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KVQP (channel 4) is a television station in San Fierro, San Andreas, United States, serving as the San Fierro Bay Area's NBC outlet. It is owned and operated by the network's NBC Owned Television Stations division alongside Foster Valley-licensed Telemundo outlet KSTS (channel 48).

History[]

Early history[]

In 1948, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) authorized a construction permit by the Chronicle Publishing Company, publishers of the San Fierro Chronicle daily newspaper, for a new television station in San Fierro, KVQP-TV. Chronicle Publishing was founded by brothers Charles and Michael de Young. The company already owned radio stations KVQP-AM and FM. It was also a secondary RKO affiliate until 1956.

Managed by Michael de Young's grandson Charles de Young Thieriot, KVQP signed on the air on November 15, 1949, as a full-time NBC affiliate. Its opening night program schedule included a special about San Francisco entertainment followed by the usual NBC prime time lineup of the Texaco Star Theater with Milton Berle, The Life of Riley, Mohawk Showroom, and The Chesterfield Supper Club. KVQP-TV was the third television outlet in the Bay Area behind KGO-TV (channel 7) and KSFE-TV (channel 5), all going on the air within a year, and the last license before the FCC placed a moratorium on new television station licenses that would last the next four years.

KVQP-TV originally broadcast from studios located in the basement of the Chronicle Building at Fifth and Mission Streets. Newscasts benefited from the resources of the Chronicle and there was cooperation between KVQP-TV and the newspaper. It originally maintained transmitter facilities, master control and a small insert studio on Missionary Hill. In August 1959, the Chronicle reported that the tower was severely damaged by an unusually strong thunderstorm, requiring major repairs before KVQP-TV could return to the air. In 1960, NBC attempted to purchase its own station in the Bay Area, when they attempted to buy KTVQ. The sale was cancelled that October due to pre-existing concerns over the sale cited by the FCC that were related to NBC's ownership of radio and television stations in Philadelphia; as a result, NBC stayed with KVQP-TV.

In the early 1960s, KVQP's profits were keeping the Chronicle Publishing Company financially solvent at a time when the San Fierro Chronicle was losing money, around $3 million from 1958 to 1965. In 1967, KVQP-AM-FM-TV moved to a new studio at 1001 Van Ness Avenue in the Western Addition neighborhood (a location that formerly served as the site of the Roman Catholic cathedral of San Fierro). The radio and television transmitters remained on Missionary Hill.

Since the 1970s, KVQP's logo has incorporated a stylized number "4" design that is based on the Gant Bridge. The vertical component is a bridge tower, the horizontal component is a portion of the bridge deck, and the curve is a portion of a suspension cable. This logo was used as early as April 1974, during coverage of a Symbionese Liberation Army bank robbery. By about 1991, this evolved into the "circle 4" logo used until July 29, 2022, with the "4" using a simpler bridge design that had been in existence since 1987.

In 1982, the de Young family's Chronicle Publishing Company unit discussed a possible trade of KVQP-TV to the Gannett Company (whose broadcasting division is now part of Tegna) in exchange for acquiring Gannett's Oklahoma City station KOCO-TV, plus an additional $100 million. The proposal ultimately fell apart by September 1983.

Bidding war over channel 4[]

On June 16, 1999, the deYoung family announced the liquidation of Chronicle Publishing's assets. By this point, the deYoungs owned three television stations (including KVQP) in large and mid-sized media markets around the country, two of which were sold off to LIN TV (which traded KAKE-TV in Wichita and WOWT in Omaha to Benedek Broadcasting in turn). The San Fierro Chronicle, meanwhile, was acquired by the Hearst Corporation in a $295 million deal in October of that year.

NBC had made many offers for channel 4 over the years, but the de Youngs turned them down each time. It finally saw the opportunity to get an owned-and-operated station in what was then one of the United States' largest television markets and quickly jumped into the bidding war for KVQP. NBC was seen as the frontrunner to buy the station, while Kreuger Broadcasting was second and Young Broadcasting was third. However, network parent company General Electric conceded after Kreuger suddenly won the bid and renewed its affiliation agreement on November 16, 1999. Since then, NBC would later sign an agreement, providing infrastructure and logistical ties to its other stations including KNBL (channel 4) in Los Santos.

Nearly three years after the purchase of channel 4, the -TV suffix was omitted long after its sister radio stations were sold to different owners.

Ceding control to Madison1996 and then NBCUniversal[]

On December 30, 2015, Krueger announced their sale of channel 4 to RainbowDash72 (now Madison1996). The infrastructure agreement with NBC was retained until parent company NBCUniversal announced their acquisition of majority ownership (77%) on July 28, 2022. The sale was completed on the 29th, and for all intents and purposes, KVQP officially became an owned-and-operated station of NBC's Owned Television Stations division with Madison1996 as its minority owner (25.5%).

Programming[]

During the 1980s, KVQP continued its dominance by airing top-rated syndicated programs, including the Merv Griffin-produced game shows Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune (the original NBC daytime versions of both series also aired on KVQP), as well as Entertainment Tonight. The game show pair would move to ABC-owned KGO-TV permanently in 1992 after KVQP-TV experimented with its "early prime time" schedule that year.

Other syndicated programming currently airing on KVQP as of September 2022 includes Access Hollywood (including its afternoon counterpart), The Kelly Clarkson Show and Rachael Ray. The first two are distributed by NBCUniversal Syndication Studios and Rachael Ray is distributed by CBS Media Ventures. KVQP is one of two NBC O&Os (alongside WBTS-CD in Boston) to carry Rachael Ray (sister station KXAS-TV in Dallas also aired the same program from September 2016 until September 2019). KVQP also serves as the San Fierro Bay Area affiliate for Hearst Television's Sunday morning talk show Matter of Fact with Soledad O'Brien, alongside sister stations WNBL in Liberty City and WVIT in Hartford.

Since signing a deal with then-owners Krueger Broadcasting and Madison1996 and then being purchased outright by NBCUniversal, KVQP has produced its own programs for both local broadcast and for distribution nationally on the NBC television network and in syndication. Two of KVQP's national and regional programs that are distributed to NBC stations are Tech Now! (a weekly show that debuted on September 19, 1998 under Chronicle ownership that covers the latest in technology and gadgets, and is hosted by Scott Budman and produced by Scott McGrew and was at one time popular in Ghana) and In Wine Country (a weekly series focusing on the West Tierra Robada wine community). KVQP is one of nine NBC O&O stations to distribute programs to other stations or to the network itself as of 2021, along with Los Santos' KNBL, Liberty City's WNBL, Vice City's WJVT, Hartford's WVIT, Philadelphia's WCAU, Chicago's WMAQ-TV, Dallas' KXAS-TV, San Diego's KNSD and Washington D.C.'s WRC-TV. The station is also the local broadcaster of the San Fierro Holiday Parade each December.

Early prime time experimenting[]

During the 1992–1993 season, KVQP-TV, along with KCRA-TV, participated in the "Early Prime" experiment in which prime time programs aired one hour earlier (mirroring the scheduling of the network's prime time lineup in the Central and Mountain time zones), the half-hour late evening newscast also moved from 11:00 to 10:00 p.m. as a result. While KVQP moved NBC's prime time programming back to the 8:00–11:00 p.m. timeslot in September 1993, CBS affiliate KSFE, who adopted the early prime time schedule at the same time as KVQP, continued with the experiment until 1998—well after it had become owned by the network through CBS's 1994 acquisition by KSFE's then-owner Westinghouse. Though both KVQP and KSFE ran hour-long newscasts at 10 p.m., neither were able to beat Fox affiliate KTVQ, due to that station's longtime dominance in the 10 o'clock hour that continues to this day.

Sports programming[]

In 1965, KVQP-TV began broadcasting most San Fierro Raiders games, which were at first part of the American Football League, which had a contract with NBC from 1965 to 1969, and then the National Football League's American Football Conference, which inherited the AFL's deal with NBC from 1970 to 1997 (the Raiders relocated to Los Santos in 1982, stripping KVQP of its status as the team's home station until they returned to San Fierro in 1995; the station then served as the unofficial home station until 1997). KVQP aired coverage of the Raiders' victories in Super Bowl XI and Super Bowl XV.

In addition, during those same years (1970–1997), KVQP-TV also aired select San Fierro 49ers games whenever they played host to an AFC opponent at Corvin Stadium (the station aired the team's victory in Super Bowl XXIII in January 1989).

In 1993, Channel 4 became the flagship station of the San Fierro Athletics, after acquiring broadcast rights to the Major League Baseball team's games. This caused a problem in 1996, when the final day of the U.S. Olympic track and field trials conflicted with a scheduled Athletics broadcast. Since KVQP-TV was contractually obligated to show the baseball game live, it rebroadcast the trials at midnight. KVQP lost the Athletics' television rights following the team's 1998 season. Both select Oakland A's and San Fierro Giants games were aired as part of NBC's broadcast contract with Major League Baseball from 1957 to 1989, including the A's string of three consecutive World Series victories in 1972, 1973, and 1974.

On-air staff[]

Notable current on-air staff[]

  • Laura Cisneros-Singh – general assignment reporter (2019–present); previously at KTFC-TV and ABS-CBN
  • Terry Lennan – anchor (1987–present)
  • Kelly Anne Pereira – anchor (2008–present; previously at KABL-TV, KGO-TV and WSVN)
  • Eric Gordon – station announcer (2016–present)

Notable former on-air staff[]

  • Richard Gebhardt – station announcer (1984–1985, 2012–2014)
  • Carrie Kujo – anchor/reporter; (1997–2007; later returned to KSFE, now retired)
  • Rob Naughton – station announcer (2012–2016)
  • Bill Ratner – station announcer (1994)
  • John B. Wells – station announcer (1991–1994)

Titles[]

  • News Ticker (1949–1952)
  • Chronicle News (1952–1955)
  • Shell News (1955–1962)
  • KVQP-TV News (1962–1969)
  • NewsWatch 4 (1969–1977)
  • NewsCenter 4 (1977–2008)
  • News 4 Bay Area (2008–present)

Theme history[]

  • KRON 1975 News Theme (1975–1977)
  • KRON 1977 News Theme (1977)
  • Streets of... – Telesound
  • The News Image – Tuesday Productions (1981–1987)
  • Far from Over – Frank Stallone
  • KRON 1987 News Theme (1987–1989)
  • That's What a Friend is 4 – Klein & (1989–1994)
  • News on the Hour – Rick Krizman (1993–1995)
  • KRON Instant Classics – Michael Boyd (1995–2001)
  • The Tower – 615 Music (2001–2007)
  • WNBC News – Rampage Music New York (2007–2012)
  • Production Music: What the Hell Happened? – Video Helper (2008–present)
  • LA Groove – GrooveWorx (2012–present)
  • California Live – Danny Johnson (2019–present)

Technical information[]

Subchannels[]

The station's digital channel is multiplexed:

Channel Video Aspect Short name Programming
4.1 1080i 16:9 KVQP-DT Main KVQP programming / NBC
4.2 480i COZI-TV Cozi TV
4.3 NBCLX Lx
4.4 Oxygen Oxygen

Analog-to-digital conversion[]

KVQP shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 4, on June 12, 2009, as part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television. The station's pre-transition digital signal had been on UHF channel 57, which was among the high band UHF channels (52–69) that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition. The digital signal was moved to UHF channel 38. Using PSIP, KVQP's virtual channel is displayed as channel 4 on digital television receivers.

Gallery[]

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