KWGN-TV (channel 2) 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 ea ...
in
Denver, Colorado
Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...
, United States, airing programming from
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 ...
. It is
owned and operated by network majority owner
Nexstar Media Group
Nexstar Media Group, Inc. is an American publicly traded media company with headquarter offices in Irving, Texas; Midtown Manhattan; and Chicago, Illinois. The company is the largest television station owner in the United States, owning 197 te ...
alongside
Fox affiliate
KDVR
KDVR (channel 31) is a television station in Denver, Colorado, United States, affiliated with the Fox network. It is simulcast full-time over satellite station KFCT (channel 22) in Fort Collins. The two stations are owned by Nexstar Media Gr ...
, channel 31 (and its
Fort Collins
A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ...
–licensed
satellite
A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioiso ...
KFCT, channel 22). Both stations share studios on East Speer Boulevard in Denver's
Speer neighborhood, while KWGN-TV's transmitter is located atop
Lookout Mountain
Lookout Mountain is a mountain ridge located at the northwest corner of the U.S. state of Georgia, the northeast corner of Alabama, and along the southeastern Tennessee state line in Chattanooga. Lookout Mountain was the scene of the 18th-centu ...
, near
Golden. The station's signal is relayed on three
low-power 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 ''transl ...
: K14JZ-D in
Peetz, K15MH-D in
Anton
Anton may refer to: People
*Anton (given name), including a list of people with the given name
*Anton (surname)
Places
*Anton Municipality, Bulgaria
**Anton, Sofia Province, a village
*Antón District, Panama
**Antón, a town and capital of th ...
and K31IQ-D in
Sterling.
KWGN is available to subscribers of satellite provider
Dish Network
DISH Network Corporation (DISH, an acronym for DIgital Sky Highway) is an American television provider and the owner of the direct-broadcast satellite provider Dish, commonly known as Dish Network, and the over-the-top IPTV service, Sling ...
throughout the United States as part of its
superstation
''Superstation'' (alternatively rendered as "super station" or informally as "SuperStation") is a term in North American broadcasting that has several meanings. Commonly, a "superstation" is a form of distant signal, a broadcast television sign ...
s package (for
grandfathered
A grandfather clause, also known as grandfather policy, grandfathering, or grandfathered in, is a provision in which an old rule continues to apply to some existing situations while a new rule will apply to all future cases. Those exempt from t ...
subscribers that purchased the
a la carte
A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''a'' (pronounced ), plural ''aes' ...
tier before Dish halted sales of the package to new subscribers in September 2013), and is carried on cable television providers in parts of the
western United States
The Western United States (also called the American West, the Far West, and the West) is the region comprising the westernmost states of the United States. As American settlement in the U.S. expanded westward, the meaning of the term ''the We ...
. The station is
authorized for cable and satellite distribution as a U.S. superstation by the
Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC; french: Conseil de la radiodiffusion et des télécommunications canadiennes, links=) is a public organization in Canada with mandate as a regulatory agency for broadcast ...
(CRTC); however, KWGN is not currently available on any pay television providers in that country.
History
Early years
The station first signed on the air as KFEL-TV on July 18, 1952. It was owned by Colorado broadcasting pioneer Gene O'Fallon along with KFEL radio (AM 950, now
KKSE), and was the first television station to sign on in the state of Colorado. It was also first station on the
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 ...
band to sign on the air following the
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 jurisdicti ...
's decision to lift its
freeze on television station licenses that year. The station originally operated as a primary affiliate of the
DuMont Television Network
The DuMont Television Network (also known as the DuMont Network, DuMont Television, simply DuMont/Du Mont, or (incorrectly) Dumont ) was one of America's pioneer commercial television networks, rivaling NBC and CBS for the distinction of being ...
,
sharing the affiliation with KBTV (channel 9, now
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...
affiliate
KUSA Kusa or KUSA may refer to:
* Kusa, Russia, a town in Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia
* Kusa, Latvia, a village in Madona District, Latvia
* Kusa, Oklahoma, United States
* Kusa, indigenous name of Beles River (in Gumuz language)
* Kusa, Afghanistan
...
), but also cherry-picked programs from NBC,
ABC 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 Entertainm ...
. The station's original studio facilities were located in a remodeled brick warehouse at 550 Lincoln Street.
Gotham Broadcasting, owned by
J. Elroy McCaw (who also owned radio station
WINS in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
), purchased the station from O'Fallon in 1955. John M. Shaheen, the founder of aviation services company Tele-Trip Inc., which later became a subsidiary of
Mutual of Omaha
Mutual of Omaha is a Fortune 500 mutual insurance and financial services company based in Omaha, Nebraska. Founded in 1909 as Mutual Benefit Health & Accident Association, Mutual of Omaha is a financial organization offering a variety of insuranc ...
, subsequently acquired a 50% ownership interest in the station. Channel 2's call letters were changed that same year to KTVR; the station lost the DuMont affiliation when the network shut down on August 6, 1956, after which it became an
independent station
An independent station is an independent radio or terrestrial television station which is independent in some way from broadcast networks. The definition of "independence" varies from country to country, reflecting governmental regulations, marke ...
. During the late 1950s, the station was briefly affiliated with the
NTA Film Network
The NTA Film Network was an early American television network founded by Ely Landau in 1956. The network was not a full-time television network like CBS, NBC, or ABC. Rather, it operated on a part-time basis, broadcasting films and several f ...
.
In 1959, McCaw became the sole owner of channel 2, buying out Shaheen's share in the station. In 1963, McCaw changed the call letters to KCTO (for "Channel TwO").
Under Tribune ownership
In September 1965, the station was acquired by
Tribune Broadcasting
Tribune Broadcasting Company, LLC was an American media company which operated as a subsidiary of Tribune Media, a media conglomerate based in Chicago, Illinois. The group owned and operated television and radio stations throughout the United St ...
– then known as WGN Continental Broadcasting. After the sale was finalized in March 1966, the new owners changed the call letters to KWGN-TV after its new sister station and the company's
flagship
A flagship is a vessel used by the commanding officer of a group of naval ships, characteristically a flag officer entitled by custom to fly a distinguishing flag. Used more loosely, it is the lead ship in a fleet of vessels, typically the ...
,
WGN-TV
WGN-TV (channel 9) is an Independent station (North America), independent television station in Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, United States. Owned by Nexstar Media Group, it is sister station, sister to the company's sole radio property, talk ra ...
in
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...
(the WGN calls refer to the longtime slogan of the company's former flagship newspaper, the ''
Chicago Tribune
The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television ar ...
'', "
World's
Greatest
Newspaper"; the newspaper division was split into a
separate company in August 2014). At the time of its purchase, KWGN became Tribune's fourth television station property—after WGN-TV,
WPIX
WPIX (channel 11) is a television station in New York City. Owned by Mission Broadcasting, it is operated under a local marketing agreement (LMA) by Nexstar Media Group, making it a ''de facto'' owned-and-operated station and flagship of ...
in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
, and KDAL-TV (now
KDLH) in
Duluth, Minnesota
, settlement_type = City
, nicknames = Twin Ports (with Superior, Wisconsin, Superior), Zenith City
, motto =
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top: Downtown Dul ...
, the latter of which was owned by Tribune from 1960 to 1978.
When WGN Continental Broadcasting bought channel 2, it gave the station a significant technical overhaul, allowing it to broadcast programming in color. KWGN promoted itself as Colorado's only all-color station, because all of its local programs were produced in the format. Denver's three major network affiliates—KOA-TV (channel 4, now
KCNC-TV
KCNC-TV (channel 4) is a television station in Denver, Colorado, United States, airing programming from the CBS network. It is owned and operated by the network's CBS News and Stations division, and maintains studios on Lincoln Street (between ...
), KLZ-TV (channel 7, now
KMGH-TV) and KBTV—were broadcasting national network programs in color, but had yet to equip their studios with color cameras for local programming production. As an independent station, KWGN aired a mix of off-network
sitcom
A sitcom, a portmanteau of situation comedy, or situational comedy, is a genre of comedy centered on a fixed set of characters who mostly carry over from episode to episode. Sitcoms can be contrasted with sketch comedy, where a troupe may use ...
s and
dramas
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has been c ...
,
cartoons
A cartoon is a type of visual art that is typically drawn, frequently animated, in an unrealistic or semi-realistic style. The specific meaning has evolved over time, but the modern usage usually refers to either: an image or series of images ...
,
movies
A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmospher ...
, syndicated
game show
A game show is a genre of broadcast viewing entertainment (radio, television, internet, stage or other) where contestants compete for a reward. These programs can either be participatory or demonstrative and are typically directed by a host, ...
s and locally produced programs such as ''
Blinky's Fun Club
''Blinky's Fun Club'' is a children's television program blending such elements as vaudeville, puppetry, and animation that first aired on CBS-Affiliated station KKTV in Colorado Springs, Colorado from 1958 to 1966 and then on KWGN-TV in Denver, ...
'', ''Denver Now'', ''Afternoon at the Movies with Tom Shannon'' and
public affairs program ''Your Right to Say It''. It took six years for WGN Continental to make the station profitable.
Beginning in the 1960s, the station started building a massive network of
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 ''transl ...
across the state. Around this time, KWGN became a regional
superstation
''Superstation'' (alternatively rendered as "super station" or informally as "SuperStation") is a term in North American broadcasting that has several meanings. Commonly, a "superstation" is a form of distant signal, a broadcast television sign ...
(long before that term was coined and popularized by
Atlanta
Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,7 ...
station
WTBS). At its height, it was available on nearly every cable system in Colorado and
Wyoming
Wyoming () is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho to the west, Utah to the southwest, and Colorado to t ...
, as well as portions of
Idaho
Idaho ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. To the north, it shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border with the province of British Columbia. It borders the states of Monta ...
,
Kansas
Kansas () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its Capital city, capital is Topeka, Kansas, Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita, Kansas, Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebras ...
,
Montana
Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columb ...
,
Nebraska
Nebraska () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Kansas to the south; Colorado to the sout ...
,
New Mexico
)
, population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano)
, seat = Santa Fe, New Mexico, Santa Fe
, LargestCity = Albuquerque, New Mexico, Albuquerque
, LargestMetro = Albuquerque metropolitan area, Tiguex
, Offi ...
,
South Dakota
South Dakota (; Sioux: , ) is a U.S. state in the North Central region of the United States. It is also part of the Great Plains. South Dakota is named after the Lakota and Dakota Sioux Native American tribes, who comprise a large po ...
,
Utah
Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to its ...
and
Washington
Washington commonly refers to:
* Washington (state), United States
* Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States
** A metonym for the federal government of the United States
** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...
. KWGN was attractive to cable systems because its programming had no duplication with programs seen on the local network affiliates within their given markets. Additionally, it was the only independent station that was available in much of the region until the 1980s. It remained the only independent station in Denver—and indeed, in all of Colorado—until eventual sister station
KDVR
KDVR (channel 31) is a television station in Denver, Colorado, United States, affiliated with the Fox network. It is simulcast full-time over satellite station KFCT (channel 22) in Fort Collins. The two stations are owned by Nexstar Media Gr ...
(channel 31) signed on in August 1983. To this day, KWGN remains available on most cable systems in Colorado and Wyoming, as well as on several systems in western Nebraska and Kansas.
The station moved its operations from the Lincoln Street facility to a new building in suburban
Greenwood Village
The City of Greenwood Village is a home rule municipality located in Arapahoe County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 15,691 at the 2020 United States Census. Greenwood Village is a part of the Denver–Aurora–Lakewood, CO Met ...
in 1983. As one of the strongest independent stations in the country, KWGN was approached by
Fox to affiliate with the upstart network upon its October 1986 debut. However, channel 2 turned the offer down. Station and company officials were skeptical of Fox's business model, and were confident enough in KWGN's schedule that they felt they didn't need a network affiliation. However, most Fox affiliates were essentially programmed as independents until the network began airing a full week's worth of programming in 1993, so KWGN would not have had to give up many of its syndicated shows. Additionally, by this time, most of the smaller markets in its vast cable footprint had enough stations to provide Fox affiliates at the outset, making the prospect of KWGN as a multi-state Fox affiliate unattractive to Tribune. The affiliation instead went to KDVR.
WB affiliation
On November 2, 1993, the
Warner Bros. Television
Warner Bros. Television Studios (operating under the name Warner Bros. Television; formerly known as Warner Bros. Television Division) is an American television production and distribution studio of the Warner Bros. Television Group division of ...
division 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 ...
and the Tribune Company announced the creation of
The WB Television Network
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. ...
; KWGN and the majority of Tribune's other independent stations (except for Atlanta's
WGNX, which joined
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 Entertainm ...
one month prior to The WB's launch) were tapped to serve as the nuclei for the new network. KWGN became a charter affiliate of The WB when it launched on January 11, 1995; however, its existing lineup was largely unaffected at first, since The WB initially ran programming only on Wednesday evenings, gradually adding additional nights of programming between September 1995 and September 1999; by that time, the network offered prime time programming on Sunday through Friday evenings, along with
children's programming
Children's television series (or children's television shows) are television programs designed for children, normally scheduled for broadcast during the morning and afternoon when children are awake. They can sometimes run during the early eveni ...
on weekdays and Saturday mornings.
In October 1995,
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 Co ...
proposed a divestiture of KDVR (which it had acquired from
Renaissance Broadcasting
Renaissance Broadcasting, founded in 1982 by Michael Finkelstein, was a company that owned several UHF television stations, it was sold to Tribune Broadcasting in 1997. The company was headquartered in Greenwich, Connecticut.
History
Renaissanc ...
three months earlier in exchange for its former
owned-and-operated station
In the broadcasting industry, an owned-and-operated station (frequently abbreviated as an O&O) usually refers to a television or radio station owned by the network with which it is associated. This distinguishes such a station from an affiliate ...
in
Dallas
Dallas () is the third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 million people. It is the largest city in and seat of Dallas County ...
,
KDAF (now a sister station to KWGN), which had lost Fox programming to that market's longtime CBS affiliate,
KDFW, in a
groupwide affiliation deal with Fox and then-KDFW owner,
New World Communications
New World Pictures (also known as New World Entertainment and New World Communications Group, Inc.) was an American independent production, distribution, and (in its final years as an autonomous entity) multimedia company. It was founded in 197 ...
) to Qwest Broadcasting, a company backed by
Quincy Jones
Quincy Delight Jones Jr. (born March 14, 1933) is an American record producer, musician, songwriter, composer, arranger, and film and television producer. His career spans 70 years in the entertainment industry with a record of 80 Grammy Award n ...
and Tribune Broadcasting; in the sale proposal, Fox would have moved its programming to KWGN, while the WB affiliation would have moved to KDVR after the sale to Qwest was finalized. However, this deal never came to fruition.
In 1996, the station altered its longstanding "Denver's 2" branding to "Denver's WB2," to reflect its network affiliation; the "WB2" branding continued to be used in some form for the remainder of KWGN's tenure with the network. During its existence as a WB affiliate, KWGN also served as the network's default affiliate for most of Colorado, including the
Colorado Springs
Colorado Springs is a home rule municipality in, and the county seat of, El Paso County, Colorado, United States. It is the largest city in El Paso County, with a population of 478,961 at the 2020 United States Census, a 15.02% increase since ...
–
Pueblo
In the Southwestern United States, Pueblo (capitalized) refers to the Native tribes of Puebloans having fixed-location communities with permanent buildings which also are called pueblos (lowercased). The Spanish explorers of northern New Spain ...
and
Grand Junction markets—a status that was reflected under the "WB2 Colorado" moniker that was used during the final years of The WB's run.
CW affiliation
On January 24, 2006, Time Warner and
CBS Corporation
The second incarnation of CBS Corporation (the first being a short-lived rename of the Westinghouse Electric Corporation) was an American multinational media conglomerate with interests primarily in commercial broadcasting, publishing, an ...
announced that the two companies would shut down The WB and
UPN and combine the respective programming from the two networks to create a new "fifth" network 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 ...
. With the announcement, Tribune Broadcasting signed ten-year agreements for KWGN and 16 of the company's 18 other WB-affiliated stations (
three of which it would sell to other groups shortly before The CW launched) to become charter affiliates of The CW. In preparation for the affiliation switch, the station retitled its newscasts from ''WB 2 News'' to ''News 2'' on August 14, 2006. The affiliation switch took place on September 18, 2006, the day after The WB ended operations, upon which it changed its general branding to "CW 2" (former UPN affiliate
KTVD
KTVD (channel 20) is a television station in Denver, Colorado, United States, affiliated with MyNetworkTV. It is owned by Tegna Inc. alongside NBC affiliate KUSA (channel 9). Both stations share studios on East Speer Boulevard in Denver's Spe ...
(channel 20) would end up affiliating with
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 ...
, whose launch was announced by
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 New ...
nearly one month after the CW launch announcement on February 22).
On July 7, 2008, KWGN removed references to its CW affiliation from its branding in both station promotions and its on-air logo, as part of a decision by Tribune Broadcasting to de-emphasize the network brand from its CW-affiliated stations as a result of the network's relatively weak ratings, choosing to reposition them as more "local" stations; KWGN began referring to itself simply as "2," featuring the CW branding era's "2" logotype within a solid circle logo.
LMA and legal duopoly with KDVR
On September 17, 2008, Tribune Company announced that it would enter KWGN into a
local marketing agreement
In North American broadcasting, a local marketing agreement (LMA), or local management agreement, is a contract in which one company agrees to operate a radio or television station owned by another party. In essence, it is a sort of lease or tim ...
with
Local TV, owners of Fox affiliate KDVR, effective on October 1, 2008, as a result of the formation of a "broadcast management company" that was created to provide management services to stations owned by both Tribune Broadcasting and Local TV. Although it was the longer-established of the two stations, KWGN served as the junior partner in the virtual duopoly. As a result, the station would migrate its operations into KDVR's studio facility on Speer Boulevard in
downtown Denver
Downtown Denver is the main financial, commercial, business, and entertainment district in Denver, Colorado. There is over of office space in downtown Denver, with 132,000 workers.
The downtown area consists mostly of the neighborhoods of Uni ...
(based at the same location where KWGN's original studios were located during the station's first 30 years on the air). The move resulted in both stations combining their news departments and sharing certain syndicated programming.
On March 30, 2009, KWGN changed its on-air branding once again to "2 the Deuce," in an attempt to appeal to younger viewers and become more involved in local issues. On March 1, 2010, the locally produced talk show ''Everyday with Libby and Natalie'' (which debuted in 2008) was renamed as simply ''Everyday'' and moved to KWGN from KDVR (effectively changing timeslots as a result moving from late afternoons to late mornings with the program's station switch); Libby Weaver co-hosted the program with Natalie Tysdal until June 1, 2009, after which Weaver was replaced by Chris Parente. After Peter Maroney took over as
general manager
A general manager (GM) is an executive who has overall responsibility for managing both the revenue and cost elements of a company's income statement, known as profit & loss (P&L) responsibility. A general manager usually oversees most or all of ...
of KDVR/KWGN following the 2009 departure of Dennis Leonard, other noticeable changes to the station took hold with the locally produced consumer talk program ''Martino TV'' (which also moved to KDVR) being replaced in its 11:00 a.m. timeslot by repeats of ''
Maury''.
In May 2010, KWGN dropped "The Deuce" branding and temporarily began to simply identify by the station's call letters. The following month, the station changed its website domain from 2thedeuce.com to KWGN.com to reflect the branding change; that September, the station rebranded itself as "Channel 2, The CW". That fall, the station dropped ''
Live! with Regis and Kelly
''Live with Kelly and Ryan'' (or simply ''Live'') is an American syndicated morning talk show hosted by Kelly Ripa and Ryan Seacrest. Executive produced by Michael Gelman, the ''Live with...'' show formula has aired under various hosts since ...
'' from its schedule, which moved to sister station KDVR; this left
WGN-TV
WGN-TV (channel 9) is an Independent station (North America), independent television station in Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, United States. Owned by Nexstar Media Group, it is sister station, sister to the company's sole radio property, talk ra ...
(which itself lost rights to the talk show in September 2013) and
St. Louis
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
sister station
KPLR-TV as the only Tribune-owned stations and two of the few CW affiliates that carry the show. On July 22, 2011, KWGN debuted a new on-air appearance and branding (becoming known as "Colorado's Own Channel 2," resembling the former "Denver's 2" identity from the 1980s and early 1990s), as well as reformatting its local news programming to a more traditional format. On July 1, 2013, Tribune announced it would purchase Local TV outright for $2.75 billion.
The sale was finalized on December 27, creating a legal
duopoly
A duopoly (from Greek δύο, ''duo'' "two" and πωλεῖν, ''polein'' "to sell") is a type of oligopoly where two firms have dominant or exclusive control over a market. It is the most commonly studied form of oligopoly due to its simplicit ...
between KDVR and KWGN.
Aborted sale to Sinclair; sale to Nexstar
On May 8, 2017,
Hunt Valley, Maryland
Hunt Valley is an unincorporated community in Baltimore County, Maryland, United States, near the site of the Maryland Hunt Cup Steeplechase. It lies just north of the city of Baltimore, along York Road (Maryland Route 45), parallel to Interstat ...
-based
Sinclair Broadcast Group
Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. (SBG) is a publicly traded American telecommunications conglomerate that is controlled by the descendants of company founder Julian Sinclair Smith. Headquartered in the Baltimore suburb of Cockeysville, Maryland, ...
announced that it would acquire Tribune Media for $3.9 billion, plus the assumption of $2.7 billion in debt held by Tribune, pending regulatory approval by the FCC and the
U.S. Department of Justice's Antitrust Division. On May 9, 2018, Sinclair (on behalf of Tribune) announced it had sold KDVR to Fox Television Stations (which owned channel 31 from 1995 until it was sold to Local TV in 2007), as part of a $910-million deal that also involved six other Tribune-owned stations (Fox affiliates
KTXL/
Sacramento
)
, image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg
, mapsize = 250x200px
, map_caption = Location within Sacramento ...
,
KCPQ
KCPQ (channel 13) is a television station licensed to Tacoma, Washington, United States, broadcasting the Fox network to the Seattle area. It is owned and operated by the network's Fox Television Stations division alongside MyNetworkTV outlet ...
/
Seattle
Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region o ...
,
KSWB-TV
KSWB-TV (channel 69) is a television station in San Diego, California, United States, affiliated with the Fox network. Owned by Nexstar Media Group, the station maintains studios on Engineer Road in the city's Kearny Mesa section, and its tran ...
/
San Diego
San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the eighth most populous city in the United States ...
,
WJW/
Cleveland
Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the United States, U.S. U.S. state, state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along ...
and
KSTU
KSTU (channel 13) is a television station in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States, affiliated with the Fox network. It is owned by the E. W. Scripps Company alongside Provo-licensed Ion Television owned-and-operated station KUPX-TV (channel ...
/
Salt Lake City
Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the capital and most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the seat of Salt Lake County, the most populous county in Utah. With a population of 200,133 in 2020, th ...
, and CW affiliate
WSFL-TV
WSFL-TV (channel 39) is a television station in Miami, Miami, Florida, United States, affiliated with The CW. It is owned by the E. W. Scripps Company alongside Ion Television owned-and-operated station WPXM-TV (channel 35), also licensed to Mia ...
/
Miami
Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at ...
).
Three weeks after the FCC's July 18 vote to have the deal reviewed by an
administrative law judge
An administrative law judge (ALJ) in the United States is a judge and trier of fact who both presides over trials and adjudicates claims or disputes involving administrative law. ALJs can administer oaths, take testimony, rule on questions of evi ...
amid "serious concerns" about Sinclair's forthrightness in its applications to sell certain conflict properties, on August 9, 2018, Tribune announced it would terminate the Sinclair deal, intending to seek other
M&A opportunities. Tribune also filed a
breach of contract
Breach of contract is a legal cause of action and a type of civil wrong, in which a binding agreement or bargained-for exchange is not honored by one or more of the parties to the contract by non-performance or interference with the other part ...
lawsuit in the
Delaware Chancery Court, alleging that Sinclair engaged in protracted negotiations with the FCC and the
U.S. Department of Justice's Antitrust Division over regulatory issues, refused to sell stations in markets where it already had properties, and proposed divestitures to parties with ties to Sinclair executive chair David D. Smith that were rejected or highly subject to rejection to maintain control over stations it was required to sell. The termination of the Sinclair sale agreement places uncertainty for the future of Fox's purchases of KSTU and the other six Tribune stations included in that deal, which were predicated on the closure of the Sinclair–Tribune merger.
On December 3, 2018,
Irving, Texas
Irving is a city in the U.S. state of Texas. Located in Dallas County, it is also an inner ring suburb of Dallas. The city of Irving is part of the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. According to a 2019 estimate from the United States Census Bureau ...
-based
Nexstar Media Group
Nexstar Media Group, Inc. is an American publicly traded media company with headquarter offices in Irving, Texas; Midtown Manhattan; and Chicago, Illinois. The company is the largest television station owner in the United States, owning 197 te ...
announced it would acquire the assets of Tribune Media for $6.4 billion in cash and debt. The deal—which would make Nexstar the largest television station operator by total number of stations upon its expected closure late in the third quarter of 2019—would put KDVR and KWGN-TV under common ownership with Nexstar's existing properties in
Colorado Springs
Colorado Springs is a home rule municipality in, and the county seat of, El Paso County, Colorado, United States. It is the largest city in El Paso County, with a population of 478,961 at the 2020 United States Census, a 15.02% increase since ...
–
Pueblo
In the Southwestern United States, Pueblo (capitalized) refers to the Native tribes of Puebloans having fixed-location communities with permanent buildings which also are called pueblos (lowercased). The Spanish explorers of northern New Spain ...
(Fox affiliate
KXRM-TV
KXRM-TV (channel 21) is a television station in Colorado Springs, Colorado, United States, affiliated with the Fox network. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group alongside low-power CW owned-and-operated station KXTU-LD (channel 57). Both stations ...
and CW affiliate
KXTU-LD and
Grand Junction (Fox affiliate
KFQX
KFQX, virtual channel 4 ( UHF digital channel 15), is a Fox- affiliated television station licensed to Grand Junction, Colorado, United States, and serving Colorado's Western Slope region. The station is owned by Wichita Falls, Texas–based Mis ...
, MyNetworkTV affiliate
KGJT-CD
KGJT-CD, virtual and UHF digital channel 27, is a low-powered, Class A MyNetworkTV- affiliated television station licensed to Grand Junction, Colorado, United States and serving Colorado's Western Slope region. Owned by Nexstar Media Group, i ...
and CBS affiliate
KREX-TV
KREX-TV, virtual channel 5 (VHF digital channel 2), is a CBS- affiliated television station licensed to Grand Junction, Colorado, United States and serving Colorado's Western Slope region. Owned by Nexstar Media Group, it is a sister stati ...
as well as its
Montrose-based satellite KREY). However, reports preceding the purchase announcement stated that, as it did during the group's failed purchase by Sinclair, Fox Television Stations may seek to acquire certain Fox-affiliated stations owned by Tribune—with the KDVR/KWGN duopoly potentially being a candidate for resale—from the eventual buyer of that group.
Programming
Sports coverage
KWGN served as the over-the-air flagship home of the
Colorado Rockies
The Colorado Rockies are an American professional baseball team based in Denver. The Rockies compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) West division. The team plays its home baseball games at Coors Fi ...
from 1993 to 2002 and
Denver Nuggets
The Denver Nuggets are an American professional basketball team based in Denver. The Nuggets compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Western Conference Northwest Division. The team was founded as the D ...
in 1990-91 and from 1995 to 2004.
News operation
KWGN-TV presently broadcasts 36 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with six hours each weekday and three hours each on Saturdays and Sundays). There is a considerable amount of sharing between KWGN and KDVR in regards to news coverage, video footage and the use of reporters; though both outlets maintain their own primary on-air personalities (such as news anchors and meteorologists) that only appear on one station; several KWGN on-air staffers that remained with the station after the LMA was formed simultaneously joined KDVR's news department with the consolidation of news operations. Combined with sister KDVR, Nexstar's Denver properties broadcasts a combined 90 hours of local news, making it the highest output in the state of Colorado.
Channel 2 was the first television station in the Denver market to air a locally produced nightly prime time newscast. The 9:00 p.m. newscast, which debuted shortly after the station signed on, remained a constant through several ownership changes. In 1966, the newscast was expanded to one hour—becoming the only hour-long newscast in the market at that point. Titled ''The Big News'', the program heavily concentrated on local stories because filmed national and international news reports were not available through news feeds to stations that lacked a network affiliation during that period. If a major national story occurred, anchor Ron Voigt would read the wire copy while black-and-white wire photos supplied by the
Associated Press
The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. new ...
were shown on-camera.
From the late 1960s until 1975, ''The Big News'' had two regular commentators to provide news analysis, George Salem and Gene Amole. The final segment of the newscast was titled "Speak Out" and was often devoted to phone calls from viewers. The program was also known for its meteorologist, Ed Bowman (known as "Weatherman Bowman"), who came to KWGN from
KOA-TV-
AM. Bowman frequently discussed the
jet stream
Jet streams are fast flowing, narrow, meandering air currents in the atmospheres of some planets, including Earth. On Earth, the main jet streams are located near the altitude of the tropopause and are westerly winds (flowing west to east) ...
during his forecast segment, which he represented on-air by drawing large arcs over a map of the
continental United States
The contiguous United States (officially the conterminous United States) consists of the 48 adjoining U.S. states and the Federal District of the United States of America. The term excludes the only two non-contiguous states, Alaska and Hawaii ...
. The station's
sports director
The title of sports director can refer to the director of a live sports broadcast. It can also refer to an individual at a television or radio station who is in charge of the sports department.
Director
{{Job-stub ...
during the 1960s and early 1970s was Fred Leo, who had provided play-by-play analysis for many of the area's professional sports teams. KWGN's newscast grew to be a strong competitor to the prime time network programs it competed against in the 9:00 timeslot on KBTV/KUSA, KOA-TV/KCNC and KLZ-TV/KMGH.
The first time that KWGN programmed news outside its established 9:00 slot was in 1982, when it premiered a midday newscast at noon. The station attempted another midday newscast beginning in 1997, this time at 11AM and running for an hour. ''WB2 News at Eleven'' lasted three years, and was cancelled in the fall of 2000. On July 16, 2000, legitimate competition sprang up for KWGN's prime time newscast for the first time when KDVR debuted the hour-long ''Fox 31 News at 9 O'Clock'', which gradually became an avid competitor to KWGN's longer-established late newscast. Also in 2000, the station debuted a weekday morning newscast titled ''WB2day'' (which eventually adopted the present title ''Daybreak'' in 2012), a mix of news, entertainment and lifestyle features that initially aired for three hours from 6:00 to 9:00 a.m. In 2004, KWGN added an hour onto the newscast from 5:00 to 6:00 a.m., expanding it to four hours. The program grew to beat competing local and national morning news programs in certain age demographics. An 11:00 a.m. newscast returned to the schedule on September 11, 2006. On July 7, 2008, KWGN branched out its news programming into early evenings for the first time with the launch of a half-hour 5:30 p.m. newscast, anchored by Kellie MacMullan and Ernie Bjorkman. One month later on August 4, 2008, the station expanded its 11:00 a.m. newscast to one hour.
After entering into the local marketing agreement with KDVR, major changes were made to KWGN's news programming. First on January 12, 2009, the station discontinued its 5:30 p.m. newscast as KDVR expanded its own early evening newscast to an hour starting at 5:00 p.m. On March 2, 2009, KWGN moved its newscasts to a temporary set in preparation for its March 30 move from its Greenwood Village facility to KDVR's studios on Speer Boulevard. Subsequently, on March 30, when KWGN's operations were formally integrated with KDVR, channel 2 shifted its flagship 9:00 p.m. newscast to 7:00 p.m. to avoid competing with KDVR's prime time newscast; as a result, the newscast traded time slots with The CW's prime time schedule, which the station began airing on a one-hour
delay
Delay (from Latin: dilatio) may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
* ''Delay 1968'', a 1981 album by German experimental rock band Can
* '' The Delay'', a 2012 Uruguayan film
People
* B. H. DeLay (1891–1923), American aviator and ac ...
from 8:00 to 10:00 p.m. at the network's permission (this also effectively resulted in the newscast being reduced to airing only on Monday through Friday evenings in part due to The CW airing a three-hour prime time lineup on Sundays at the time; although The CW turned its Sunday prime time slots over to the network's affiliates in September 2009, the 7:00 p.m. newscast remains a weeknight-only broadcast ). KWGN discontinued the 11:00 a.m. newscast once again on May 29, 2009, which was replaced the following Monday with ''Martino TV'', a lifestyle program featuring paid segments from local businesses. At that time, KWGN began broadcasting its local newscasts in
high definition.
On July 18, 2016, KWGN started a 4:00 p.m. weekday newscast. This newscast is anchored by current KWGN 7:00 p.m. anchor, Deborah Takahara, and longtime former Denver newsman Mike Landess. Mike returns to Denver from
KYTX
KYTX (channel 19) is a television station licensed to Nacogdoches, Texas, United States, serving East Texas as an affiliate of CBS and The CW Plus. Owned by Tegna Inc., the station has studios near Loop 323 in the southeastern portion of Tyler ...
in
Tyler Tyler may refer to:
People and fictional characters
* Tyler (name), an English name; with lists of people with the surname or given name
* Tyler, the Creator (born 1991), American rap artist and producer
* John Tyler, 10th president of the United ...
,
Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...
. Landess previously anchored evening newscasts for
KMGH
KMGH-TV (channel 7) is a television station in Denver, Colorado, United States, affiliated with ABC. It is owned by the E. W. Scripps Company alongside Sterling-licensed independent station KCDO-TV, channel 3 (and its Denver-licensed translat ...
and
KUSA Kusa or KUSA may refer to:
* Kusa, Russia, a town in Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia
* Kusa, Latvia, a village in Madona District, Latvia
* Kusa, Oklahoma, United States
* Kusa, indigenous name of Beles River (in Gumuz language)
* Kusa, Afghanistan
...
/KBTV in Denver.
On September 12, 2016, KWGN became the first station in the
Mountain Time Zone
The Mountain Time Zone of North America keeps time by subtracting seven hours from Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) when standard time ( UTC−07:00) is in effect, and by subtracting six hours during daylight saving time ( UTC−06:00). The clo ...
to launch an 11:00 p.m. weeknight newscast hosted by Mike Barz and Erika Gonzalez.
Beginning March 27, 2017,
Ernie Bjorkman, weeknight anchor from 1984 to 1988 and again from 1998 to 2008, returned to KWGN.
On September 23, 2017, KWGN expanded the hour-long 7:00 p.m. newscast to weekends for the first time since the newscast launched on March 30, 2009; this also marked the first time KWGN aired local news on weekends since 2009.
Notable former on-air staff
*
Asha Blake
Asha Blake is a five-time Emmy Award-winning television news journalist. Her US-based career has spanned anchoring ABC and NBC network newscasts, daytime- and entertainment-based talk shows, and local news anchoring at flagship news stations KNBC ...
– weeknight anchor (2004–2007; later at
KTLA
KTLA (channel 5) is a television station in Los Angeles, California, United States, serving as the West Coast flagship of The CW. It is the largest directly owned property of the network's majority owner, Nexstar Media Group, and is the s ...
in
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world ...
)
*
Tom Martino
Thomas Gerard Martino (born 1953) is a consumer advocate and American talk radio host. He is also known as "The Troubleshooter". His nationally syndicated show "The Troubleshooter Show" airs from KHOW, based in Denver, Colorado. His show form ...
– consumer reporter and host of ''Martino TV'' (2009–2010)
*
Russell Scott
Blinky the Clown (June 30, 1921 – August 27, 2012), also known as Russell Scott, and simply Clown, was an American clown, television personality and presenter who starred in a Denver, Colorado television program called ''Blinky's Fun Club' ...
– host of ''
Blinky's Fun Club
''Blinky's Fun Club'' is a children's television program blending such elements as vaudeville, puppetry, and animation that first aired on CBS-Affiliated station KKTV in Colorado Springs, Colorado from 1958 to 1966 and then on KWGN-TV in Denver, ...
'' and ''Captain Dooley'' (1966–1998; deceased)
*
Tom Shannon – host of ''Afternoon at the Movies with Tom Shannon'' (1970s)
Technical information
Subchannels
KWGN-TV offers four subchannels, which since conversion to ATSC 3.0 have been hosted on the multiplexes of three other Denver television stations:
Analog-to-digital conversion
KWGN shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 2, on June 12, 2009, the official date on 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
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 34.
Through the use of
PSIP, digital television receivers display the station'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 its former VHF analog channel 2.
ATSC 3.0
The station's digital signal is
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 ...
:
On December 21, 2020, this station was launched as a lighthouse station for
ATSC 3.0
ATSC 3.0 is a major version of the ATSC standards for television broadcasting created by the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC).
The standards are designed to offer support for newer technologies, including HEVC for video channels of u ...
(NextGen TV) in Denver. It currently carries the main program streams of KWGN,
KMGH-TV,
KUSA Kusa or KUSA may refer to:
* Kusa, Russia, a town in Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia
* Kusa, Latvia, a village in Madona District, Latvia
* Kusa, Oklahoma, United States
* Kusa, indigenous name of Beles River (in Gumuz language)
* Kusa, Afghanistan
...
and KDVR.
Translators
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kwgn-Tv
The CW affiliates
Court TV affiliates
Comet (TV network) affiliates
Charge! (TV network) affiliates
WGN-TV
WGN-TV (channel 9) is an Independent station (North America), independent television station in Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, United States. Owned by Nexstar Media Group, it is sister station, sister to the company's sole radio property, talk ra ...
Nexstar Media Group
Superstations in the United States
Television channels and stations established in 1952
Greenwood Village, Colorado
ATSC 3.0 television stations
1952 establishments in Colorado