 16,214 at the 2020 census. The city was built on mining the rich iron ore of the Mesabi Iron Range and still relies on that industrial activity today. At th ...
. KRII serves the northern portion of the
market
Market is a term used to describe concepts such as:
*Market (economics), system in which parties engage in transactions according to supply and demand
*Market economy
*Marketplace, a physical marketplace or public market
Geography
*Märket, an ...
, including the
Iron Range
The term Iron Range refers collectively or individually to a number of elongated iron-ore mining districts around Lake Superior in the United States and Canada. Much of the ore-bearing region lies alongside the range of granite hills formed by ...
area,
Grand Rapids
Grand Rapids is a city and county seat of Kent County in the U.S. state of Michigan. At the 2020 census, the city had a population of 198,917 which ranks it as the second most-populated city in the state after Detroit. Grand Rapids is the ...
and
International Falls
International Falls (sometimes referred to as I-Falls) is a city in and the county seat of Koochiching County, Minnesota. The population was 5,802 at the time of the 2020 census.
International Falls is located on the Rainy River directly acro ...
. This station
simulcast
Simulcast (a portmanteau of simultaneous broadcast) is the broadcasting of programmes/programs or events across more than one resolution, bitrate or medium, or more than one service on the same medium, at exactly the same time (that is, simultane ...
s KBJR except during commercials and
station identification
Station identification (ident, network ID or channel ID or bumper) is the practice of radio and television stations and broadcast network, networks identifying themselves on-air, typically by means of a call sign or brand name (sometimes known, ...
s. KRII's transmitter is located in
Linden Grove Township;
master control
Master control is the technical hub of a broadcast operation common among most over-the-air television stations and television networks. It is distinct from a production control room (PCR) in television studios where the activities such as switc ...
and most internal operations are based at KBJR's facilities in Duluth. It also acts as a full-power
translator station
A broadcast relay station, also known as a satellite station, relay transmitter, broadcast translator (U.S.), re-broadcaster (Canada), repeater (two-way radio) or complementary station (Mexico), is a broadcast transmitter which repeats (or tran ...
of all of the various channels and subchannels of KBJR.
KBJR operates the area's CBS affiliate on a second digital subchannel, known on-air as CBS 3 in reference to the
Twin Ports
The Duluth MN-WI Metropolitan Area, commonly called the Twin Ports, is a small metropolitan area centered around the cities of Duluth, Minnesota and Superior, Wisconsin. The Twin Ports are located at the western part of Lake Superior (the weste ...
' longtime CBS affiliate, KDLH, and because it is carried on
Charter Spectrum
Spectrum is a trade name of Charter Communications, used to market consumer and commercial cable television, internet, telephone, and wireless services provided by the company.
The brand was first introduced in 2014; prior to that, these serv ...
cable
Cable may refer to:
Mechanical
* Nautical cable, an assembly of three or more ropes woven against the weave of the ropes, rendering it virtually waterproof
* Wire rope, a type of rope that consists of several strands of metal wire laid into a hel ...
channel 3. KDLH was formerly operated by KBJR under a
shared services
Shared services is the provision of a service by one part of an organization or group, where that service had previously been found, in more than one part of the organization or group. Thus the funding and resourcing of the service is shared and th ...
agreement (SSA), wound down following the purchase of KBJR and KDLH by Quincy and
SagamoreHill Broadcasting
SagamoreHill Broadcasting LLC is a privately held American holding company that owns 13 television stations based in the Great Lakes and southern United States regions. The company is a joint venture of the investment firm Duff Ackerman & Goodric ...
respectively. KBJR also operates a primary
Heroes & Icons
Heroes & Icons (H&I) is an American Digital terrestrial television, digital broadcast television network owned by Weigel Broadcasting. Usually carried on the digital subchannels of its affiliated television station in most markets, the network ai ...
/secondary
MyNetworkTV
MyNetworkTV (unofficially abbreviated MyTV, MyNet, MNT or MNTV, and sometimes referred to as My Network) is an American commercial broadcast television syndication service and former television network owned by Fox Corporation, operated by its ...
-affiliated third subchannel, branded as My 9 (also in reference to its cable position) which airs programming from Heroes & Icons outside of the MyNetworkTV lineup.
History
![NBC logo atop KBJR Station](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bf/NBC_logo_atop_KBJR_Station.jpg)
The station began on March 1, 1954 as WDSM-TV, and was affiliated with
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainmen ...
. It was owned by Ridder Newspapers, owner of the ''Duluth Herald'' (now part of the ''
Duluth News Tribune
The ''Duluth News Tribune'' (known locally as ''The Tribune'' or ''DNT'') is a newspaper based in Duluth, Minnesota. While circulation is heaviest in the Twin Ports metropolitan area, delivery extends into northeastern Minnesota, northwestern Wisc ...
''), along with
WDSM radio (710 AM). WDSM was the first
VHF
Very high frequency (VHF) is the ITU designation for the range of radio frequency electromagnetic waves (radio waves) from 30 to 300 megahertz (MHz), with corresponding wavelengths of ten meters to one meter.
Frequencies immediately below VHF ...
television station in Duluth, signing on days before KDAL-TV (now KDLH). In October 1955, the station switched affiliations with KDAL and became an NBC affiliate. It began local color broadcasts in November 1965. It also aired some
ABC
ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet.
ABC or abc may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting
* American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster
** Disney–ABC Television ...
programs, sharing them with KDAL, until
WDIO-TV
WDIO-DT (channel 10) is a television station in Duluth, Minnesota, United States, affiliated with ABC and owned by Hubbard Broadcasting. The station's studios and transmitter are located on Observation Road in Duluth.
WIRT-DT (channel 13) in ...
signed-on in 1966.
Ridder merged with Knight Newspapers in 1974 to form
Knight Ridder
Knight Ridder was an American media company, specializing in newspaper and Internet publishing. Until it was bought by McClatchy on June 27, 2006, it was the second largest newspaper publisher in the United States, with 32 daily newspaper brand ...
. However, the merged company was not allowed to keep the WDSM stations. It was grandfathered under
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdiction ...
(FCC) rules forbidding common ownership of newspapers and broadcasting outlets. The FCC considered the Knight-Ridder merger to be an ownership change, and as a result, the WDSM stations lost their grandfathered protection. The television station was spun off to RJR Communications, a locally based group, in the fall of that year. On December 6, the call letters were changed to the current KBJR-TV. Channel 6 is one of the few stations in the country whose call sign begins with "K" despite being licensed to a city east of the
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...
. However, its studios have long been located in Duluth.
Granite Broadcasting
Granite Broadcasting LLC is a broadcasting holding company in New York City which owns one television station in the United States, in Syracuse, New York. Granite was founded by W. Don Cornwell and Stuart Beck in 1988, acquired KBJR at the end of October 1988, making it one of the company's earliest acquisitions. On December 14, 1997, KBJR's studios were destroyed in a fire late that evening. It left the air temporarily but managed to get back on-the-air the next morning cobbling together a makeshift workspace at its transmitter building after plastering a technical difficulties slide. Two days later, the news operation moved in with
PBS
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...
member station WDSE WDSE may refer to:
* WDSE (TV), a PBS member station in Duluth, Minnesota, United States
* WDSE-FM, an adult album alternative radio station in Duluth, Minnesota, United States
{{call sign disambiguation ...
and sales and business operations moved to open office space at the
U.S. Bank
U.S. Bancorp (stylized as us bancorp) is an American bank holding company based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and incorporated in Delaware. It is the parent company of U.S. Bank National Association, and is the fifth largest banking institution i ...
building in Downtown Duluth while master control remained at the transmitter. In April 1999, a spring
ice storm
An ice storm, also known as a glaze event or a silver storm is a type of winter storm characterized by freezing rain. The U.S. National Weather Service defines an ice storm as a storm which results in the accumulation of at least of ice on ex ...
swept through Duluth. The heavy accumulation of ice severely damaged KBJR's transmitting tower and, as the melting ice started falling off the tower, large ice chunks broke through the roof of the transmitter building flooding it with water and damaging much of the equipment inside. Master control operations were moved again using a temporary transmitter on WDIO's tower while KBJR's own tower and transmitter were replaced. In June 1999, it relocated to its current location in Canal Park.
In March 2005, the
Malara Broadcast Group
Malara Broadcast Group of Sarasota, Florida, a Delaware corporation, also known as Malara Broadcasting, was a broadcasting holding company. Malara Broadcasting was founded in 2004 by Tony Malara, former president of affiliate relations for CBS. M ...
purchased KDLH from
New Vision Television
New Vision Television was a broadcast company based in Santa Monica, California. Throughout its two decade plus history, the company owned or managed over 60 television stations in large and medium-sized markets.
History
New Vision I
Formed by ...
and outsourced most of that station's functions to KBJR. Under this agreement, KDLH
laid off
A layoff or downsizing is the temporary suspension or permanent termination of employment of an employee or, more commonly, a group of employees (collective layoff) for business reasons, such as personnel management or downsizing (reducing the ...
most of its staff, and KBJR began to handle nearly all of channel 3's operations. Filings with the FCC showed Malara could operate KDLH with as few as two people on the payroll.
On January 24, 2006,
The WB
The WB Television Network (for Warner Bros., or the "Frog Network", for its former mascot, Michigan J. Frog) was an American television network launched on broadcast television on January 11, 1995, as a joint venture between the Warner Bros. ...
and
UPN
The United Paramount Network (UPN) was an American broadcast television network that launched on January 16, 1995. It was originally owned by Chris-Craft Industries' United Television. Viacom (through its Paramount Television unit, which prod ...
announced that they would cease broadcasting and merge. The new combined network would be called
The CW
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
. The letters would represent the first initial of its corporate parents,
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainmen ...
(the parent company of UPN) and the
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Di ...
unit of
Time Warner
Warner Media, LLC ( traded as WarnerMedia) was an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate. It was headquartered at the 30 Hudson Yards complex in New York City, United States.
It was originally established in 1972 by ...
. On February 22,
News Corporation
News Corporation (abbreviated News Corp.), also variously known as News Corporation Limited, was an American multinational mass media corporation controlled by media mogul Rupert Murdoch and headquartered at 1211 Avenue of the Americas in Ne ...
announced that it would start up another new broadcast television network called
MyNetworkTV
MyNetworkTV (unofficially abbreviated MyTV, MyNet, MNT or MNTV, and sometimes referred to as My Network) is an American commercial broadcast television syndication service and former television network owned by Fox Corporation, operated by its ...
. This new network, which would be sister to
Fox
Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush'').
Twelve sp ...
, would be operated by
Fox Television Stations
Fox Television Stations, LLC (FTS; alternately Fox Television Stations Group, LLC), is a group of television stations located within the United States, which are owned-and-operated by the Fox Broadcasting Company, a subsidiary of the Fox Corp ...
and its syndication division
Twentieth Television
20th Television (formerly 20th Century Fox Television, 20th Century-Fox Television, and TCF Television Productions, Inc.) is an American television production company that is a division of Disney Television Studios, part of The Walt Disney Comp ...
. MyNetworkTV was created to give UPN and WB stations, not mentioned as becoming CW affiliates, another option besides becoming
independent
Independent or Independents may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups
* Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s
* Independ ...
. It was also created to compete with that network. KDLH operated the area's cable-only WB affiliate, "KWBD", which was part of
The WB 100+
The WB 100+ Station Group (originally called The WeB from its developmental stages until March 1999) was a national programming service of The WB—owned by the Warner Bros. Entertainment division of Time Warner, the Tribune Company, and group f ...
. Area access to UPN was offered in two ways. KBJR operated an affiliate known on-air as "Northland's UPN" and later "UPN 9" (based on its Charter channel location) on its second digital subchannel. This was also available over-the-air in
Ashland, Wisconsin
Ashland is a city in Ashland and Bayfield counties in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. It is the county seat of Ashland County. The city is a port on Lake Superior, near the head of Chequamegon Bay. The population was 7,908 at the 2020 census, al ...
on
WAST-LP, which was a
low-power analog semi-satellite of the digital subchannel. WAST was owned by a separate entity from KBJR.
On April 11, 2008, a
blizzard
A blizzard is a severe snowstorm characterized by strong sustained winds and low visibility, lasting for a prolonged period of time—typically at least three or four hours. A ground blizzard is a weather condition where snow is not falling b ...
swept through the area. Winds over , and heavy, wet snow caused power outages in Duluth which caused KBJR, KDLH, and WDIO to lose their signals at times. Weekday morning anchor Dan Hanger was on the air live from 5 until 9. At times, he and meteorologist Shannon Murphy were in the dark but were able to broadcast audio. By late morning when KBJR returned to the air, Barbara Reyelts and George Kessler anchored nonstop using a newsroom setup with one microphone and one camera. By Noon, KDLH anchor Pat Kelly was reporting from outside the studios. Also, any phone interviews were done through a cell phone by holding a microphone up to the speaker of the cell phone.
At some point in time, it was announced that KDLH would carry The CW on a new
second
The second (symbol: s) is the unit of time in the International System of Units (SI), historically defined as of a day – this factor derived from the division of the day first into 24 hours, then to 60 minutes and finally to 60 seconds ...
digital subchannel as part of
The CW Plus
The CW Plus is a secondary national programming service feed of The CW that is fully controlled and 75% owned by Nexstar Media Group, with Paramount Global and Warner Bros. Discovery each owning a 12.5% stake in the network. It is intended primar ...
which would be simulcasted on "KWBD". That service would be a similar operation to The WB 100+. It was later announced that "UPN 9" would become an independent station known as "Northland's 9" complete with new logo and graphics. In March 2006, it was made public that KBJR-DT2 would become an affiliate of MyNetworkTV. In July ahead of the launch of the network, "Northland 9" became known as "My 9" while WAST was shut down in August. MyNetworkTV began broadcasting on September 5 while "KWBD" began broadcasting The CW on September 18. On that date, that station officially started using the KDLH-DT2 call sign. On April 5, 2010, KBJR and KRII introduced a new logo with a joint branding of ''KBJR 6 & Range 11''.
KRII history
KRII signed-on for the first time on November 27, 2002
as a semi-satellite of KBJR. It was originally licensed to
International Falls
International Falls (sometimes referred to as I-Falls) is a city in and the county seat of Koochiching County, Minnesota. The population was 5,802 at the time of the 2020 census.
International Falls is located on the Rainy River directly acro ...
but was changed to Chisholm, which is closer to Duluth, before signing on. It was granted an original construction permit after the FCC finalized the
DTV allotment plan on April 21, 1997. As a result, it did not receive a companion channel for a digital television station. Instead on January 6, 2009, over a month before the end of the digital television conversion period for full-service stations, KRII turned off its analog signal and turned on its digital signal (an action called a "
flash-cut
A flash cut, also called a flash cutover, is an immediate change in a complex system, with no phase-in period.
In the United States, some telephone area codes were split or overlaid immediately, rather than being phased in with a permissive dia ...
"). After shutting off analog broadcasts, KRII began multi-casting programming on
digital subchannel
In broadcasting, digital subchannels are a method of transmitting more than one independent program stream simultaneously from the same digital radio or television station on the same radio frequency channel. This is done by using data compress ...
s. Its news bureau is home to a reporter who contributes Iron Range coverage to the KBJR and KDLH newscasts.
Sale to Quincy, then Gray
![KBJR car parked at station](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/af/KBJR_car_parked_at_station.jpg)
On February 11, 2014,
Quincy Media
Quincy Media, Inc., formerly known as Quincy Newspapers, Inc., was a family-owned media company that originated in the newspapers of Quincy, Illinois. The company's history can be traced back to 1835, when the ''Bounty Land Register'' was one of ...
announced that it would purchase KBJR-TV and its satellite KRII, along with
WEEK-TV
WEEK-TV (channel 25) is a television station in Peoria, Illinois, United States, affiliated with NBC, ABC, and The CW Plus. The station is owned by Gray Television, and maintains studios and transmitter facilities on Springfield Road (along I-4 ...
in
Peoria, Illinois
Peoria ( ) is the county seat of Peoria County, Illinois, United States, and the largest city on the Illinois River. As of the United States Census, 2020, 2020 census, the city had a population of 113,150. It is the principal city of the Peoria ...
, and
WBNG-TV
WBNG-TV (channel 12) is a television station in Binghamton, New York, United States, affiliated with CBS and CW+. The station is owned by Gray Television, and maintains studios on Columbia Drive in Johnson City and a transmitter on Ingraham Hil ...
in
Binghamton, New York
Binghamton () is a city in the U.S. state of New York, and serves as the county seat of Broome County. Surrounded by rolling hills, it lies in the state's Southern Tier region near the Pennsylvania border, in a bowl-shaped valley at the conflue ...
, from Granite (the deal at the time also included the outright purchase of
WPTA
WPTA (channel 21) is a television station in Fort Wayne, Indiana, United States, affiliated with ABC, NBC, and MyNetworkTV. It is owned by Gray Television alongside CW+ affiliate WISE-TV (channel 33). Both stations share studios on Butler Road ...
in
Fort Wayne, Indiana
Fort Wayne is a city in and the county seat of Allen County, Indiana, United States. Located in northeastern Indiana, the city is west of the Ohio border and south of the Michigan border. The city's population was 263,886 as of the 2020 Censu ...
, from the Malara Broadcast Group). The license for Malara-owned KDLH was originally planned to be sold to
SagamoreHill Broadcasting
SagamoreHill Broadcasting LLC is a privately held American holding company that owns 13 television stations based in the Great Lakes and southern United States regions. The company is a joint venture of the investment firm Duff Ackerman & Goodric ...
, with KBJR continuing to operate KDLH through a shared services agreement;
that November, SagamoreHill was dropped from the deal, and KDLH would remain with Malara, though Quincy and KBJR would continue to provide services.
In July 2015, the deal was reworked yet again; it returned to its previous structure, with SagamoreHill acquiring KDLH, but with the SSA wound down within nine months of the deal's closure—after which CBS programming would be moved to a subchannel of KBJR, and KDLH would operate independently of KBJR and solely carry CW programming.
In this form, the deal was completed on November 2, 2015.
These changes took effect on-air on August 1, 2016, with the launch of KBJR's new "CBS 3" subchannel (named in reference to its continued carriage on Charter cable channel 3) and re-launched news programming.
Quincy acquired KDLH in 2018, asserting that the station was 5th in the market in November 2017 sweeps numbers (thus satisfying the requirement for duopolies to not involve two of the top four stations in a market).
On February 1, 2021,
Gray Television
Gray Television, Inc. is an American publicly traded television broadcasting company based in Atlanta, Georgia. Founded in 1946 by James Harrison Gray as Gray Communications Systems, the company owns or operates 180 stations across the United St ...
announced its intent to purchase Quincy Media for $925 million.
The acquisition was completed on August 2,
making KBJR and KDLH
sisters
A sister is a woman or a girl who shares one or more parents with another individual; a female sibling. The male counterpart is a brother. Although the term typically refers to a familial relationship, it is sometimes used endearingly to refer to ...
to Gray stations in nearby markets, including CBS/Fox affiliates
KEYC-TV
KEYC-TV (channel 12) is a television station licensed to Mankato, Minnesota, United States, affiliated with CBS and Fox. It is owned by Gray Television alongside low-power, dual NBC/ CW+ affiliate KMNF-LD (channel 7). Both stations share studi ...
in
Mankato
Mankato ( ) is a city in Blue Earth, Nicollet, and Le Sueur counties in the state of Minnesota. The population was 44,488 according to the 2020 census, making it the 21st-largest city in Minnesota, and the 5th-largest outside of the Minnea ...
and
WSAW-TV
WSAW-TV (channel 7) is a television station in Wausau, Wisconsin, United States, affiliated with CBS, MyNetworkTV, and The CW Plus. It is owned by Gray Television alongside low-power Fox affiliate WZAW-LD (channel 33). Both stations share stu ...
/
WZAW-LD
WZAW-LD (channel 33) is a low-power television station in Wausau, Wisconsin, United States, affiliated with the Fox network. It is owned by Gray Television alongside CBS affiliate WSAW-TV (channel 7). The two stations share studios on Grand Ave ...
in
Wausau, and NBC affiliates
WLUC-TV
WLUC-TV (channel 6) is a television station licensed to Marquette, Michigan, United States, serving the Central and Western Upper Peninsula of Michigan as an affiliate of NBC and Fox Broadcasting Company, Fox. Owned by Gray Television, the statio ...
in
Marquette and
WEAU
WEAU (channel 13) is a television station licensed to Eau Claire, Wisconsin, United States, serving the La Crosse–Eau Claire market as an affiliate of NBC and The CW Plus. The station is owned by Gray Television, and maintains studios on S ...
in
Eau Claire, while separating from their former Wisconsin sister stations which were divested in order to complete the purchase.
Christmas City of the North Parade
Each November on the Friday before
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is a national holiday celebrated on various dates in the United States, Canada, Grenada, Saint Lucia, Liberia, and unofficially in countries like Brazil and Philippines. It is also observed in the Netherlander town of Leiden and ...
, KBJR puts on a parade in downtown Duluth called the ''Christmas City of the North Parade''. It is broadcast live on KBJR and streamed live on its website. In recent years, the parade also has been replayed numerous times in the weeks and days before
Christmas
Christmas is an annual festival commemorating Nativity of Jesus, the birth of Jesus, Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people Observance of Christmas by country, around t ...
. According to this station, the parade dates back to 1958 when KBJR (then WDSM) started the event as a way to kick off the holiday shopping season in the area.
It has been held every year since except in 1963 when the event was canceled following the
assassination
Assassination is the murder of a prominent or important person, such as a head of state, head of government, politician, world leader, member of a royal family or CEO. The murder of a celebrity, activist, or artist, though they may not have ...
of
President
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
*President (education), a leader of a college or university
*President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Automobiles
* Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination i ...
; the 2020 edition was held as a no-spectator event due to the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...
. In the early 1960s, the station commissioned
Merv Griffin
Mervyn Edward Griffin Jr. (July 6, 1925 – August 12, 2007) was an American television show host and media mogul. He began his career as a radio and big band singer, later appearing in film and on Broadway. From 1965 to 1986 he hosted his own ta ...
to produce a song especially for the parade. The "Christmas City Song" has been used for the parade every year and also has been the closing music for all KBJR newscasts from Thanksgiving until Christmas.
News operation
While operating its own news department, KDLH was the last of the
big three stations in Duluth to have a weeknight 5 o'clock broadcast. It aired ''
Judge Judy
''Judge Judy'' is an American Court show#Arbitration-based reality court show, arbitration-based reality court show presided over by former Manhattan Family Court Judge Judy Sheindlin, Judith Sheindlin. The show featured Sheindlin as she adjudi ...
'' in the time slot instead. In 2004, it debuted a 5 p.m. show that featured anchor Amy Rutledge and meteorologist Phil Johnson. This was replaced along with its 6 o'clock show with the current one at 5:30 when KDLH merged with KBJR in March 2005. ''
Jeopardy!
''Jeopardy!'' is an American game show created by Merv Griffin. The show is a quiz competition that reverses the traditional question-and-answer format of many quiz shows. Rather than being given questions, contestants are instead given genera ...
'' has since reclaimed the 5 o'clock spot on that channel and the ''
CBS Evening News
The ''CBS Evening News'' is the flagship evening television news program of CBS News, the news division of the CBS television network in the United States. The ''CBS Evening News'' is a daily evening broadcast featuring news reports, feature s ...
'' airs at 6. After the KDLH buyout, that station had its news department closed and merged with KBJR. To maintain a separate identity, there were some personalities on this channel that were also seen on KDLH. However, due to KBJR's existing newscasts not all of this station's personnel were seen on that station. More recently, the news teams of both stations have been downsized.
KDLH's ''Northland's NewsCenter at 5:30'' had been anchored by Pat Kelly, who was the only news team member remaining after the KDLH sellout. The station aired an abbreviated late-night newscast at 10:00 p.m., ''Northland's NewsCenter Express'', as a lead-in to ''
Seinfeld
''Seinfeld'' ( ) is an American television sitcom created by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld. It aired on NBC from July 5, 1989, to May 14, 1998, over nine seasons and List of Seinfeld episodes, 180 episodes. It stars Seinfeld as Jerry Seinfeld ( ...
'' reruns to fill the rest of the timeslot. After thirteen months of mediocre ratings, KDLH changed its 10 o'clock show to the traditional 35 minutes and re-branded it to ''Northland's NewsCenter Tonight''.
Until its shutdown in late-December 2008, KBJR offered
NBC Weather Plus
NBC Weather Plus was an American weather-oriented digital broadcast and cable television network owned as a joint venture between NBC Universal and the local affiliates of the NBC television network. The service, which was broadcast in standard d ...
with local inserts on a third digital subchannel and
Charter
A charter is the grant of authority or rights, stating that the granter formally recognizes the prerogative of the recipient to exercise the rights specified. It is implicit that the granter retains superiority (or sovereignty), and that the rec ...
digital
Digital usually refers to something using discrete digits, often binary digits.
Technology and computing Hardware
*Digital electronics, electronic circuits which operate using digital signals
**Digital camera, which captures and stores digital i ...
channel 391. When the national service ended, KBJR-DT3 was re-branded as ''NBC Plus'', which featured a computer-updated loop of regional satellite/radar images, current weather conditions and temperatures, and daily forecasts. A new fourth digital subchannel was created featuring news and weather updated and the "L-Bar" that is a remnant of the former NBC Weather Plus service. This was known on-air as Northand's NewsCenter Now.
KBJR, KRII, and KDLH began broadcasting their local newscasts in
16:9 widescreen
Widescreen images are displayed within a set of aspect ratios (relationship of image width to height) used in film, television and computer screens. In film, a widescreen film is any film image with a width-to-height aspect ratio greater than t ...
on May 4, 2009. They were the first television stations in the market to do so. Although not true
high definition, the format matches the ratio of HD television screens. As of November, KDLH began to brand its separate weeknight shows as ''KDLH 3 News'' which air from a secondary set. On January 11, 2010, KDLH starting airing the area's only weeknight 6:30 newscast.
On August 3, 2016, with the move of KDLH's CBS programming to KBJR-DT2, its news operation was expanded with the introduction of new 6:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. newscasts, and a new morning newscast the next day. These newscasts compete directly with those shown on KBJR-TV; previously, KDLH deferred these timeslots to KBJR as part of the shared news operation. While both KBJR 6 and CBS 3's news operations will share footage and some reporters, the two subchannels produce separate newscasts with their own distinct anchors, production staff, and studios.
On March 23, 2020, KBJR-DT2 added a half-hour weeknight newscast at 5:00 p.m. and according to NorthPine, it marked the first time since 2005 that Duluth has had three 5:00 p.m. newscasts as KDLH used to air one until 2005 when it merged its news department with KBJR's and consolidated its newscasts at 5:00 and 6:00 with one single early-evening newscast at 5:30 p.m., as a result of the new newscast, ''Jeopardy!'' moved back to its original time slot at 4:30 p.m. and ''
25 Words or Less'' moved to noon to replace a paid program.
Technical information
Subchannels
The stations' digital signals are
multiplexed
In telecommunications and computer networking, multiplexing (sometimes contracted to muxing) is a method by which multiple analog or digital signals are combined into one signal over a shared medium. The aim is to share a scarce resource - a ...
:
Analog-to-digital conversion
KBJR-TV discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over VHF channel 6, on February 17, 2009, to conclude the
federally mandated transition from analog to digital television.
[List of Digital Full-Power Stations](_blank)
The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition
UHF
Ultra high frequency (UHF) is the ITU designation for radio frequencies in the range between 300 megahertz (MHz) and 3 gigahertz (GHz), also known as the decimetre band as the wavelengths range from one meter to one tenth of a meter (on ...
channel 19, using
PSIP
The Program and System Information Protocol (PSIP) is the MPEG (a video and audio industry group) and privately defined program-specific information originally defined by General Instrument for the DigiCipher 2 system and later extended for the A ...
to display KBJR-TV's
virtual channel
In most telecommunications organizations, a virtual channel is a method of remapping the ''program number'' as used in H.222 Program Association Tables and Program Mapping Tables to a channel number that can be entered via digits on a receiver's ...
as 6 on digital television receivers.
Translators
In addition to the main signal, KRII is rebroadcast on several
translators
Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''transla ...
in northern Minnesota.
See also
*
Channel 3 branded TV stations in the United States The following television stations in the United States brand as channel 3 (though neither using virtual channel 3 nor broadcasting on physical RF channel 3):
* KBJR-DT2 in Duluth, Minnesota
* KESE-LD in Yuma, Arizona
* KESQ-TV in Palm Springs, Cal ...
*
Channel 6 virtual TV stations in the United States The following television stations operate on virtual channel 6 in the United States:
* K03ET-D in Terrace Lakes, Idaho
* K03IN-D in Leavenworth, Washington
* K04RT-D in Judith Gap, Montana
* K06NT-D in Dolores, Colorado
* K06PU-D in Yakima, Wa ...
*
Channel 9 branded TV stations in the United States
*
Channel 11 digital TV stations in the United States The following television stations broadcast on digital channel 11 in the United States:
* K10OA-D in Terrace Lakes, Idaho
* K11AT-D in Gunnison, Colorado, on virtual channel 7
* K11BD-D in Leadore, Idaho
* K11BM-D in Methow, Washington
* K11BX ...
*
Channel 11 virtual TV stations in the United States The following television stations operate on virtual channel 11 in the United States:
* K06AV-D in Wolf Point, Montana
* K06IQ-D in Newberry Springs, California
* K06KQ-D in Manhattan, Nevada
* K07BW-D in Westcliffe, Colorado
* K07EQ-D in Ekalaka, ...
*
Channel 19 digital TV stations in the United States The following television stations broadcast on digital channel 19 in the United States:
* K19AA-D in Altus, Oklahoma
* K19AU-D in Omak, Okanogan, etc., Washington
* K19BK-D in Lakeview, Oregon
* K19BU-D in Pahrump, Nevada
* K19BY-D in Grangev ...
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kbjr-Tv
NBC network affiliates
CBS network affiliates
MyNetworkTV affiliates
Heroes & Icons affiliates
Gray Television
Television channels and stations established in 1954
Television stations in Duluth, Minnesota
1954 establishments in Wisconsin