KCOP-TV

Encyclopedia : K : KC : KCO : KCOP-TV

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KCOP-TV, referred to as my 13, is a UPN affiliated television station in Los Angeles. This station, owned by Fox Television Stations Group (which also owns KTTV) has a signal radius that covers the Southern California region.

History

Independent era, early years

KCOP went on the air on September 17, 1948 as KMTR-TV. The station briefly changed its call letters to KLAC-TV (Los Angeles, California), and adopted the moniker "Lucky 13." It was co-owned with KLAC-AM-FM, which ironically would also be eventually co-owned with Channel 13's current sister station KTTV. Although it was an independent station, it did run some programming from the DuMont Television Network [link].

One of Channel 13's earlier stars was veteran actress Betty White, who starred in her own live sitcom, Life with Elizabeth. Television personality Regis Philbin and actor-director Leonard Nimoy once worked behind the scenes at Channel 13. In 1954, the Copley Press (owners of The San Diego Union-Tribune) purchased KLAC-TV, and changed its call letters to the present KCOP. Six years later, Chris-Craft Industries bought Channel 13, with a relationship that lasted over forty years.

Chris-Craft partnered up with various television studios over the years to produce first-run syndicated programming, which gave KCOP some of its best ratings and made Channel 13 one of America's leading local television stations. From the 1960s to the early 1990s, KCOP offered a broad range of programs ranging from cartoons to off-network sitcoms, older theatrical and made-for-TV movies, syndicated talk shows, game shows, and even local news. Despite it success as a television station, its newscasts were one of the lowest rated in the market. In the 1990s, the station began to focus more on first-run talk shows, court shows, reality shows, and newsmagazine shows as well as off-network drama shows.

UPN affiliate (1995-2006)

In 1995, Chris-Craft and its subsidiary, United Television, partnered with Paramount Pictures (which once owned rival KTLA) to form the United Paramount Network (UPN). KCOP accordingly became the network's West Coast flagship station.

Chris-Craft/United sold its television stations to Fox in 2002, and soon after that transaction, KCOP integrated its operations with KTTV. KCOP abandoned its longtime Hollywood studios (once home to classic game shows The Joker's Wild and Tic Tac Dough) to move into KTTV's studios in West Los Angeles. Upon being sold to Fox in 2001, the weekday Fox Kids block moved to KCOP in the mid-afternoons, only for it to be dropped nationwide in January 2002. The station still runs a one-hour morning cartoon block (from the DIC Entertainment company) and is the last remaining local commercial English-language television station to run weekday morning children's television programs.

Losing UPN?

Viacom, since 1994 the parent company of Paramount, bought out the other 50% stake of UPN from Chris-Craft, and became 100% owner of the upstart network. In a separate transaction in 2002, Viacom purchased KCOP's arch-rival, KCAL-TV. Rumors persisted that UPN would move to KCAL, making KCOP an independent station once again (which would have been the second such station owned by Fox, after KDFI in Dallas) and KCAL a UPN owned-and-operated station, the largest such station. However, Viacom said that it would continue to operate KCAL as an independent station (at least for the time being), and UPN would stay on KCOP (which meant that WPSG in Philadelphia would continue to be UPN's largest O&O). Fox recently renewed its affiliation agreement with UPN in an now defunct eight-year pact.

Sports coverage

KCOP was once the home of the Los Angeles Marathon, carrying the race from its inception in 1986 until 1999, and also carried the National Basketball Association's Los Angeles Clippers from 1991 to 1996. It was also the broadcast home of the Los Angeles Dodgers from 2002 to 2005. Currently (since 2006) KCOP broadcasts Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim games.

My Network TV (2006-Present)

On January 24, 2006, CBS Corporation and Time-Warner announced it would be ceasing operations on both UPN and The WB. They formed a joint-venture to create a new network called The CW, which is scheduled to launch in September 2006. 11 CBS-owned UPN stations and 16 WB stations owned by the Tribune Company have signed a ten-year affiliation agreement to the network. Los Angeles' WB flagship, KTLA-TV will become the new network's West Coast flagship.

One day later, KCOP removed all references of UPN from its logos and promotions, adopting the name KCOP 13, while their newscast re-branded to Channel 13 News. The station also announced that they would no longer promote any UPN programing. KCOP was the first Fox-owned UPN station to make these changes, which were later applied to their other UPN stations.

On February 22, 2006, Fox announced that KCOP will be part, and the West Coast flagship, of a new primetime network called My Network TV, which is scheduled to launch on September 5, 2006. My Network TV will be operated by Fox Television Stations, Inc. and Twentieth Television. A promotional video shown on the day of the network's announcement on New York sister station WWOR-TV showed that the tentative branding of My Network stations would be My (channel number), and WWOR rebranded as my 9 on April 17. On May 5, 2006 Washington, D.C. sister station WDCA made a similar move, rebranding as my 20. As of May 30 2006, promotions teasing the network have also started appearing on My Network affiliates (including KCOP), featuring the theme of Entertainment you can call your own.

KCOP began on-air usage of its new my13 logo on June 22, 2006.

Logos and idents

Image:Klac48.jpg|KLAC-TV logo from 1948 to 1950
(re-creation) Image:Klac.jpg|KLAC-TV logo from 1950 to 1954 Image:Kcop75.jpg|KCOP-TV logo from 1975 to 1977 Image:Kcop77.jpg|KCOP-TV logo from 1977 to 1979 Image:Kcop79.jpg|KCOP-TV ident from 1979 to 1980. The station used this logo until 1985. Image:Kcop1980.jpg|KCOP-TV ident from 1980 to 1982 Image:Kcop84.jpg|KCOP-TV ident from 1984 to 1985 Image:Kcop85.jpg|KCOP-TV ident from 1986 to 1995. The "13" numeric logo survived until 1998. Image:Kcop1986.jpg|KCOP-TV ident from 1986 to 1987 Image:Kcop1987.jpg|KCOP-TV ident from 1987 to 1990 Image:Kcop97.jpg|KCOP-TV logo from 1995 to 1998 Image:Kcop98.jpg|KCOP-TV logo from 1998 to 2002 Image:Kcop2002.jpg|KCOP-TV logo from 2002 to 2006 Image:NewKCOP.PNG|KCOP-TV logo from January 2006 to June 24, 2006 Image:Kcop_new_mntv.JPG|KCOP-TV used from June 25, 2006 to present

News operation

For many years, KCOP had run a newscast at 10pm. The station's newscast has generally been the lowest rated evening newscast of the seven VHF television stations in the Los Angeles market. The newscast length has varied from 30 minutes to an hour depending on the station budget. However, when the station was purchased by Fox and its operations were taken over by KTTV, it moved the newscast to 11pm to avoid direct competition with KTTV (which also runs a 10pm newscast), and trimmed it from an hour in length down to 30 minutes.

The station's news production and resources are now also handled by KTTV. There are three anchors, Lauren Sanchez, Rick Garcia, and Maria Quiban. Sanchez and Garcia, often present news stories for KTTV, and Garcia has been the lead sports anchor and sports director at Channel 11 since 1987.

KCOP's late-evening news takes a more unconventional approach than its competition, Channels 2 (KCBS), 4 (KNBC), and 7 (KABC). To appeal to a younger audience, it mainly features its female news anchors in slightly more revealing, trendy, and tight clothing. Its news stories also tend to be much shorter in detail, in a faster-paced format. In addition, it has become the first station to emphasize entertainment and trend-setting news as a major part of its format, one idea which has attracted a large young demographic.

KCOP's news ratings lag behind its main counterparts, Channels 2, 4, and 7. Its newscast continually places 4th in the ratings, as it did when the station was competing at 10pm against Channels 5, 9, and 11. However, KCOP's news draw substantially higher ratings among young people, especially young Latinos.

A notable aspect of KCOP's news broadcast is that all three of its anchors are minorities. Sanchez and Garcia are Mexican American, and Quiban is Filipino American.

On April 10, 2006, KCOP's newscast was expanded from 30 minutes to a full hour, which made it the only Los Angeles station with a full-hour newscast at 11pm.

Newscast Titles

• News 13 (1970s, mid 1980s)
• World Network News Los Angeles (early 1980s)
• Real News (1990s)
• UPN News 13 (1995-2002)
• UPN 13 News (2002-2006)
• Channel 13 News (January-September 2006)
• My 13 News (September 2006-present)

Movie Umbrella Titles

• The 8 O'Clock Movie (1970s-1990)
• The Late Picture Show (1970s-1980s)
• The Hollywood Screening Room (1970s)
• Movie for a Sunday Afternoon (1970s-1980s)
• The Saturday Film Festival (1970s-1980s)
• Hollywood Presents (1970s-1980s)
• The Movie Arcade (1980s)
• Playhouse Thirteen (1980s)
• L.A. Theatre (1980s-1996)
• Matinee Thirteen (1980s-1989)
• Teleplex 13 (1989-1994)
• UPN Teleplex 13 (1995-2001)
• UPN 13 at the Flicks (2000-2001)
• UPN 13 Movie (2001-2005)
• Channel 13 Movie (January-September 2006)
• My 13 Movie (September 2006-present)

Station Slogans

• Channel 13, KCOP Los Angeles, a Chris-Craft Industries Television Station (1980s)
• The Very Independent Channel 13 (late 1980s-1990s)
• Get It On (2000s)
• Get it on 13 (2006)

External links

• [KCOP-TV web site]
• [Photos of KCOP's news set]
• [Query the FCC's TV station database for KCOP-TV]

Coordinates: [34° 13' 27" N 118° 3' 45" W]

Broadcast television in the Los Angeles market  [(Nielsen DMA #2)]
KCBS 2 (CBS) - KNBC 4 (NBC) - KTLA 5 (The WB/The CW) (The Tube on DT5) - KSFV 6 (Almavision) - KABC 7 (ABC) - KCAL 9 (Ind) - KTTV 11 (Fox) - KCOP 13 (UPN/MNTV) - KSCI 18 (Ind) - KWHY 22 (Ind) - KVCR 24 (PBS) - KNET 25 (Almavision) - KNLA 27 (Ind) - KCET 28 (PBS) - KPXN 30 (i) - KMEX 34 (UNI) - KTBN 40 (TBN) - KXLA 44 (Ind) - KLAU 45 (Almavision) - KFTR 46 (TFU) - KOCE 50 (PBS) - KVEA 52 (TEL) - KAZA 54 (AZA) - KDOC 56 (Ind) - KJLA 57 / KSMV-LP 33 / KSGA-LP 64 (Ind) - KLCS 58 (PBS) - KRCA 62 (Ind) - KBEH 63 (Ind) - KHIZ 64 (Ind) - KHTV 67 (HSN) - KTAV 69 (Almavision)
Local cable television channels FSN West - FSN Prime Ticket
Past broadcast stations KVST / KEEF 68 (non-commercial)

 

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