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|---|---|
| Channels | |
| Branding | ABC 7;ABC 7Eyewitness News |
| Programming | |
| Affiliations |
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| Ownership | |
| Owner |
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| History | |
| Founded | 1947 |
First air date | September 16, 1949 (1949-09-16) |
Former call signs | KECA-TV (1949–1954) |
Former channel numbers |
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Call sign meaning | American Broadcasting Company |
| Technical information[1] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 282 |
| ERP | |
| HAAT | 978 m (3,209 ft) |
| Transmitter coordinates | 34°13′37″N118°4′1″W / 34.22694°N 118.06694°W /34.22694; -118.06694 |
| Translator(s) | see§ Translators |
| Links | |
Public license information | |
| Website | abc7 |
KABC-TV (channel 7) is atelevision station inLos Angeles, California, United States. It is theWest Coastflagship station of theABC television network,owned and operated through itsABC Owned Television Stations division. KABC-TV maintains studios in the Grand Central Business Centre ofGlendale, and its transmitter is located onMount Wilson.
Channel 7 first signed on the air under thecall sign KECA-TV on September 16, 1949.[2] It was the last television station in Los Angeles operating on theVHF band to debut and the last of ABC's five originalowned-and-operated stations to make its debut, after San Francisco'sKGO-TV, which signed on four months earlier. It was also the last of the Los Angeles "classic seven" TV stations which were originally on the VHF dial, prior to the 2009 digital conversions. No other stations debuted in Los Angeles until 1958, when educational stationKTHE operated briefly on channel 28, followed by the launch of the first two commercial UHF Los Angeles stations launched (KIIX [nowKSCN-TV] andKMEX-TV, channels 22 and 34, respectively) in 1962.
The station's call sign was named after Los Angeles broadcasting pioneerEarle C. Anthony, whose initials were also present on channel 7's then-sister radio station, KECA (790 AM, nowKABC). On February 1, 1954, KECA-TV changed its call sign to KABC-TV.
Originally, KABC-TV was located at the ABC Television Center, now calledThe Prospect Studios, on Prospect Avenue in theLos Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles, east ofHollywood. In 2000, KABC-TV moved to nearby Glendale into a newstate-of-the-art facility designed byCésar Pelli,[3] as part of the Disney Grand Central Creative Campus (GC3), in the Grand Central Business Centre on the site of the formerGrand Central Airport.[4] The station is currently located four miles (6 km) east (along the corridor of theLos Angeles River and theVentura Freeway) of ABC's West Coast headquarters on theWalt Disney Studios lot inBurbank.
KABC-TV has used theCircle 7 logo since 1962 (the same year ABC created and implemented its current logo) and augmented its bottom left quadrant with the ABC network logo in 1997. The station's news anchors and reporters wear Circle 7 lapel pins when they appear on camera, a practice that had once been standard at each of the original five ABC-owned stations.
On February 4, 2006, KABC-TV became the first television station in the state of California to broadcast its local newscasts inhigh definition using HD cameras in the studio and debuted an updated set.
KABC-TV shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 7, at noon on June 12, 2009, as part of thefederally mandated transition from analog to digital television.[5] The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transitionUHF channel 53, which was among the high band UHF channels (52–69) that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition, to its analog-era VHF channel 7.[6] After the transition occurred, some viewers had difficulty receiving KABC's signal, despite operating at a higheffective radiated power of 25 kW. On March 31, 2009, KABC-TV filed an application with the FCC to upgrade its signal strength to 28.7 kW.[7] It was granted a construction permit on March 3, 2011.[8]
In July 2010, The Walt Disney Company became engaged in a carriage dispute withTime Warner Cable.[9] This dispute involved KABC-TV and three other ABC owned-and-operated stations,Disney Channel and theESPN family of networks. If a deal had not been made, all of the Disney-owned channels would have been removed from Time Warner Cable andBright House Networks systems across the United States. The companies reached a long-term agreement to keep the stations and their sister cable channels on Time Warner Cable and its co-managed systems on September 2, 2010. On August 31, 2023, Disney removed all of its channels, including KABC-TV, two other ABC-owned stations, and the ESPN networks, fromSpectrum cable systems due to a carriage dispute, its first with the provider since 2010 when its predecessor, Time Warner Cable, was involved in a dispute with Disney.[10] On September 11, 2023, the stations and their sister cable channels were restored by Charter Communications (the parent company of Spectrum) after the company and Disney reached an agreement.[11] KABC-TV was then pulled fromDirecTV on September 1, 2024, as a result of a dispute between the satellite provider and Disney. The removal came just hours before aUSC Trojans college football victory overLSU airing on ABC.[12]
Digital channel 7.3 previously carried programming fromThe Local AccuWeather Channel; it was replaced with a standard-definition feed of the Live Well Network in 2010. On April 15, 2015, the comedy networkLaff replaced the standard-definition feed of LWN on 7.3.[13] ABC Stations rebranded Live Well Network on .2 asLocalish on February 17, 2020, to add an outlet for the Localish lifestyle content.[14]
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KABC-TV currently broadcasts 48 hours, 55 minutes of locally produced newscasts each week (with 7 hours, 35 minutes each weekday; six hours on Saturdays and five hours on Sundays). KABC-TV formerly operated anews bureau in California's state capital ofSacramento, sharing resources with sister stations KGO-TV in San Francisco and KFSN-TV inFresno; the bureau was closed in 2014. The station also has bureaus located within its viewing area, inRiverside andOrange. In the 1980s, the station also had a bureau located inVentura.
Lew Irwin Reports, the station's first locally produced newscast, debuted in 1957. Initially, the 15-minute program was broadcast Monday through Saturday at 11 p.m. and featured Irwin delivering a news summary prepared by KABC Radio news writers, followed by a seven-minute feature written by Irwin that included footage shot for the program by theMGM-owned newsreel company Telenews. Irwin interviewed a host of public figures for the program, including former PresidentHarry S. Truman, former SenatorJohn F. Kennedy, philosopherBertrand Russell, actorMarlon Brando, H-bomb scientistEdward Teller, and poetsRobert Frost andCarl Sandburg. Irwin's features often included news-breaking investigations into such controversial topics as migrant workers,police brutality, proprietary hospitals, disc jockeypayola, theHollywood blacklist, and theJohn Birch Society.[15] In a letter to the chief of ABC News, James Hagerty, in 1961, Sandburg wrote: "He is one of the great reporters in America today. I could make a case that he is one of the most useful citizens." In 1962, a new KABC-TV program director for the station mounted a second newscast on the station (following John Daly's network newscast in the early evening) presented by Ed Fleming, who had previously worked for rival KNXT. A few months later, he decided to feature Fleming and Irwin on both the early-evening and late-night newscasts, with Fleming delivering the news and Irwin a long-form feature. After numerous clashes between the program director and Irwin, Irwin resigned in 1962 citing creative differences. He was eventually succeeded byKCOP newscaster Baxter Ward, who was backed by the station's first staff film crew.
KABC-TV first adopted theEyewitness News format for its newscasts in February 1969, not long after it became popular on New York City sister station WABC-TV. Like the other ABC-owned stations, KABC-TV used the "Tar Sequence" cue from the soundtrack of the 1967 filmCool Hand Luke as its theme music, and continued to use it even after other channels adopted an updated version of the theme, the Frank Gari-composed "News Series 2000". Later, the station used the originalCool Hand Luke theme only during the main newscast. The station's newscasts used a synthesized version of the old theme (composed by Frank Becker) during the mid-1980s. KABC-TV picked up the "News Series 2000" package first in 1989 forEyewitness News promos, then in 1990 for additional use in bumpers and as the closing theme before being fully adopted as theEyewitness News theme in 1992. The originalCool Hand Luke theme was retained for someEyewitness News promos as late as 1993. In 1995, KABC began using Gari Media Group's "Eyewitness News" music package, which remains as the station's news theme.
Bill Bonds andStu Nahan were KABC-TV's first anchor team under the Eyewitness News banner. Within two years, unable to upend the dominance of KNXT (now KCBS-TV)'sThe Big News andEleven O'Clock Report withJerry Dunphy andKNBC'sNewservice format, Bonds returned to his previous ABC assignment atWXYZ-TV in Detroit and Nahan became the station's lead sportscaster. A succession of anchors—Joseph Benti, Barney Morris,John Schubeck andJudd Hambrick—followed, but the newscast gained its greatest growth in August 1975 when KABC-TV hired Dunphy as its lead anchor, following his firing from KNXT. Though initially paired with newcomerJohn Hambrick, Dunphy later partnered with reporterChristine Lund, and that duo led KABC-TV to local news supremacy well into the 1980s. Others who have reported or anchored for KABC-TV includeLisa McRee,Harold Greene,Tawny Little,Laura Diaz,Paul Moyer,Chuck Henry,Johnny Mountain,George Fischbeck,Judd Rose, andBill Weir. Former KABC-TV sports reporters and anchors include formerNFL playersLynn Swann,Gene Washington,Jim Hill, andBob Chandler; and formerMajor League Baseball player (and currentLos Angeles Dodgers radio analyst andplay-by-play announcer)Rick Monday.
In the highly competitive Los Angeles media market,Eyewitness News has long engaged in several initiatives to connect with local viewers and is quite beloved in Southern California for its "neighborhood news" approach. One such early effort was to originate a local newscast from a typical Southern California suburban family home. In the spring of 1972, a contest was held, asking the public to write letters telling KABC why an edition of the newscast should be produced at their home. The winner was Joseph Jensen from Sepulveda (now known asNorth Hills), and on June 13, the 11 p.m. edition ofEyewitness News originated live from the Jensen family dining room, with anchormen John Schubeck and Joseph Benti seated at the Jensen dinner table, reading the latest headlines. The Jensen family surrounded the journalists, dressed in their "Sunday best". Camera equipment, lights, microphones and a remote broadcast truck (similar to the ones used at sporting events), to connect the house to the ABC Television Center, were employed to help with the broadcast.[16][17]
During the 1970s and 1980s, the station's newscasts often included spirited miniature debates and commentaries reflecting various political viewpoints. Several notable politicians andpolitical pundits appeared on these segments, includingProposition 13 backerHoward Jarvis, formerU.S. Representative and SenatorJohn Tunney,Bruce Herschensohn,Bill Press andBaxter Ward. In addition, KABC-TV aired brief editorials from the station's general manager, most notably John Severino, who served throughout the 1980s. This practice was discontinued in 1990.
During the 1980s, KABC-TV was one of a few stations in the country to run a three-hour block oflocal newscasts on weekdays from 4 to 7 pm. The station was the first in the region to introduce an hour-long newscast at 4 pm, first anchored by Jerry Dunphy and Tawny Little in September 1980. Before this, the station ran two hours of news from 5 to 7 pm. The station reduced this block by one half-hour in 1990, when it movedWorld News Tonight from 7 p.m. to 6:30 pm. For a time in the late 1980s, its 6:30 p.m. newscast was titledEyewitness Update and served as a final recap of the day's news, similar in nature to an 11 p.m. newscast. KABC-TV is one of three ABC stations on the West Coast to airWorld News at 6:30 p.m. (the two other ABC stations to do this beingKGTV inSan Diego andKAEF inEureka); most other ABC stations in the western United States run the program at either 5:30 or 6 pm. When the network soap operaPort Charles ended its run in 2003, KABC-TV expanded its midday newscast to a full hour. Occasionally, KABC-TV has aired the live East Coast edition ofWorld News Tonight at 3:30 pm.[citation needed]
From January 13, 2014, to July 28, 2022, KABC-TV produced an hour-long evening newscast on then-independentAnaheim-basedKDOC-TV (channel 56); the newscast originally aired at 8 p.m. before moving to 7 p.m. and aired seven nights a week; KDOC also added a midnight rebroadcast of KABC's 11 p.m. newscast.[18] KABC was the fifth ABC owned-and-operated station to enter into a news share agreement (afterWTVD, KGO-TV,WPVI-TV and KFSN-TV). KABC aired its final news broadcast on KDOC on July 28, 2022, due to KDOC being sold toTri-State Christian Television and switching to religious programming the next day.
On May 31, 2016, KABC added a 3 p.m. newscast on weekdays, competing with KTLA's newscast at that time slot. On September 10, 2018, KABC became the third television station in the market to expand its weekday morning newscast to three hours, with an additional half-hour at 4 a.m.
On September 30, 2015, the KABC-TV studios in Glendale were evacuated due to abomb threat. The station's employees were evacuated and forced the station off-the-air; the suspect who was responsible for the threat was a 22-year-old Glendale man, who was arrested on October 14, 2015. As a result, the 4 p.m. newscast was temporarily moved outside the studio, while the police swept the studio with bomb-sniffing dogs inside. At 4:42 pm, the station's employees were allowed to re-enter the studio and the newscast continued from the studio after the threat.[19]
In February 2017, the station's news helicopter, AIR7HD, received an upgrade and debuted with two new features: XTREME Vision and SkyMap7. XTREME Vision uses an advanced zoom lens and can track vehicle speeds in real time. SkyMap7 usesaugmented reality technology which overlays the names of streets and highways onto the picture. Both features are powered by the SHOTOVER F1 Live.[20]
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The introduction of theEyewitness News format, followed by the addition of syndicated staples such asThe Oprah Winfrey Show in 1986,Live with Kelly and Mark and its predecessors in 1991, andJeopardy! andWheel of Fortune in 1992, has allowed KABC-TV to maintain a substantial ratings advantage over its competition. Leveraging the strength of its sizeable lead-in at 3 p.m. by the now-defunctOprah, KABC-TV has long held first or second in the ratings for its 4 to 6:30 p.m. news block. However, ratings leads for the morning and late news have typically been expensive battles with local stationsKTLA andKTTV in the morning, and KNBC (and recentlyKCBS-TV) at 11 p.m.
With its across-the-board ratings success in hand, the station has been known to run quick five-second promos throughout the day that feature the slogan, "ABC7 – #1 in news, #1 in Southern California". This is a throwback to its openers during the 1980s and 1990s, when the station proudly proclaimed itself "Number One in Southern California".
KABC-TV led all local news time periods during initial coverage of theJanuary 2025 Southern California wildfires.[21][22]
KABC-TV, as well as the other Disney owned television stations, has a large presence on several social media platforms. In May 2014, KABC-TV claimed to be the first local TV station in the United States to surpass one million likes on Facebook.[23]
Owing to its common ownership with ESPN, KABC-TV became the designated broadcast home ofLos Angeles Rams games in 2016 for the team's appearances onMonday Night Football. KABC-TV carries the Rams'Monday Night Football games from that year onward while other games are split between three other television stations: KCBS-TV through theNFL on CBS, including the network'sThursday night games (2014–2017), KNBC throughNBC Sunday Night Football and NBC-produced Thursday night games (2016–2017), KTTV through theNFL on Fox and Fox-produced Thursday night games (2018–2021), and KTLA throughAmazon Prime-produced Thursday night games (since 2022). The station also produces and broadcasts the Rams' team shows on Saturday nights during the regular season, with comedianJay Mohr once serving as host for several weeks in 2016.[24] The same broadcast schedule applies for theLos Angeles Chargers, after they relocated from San Diego in 2017.
The Chargers named KABC-TV the team's official English-language television broadcaster from 2017 to 2019, giving KABC-TV access to preseason telecasts and weekly magazines.[25] In 2021, the Chargers moved their preseason broadcasts to KCBS-TV while the Rams moved their broadcasts to KABC-TV as part of a new partnership which also saw the station airing the coach's show on Saturday nights.
KABC-TV will serve as the host station forSuper Bowl LXI in 2027 atSoFi Stadium inInglewood.
In addition, KABC-TV carries NBA games involving theLos Angeles Lakers and theLos Angeles Clippers through the league's contract with thenetwork. The station has carried the Lakers'2004,2008,2009,2010, and2020 NBA Finals appearances, including the team's championship victories in 2009, 2010, and 2020. KABC-TV also aired the Lakers' inauguralNBA In-Season Tournament championship victory in2023.
From 1976 to 1989 and from 1994 to 1995, KABC-TV airedMLB on ABC national broadcasts of select games involving theLos Angeles Dodgers andCalifornia (later Anaheim) Angels per the network's then broadcast rights with the league, in that capacity airing the Dodgers' victory in the1981 World Series.
In its role as the local station for nationally airedNHL on ABC games from 1997 to 2004 and since 2021, it also airs select games featuring theLos Angeles Kings andAnaheim Ducks.
KABC-TV served as the home station for the1984 Summer Olympics, which were held in Los Angeles.
The station also airedLos Angeles Wildcats games as part of ESPN's coverage of the revivedXFL in early 2020 before the league suspended operations due to theCOVID-19 pandemic.
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KABC-TV produces several local shows includingVista L.A. (which profilesLatino life in Southern California), andEye on L.A. (which has been on the air in some form since the early 1980s). On weekends, the station airsEyewitness Newsmakers, hosted by reporter Adrienne Alpert. The station produces sports shows under various names throughout the year, all formerly under the nameABC 7 Sports Zone, which formerly originated from theESPN Zone in Anaheim:Rams Primetime Saturday airs following the network's telecasts ofSaturday Night college football games; during theNBA season, the station airsSlam Dunk Saturday/Sunday followingSaturday night andSunday afternoon games. MostABC 7 Sports Zone shows previously originated from local sports venues including theLos Angeles Memorial Coliseum inExposition Park, theRose Bowl inPasadena, andStaples Center in Los Angeles, but shows are now produced from the station's Glendale studios. It is hosted by Rob Fukuzaki, and is joined during the basketball season by former Laker greatMichael Cooper. The program is a spin-off ofMonday Night Live, which aired on KABC-TV from 1989 untilMonday Night Football left the network after the2005 NFL season. That show was hosted byTodd Donoho until 1997, and later Bill Weir and Rob Fukuzaki and featured an extensive trivia contest.
Prior to ABC's annual telecasts of theAcademy Awards, KABC-TV produces a live pre-awards show and post-awards show,On the Red Carpet at the Oscars, featuring red carpet interviews and fashion commentary. This show also airs on the network's other O&O stations and is syndicated to several ABC affiliates and other broadcasters outside the country. From 2010 to 2014, KABC spun the special off into a weekly entertainment news show,On the Red Carpet, hosted byRachel Smith.[26]
In the past, KABC-TV featured various locally produced shows such asAM Los Angeles; a morning talk show which at various times featured personalitiesRegis Philbin,Sarah Purcell,Ralph Story, Tawny Little,Cristina Ferrare,Cyndy Garvey, andSteve Edwards as hosts (Live with Kelly and Mark, formerly co-hosted by Philbin until 2011 and produced at New York sister station WABC-TV, now occupies the former time slot ofAM Los Angeles). Edwards also hosted a short-lived afternoon show in the mid-1980s called330, which aired after the ABC soap operaThe Edge of Night.
On April 30, 1954, KABC-TV aired a preview program,Dig Me Later, Vampira, hosted byMaila Nurmi at 11 p.m.The Vampira Show premiered on the same night. For the first four weeks, the show aired at midnight, and it moved to 11 p.m. on May 29. Ten months later, on March 5, 1955, the series began airing at 10:30 pm. As Vampira, Nurmi introduced films while wandering through a hallway of mist and cobwebs. Her horror-related comedy antics included talking to her pet spider Rollo and encouraging viewers to write forepitaphs instead of autographs. When the series was cancelled in 1955, she retained rights to the character of Vampira.
In 1964,Pinky Lee attempted a return to kids television by hosting a local children's comedy program on KABC-TV. The series was also seen in national syndication from 1964 to 1965. But the program fell prey to creative interference from the show's producers and from station management. Lee tried to fight off the creative interference, but his efforts were for naught. The 1960s version ofThe Pinky Lee Kids TV Show went off the air after one season.
The station also served as the official host broadcaster of theKingdom Day Parade inCrenshaw andLeimert Park.
| License | Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| KABC-TV | 7.1 | 720p | 16:9 | KABC-DT | ABC |
| 7.2 | 480i | LOCLish | Localish | ||
| 7.3 | CHARGE! | Charge! | |||
| 7.4 | QVC2 | QVC2 | |||
| KRCA | 62.1 | 720p | KRCA-DT | Estrella TV | |
| 62.2 | 480i | KRCA-2 | Estrella News | ||
| 62.3 | CONFESS | Confess |
KABC-TV Los Angeles on Thursday achieved a social media milestone by attracting a Facebook following of more than 1 million people -- the first local TV station in the country to accomplish that feat.
Includes English-language stations in out-of-state TV markets, but reaching a portion of California | ||
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