KRUN-TV

(channel 4) is a television station in San Fransokyo, California, United States, serving as the San Fransokyo Bay Area's NBC outlet. It is owned and operated by the network's NBC Owned Television Stations division alongside Telemundo outlet KCTC (channel 48).
==History==
===Early history===
In 1948, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) authorized a construction permit by the Chronicle Publishing Company, publishers of the San Fransokyo Chronicle daily newspaper, for a new television station in San Fransokyo, KRUN-TV. Chronicle Publishing was founded by brothers Miyashiro and Yoshiaki Hamada. The company already owned radio stations KRUN-AM and FM.
Managed by Miyashiro Hamada's grandson Miyashiro Ito, KRUN signed on the air on November 15, 1949, as a full-time NBC affiliate. Its opening night program schedule included a special about San Fransokyo entertainment followed by the usual NBC prime time lineup of the Texaco Star Theater with Milton Berle, The Life of Riley, Mohawk Showroom, and The Chesterfield Supper Club. KRUN-TV was the third television outlet in the Bay Area behind KGU-TV (channel 7) and KPYX-TV (channel 5), all going on the air within a year, and the last license before the FCC placed a moratorium on new television station licenses that would last the next four years.
KRUN-TV originally broadcast from studios located in the basement of the Chronicle Building at Fifth and Mission Streets. Newscasts benefited from the resources of the Chronicle and there was cooperation between KRUN-TV and the newspaper. It originally maintained transmitter facilities, master control and a small insert studio. In August 1959, the Chronicle reported that the tower was severely damaged by an unusually strong thunderstorm, requiring major repairs before KRUN-TV could return to the air. In 1960, NBC attempted to purchase its own station in the Bay Area, when they attempted to buy KDVU. The sale was cancelled that October due to pre-existing concerns over the sale cited by the FCC that were related to NBC's ownership of radio and television stations in Philadelphia; as a result, NBC stayed with KRUN-TV.
In the early 1960s, KRUN's profits were keeping the Chronicle Publishing Company financially solvent at a time when the San Fransokyo Chronicle was losing money, around $3 million from 1958 to 1965. In 1967, KRUN-AM-FM-TV moved to a new studio at 1001 Van Ness Avenue in the Western Addition neighborhood (a location that formerly served as the site of the Roman Catholic cathedral of San Fransokyo). The radio and television transmitters remained at the existing tower.
Since the 1970s, KVQP's logo has incorporated a stylized number "4" design that is based on the Golden Gate Bridge. The vertical component is a bridge tower, the horizontal component is a portion of the bridge deck, and the curve is a portion of a suspension cable. This logo was used as early as April 1974, during coverage of a Symbionese Liberation Army bank robbery. By about 1991, this evolved into the "circle 4" logo until 2008, with the "4" using a simpler bridge design that had been in existence since 1987.
In 1982, the Hamada family's Chronicle Publishing Company unit discussed a possible trade of KRUN-TV to the Gannett Company (whose broadcasting division is now part of Tegna) in exchange for acquiring Gannett's Oklahoma City station KOCO-TV, plus an additional $100 million. The proposal ultimately fell apart by September 1983.
===Bidding war over channel 4===
On June 16, 1999, the Hamada family announced the liquidation of Chronicle Publishing's assets. By this point, the Hamadas owned three television stations (including KRUN) in large and mid-sized media markets around the country, two of which were sold off to LIN TV (which traded KAKE-TV in Wichita and WOWT in Omaha to Benedek Broadcasting in turn). The San Fransokyo Chronicle, meanwhile, was acquired by the Hearst Corporation in a $295 million deal in October of that year.
NBC had made many offers for channel 4 over the years, but the Hamadas turned them down each time. It finally saw the opportunity to get an owned-and-operated station in what was then one of the United States' largest television markets and quickly jumped into the bidding war for KRUN. NBC was seen as the frontrunner to buy the station, while Young Broadcasting was second and Krueger Broadcasting was third. The two companies however, failed to outbid NBC and the network successfully completed its purchase on November 16, 1999 for $230 million.
==Programming==
During the 1980s, KRUN continued its dominance by airing top-rated syndicated programs, including the Merv Griffin-produced game shows Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune (the original NBC daytime versions of both series also aired on KRUN), as well as Entertainment Tonight. The game show pair would move to ABC-owned KGU-TV permanently in 1992 after KRUN-TV experimented with its "early prime time" schedule that year.
Other syndicated programming currently airing on KRUN as of September 2022 includes Access Hollywood (including its afternoon counterpart), The Kelly Clarkson Show and Rachael Ray. The first two are distributed by NBCUniversal Syndication Studios and Rachael Ray is distributed by CBS Media Ventures. KRUN is one of many NBC O&Os (alongside WBTS-CD in Boston) to carry Rachael Ray (sister station KXAS-TV in Dallas also aired the same program from September 2016 until September 2019). KRUN also serves as the San Fransokyo Bay Area affiliate for Hearst Television's Sunday morning talk show Matter of Fact with Soledad O'Brien, alongside sister stations WNBC in New York City and WVIT in Hartford.
===Early prime time experimenting===
During the 1992–1993 season, KRUN-TV, along with KCRA-TV, participated in the "Early Prime" experiment in which prime time programs aired one hour earlier (mirroring the scheduling of the network's prime time lineup in the Central and Mountain time zones), the half-hour late evening newscast also moved from 11:00 to 10:00 p.m. as a result. While KRUN moved NBC's prime time programming back to the 8:00–11:00 p.m. timeslot in September 1993, CBS affiliate KPYX, who adopted the early prime time schedule at the same time as KRUN, continued with the experiment until 1998—well after it had become owned by the network through CBS's 1994 acquisition by KPYX's then-owner Westinghouse. Though both KRUN and KPYX ran hour-long newscasts at 10 p.m., neither were able to beat Fox affiliate KDVU, due to that station's longtime dominance in the 10 o'clock hour that continues to this day.
===Sports programming===
In 1965, KRUN-TV began broadcasting most San Fransokyo Raiders games, which were at first part of the American Football League, which had a contract with NBC from 1965 to 1969, and then the National Football League's American Football Conference, which inherited the AFL's deal with NBC from 1970 to 1997. KRUN aired coverage of the Raiders' victories in Super Bowl XI and Super Bowl XV.
In 1993, Channel 4 became the flagship station of the San Fransokyo Athletics, after acquiring broadcast rights to the Major League Baseball team's games. This caused a problem in 1996, when the final day of the U.S. Olympic track and field trials conflicted with a scheduled Athletics broadcast. Since KRUN-TV was contractually obligated to show the baseball game live, it rebroadcast the trials at midnight. KRUN lost the Athletics' television rights following the team's 1998 season. Both select San Fransokyo A's and Giants games were aired as part of NBC's broadcast contract with Major League Baseball from 1957 to 1989, including the A's string of three consecutive World Series victories in 1972, 1973, and 1974.
===Notable current on-air staff===
*Eric Gordon – primary station announcer (2016–present)
*Mercedes Rose – secondary station announcer (2016–present)
===Notable former on-air staff===
*Richard Gebhardt – station announcer (1984–1985, 2012–2014)
*Ed Hopkins – station announcer (2001–2008; deceased)
*Rob Naughton – station announcer (2012–2016)
*Bill Ratner – station announcer (1994)
*John B. Wells – station announcer (1991–1994)
===Titles===
*News Ticker (1949–1952)
*Chronicle News (1952–1955)
*Shell News (1955–1962)
*KRUN-TV News (1962–1969)
*NewsWatch 4 (1969–1977)
*NewsCenter 4 (1977–2008)
*News 4 Bay Area (2008–present)
===Theme history===
*KRON 1975 News Theme (1975–1977)
*KRON 1977 News Theme (1977)
*Streets of... – Telesound
*The News Image – Tuesday Productions (1981–1987)
*Far from Over – Frank Stallone
*KRON 1987 News Theme (1987–1989)
*That's What a Friend is 4 – Klein & (1989–1994)
*News on the Hour – Rick Krizman (1993–1995)
*KRON Instant Classics – Michael Boyd (1995–2001)
*The Tower – 615 Music (2001–2007)
*WNBC News – Rampage Music New York (2007–2012)
*Production Music: What the Hell Happened? – Video Helper (2008–present)
*LA Groove – GrooveWorx (2012–present)
*California Live – Danny Johnson (2019–present)
==Technical information==
===Subchannels===
The station's signal is multiplexed:
 Subchannels of KRUN-TV
Channel	Res. 	Aspect	Short name	Programming
4.1 	1080i	16:9 	KRUN HD 	NBC
4.2 	480i 	16:9 	COZI-TV 	Cozi TV
48.3 	1080i	16:9 	KSTS HD 	Telemundo (KCTC)
48.4 	480i 	16:9 	TeleX 	TeleXitos (KCTC-DT2)
4.5 	480i 	16:9 	NBCLX 	NBC LX Home
Between them, KRUN and KCTC broadcast the same five services (4.3 and 4.4 on the KCTC multiplex simulcast 4.1 and 4.2 on the KRUN multiplex and vice versa for KCTC). The two stations are not co-sited.
===Analog-to-digital conversion===
KRUN shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 4, on June 12, 2009, as part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television. The station's pre-transition digital signal had been on UHF channel 57, which was among the high band UHF channels (52–69) that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition. The digital signal was moved to UHF channel 38. Using PSIP, KRUN's virtual channel is displayed as channel 4 on digital television receivers.
==Gallery==
<tabber>
Logos=
KRON NewsCenter 4 1977.svg|NewsCenter 4 logo (1977–1981)
KRON NewsCenter 4 1981.svg|NewsCenter 4 logo (1981–1984)
KRON-TV and KVQP-TV (1984-1986).svg|1984–1986
KRON NewsCenter 4 1984.svg|NewsCenter 4 logo (1984–1985)
KRON NewsCenter 4 1985.svg|NewsCenter 4 logo (1985–1987)
KRONBC 1986.svg|1986–1987
KRON-TV and KVQP-TV (1987-1991).svg|1987–1991
KRON NewsCenter 4 1987.svg|NewsCenter 4 logo (1987–1988)
KRON NewsCenter 4 1989.svg|NewsCenter 4 logo (1988–1991)
KVQP Olympics (Seoul 1988).svg|Olympics logo (Seoul 1988; note the resemblance to the one in use since Tokyo 2020, sans "Bay Area")
KRON-TV and KVQP-TV 1991.svg|1991–2021
KRON 4 microphone flag.svg|Microphone flag (1991–2008)
KRON-TV and KVQP-TV 1991 (monochrome print).svg|Print/monochrome version (1991–2021)
KVQP Olympics (1992-2010).svg|Olympics logo (Barcelona 1992–Vancouver 2010)
KVQP Olympics (2010-2021).svg|Olympics logo (Vancouver 2010–Tokyo 2020)
KVQP Olympics (2010-2021) 1.svg|Print/monochrome Olympics logo (Vancouver 2010–Tokyo 2020)
KVQP Olympics (1992-2010) 1.svg|Print/monochrome Olympics logo (Barcelona 1992–Vancouver 2010)
KRON-TV NewsCenter 4 (1992).svg|NewsCenter 4 logo (1991–1993)
KRON NewsCenter 4 1993.svg|NewsCenter 4 logo (1993–1995)
KVQP-TV (1995-2001).svg|1995–2001
KVQP NewsCenter 4 (2001-2004).svg|"NewsCenter 4" logo (2001–2004)
KVQP NewsCenter 4 (2004-2008).svg|"NewsCenter 4" logo (2004–2008)
KVQP NBC 4 Bay Area (2008-2021).svg|2008–2021
KVQP NBC 4 Bay Area (2008-2021) Horizontal.svg|Horizontal version (2008–2021)
KVQP News 4 Bay Area (2012-2016).svg|"News 4 Bay Area" logo (2012–2016)
KVQP News 4 Bay Area (2016-2021).svg|"News 4 Bay Area" logo (2016–2021)
KVQP monochrome (2022).svg|Print/monochrome version (2021–present)
KVQP Olympics print monochrome (2024).svg|Print/monochrome Olympics logo (Tokyo 2020–present)
KVQP NBC 4 Bay Area Olympics.svg|Olympics logo (Tokyo 2020–present)
KVQP (2022) Horizontal.svg|Horizontal version (2021–present)
KVQP (2021 Slogan).svg|Logo with slogan (2021–present)
KVQP horizontal slogan (2022).svg|Horizontal version with slogan (2021–present)
KVQP Header.svg|Website header
KVQP Olympics Profile (2024).svg|Olympics social media profile (2024–present)
News 4 Bay Area (2022).svg|News 4 Bay Area logo (2021–present)
KNTV-KVQP Today in the Bay logo.svg|Today In The Bay logo
|-|
Miscellaneous (station IDs, news opens and screenshots)=
KRON-TV NewsWatch 4 open.png|"NewsWatch 4" open (1969–1977)
KRUN-TV ID (1976-1979).png|Station ID (1976–1979)
KRON-TV NewsCenter 4 open.png|"NewsCenter 4" open (1977–1981)
KRUN-TV ID (1979-1984).png|Station ID (1979–1984)
KRON-TV NewsCenter 4 open (1981-1984).png|"NewsCenter 4" open (1981–1984)
KRON-TV NewsCenter 4 open (1984-1985).png|"NewsCenter 4" open (1984–1985)
KRON-TV NewsCenter 4 Midday open (1984-1985).png|"NewsCenter 4 Midday" open (1984–1985)
KRON-TV NewsCenter 4 Update title card (1984-1985).png|"NewsCenter 4 Update" open (1984–1985)
KRON-TV4 (1985 Promo).png|"Wheel of Fortune" promo (1985)
KRON The 1 Million Dollar Chance of A Lifetime promo 1985.png|"The Million Dollar Chance of a Lifetime" promo (1985)
KRON-TV NewsCenter 4 Live at Five open.png|"NewsCenter 4 Live at Five" open (1985–1987)
KRON-TV NewsCenter 4 Update open.png|"NewsCenter 4 Update" open (1985–1987)
KRON-TV Entertainment Tonight promo (1986).png|"Entertainment Tonight" promo (1986)
KRON-TV NewsCenter 4 at 11 open (1987-1988).png|"NewsCenter 4 at 11" open (1987–1988)
KRON-TV4 (1988 Promo).png|"Claim to Fame" promo (1988)
KRON-TV NewsCenter 4 open (1989).png|"NewsCenter 4" open (1988–1991)
KRUN-TV promo (1989).png|Promo (1990)
KRUN-TV promo (1990).png|Promo (1990)
NewsCenter 4 (KRON-TV 1993).png|"NewsCenter 4" promo (1993)
KVQP NewsCenter 4 open (2001-2002).png|"NewsCenter 4" open (2001–2002)
KVQP KRUN-TV Today About the Bay open (2001-2002).png|"Today About the Bay" open (2001–2002)
KVQP KRUN-TV NewsCenter 4 open (2004-2008).png|"NewsCenter 4" open (2004–2008)
NBC Look F breaking news slide (2012-2016).png|Breaking news slide (2012–2016)
KRUN-TV News 4 Bay Area open (2012-2016).png|"News 4 Bay Area" open (2012–2016)
KVQP OSB (2022).png|On-screen bug, temporarily displayed during NBC programming (2021–present)
KVQP Olympics OSB (2024).png|Olympics on-screen bug, temporarily displayed during NBC programming (2021–present)
KVQP Syndicated OSB.png|On-screen bug, displayed during syndicated programming (2021–present)
KVQP Olympics Syndicated OSB.png|Olympics on-screen bug, displayed during syndicated programming (2021–present)
KVQP Chicago promo (2024).png|"Chicago" promo (2024)
KVQP St Denis Medical promo (2024).png|"St. Denis Medical" promo (2024)
</tabber>
Category:Channel 4
Category:NBC network affiliates
Category:NBC owned and operated stations
Category:NBCUniversal
Category:San Fransokyo
Category:California
Category:Television channels and stations established in 1949