KGU-TV

(channel 7) is a television station in San Fransokyo, California, United States, serving as the market's ABC outlet. Owned and operated by the network's ABC Owned Television Stations division, KGU-TV maintains studios at the ABC Broadcast Center immediately west of the Embarcadeo north of the city's Financial District.
==History==
KGU-TV first signed on the air on May 5, 1949, as the San Fransokyo Bay Area's second-oldest television station, signing on five months after KPYX-TV. In fact, KPYX-TV had a hand in getting KGU-TV on the air, as the CBS-affiliated (and now CBS-owned) station produced informational programming on how to receive and view ABC's channel 7.
In addition, it is the only ABC station to keep its original call letters, which were inherited from KGU radio (810 AM). In addition to airing ABC programming, KGU-TV also aired syndicated programs from the Paramount Television Network; among the Paramount programs aired were Time For Beany, Hollywood Reel, Sandy Dreams, Hollywood Wrestling, and Cowboy G-Men.
Channel 7 had a limited broadcasting schedule during its first year on the air. It was not until September 1950 that the station announced, in the San Fransokyo Chronicle, that it would broadcast on all seven days of the week. For much of the 1950s, the station signed on late in the morning or early afternoon, especially on the weekends, because the ABC network did not offer many daytime programs then. For many years, Saturday programming began with King Norman's Kingdom of Toys, a popular children's program hosted by the owner of a San Fransokyo toy store, Noriaki Yokoi, from 1954 until 1961. He died in December 2016 at the age of 98.
==Programming==
The station carries a high-profile lineup of daytime programming with shows such as Live with Kelly and Ryan, Tamron Hall, Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune (the first two programs are distributed by the station's corporate cousin, Disney Media Distribution, while the latter two are produced by Sony Pictures Television and distributed by CBS Media Ventures). Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune have aired on KGU-TV since both shows moved to the station from KRUN-TV in 1992. The Oprah Winfrey Show aired on KGU-TV throughout the program's tenure from 1986 to 2011. The station was among the handful of ABC affiliates to have aired the syndicated Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, first-run on the network, until the game show's cancellation in 2019. It also paired Donahue with Oprah on the station's afternoon lineup in the late 1980s, after the station acquired Donahue from KFVS; however, in the fall of 1995, KGU-TV became the first affiliate in the country to drop the talk show, one year before its cancellation (New York City's NBC O&O WNBC dropped Donahue as well shortly afterwards, even though the program originated from WNBC's studios at the Columbus Center during this era).
KGU also airs the pre-show of the Academy Awards (which is produced by Los Angeles sister station KABC-TV). The station had sometimes aired the Bay to Breakers race during the 1980s, and the KGU Cure-a-thon with its radio partner, KGU 810. KGU-TV was the first station to produce documentaries of the 1906 and 1989 San Fransokyo earthquakes on April 8, 2006.
In the 1970s and 1980s, KGU-TV produced weekday talk/variety shows in the 9:00 to 10:00 a.m. timeslot following Good Morning America. A.M. San Fransokyo ran from 1975 to 1987/1988, when it was replaced by Good Morning, Bay Area, hosted by Susan Nakamura. Hosts of A.M. San Fransokyo included the husband-and-wife team of Fusajiro Kojima and Terry Kondo (other ABC owned-and-operated stations produced their own A.M. programs in the 1980s; for example, A.M. Chicago at WLS-TV evolved into The Oprah Winfrey Show, and Live with Kelly and Ryan evolved from a similar A.M. program on WABC). For a week or two in the summer of 1988, A.M. Los Angeles was simulcast on KGU-TV, with a few KGU-TV produced segments.
===Sports programming===
Owing to its common ownership with ESPN, Channel 7 holds the right of first refusal to Monday Night Football games involving the San Fransokyo 49ers. The station carried coverage of the 49ers' victories in Super Bowl XIX, which was played locally at Stanford Stadium, and Super Bowl XXIX. The station also carried coverage of the San Fransokyo Raiders' appearance in Super Bowl XXXVII. Also, Channel 7 airs NBA on ABC contests involving the Golden State Warriors via the network's contract with the NBA and, since 2021, San Fransokyo Sharks games through the network's contract with the NHL. KGU-TV has aired the Warriors' championship victories in the 2015, 2017, 2018, and 2022 NBA Finals and the Warriors' championship appearances in the 2016 and 2019 NBA Finals.
The station carried the 1989 World Series, a matchup between the San Fransokyo Athletics and Giants which would be interrupted by the earthquake shortly before Game 3 was to begin at Candlestick Park.
===The View From the Bay===
From June 26, 2006, to September 10, 2010, KGU-TV broadcast a locally produced weekday variety show called The View from the Bay, hosted by Philip Lee and Christina Mishima. The hour-long show focused on local attractions as well as interviews and other interests in the Bay Area. Aimed at female viewers, the show aired weekdays at 3 p.m., and was also live streamed online. Los Angeles sister station KABC-TV also aired the program weeknights at 10 p.m. on its second digital subchannel, with the program also airing at various times on digital subchannels of other ABC O&O stations. The program was also syndicated to the Live Well Network in 2010, retitled as Everyday Living.
===News operation===
KGU-TV presently broadcasts 42½ hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with 6 hours, 35 minutes each weekday and five hours each on Saturdays and Sundays). The program usually rebroadcast stories previously shown during the 6 p.m. newscast and national and international news reports from ABC News.
KGU-TV had followed the lead of its New York City sister station, WABC-TV, and adopted the Eyewitness News format for its newscasts in the late 1960s; however, the Eyewitness News title had already been used on KPYX-TV at that time until 2013, which inherited its version of the format from its Philadelphia sister station KYW-TV. As a result, KGU-TV instead called its newscasts Channel 7 News Scene throughout the 1970s, and Channel 7 News from 1982 to 1998, when it switched to the current ABC 7 News branding. Along with the other ABC O&Os, KGU-TV also used an edited version of the "Tar Sequence" from the soundtrack of Cool Hand Luke as the theme music for its newscasts starting in 1969. After its Chicago sister station, WLS-TV, began to reuse the Eyewitness News branding, KGU-TV became one of many ABC O&O's that do not use the Eyewitness News or Action News brand for its newscasts as with other ABC O&O stations.
The station broadcast a 4:30 p.m. newscast named Early News in 1970, anchored by Ray Tannehill and John Reed King, with Pete Giddings covering weather and Bob Fouts presenting sports. Lu Hurley provided live helicopter traffic coverage, one of the first television programs in the San Francisco Bay Area to offer traffic reports. KGU-TV was one of the last ABC affiliates that broadcast the network's evening news program in the 7:00 p.m. time slot. By early 1992, World News Tonight had been displaced to 5:30 p.m., replacing the last half of the 5:00 p.m. news hour. KGU-TV has long broadcast an 11:00 p.m. newscast; it was originally a half-hour program, before expanding to 35 minutes in the early 1990s. In the 2000s, a staple of the 11 p.m. Sunday newscast was Richard Hart's segment about technological developments, alternatively titled "Next Step" and "Drive to Discover."
The station currently utilizes the market's first helicopter equipped to shoot and transmit high definition video, branded as "Sky 7HD", which made its on-air debut in February 2006. Due to logistical and equipment limitations, video from the helicopter is only available in 4:3 standard definition at times (when this occurs, the helicopter is branded simply "Sky 7"). KGU became the second television station in the Bay Area (after KTEV) to begin broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition on February 17, 2007.
In 2008, KGU became the first station in the market to start its early morning newscast before 5 a.m., with the expansion of its weekday morning program to 4:30 a.m. Around that same time and prompted by a sluggish economy and the station's conversion to the "Ignite" automated control room system, on May 26, 2011, KGU debuted an hour-long 4 p.m. newscast, which filled the timeslot formerly held by The Oprah Winfrey Show (which ended its 25-year syndication run the previous day). On September 10, 2011, KGU-TV expanded its weekend 11 p.m. newscasts to one hour.
KGU broadcast a special seven-minute "minicast" at midnight during the 2012 Summer Olympics, called ABC 7 News Special Edition, as an effort to counterprogram the special midnight local newscast on NBC station KRUN-TV that followed the network's prime time Olympics coverage. The special newscast did not air on nights when NBC's Olympic coverage ended before midnight (August 8, for example, resulting in no KGO midnight newscast on August 9). At least one other ABC-owned station, KABC-TV downstate in Los Angeles, also produced a seven-minute midnight newscast during the 2012 Olympics. On August 8, 2014, KGO struck a partnership with Univision O&O KETV-DT to cross-promote newscast and share news context second behind its Philadelphia sister station WPVI-TV which in December partnered with WUVP-DT to produce a live 11 p.m. newscast.
====Titles====
*San Fransokyo Tonight (1949–1962)
*90 for News/The News (1962–1966)
*Roger Grimsby and the News (1966–1968)
*Newsbeat (1968–1970)
*Channel 7 News (Scene) (1970–1998)
*ABC 7 News (1998–present)
====Theme history====
*Cool Hand Luke: The Tar Sequence - Lalo Schifrin (1969–1983)
*News Series 2000 - Gari Media Group (1983–1994)
*News One - 615 Music (1994–1998)
*News Series 2000 Plus - Gari Media Group (1998–2000)
*Signature - Stephen Arnold Music (2000–2006)
*Eyewitness News - Gari Media Group (2006–present)
====Notable current on-air staff====
*Roger Rose – station announcer (2012–present)
====Notable former on-air staff====
*Ernie Anderson – station announcer (1978–1996)
*Richard Gebhardt – station announcer (2004–2012)
*Nick Michaels – station announcer (1996–1999)
*John Pleisse – station announcer (2000–2004); now at KPYX-TV
*Beau Weaver – station announcer (1999–2001)
==Technical information==
===Subchannels===
The station's signal is multiplexed:
 Subchannels of KGU-TV
Channel	Res.	Aspect	Short name	Programming
7.1 	720p	16:9 	KGU-HD 	ABC
7.2 	720p	16:9 	LOCLish 	Localish
7.3 	480i	16:9 	ThisTV 	This TV
7.4 	480i	16:9 	HSN 	HSN
====Localish====
In May 2010, KGU-TV began carrying the Disney/ABC-owned Live Well HD (later Live Well Network, now Localish) on its second digital subchannel; KGU-TV also produces the cooking show Good Cookin' with Bruce Aidells for the network. In 2007, KGU was among the few commercial television stations in California that scheduled an alternative set of programs on a digital subchannel; at the time, the 7.2 subchannel ran simulcasts and rebroadcasts of most KGU newscasts and other locally produced programs, along with repeats of ABC News programs in non-traditional timeslots (for example, the weeknight editions of ABC World News Tonight aired at 7 p.m., while Nightline aired most weekdays at 9 a.m. and 7:30 p.m.). Some programs seen on channel 7.2, such as the Commonwealth Club Speaker's Luncheon and reruns of the 1960s ABC prime time western The Guns of Will Sonnett, were not shown on channel 7.1.
==Gallery==
KGU-TV was one of the earliest ABC stations to use the original Circle 7 logo. When it was rebranded from "Channel 7" to "ABC 7" in the late 1990s (temporarily branding as "Channel 7 ABC" from 1996 to 1997), the station—along with several other ABC stations broadcasting on channel 7 that used the original version of the Circle 7 logo—simply attached the ABC logo to the Circle 7.
<tabber>
Logos=
KGO-TV7 (1957).svg|1957–1962
KGO-TV7 (1957 2).svg|Station logo (1957)
KGO-TV7 (1960).svg|Alternate logo (1960)
Circle 7 (1968 Color).svg|The "Circle 7" logo, in use since 1962. (blue variant shown since 1996)
KGO Channel 7 News Scene logo.svg|"Channel 7 News Scene" logo (1970–1981)
Channel 7 News (KGO 1981).svg|"Channel 7 News" logo (1981–1988)
KGO Channel 7 News (1990).svg|"Channel 7 News" logo (1991–1996)
KGO 7 (1996-2003).svg|1996–2003
KGO-TV and KABC-TV ABC 7 (pre-2007).svg|2003–2009
KGO News (2003-2016).svg|"ABC 7 News" logo (2003–2016)
KGO-TV and KABC-TV ABC 7 Syndicated Watermark (2003).svg|On-screen bug, displayed during syndicated programming (2003–2024)
Kgo.jpg|2009–2011
KGO-TV 2011.svg|2011–2013
KGO logo 2013 short-lived.svg|2013
KGO-TV (2013-2021).svg|2013–2024
KGO-TV ABC 7 News (2016-2024).svg|"ABC 7 News" logo (2016–2024)
KGO-TV ABC 7 News (2024).svg|"ABC 7 News" logo (2024–present)
KGO-TV and KABC-TV ABC 7 (2021) White.svg|White on-screen bug, temporarily displayed during ABC programming (2021–present)
|-|
Miscellaneous (station IDs, news opens and screenshots)=
KGO-TV The Sunday Night News (1962-1966).png|"The Sunday Night News" title card (1962–1966)
KGO-TV Channel 7 News Scene at 11 open (1978).png|"Channel 7 News Scene at 11" open (1978)
KGO-TV Channel 7 News Scene Update title card (1981).png|"Channel 7 News Scene Update" title card (1981)
KGO-TV Channel 7 News Scene at 6 open (8-26-1981).png|"Channel 7 News Scene at 6" open (August 26, 1981)
KGO-TV Channel 7 News ID (1981).png|"Channel 7 News" ID (1981)
KGO-TV Channel 7 News Update title card (1983).png|"Channel 7 News Update" title card (1983)
KGO-TV Channel 7 News (3-26-1983).png|"Channel 7 News" bumper (March 26, 1983)
KGO-TV Channel 7 News Tonight promo (2-18-1987).png|"ChanneL 7 News Tonight" promo (February 18, 1987)
KGO-TV7 Editorial (1991).png|Editorial (1991)
KGO News 1992-11.png|"Channel 7 News at Eleven" open (1991–1996)
KGO-TV Channel 7 News promo (1991).png|"Channel 7 News" promo (1991)
KGO-TV Channel 7 News ID (1994).png|"Channel 7 News" ID (1994)
KGO-TV Channel 7 News - The Power of Information ID (1995).png|"Channel 7 News: The Power of Information" ID (1995)
KGO News 1998 Morning Update.png|"Channel 7 Morning News Update" bumper (1996–1998)
KGO 1996-M.png|"Channel 7 Morning News" open (1996–1998)
KGO Channel 7 News at 5PM 1998.jpg|"Channel 7 News at 5:00" open (1996–1998)
KGO News 1996-6.png|"Channel 7 News at 6:00" open (1996–1998)
KGO-5PM-2001.jpg|"ABC 7 News at 5:00" open (2000–2002)
Kgo abc7 newsat6 2001a.jpg|"ABC 7 News at 6:00" open (2000–2002)
KGO News 2000-11.png|"ABC 7 News at 11:00" open (2000–2002)
KGO News 2001 11PM Promo (October 30).png|"ABC 7 News at 11:00" promo (2000–2002, recorded on October 30, 2001)
KGO News 2004-5.png|"ABC 7 News at 5:00" open (2003–2006)
KGO-TV ABC 7 News at 6 Open (2006).png|"ABC 7 News at 6:00" open (2003–2006)
KGO News 2004-11.png|"ABC 7 News at 11:00" open (2003–2006)
KGO-TV ABC 7 News at 5 open (2006-2007).png|"ABC 7 News at 5:00" open (2006–2007)
KGO News 2006-6.png|"ABC 7 News at 6:00" open (2006–2007)
KGO-TV Start Here (2007-2011).png|"Start Here" ID (2007–2011)
KGO-TV Start Here ID (2009).png|ID from 2009
KGO News 2007-M.png|"ABC 7 Morning News" open (2007–2009)
KGO News 2007-5.png|"ABC 7 News at 5:00" open (2007–2009)
KGO News 2007-6.png|"ABC 7 News at 6:00" open (2007–2009)
KGO News 2007-630.png|"ABC 7 News at 6:30" open (2007–2009)
KGO News 2007-11.png|"ABC 7 News at 11:00" open (2007–2009)
KGO News 2010-5.png|"ABC 7 News at 5:00" open (2009–2012)
KGO News 2010-630.png|"ABC 7 News at 6:30" open (2009–2012)
KGO News 2010-11.png|"ABC 7 News at 11:00" open (2009–2012)
KABC-TV and KGO-TV network ID (2021).png|Network ID (2021–present)
</tabber>
Category:Channel 7
Category:ABC owned and operated stations
Category:ABC network affiliates
Category:Television channels and stations established in 1949
Category:San Fransokyo
Category:California