 | |
| |
|---|---|
| City | Stockton, California |
| Channels | |
| Branding | CBS 13; CBS News Sacramento |
| Programming | |
| Affiliations |
|
| Ownership | |
| Owner |
|
| KMAX-TV | |
| History | |
First air date | September 6, 1954 |
Former call signs |
|
Former channel number(s) | Analog: 13 (VHF, 1954–2009) |
| |
Call sign meaning | "Coverage"; the original facility covered San Francisco, Sacramento, and Stockton |
| Technical information[2] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 56550 |
| ERP | 1,000 kW |
| HAAT | 593 m (1,946 ft) |
| Transmitter coordinates | 38°14′24″N 121°30′7″W / 38.24000°N 121.50194°W |
| Links | |
Public license information | |
| Website | www |
KOVR (channel 13) is a television station licensed to Stockton, California, United States, serving as the CBS outlet for the Sacramento area. It is owned and operated by the network's CBS News and Stations division alongside KMAX-TV (channel 31), an independent station. The two stations share studios on KOVR Drive in West Sacramento; KOVR's transmitter is located in Walnut Grove, California.
After an application process stretching back to 1948, KOVR began broadcasting in September 1954 from studios in Stockton and a transmitter atop Mount Diablo. This facility provided wide coverage from San Francisco to Sacramento and beyond, but KOVR could not obtain a network affiliation in the San Francisco market, and it had to pay higher programming costs as a San Francisco station. To remedy these issues, the station moved transmitter sites in 1957, becoming fully a Stockton- and Sacramento-area station, and obtained an affiliation with ABC. It partly merged with Sacramento's original ABC affiliate, KCCC-TV, a struggling UHF station.
After moving, the station was sold twice before being acquired by newspaper publisher McClatchy in 1963. This made KOVR a sister to the KFBK radio stations in Sacramento as well as The Sacramento Bee newspaper; it marked McClatchy's entry into local television after an unsuccessful attempt to win channel 10 in the 1950s. McClatchy sold the station in 1980 under intense government pressure on owners of newspaper-broadcast combinations, and it changed hands another six times from 1983 to 1996. The station became a CBS affiliate in 1995 as the result of an affiliation switch and was purchased by CBS in 2005; uniquely, it broadcasts prime time programming one hour ahead of other West Coast stations. Traditionally a third-rated station in local news, ratings have gradually improved for its newscasts since the 1990s.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
hcwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ "Facility Technical Data for KOVR". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission.