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| Channels | |
| Branding | 23ABC |
| Programming | |
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| History | |
First air date | September 26, 1953 (72 years ago) (1953-09-26) |
Former channel numbers | Analog: 10 (VHF, 1953–1963), 23 (UHF, 1963–2009) |
Call sign meaning | Kern County Outlet |
| Technical information[1] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 40878 |
| ERP | 10.8 kW |
| HAAT | 1,107 m (3,632 ft) |
| Transmitter coordinates | 35°27′13.8″N118°35′40.3″W / 35.453833°N 118.594528°W /35.453833; -118.594528 |
| Translator(s) | KZKC-LD 28 (UHF) Bakersfield (city) |
| Links | |
Public license information | |
| Website | www |
KERO-TV (channel 23) is atelevision station inBakersfield, California, United States, affiliated withABC and owned by theE. W. Scripps Company. The station's studios are located on 21st Street inDowntown Bakersfield, and its transmitter is located atop Breckenridge Mountain.
KERO-TV operates digitaltranslatorKZKC-LD (channel 28), which allows homes with issues receiving KERO-TV's VHF signal or only aUHF antenna to receive KERO-TV in some form.
KERO-TV went on the air on September 26, 1953, on channel 10 as anNBC affiliate. During the late 1950s, the station was also briefly affiliated with theNTA Film Network.[2] It was locally owned by Kern County Broadcasters along with KERO radio (1230 AM, nowKGEO). The two stations shared a studio in the lobby of the El Tejon Hotel, which was located at the corner of Truxtun Avenue and Chester Avenue. KERO-TV later moved to its current studios on 21st Street.
The radio and TV stations were broken up in late 1955, when KERO radio was sold.[3][4] Wrather-Alvarez Broadcasting, parent ofKFMB-AM-TV inSan Diego, purchased KERO-TV in early 1957;[5] when the Wrather–Alvarez partnership broke up a year later,Jack Wrather kept KERO-TV and the San Diego stations as part of his newly renamed Marietta Broadcasting.[6] In 1959, Wrather merged Marietta Broadcasting intoBuffalo, New York-based Transcontinent Television Corporation.[7][8]
One of KERO-TV's best remembered shows wasCousin Herb's Trading Post, a local variety series in the 1950s. The show's hostHerb Henson was acountry musician, and often featured local artists such asBuck Owens andTommy Collins, who would come to popularize the "Bakersfield Sound". Another local favorite wasThe Uncle Woody Show in the 1960s and 1970s. Radio and TV personalityCasey Kasem also used the KERO studios to tape a weekly musical TV variety show entitledSheBang in the mid-to-late 1960s, while a disc jockey atKRLA inLos Angeles.
As a result of theFederal Communications Commission (FCC) making both the Bakersfield andFresno television markets all-UHF through what was termed asdeintermixture, KERO-TV moved to channel 23 on July 1, 1963, and simulcasted on channels 10 and 23 for two months, with channel 10 being shut off at the end of August of the same year.[9] The move of KERO-TV to channel 23 opened up channel 10 for use byKLVX inLas Vegas, which signed on the air in 1968.
Transcontinent sold most of its stations toTaft Broadcasting in 1964, but KERO was not included; it was sold toTime-Life.[10] Another publishing firm,McGraw-Hill, acquired KERO-TV in 1972 along with the rest of Time-Life's broadcasting division—KOGO-TV (nowKGTV) in San Diego, KLZ-TV (nowKMGH-TV) inDenver (its sole CBS affiliate at the time) and WFBM-TV (nowWRTV) inIndianapolis.[11]
As its sister stations KGTV and WRTV switched to ABC in the late 1970s, it was expected that KERO-TV would eventually switch to from third-place NBC to first-place ABC. But instead, in March 1984, KERO-TV swapped affiliations withKGET-TV and joinedCBS, citing the network's stronger programming in the Bakersfield area.[12] On March 1, 1996, as part of a corporate affiliation deal between McGraw-Hill and ABCspurred by a deal betweenGroup W and CBS, KERO picked up the ABC affiliation from cross-town rivalKBAK-TV (channel 29), and in the process became the second television station in the Bakersfield market (after KGET), and one of a handful of television stations in the United States, to have been an affiliate of all of the traditionalBig Three television networks (NBC, CBS, and ABC).
In August 2006, KERO-TV gained a sister station, KZKC-LP, then an Azteca América affiliate.
On October 3, 2011, McGraw-Hill announced it was selling its entire television station group to theE. W. Scripps Company for $212 million.[13] The deal was completed on December 30, 2011.[14]
In 2004, KERO-TV, along with the other McGraw-Hill stations, claimed that they tried to preemptSaving Private Ryan, but out of desperation, aired the film.[15][16]
On September 8, 2014, the station dropped theSonygame showsJeopardy! andWheel of Fortune due to Scripps' chain-wide effort to replace the shows in their markets with lower-cost local and chain-produced programming. The programs moved to KBAK, and were replaced with two Scripps-produced programs, newsmagazineThe List and game showLet's Ask America (the latter being replaced withInside Edition after its cancellation).
Former news anchor Burleigh Smith (died 1990) is considered by many to be the father of television news in Bakersfield. Smith produced and anchored at KERO from 1954 to 1960, and again from 1973 to 1990.
Other longtime KERO news personalities include Don Rodewald (who hosted the afternoon movie), George Day, and Sunny Scofield.MSNBCLive & Direct hostRita Cosby was a KERO reporter in the 1980s.
Lloyd Lindsay Young joined the station in 2005 as chief weathercaster. His trademark intro is "Hellooooo (insert city name)". He is also known for his outrageous weather pointers which are sent in by viewers; submissions have ranged from amannequin leg to adildo. On September 17, 2008,The Bakersfield Californian reported that Young departed KERO-TV after more than three years there. No reason was given, which followed the broadcasts of September 16, 2008. Rusty Shoop, who is known throughout Bakersfield, and was a former KERO weather anchor, replaced Young. Shoop earlier suffered a brain aneurysm and this was his first TV appearance since the illness. Shoop started on October 27, 2008. After being at KERO-TV for a year, Shoop retired from broadcasting on December 9, 2009, for medical reasons stemming from the brain aneurysm.[17] On January 18, 2010, Jack Church, who was chief meteorologist from 1999 to 2001, replaced Rusty Shoop and was the chief meteorologist from January 18, 2010, until May 5, 2011.
The station's signal ismultiplexed:
| Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23.1 | 720p | 16:9 | KERO-HD | ABC |
| 23.2 | COURT | Court TV | ||
| 23.3 | 480i | GRIT | Grit | |
| 23.4 | Grit-TV | Ion Television | ||
| 23.5 | Bounce | Bounce TV | ||
| 23.6 | BUSTED | Busted | ||
| 23.7 | HSN | HSN |
KERO-TV discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, overUHF channel 23, on June 12, 2009, the official date on which full-power television stations in the United Statestransitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transitionVHF channel 10,[19] usingvirtual channel 23.
Includes English-language stations in out-of-state TV markets, but reaching a portion of California | ||
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