KPRT

**KPRT** (channel 11) is a television station affiliated with the Fox network in Portland, Oregon, United States. It is the flagship property of locally based Dorado Media Group and is co-owned with MyNetworkTV affiliate KYCH (channel 21). Both stations share studios on Southwest Bond Avenue in the South Waterfront section of Portland, while KPRT’s transmitter is located in the Sylvan-Highlands section of Portland.

## History

### Early years

On September 20, 1952, KPRT became the first television station in Oregon to go on the air. KPRT was the first commercial television station in the country to transmit on the UHF band when it first launched on channel 26, founded by what was then called the Willamette Television Corporation. NBC, ABC, CBS, and the DuMont Television Network were the four networks carried by the single television station in Portland at the time. On October 15, 1953, Portland's first VHF station, KPOR-TV (channel 10), went on the air, and CBS programming was removed from KPRT’s schedule. After that, KPRT started airing ABC and DuMont shows and serving as the central NBC station.

Throughout the early 1950s, KPRT also carried short-lived Paramount Television Network programming. It was one of the network's strongest affiliates, airing shows like *Time For Beany*, *Hollywood* *Wrestling*, and *Bandstand* *Revue*. The station was also briefly affiliated with the NTA Film Network in the late 1950s. Three days before KPOR reached the same milestone, on August 11, 1954, KPRT became Portland's first television station to transmit in color.

Initially, KLOR-TV signed on March 8, 1955, as a significant ABC affiliate with a secondary DuMont affiliation, occupying the VHF channel 11 allocation in Portland. Nevertheless, KLOR's network ties were temporary. Due to the discontinuation of the DuMont Television Network in 1956, KLOR lost its affiliations with both networks. KGWT-TV (channel 8) was given the ABC affiliation in December of that year. Businessman Paul Midgley-Leavitt, who controlled Willamette then,  bought KLOR from its local owners on April 17, 1957. Using the more robust channel 11 signal, the two stations merged on May 1 under KPRT’s license; however, channel 26 was later used by the independent station KHTV, which only aired for less than four months in 1959; more recently, the digital signal of PBS member station KPBO-TV used the channel 26 frequency, returning to its original channel 28 assignment after the analog shutdown; the KHTV call letters were later used to sign on channel 39 in Houston in 1967.

KPRT switched to ABC on April 17, 1959, having previously been affiliated with KGWT. NBC swapped to KGWT later that year, ending KPRT’s color broadcasting. However, color broadcasting was resumed by ABC in 1962.

As the home of the two most significant children's TV hosts in Portland history, KPRT can take pride in having produced "Ramblin' Rod" Anders and Rusty Nails, the gentle clown who served as rough inspiration for Krusty the Klown, the character created by Matt Groening of *The Simpsons*. Ramblin' Rod ran cartoons of *Popeye* while Rusty Nails ran Three Stooges shorts. Airing from 1964 to 1997, Ramblin' Rod was the longest-running kids' show in Portland TV history. Other KPRT kids' hosts included George Ross as "Dr. Zoom" and longstanding KPRT favorite Gene Brendler as "Bent Nails," Rusty's "brother." In 1961, "Addie Bobkins," sometimes known as Bob Adkins, moved his program from Eugene's KOAC-TV to KPRT. "Weird Beard," a witty beatnik hand puppet, was a staple of "Addie Bobkins." Adkins and Ross each ran various cartoons to keep the children entertained.

### First stint as an independent station

KPRT lost its affiliation with ABC on March 1, 1964, to the independent station KPTB (channel 2), which had debuted in March 1962. KPRT filed a breach of contract lawsuit against ABC and Fisher Broadcasting, the station's previous owner, and used the settlement money to buy a color mobile unit and rebuilt KPRT into a color-capable station. KPRT quickly established itself as one of the leading independent television networks in the West. By the late 1960s, it was a regional superstation carried by several cable systems in various portions of Washington, Idaho, and Oregon's cable networks.

After a 12-year hiatus, *Portland Wrestling* returned to KPRT in 1967. Until just before he passed away on October 5, 1982, Portland Wrestling's voice actor was Morton Rodgers, a news reporter and host of afternoon movies. With commentator Bob Abernathy, KPRT started professional wrestling telecasts in 1953. However, two years later, rival KPOR acquired the franchise. From 1967 to December 1991, KPRT broadcast the wrestling contests after regaining the franchise. Former wrestlers Dutch Savage and Stan Stasiak, as well as KISN radio DJ Don Coss, provided commentary on wrestling later on. Don Owen and later retired wrestler-referee Sandy Barr served as Portland Wrestling's principal promoters. The show's primary long-term sponsors were the renowned and perpetually smiling furniture and appliance salesman Tom Peterson and the Chevrolet dealers Ron Tonkin of Portland and Friendly of Lake Oswego. Peterson was also the main sponsor of most of KPRT’s film productions.

With sports director Jimmy Jones calling the team's play-by-play on television, KPRT was the first television station in the market to air Portland Trail Blazers basketball games in 1970. KPRT held the broadcast rights to Blazer games until the end of the 1977–1978 season. Despite its financial difficulties, KPRT proved profitable enough for Colten Leavitt to diversify his broadcasting activities. Leavitt founded a new independent station in Pittsburgh, WTTP (now WPAC), under a Willamette Television subsidiary in 1978. Leavitt’s third station, independent WTCO (now WNCI) in Columbus, Ohio, was signed on by the Dorado Media Group in 1984.

### First, Fox affiliation, then back to independence

Channel 11 became one of the original charter affiliates of the newly launched Fox network on October 9, 1986; however, it would continue to function as an independent station, as Fox would not begin an entire week's worth of programming until 1993; it was one of the few non-network-owned stations to affiliate with Fox upon its debut. KPRT, on the other hand, was not a Fox affiliate for long. In 1988, KPRT was among numerous Fox affiliates nationwide (along with its Minneapolis-Saint Paul sister station, KTWI-TV) that had been disappointed with the network's ratings and programming during its first two seasons. On August 29 that year, the station de-affiliated from the network and became independent. The Fox affiliation was changed to KUXP-TV (channel 30), which commenced broadcast in 1983. In 1993, KPRT and Dorado’s other independent stations began broadcasting content from the Prime Time Entertainment Network, co-owned by Chris-Craft and Warner Bros. Entertainment.

### UPN affiliation

With several shows beginning to challenge the content offered by the "Big Three" networks, Fox started to carry more substantial programming by the early 1990s, surpassing the ratings from KPTV's previous run on the network. As a result, in late 1994, Chris-Craft/United Television and Paramount Pictures/Viacom joined forces to establish the United Paramount Network (UPN). In several major and mid-sized American cities, each company produced independent stations that they subsequently charted as stations of the new network. Although KPRT's association with UPN was discontinued in 2000, it continued as an affiliate for another two years. This happened because Viacom exercised a contractual right to acquire Chris-Craft's network ownership.

### Return to Fox

Dorado acquired KUXP, owned by the Meredith Corporation, on June 17, 2002, and became the first television station duopoly in the Portland market. There were numerous rumors that Fox was considering switching its programming from KUXP to KPRT.

After 14 years, Fox programming returned to channel 11 on September 2, 2002, when Dorado switched the market's affiliations of UPN and Fox. Meanwhile, KUXP joined UPN. As part of the change, KPRT’s long-standing name, "Oregon's 11," was replaced with "Fox 11." KPRT is the senior partner in the duopoly. Still, instead of operating out of KPRT’s long-standing East Portland location, the combined operation was housed in KUXP’s more prominent and newer facility in suburban Beaverton. The news section of KUXP was also taken over by KPRT, which led to the termination of KUXP’s 10 p.m. program. The National Football League realigned, moving the Seattle Seahawks, the most popular team in the market, into the NFC West division, coinciding with the Fox affiliation change. Because of the Fox network's rights to broadcast games from the NFL's National Football Conference, KPRT carried most of their matches as the Seahawks' unofficial secondary station.

After a 21-year hiatus, Portland Wrestling returned to KPRT on October 27, 2012, under the new name Portland Wrestling Uncut. Rowdy Roddy Piper helped to get the show back on the air, and Don Coss has returned to call the matches and special guests. On October 21, 2013, Fox 11 inaugurated its new studio in the new South Waterfront location. The wrestling bouts were recorded at the Beaverton studios of KPRT. After two months, on December 29, Portland Wrestling Uncut switched to KUXP but kept its Saturday night timeslot from when it was first brought back to life on KPRT. By the middle of 2014, the program had ended.

Dorado spun out ACME Networks, the owner of ACME Broadcasting Company, in 2022. Dorado decided to keep KPRT while selling KUXP to ACME Media. The Dorado Media Group stated on October 30, 2022, that it would purchase KYCH and take over the MyNetworkTV affiliation for the Portland area on September 1.

## Programming

Fox's Saturday late-night, Fox Sports, and nightly prime time programming, as well as the political chat show Fox News Sunday, are all cleared by KPRT; however, the network's Saturday morning educational programming block, Xploration Station, is preempted and airs on KYCH. Like the stations impacted by the 1994 Fox/New World affiliation switches, KPRT decided not to carry Fox's kids programming (4Kids TV, formerly Fox Kids) following the 2002 affiliation switch to Fox. Instead, the station aired syndication-acquired children's programming on weekend mornings (which was inspired by a concept New World Communications came up with when it converted many of the network's affiliates to Fox). This lineup stayed on KUXP until Fox terminated 4Kids TV (because of a dispute between the network and the block's lessee, 4Kids Entertainment) in December 2008.

### News operation

With eleven and a half hours on weekdays, five hours on Saturdays, and four and a half hours on Sundays, KPRT currently produces 67 hours of locally produced newscasts per week, making it the television station in Oregon with the highest output of local newscasts in terms of hours dedicated to news programming. Oregon Sports Final, the station's half-hour sports wrap-up program, aired on Sundays at 11 p.m. until its termination on September 10, 2017, when it was replaced by the Sunday 11 p.m. broadcast on September 17. Because it produces ten hours of local newscasts for sister station KYCH each week, which consists of two hour-long prime-time newscasts at 8 and 9 p.m., KPRT is also one of the few Fox affiliates that also produces newscasts for another television station in the same market.

In 1996, the station debuted its three-hour weekday news program, Good Day Oregon. Since then, the program has been expanded and now airs from 4:30 to 9 a.m. KPRT was among the increasing number of stations nationwide to start their morning newscast before 5 a.m. Until April 19, 2010, Good Day Oregon's 4:30–5 a.m. segment was eliminated. The 4:30 half-hour of the program was reinstated in 2012. A three-hour newscast is a feature that only a few Fox stations and local stations, like KPRT, provide on Saturday and Sunday mornings.

KPRT was the second television station in Portland to start airing its local newscasts in 16:9 widescreen standard definition on June 5, 2007. A year later, on March 4, 2008, the station increased its scheduled newscasts. It added a weekday 4 p.m. newscast (canceled in 2011 but revived in September 2019) and an 8 p.m. newscast on KUXP, moving MyNetworkTV programming on KUXP one hour later to 9 to 11 p.m. The station began airing its 5 p.m. newscast on September 8, 2008, which had previously only aired on Sundays (unless Fox Sports programming was scheduled to preempt it). On September 8, 2008, the program was expanded to seven nights a week, except weeknights. By 2012, the program had been reduced to only weekdays. More Good Day Oregon, a fifth hour of Good Day Oregon that aired from 9 to 10 a.m. on April 19, 2010, on KPRT for KUXP, featured a seasoned panel of experts discussing a variety of lifestyle and entertainment themes. The show was canceled in 2012. Weeknights at 6 p.m., KPRT started airing an hour-long newscast in 2011.

## Technical information

### Subchannels

The digital signal from the station is multiplexed:

 **11.2** | 480i
 **11.3** | Dabl
 **11.4** | Oxygen

### Analog-to-digital conversion

On June 12, 2009, KPRT discontinued its analog broadcast on VHF channel 11, adhering to the federally mandated shift from analog to digital television. The station's digital signal was moved to VHF channel 11 from its pre-transition UHF channel 36.