BayTV (PatrZDZ's vision)

**BayTV** is a 24-hour regional cable news and sports channel that serves the San Francisco Bay Area since July 1994. It is owned and operated by NBC (as part of the NBC Owned Television Stations division). The channel operates from KRON-TV's studio facilities at 1001 Van Ness Avenue in the Western Addition neighborhood of San Francisco.

## History

The channel launched on July 1, 1994, operating as companion service to NBC affiliate KRON-TV (channel 4; now a MyNetworkTV affiliate) The company was founded by the San Francisco-based Chronicle Publishing Company, in conjunction with Tele-Communications, Inc. (TCI), which carried it on cable channel 35 throughout the provider's San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose service area, and its affiliate company Liberty Media. Both companies launched Starz earlier. When BayTV debuted, its programming primarily consisted of rebroadcasts of KRON-TV's news programs, as well as some limited news and talk content exclusive to the channel (including the morning newscast *BayTV Morning* and a video simulcast of KRON sports director Gary Radnich's midday sports talk show on KNBR (680 AM), *The Gary Radnich Show*). The channel originally utilized equipment formerly used by its parent station, with a separate staff of writers and producers.

On June 16, 1999, the deYoung family announced their intention to liquidate Chronicle Publishing's assets, including KRON-TV (as well as sister stations KAKE-TV in Wichita and WOWT in Omaha, which were both sold to Benedek Broadcasting), BayTV and the *San Francisco Chronicle* (which it sold to the Hearst Corporation for $295 million in October of that year). Around the same time, TCI's minority share in BayTV was sold to AT&T Corporation, as part of the company's acquisition of the provider (which became AT&T Broadband). KRON and Chronicle's majority interest in BayTV were purchased by NBC for US$823 million on November 16, 1999. The transaction was supposed to be completed by April 2000, however finalization of the deal was delayed by two months after former *Chronicle* editor Clint Reilly filed a lawsuit to block the Hearst Corporation's purchase of the newspaper.

In 2018, AT&T sold its stake in BayTV to NBC, which began to operate it as a division of the NBC Owned Television Stations division—aligning it with NBC's owned-and-operated stations.

## Programming

The programming format of BayTV is modeled similarly to that of news-talk radio stations, featuring a mix of full-length newscasts produced by KRON's news department – which comprise much of the channel's daytime and evening schedule – and personality-driven talk and local interest programs (which are preceded by news updates produced by BayTV news staff).

Throughout its first 7 years of existence, BayTV underwent several changes to its programming, originally focusing mainly on news and talk programs (including the Pete Wilson-hosted political affairs program *Take Issue*; the interview program *Close-Up with Belva Davis*; and book discussion series *Bookmark*). By the late 1990s, it also incorporated cooking shows (such as *Bay Cafe*), consumer news and movie review programs (such as *All Consuming*, hosted by Laurel Pallock of the consumer fraud unit of the San Francisco District Attorney's Office; and *Talkin' Pictures*, hosted by longtime KRON film critic Jan Wahl).

In March 1998, the channel debuted an hour-long newscast at 9:00 p.m., which utilizes staff from both the BayTV and KRON news departments with limited duplication of news content from the two operations. It was originally co-anchored by Michelle Blaine and longtime KRON anchor Evan White on weeknights and Diana Yee on weekends. The channel also rebroadcasts KRON-TV's hour-long 6:00 p.m. newscast one hour after its initial broadcast each night at 7:00 p.m.

The channel also produced *New Media News*, a half-hour Silicon Valley-focused technology newsmagazine which aired nationally on Mind Extension University/Knowledge TV from 1995 until it was sold to Discovery Communications in 1999; the daily program was relaunched in February 2000 as *Next Step* (a title previously used by a separate technology program co-produced by KRON and the Discovery Channel that aired from 1994 to 1997) through a content agreement with Imagine Media-owned magazine *Business 2.0*.

### Sports programming

In additional to its local programming, BayTV also carried a moderate amount of sports programming. Until the team moved its over-the-air telecasts to San Jose independent station KICU-TV (channel 36) in 1999, the channel carried a limited schedule of Major League Baseball games from the Oakland Athletics that KRON could not air due to its NBC programming commitments, as well as weekly news conferences held by the head coaches of the San Francisco 49ers and Oakland Raiders.

In March 1997, BayTV signed a three-year programming agreement with Fox Sports West, under which it carried the daily news program *Fox Sports News* and select sports events aired nationally by Fox Sports Net (including Major League Baseball games on Thursday nights during the regular season, and college basketball games not carried by Fox Sports Net Bay Area due to scheduling conflicts with events featuring local and state teams). The Fox Sports Net agreement ended on January 22, 1998, with most of the programming moving to newly converted FSN outlet SportsChannel Bay Area, which rebranded as Fox Sports Bay Area on that date (*Fox Sports News* continued to air on BayTV until March 31, 1998; most of FSN's Pac-10 telecasts also remained on the channel until the package transferred to Fox Sports Bay Area, which aired a limited number of games beforehand, in January 2000).

Much of BayTV's sports programming consisted of coverage involving college and high school teams from around Northern California. In 1997, BayTV began airing a featured "Game of the Week" involving Bay Area schools on Friday nights during the high school football regular season. It also broadcast statewide boys' and girls' high school basketball tournament finals and football championship games sanctioned by the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF). However, it did not air the state basketball finals and Northern California regional basketball championships in 1999 as the CIF declined the channel's proposition to waive the broadcast rights fee; KRON/BayTV management asked for the waiver, citing revenue losses incurred by the fee it paid for the 1998 finals, though the CIF stated that BayTV rescinded the telecast rights due to the conference's delays in getting a waiver from primary rightsholder Fox Sports West 2 (now Prime Ticket) to allow BayTV to produce and televise the games. The channel also aired college basketball games involving the California Golden Bears and Stanford Cardinal that were not covered by Fox Sports Net's contract with the Pacific-10 Conference.