KCGV

**KCGV-TV**, virtual channel 12, is a dual ABC/CW-affiliated television station licensed to Kansas City, Missouri, United States, and serving the Kansas City metropolitan area. Owned by the Dorado Media Group, it is part of a duopoly with ACME owned-and-operated station KCKM (channel 32). Both stations share studios on Winchester Avenue (along I-435, near Swope Park) in the Ridge-Winchester section of Kansas City, Missouri, while KCGV-TV’s transmitter is located in the city's Blue Valley section.

## History

Channel 10 first signed on the air on December 3, 1955, as KWHB-TV under the ownership of Metro Broadcasting, a New York City-based company. It has always been an ABC affiliate although it aired some DuMont programming in its first year. Initially, KWHB-TV ran a format of business news, religious news, rejected network programs from NBC affiliate KCTY (channel 25), and classic movies. By 1967, outside of network programming, the station’s schedule became more of the then-standard for independent stations of the era, including cartoons, westerns, sitcoms, religious shows during the early mornings and movies in primetime and late nights. Also in 1976, KWHB-TV began televising Kansas City Chiefs football games, which ran on the station for seven seasons.

In 1977, the business news block was gradually eliminated making way for the addition of a few more second-hand classic sitcoms. By this time, the station had evolved into a more conventional general entertainment station.

In May 1982, Metro Broadcasting agreed to sell the station to Atlanta-based Cox Enterprises. Not long after the announcement was made, channel 10 began carrying a block of business news programming from the Financial News Network. On June 1, 1983, not long after Cox took control of the station, programming on KWHB-TV continued to consist of classic sitcoms, a couple of rejected network shows, some religious programs during the day, and resumed running the usual primetime fare of movies and classic sitcoms until 1:00 or 2:00 a.m. on the weekends.

### **Dorado Media ownership**

On April 14, 1996, Cox sold KCGV-TV to the Portland, Oregon-based Dorado Media Group in a deal worth $76 million. Under Dorado ownership, the station heavily invested in its news department and expanded its local news programming, which increased from about seven hours per week at the time of the purchase. Channel 10 changed its call letters to KCGV-TV on that same year.

Channel 10 would gain a sister television station in 1997, when Dorado Media entered into a local marketing agreement to manage the operations of KWBC (channel 32, now ACME affiliate KCKM), which signed on the air in September 1996 as the market's original affiliate of The WB (it would later assume the UPN affiliation from KKCD (channel 38, now a MyNetworkTV affiliate) in August 1998, as part of a swap that resulted from then-owner Sinclair Broadcast Group's multi-station affiliation agreement with The WB). Dorado continued to maintain operational responsibilities for KWBC until 2001, when the company bought the channel 32 license outright by way of an indirect subsidiary separate from its broadcasting division.

In September 2005, Dorado announced plans to construct a new 53,000-square-foot (4,900 m2) facility at the Winchester Business Center (located at 6455 Winchester Avenue, near Swope Park) in southeastern Kansas City, Missouri to house the operations of KCGV and KCKM.

## Programming

Syndicated programs broadcast on KCGV-TV include The Dr. Oz Show, The Kelly Clarkson Show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, and Entertainment Tonight.

KCGV-TV airs most of the ABC network schedule. Until January 2017, the station preempted the Sunday edition of ABC World News Tonight in favor of an hour-long local early evening newscast that preceded the ABC primetime lineup. KCGV-TV also currently airs some programs offered by ABC out of pattern. The station has aired The View on a one-hour tape delay since its premiere on August 11, 1997; the station has delayed ABC Daytime programs that the network intended for its stations to air during the 10:00 a.m. (Central Time) hour dating back to the late 1970s.

### Sports programming

Since 1970, KCGV-TV has carried National Football League (NFL) games involving the Kansas City Chiefs through either ABC or team-specific syndication arrangements with ESPN. Most of the team's broadcasts on Channel 10 were ABC-televised prime time games selected to air on Monday Night Football, involving both opponents that are fellow members of the American Football Conference (AFC) and interconference matches with National Football Conference (NFC) teams.

## News operation

KCGV-TV presently broadcasts 34 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with five hours each weekday and 4½ hours each on Saturdays and Sundays); in regards to the number of hours devoted to local news programming, it is the third-highest newscast output among the Kansas City market's television stations.

## Technical information

### **Subchannels**

The station's digital channel is multiplexed:

 10.2

KCGV is one of several Dorado-owned ABC stations that broadcasts its digital signal in the 1080i high definition format, instead of the network's preferred 720p format.

### KCGV-DT2

On March 26, 2008, KCGV-TV launched a digital subchannel on virtual channel 10.2 under the brand "First Alert Weather 24 Hours", initially serving as an affiliate of The Local AccuWeather Channel. The channel provided regional and national forecasts provided by the AccuWeather-operated network, along with pre-recorded local forecasts presented by meteorologists from KCGV's "First Alert Weather" team (which were updated two to three times per day), and a half-hour block of syndicated children's programs compliant with FCC educational programming guidelines on Monday through Saturday afternoons.

On September 14, 2010, KCGV-DT2 launched "MOREtv 10", a four-hour block of entertainment programs that aired in place of The Local AccuWeather Channel's prime time programming on Monday through Friday nights (the block's branding was inspired by the "MOREtv 32" moniker used by sister station KCKM as a UPN affiliate from January 1998 until September 2005). The block—which aired on the subchannel each weeknight from 6:00 to 11:00 p.m.—consisted mainly of general entertainment syndicated programs (featuring a selection of same-day or week-delayed rebroadcasts of first-run talk shows seen on KCGV's main channel, as well as shows exclusive to the subchannel); it also included an encore of KCGV-TV's weeknight 6:00 p.m. newscast, which aired on a half-hour tape delay at 6:30 p.m.

On June 6, 2016, KCGV-DT2 became an ACME affiliate after the network launched. The subchannel's branding became "ACME 10 Kansas City".

On November 1, 2021, the Dorado Media Group and CBS Corporation announced that KCKM would become Kansas City's new ACME affiliate. Concurrently, KCGV announced that its second subchannel would affiliate with The CW. KCGV-DT2 added programming from The CW on November 29, 2021. The subchannel–which was rebranded as "Kansas City's CW"–concurrently adopted a general entertainment schedule featuring a mix of syndicated shows not carried by other Kansas City stations, repeat airings of certain programs seen on KCGV's main channel, and many first-run and off-network syndicated programs (including talk shows and sitcoms) that previously aired on KCKM prior to the switch to fill timeslots not occupied by CW network programs. It also launched a two-hour extension of KCGV's weekday morning newscast, along with separate, weeknight-only 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. newscasts produced for KCGV-DT2 (the newscasts shown on the subchannel are branded as News 10 on The CW, omitting all references to the ABC name included in KCGV's main news titling).

### **Analog-to-digital conversion**

KCGV signed on its digital signal on UHF channel 29 on July 1, 2002. The station shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 10, on December 15, 2008—two months before the originally scheduled date of February 17, 2009 for full-power stations to transition from analog to digital broadcasts.