KDNL-TV - History - ABC Affiliation

ABC Affiliation

In 1994, New World Communications bought St. Louis' longtime ABC affiliate KTVI (channel 2) and three other stations from Argyle Television. New World had signed an affiliation deal to switch the majority of its stations, including KTVI, to Fox. ABC originally wanted to affiliate with longer-established KPLR. However, KPLR opted instead to affiliate with The WB Television Network. More or less by default, ABC cut a deal to affiliate with KDNL and moved its programming there on August 7, 1995. Soon after joining the network, KDNL began showing UPN programming during the late night hours. Despite its size, the St. Louis market did not have enough willing commercial stations at the time to support a full-time UPN affiliate. After becoming an ABC affiliate, KDNL began to air more first-run syndicated programs and reduced its reliance on older sitcoms. In 1996, River City merged with Sinclair. KDNL dropped UPN programming in 1997, and religious station KNLC (channel 24) and KPLR began sharing programming from the network (St. Louis did not have a full-time UPN affiliate until WRBU (channel 46) in East St. Louis, Illinois took on the affiliation in April 2003).

In November 2004, KDNL preempted ABC's telecast of the 1998 movie Saving Private Ryan, following the lead of other Sinclair-owned ABC affiliates, over concerns violent battle scenes and the profanity that were left intact as ABC aired the film uncut (this occurred nine months after the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show controversy). Sinclair refused to allow Charter Communications to carry KDNL's high definition signal until April 19, 2007 (when KDNL-DT began airing on Charter digital channel 780 as part of a three-year national retransmission agreement between Sinclair and Charter), making the station the longest holdout in the area to make its high definition digital feed available on the provider (not counting CBS affiliate KMOV pulling its HD signal from Charter in January 2007).

For most of its tenure as an ABC affiliate, KDNL has been among its weakest affiliates. In stark contrast, KTVI was one of ABC's strongest affiliates. For the better part of a decade since losing its news department in 2001, KDNL's schedule has more closely resembled that of an independent station than that of a Big Three network affiliate in a major market. The station's schedule is heavy on mainstays of syndication seen more on minor network stations (such as The Simpsons), along with a heavy schedule of paid and religious programming, leaving the ABC schedule without many lead-ins. Several ABC shows, such as Good Morning America and ABC World News, garner ratings so low in the St. Louis market that A.C. Nielsen cannot rate them as the samples are too small to classify with a ratings number. The station also has a habit of preempting ABC prime time programming in favor of paid programming. As a result, KDNL regularly places as the fifth among the St. Louis market's television stations, behind KPLR. Ironically, given its status, KDNL was actually the local broadcaster for the St. Louis Rams' victory in Super Bowl XXXIV, which had aired on ABC.

There has also been regular talk of Tribune Broadcasting pursuing the ABC affiliation for KPLR (despite Tribune's strong affiliation ties to The CW and that group's near lack of any Big Three network affiliates among its 23 stations) after KDNL's affiliation agreement expired due to that station's management agreement with Local TV, LLC-owned KTVI and their downplaying of references to its affiliation with The CW as part of that station's on-air branding, along with experimentation with The CW primetime schedule to maximize ratings. However, ABC extended their affiliation agreement with KDNL and Sinclair's other ABC affiliates for five years on March 26, 2010, which will keep KDNL affiliated with the network until at least August 2015. On June 23, 2011, KDNL upgraded its severe weather ticker to be overlaid on high definition programming without having to downconvert HD programming to standard definition.