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80-507: Because AM 740 is a Canadian clear channel frequency, WDGY is a daytime-only station. It must sign-off at sunset to prevent interfering with Class A CFZM in Toronto . WDGY can be heard around the clock on two FM translator stations: 92.1 W221BS from St. Paul and 103.7 W279DD from Hudson. The station can also be heard on 107.1 KTMY 's HD 2 channel in the Twin Cities. WDGY

160-411: A 50-year relationship between KSTP and NBC dating to the days of radio. The size of the market and tenure of KSTP with NBC made the switch particularly stunning; KSTP's defection was seen as a coup, the largest engineered by the network. Even before KSTP's affiliation switch was publicly announced, NBC reached out to Metromedia as it began to evaluate KMSP-TV and WTCN-TV for potential affiliation with

240-477: A 9 p.m. newscast. To support its new local programming, the station expanded its footprint in the Calhoun Beach Hotel to include space on the lower level and acquired new equipment. Despite this, Time noted in its annual report that losing ABC was "forcing a re-adjustment to the economies of independent television station operations" at channel 11. The Twins proved key to channel 11's survival without

320-744: A Chicago radio station to stay within ownership limits, but it chose to divest itself of a second TV station to raise the money necessary for the $ 136 million purchase—the second-highest for a single station —without incurring debt. First to be sold was WXIX-TV , an independent station in Cincinnati, followed by WTCN-TV, acquired by the Gannett Company for $ 75 million. Gannett, in turn, needed to sell one VHF television station to make room in its portfolio and chose KARK-TV in Little Rock, Arkansas , for divestiture. We're coming in here humbly with

400-498: A brief shutdown in 1993 due to business failure and the sale of the station, the vacated WMIN call sign was acquired, which had a long history in the market. WMIN aired a pop music Spanish-language format as "La Nueva Ley" until November 14, 2005. It also aired sports talk at various times as well as leasing time to two groups that eventually acquired their own full-time frequencies: "Straight Talk Radio" (later on 950 KTNF ) and " Relevant Radio " (later on 1330 WLOL ). In 2008,

480-470: A certain level of viewership, had to offer costly makegood ads. During NBC prime time, the station had 21 percent of the audience, half of which left for other stations during the 10 p.m. news, but viewers returned to channel 11 to watch The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson . The station attracted 8 to 10 percent of the evening news audience, far behind KSTP and WCCO, which commanded shares of 30 percent or more. The station's poor performance also sank

560-770: A construction permit for them. The transmitter and antenna were the only physical facilities shared by the stations. While WMIN-TV and WTCN-TV were affiliates of ABC , in keeping with WTCN radio, their programs and even network shows during each station's airtime originated from separate facilities. WMIN-TV set up in the former WMIN radio studios in the Hamm Building in St. Paul, the radio station having relocated to its transmitter site; it had no film developing equipment, so films had to be airmailed to and from sister station KELO-TV in Sioux Falls, South Dakota . WTCN-TV established itself in

640-455: A deal, Metromedia promised NBC that it would launch a "first-class news operation" for the station, which was weak in the area of news (though better than many independents ) and had a news staff totaling 10 people at the time. Most of the $ 4 million Metromedia spent ahead of the affiliation switch was invested in the news department, on new reporters, largely coming from TV stations in the South;

720-639: A dedication, the cooking show Man Around the House , and a teen music bandstand program, Corner Drug . Channel 11's signal originated from the Foshay Tower in downtown Minneapolis; the tower had a master antenna inspired by the Empire State Building in New York and designed to broadcast multiple stations, including the antenna for WCCO-TV and provision for antennas for channels 9 and 11 before any applicant had

800-570: A dramatic change". While the news product improved under new news director Brink Chipman and as reporters settled into the market, turmoil engulfed the troubled newsroom. An investigative reporter was fired in July before her reports even appeared on air due to poor-quality work. Dyer, unhappy nearly from the start, was switched with weekend anchor Stan Bohrman in August and left in December. At year's end, Kurtz

880-425: A factor in the market, although it was just behind KMSP-TV in total viewers. Until moving to Golden Valley, all the station's news film was developed by a company in downtown Minneapolis that closed at dinnertime, preventing the broadcast of late-breaking news items. Gil Amundson doubled as the news director and anchor. WTCN had the only TV news team in the market without a professional meteorologist. TV Guide ran

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960-517: A feature calling WTCN the real-life equivalent to WJM-TV, the Minneapolis station depicted on The Mary Tyler Moore Show . KMSP-TV, the Twin Cities' ABC affiliate, was a distant third in the news ratings race. Channel 9 was traditionally the most profitable station in the market, but under Donald Swartz, it was a lean operation with a reputation for penny-pinching. As early as 1974, KMSP was rumored to have made changes to its news operation to appease

1040-517: A host of Westerns played by WMIN radio disc jockey Steve Cannon . For kids, WTCN had the clown J. P. Patches , originally played by Daryl Laub and then by Chris Wedes. Wedes left for the new KIRO-TV in Seattle in 1958; Patches aired on the Seattle station until 1981. For 19 years, Roger Awsumb played Casey Jones on WTCN's Lunch with Casey . By 1954, channel 11 was offering some programming from

1120-506: A kids club and 6 + 1 ⁄ 2 hours a day of weekday shows promoted as "Kidville 11". The company stated in its 1965 annual report that WTCN-TV's performance "exceeded expectations". By 1966, the Twins games were being fed by WTCN-TV to a network of 15 television stations, which grew to 16 with the inclusion of WVTV in Milwaukee the next year; the Twins were joined on channel 11 in 1967 by

1200-433: A leader. Carman and Karl Vick (also of The Minneapolis Star ) assigned some blame for the failure to the direction of the station by out-of-town consultants—particularly Ted Kavanau, the former news director of Metromedia's WNEW-TV in New York —and executives unfamiliar with the market. Kavanau wanted a tabloid-style newscast in the mold of WNEW and hired people for such a program, but general manager Robert Fransen believed

1280-451: A more conventional format was advisable in the market and prevailed in a meeting of Metromedia executives. In its first ratings survey, the station placed fourth out of three newscasts (and KMSP, airing entertainment shows) at 6 p.m., enough to be described as "about as popular as the measles" by Vick in The Star ; its performance was so poor that the station, having pledged advertisers

1360-424: A network affiliation. Telecasts reached audience shares averaging 58 percent and as high as 79 percent in 1962. A major advertising contract with Hamm's beer for the baseball games helped the station acquire programming and get on steadier footing—its first profitable footing in its ten-year history. An American Research Bureau report found that the station had the largest relative audience share of any independent in

1440-444: A new news set; weather radar; and electronic news gathering , replacing film. The only member of the news department who did not continue after the switch was weather anchor Toni Hughes, who had presented channel 11's weathercasts for a decade; she was dismissed because she was not a meteorologist. Though she was technically a freelancer, her duties for WTCN prevented her from simultaneously working for another station. WTCN-TV became

1520-691: A time when his ratings were slipping nationally. When KMSP refused to air Tonight for the same reason, NBC was forced to acquiesce to WTCN's delay. Asked in 1981 by the Boston Herald American to appraise Metromedia's management of WTCN, M. Howard Gelfand of the Minneapolis Tribune noted that "it has taken WTCN-TV ... just a couple of years to turn a silk purse into a sow's ear". In August 1982, Metromedia agreed to buy WFLD , an independent station in Chicago. It needed to sell one TV station and

1600-482: A top-to-bottom overhaul of the station's local news programming, promising to raise its quality to match WCCO and KSTP. A new station manager and vice president of news were brought in, both from KBTV , Gannett's market-leading station in Denver , to replace the existing management which remained with Metromedia. Nearly immediately, the new management moved to distance the news product from its image under Metromedia, changing

1680-461: A year where she could not appear on camera under a non-compete clause . The pact brought Miles, who wanted more personal time, together with channel 11, seeking an anchor to improve the lagging ratings of its early evening newscasts. Meanwhile, WCCO found renewed ratings strength and pushed KARE back to second. Under the leadership of general manager Linda Rios Brook, from 1989 to 1991, the station tried several unsuccessful initiatives, most notably

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1760-513: Is a Canadian clear-channel frequency; CFZM in Toronto, Ontario, is the dominant Class A , clear-channel station on 740 AM. Stations in bold are clear-channel stations . Download coordinates as: KARE (TV) KARE (channel 11) is a television station licensed to Minneapolis, Minnesota , United States, serving as the Twin Cities area's NBC affiliate. Owned by Tegna Inc. ,

1840-486: The Calhoun Beach Hotel in Minneapolis. The hotel offered the station the use of its ballroom; its former gymnasium, left unfinished when the former beach club converted to a hotel, became the largest TV studio to that time in the Twin Cities. Each station offered its own local programs. WMIN had the children's show Captain 11 , featuring host Jim Lange in a space-themed outfit. It also featured Wrangler Steve,

1920-599: The Crowell-Collier Publishing Company backed out of a transaction for the stations plus WFDF in Flint, Michigan . FCC approval followed in April 1957. Time improved station revenues by expanding its movie library and sharpening its promotion of feature films. It offered a large schedule of local sports, including select games of Minneapolis Millers minor league baseball, which WTCN radio broadcast all season long;

2000-661: The DuMont Television Network , though the network's shows moved to new station KEYD-TV (channel 9) when it launched in January 1955. In January 1955, Consolidated Television and Radio Broadcasters of Indianapolis , a company owned by the Bitner family, agreed to acquire WTCN radio and television and WMIN-TV for about $ 3 million. Bitner believed that the channel 11 stations made for an attractive purchase because their values were artificially lowered by confusion stemming from

2080-744: The Evening News Association in February 1986; among its holdings was WDVM , the CBS affiliate in Washington, D.C. , near Gannett's corporate headquarters in nearby Rosslyn, Virginia . From the moment Gannett took that station over, it mulled moving the WUSA call letters to Washington to provide a solid co-association with USA Today as well as Washington being the nation's capital. In March, John Carmody of The Washington Post reported that Gannett had instructed

2160-532: The Minnesota Twins baseball team, movies, and syndicated programs. This continued under two successive owners: Chris-Craft Industries and Metromedia . By the late 1970s, WTCN was one of the nation's most financially successful independent stations. In 1978, ABC announced it would move its Twin Cities affiliation to KSTP-TV . This forced NBC to select between KMSP and WTCN for its new local outlet. It chose WTCN on

2240-466: The 18-35 age demographic while KDWB held a fair share of the teen audience - considered a hot property during this period. WDGY's longtime Top 40 format came to an end at 3 p.m. on September 2, 1977. Faced with stronger competition on the FM dial, WDGY adopted a country music format, which continued well into the 1980s. In 1990, WDGY would flip to a news/talk format, which would evolve to sports talk as KFAN

2320-472: The Capitol, City Hall, the courts and the classic news beats, but from within the community. They got out and talked to people, they found things that were interesting, not necessarily newsworthy. They looked for story ideas by listening to what people were talking about. Tom Lindner, WCCO-TV news manager and producer in the 1980s, later KARE news director Channel 11's rising news fortunes continued after

2400-810: The FCC lifted the freeze —the Minnesota Television Public Service Corporation, a company headed by former ambassador Robert Butler and headquartered in St. Paul, filed for television channel 11 in Minneapolis. Weeks later, Mid Continent Radio Television, which owned station WTCN-TV on channel 4 as well as WTCN (1280 AM) , announced it would take over WCCO radio , combine its operations with channel 4, and divest WTCN radio. Minnesota Television Public Service then acquired WTCN radio, which had to be sold to allow Mid Continent to purchase WCCO. The transactions were approved in August 1952, at which time channel 4 changed from WTCN-TV to WCCO-TV . After

2480-782: The Minneapolis station to come up with a new call sign. The station reached a deal with a radio station in Atchison, Kansas , that had used the KARE call sign since 1949 to use "KARE" and switched to it on June 11. The new designation was in keeping with the station's heavy community service component since its acquisition by Gannett, including an awards event titled "11 Who Care". This freed its new sister station, channel 9 in Washington, to switch from WDVM to WUSA. We questioned their news judgment. Was it news, or news entertainment? ... This place said we'd get our news from lots of different places, not just

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2560-403: The Minneapolis studios in the Calhoun Beach Hotel . The station presented several regionally and nationally notable children's shows in its early years as well as local cooking, news, and sports programs. Time Inc. purchased the station in 1957. Under its ownership, ABC switched its affiliation to KMSP-TV (channel 9), leaving channel 11 to become an independent station that broadcast games of

2640-526: The NBC affiliate and the market's news ratings leader, wished to expand its signal beyond the Twin Cities to take advantage of recently relaxed rules relating to the feeding of broadcast translators by microwave transmission , and there were fewer ABC affiliates in surrounding areas—notably Alexandria and Eau Claire—than NBC affiliates. On August 29, 1978, KSTP announced it would switch from NBC to ABC in March 1979, ending

2720-544: The NBC network newscasts, which fell to third place. Meanwhile, freed of its network programming and having picked up the North Stars and Twins rights, KMSP-TV became one of the nation's leading independents, beating NewsCenter 11 in the ratings just as WTCN had done when KMSP was an ABC affiliate. Kevin O'Brien, WTCN's general manager at the time, later told The Mercury News that switching to NBC "tore that station asunder because we didn't have that much time to plan such

2800-882: The October 27, 2020 FCC vote to approve voluntary all-digital broadcasting by AM stations, WDGY resumed an HD Radio signal on November 17, 2020. On October 30, 2021, WDGY once again discontinued broadcasting in HD Radio. Unlike in 2017, AM stereo did not return. However, in February 2022 the station resumed broadcasting in AM HD . WDGY at one time carried " The True Oldies Channel " programmed by New York City DJ Scott Shannon . It currently programs its oldies format in-house and uses local hosts. 44°58′05″N 92°40′01″W  /  44.96806°N 92.66694°W  / 44.96806; -92.66694 AM 740 The following radio stations broadcast on AM frequency 740 kHz : 740 AM

2880-502: The Twin Cities' NBC affiliate on March 5, 1979. Ahead of the switch, the station launched a $ 1 million promotional campaign titled "We've Got It Now", featuring billboards of such NBC stars as Johnny Carson , a visit by network president Fred Silverman and other NBC stars, and the live broadcast of Today from Minneapolis. That same day, NewsCenter 11 launched with weeknight news anchor Jim Dyer, meteorologist Glenn Burns , and sportscaster Bob Kurtz. NewsCenter 11 arrived on

2960-508: The Twins, also due to falling viewership, with the team moving telecasts to WCCO-TV; the team returned to channel 11 in 1975. Under Metromedia, WTCN-TV became one of the nation's most financially lucrative independent stations, even though it was less profitable than the network affiliates. Metromedia's purchase of WTCN-TV included a parcel of land at the corner of Boone Avenue and Minnesota State Highway 55 in Golden Valley , intended for

3040-506: The WUSA call sign to its Washington, D.C., station. More recently, as of 2022, the station has been a second-place finisher in local news. The WMIN Broadcasting Company of St. Paul applied in February 1948 for a new station licensed to that city on channel 2. The application was frozen when the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) halted all grants of new TV stations in 1948. In February 1952—two months before

3120-462: The air as a strident production that local viewers instantly recognized as foreign to their tastes. From its sickening theme music to its cream puff wrap-up features by Chick McCuen, NewsCenter 11 has been a commercial failure. John Carman, The Minneapolis Star NewsCenter 11 was a ratings and critical disaster. Neal Gendler in the Minneapolis Tribune was unimpressed and found

3200-402: The aircraft flew within a quarter-mile of the tornado. The tornado coverage aired live on KARE's 5 p.m. newscast, providing startling pictures of the storm. It was the first time a tornado had been filmed from creation to dissipation. The newscast was a ratings milestone for the station—in 2011, Douglas recalled that it led many WCCO and KSTP viewers to sample KARE's news—and the raw footage

3280-526: The call sign change to KARE, coinciding with a turnaround in ratings for the NBC network. Weeks after becoming KARE came another pivotal moment. On July 18, 1986, helicopter pilot Max Messmer was in the air headed to an assignment when he heard that a funnel cloud was forming in Brooklyn Park , eventually touching down in Fridley . He piloted the helicopter, known as Sky 11, to the scene and ad-libbed commentary as

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3360-527: The call sign, and its format was near the top of the ratings for several years. In 1959, WDGY gained a formidable challenger when KDWB launched. The two competitors seesawed back and forth in ratings supremacy for area teen and young adult audiences throughout the 1960s and '70s. The competition, sometimes friendly, sometimes not, resulted in memorable merchandising promotions and concerts. Generally, WDGY came in second in overall audience ratings to market-dominant, clear-channel WCCO . WDGY seemed to appeal to

3440-442: The collapsed candelabra, Telefarm proposed constructing one tower for WTCN-TV and an FM station and another for WCCO and KSTP. The replacements were erected in late 1972. We are in negotiations for a very large station and, frankly, we need the cash. ... We're sorry to sell it. We did a lot for them and it did a lot for us. It was a loser when we bought it. A Chris-Craft official, on selling WTCN-TV Chris-Craft announced

3520-492: The company was one over the limit; it then dropped out of the channel 11 fight. WMIN and WTCN—each seeking to avoid a lengthy comparative hearing —proposed to share time on channel 11, which the FCC accepted in April 1953. On September 1, 1953, channel 11 began broadcasting. At 2 p.m., the first WMIN-TV programs aired: a news show, the women's program Talk About the Town , and a movie. Two hours later, WTCN-TV greeted viewers with

3600-502: The construction of new studios. Metromedia broke ground on a $ 5 million, 65,000-square-foot (6,000 m ) studio complex on the site in May 1973; it featured two broadcast studios, an outdoor sculpture garden, and space for Metromedia's corporate art collection. While the network affiliates intensified their competition for the news audience, WTCN's small news effort—a 9:30 p.m. newscast known as Total News —was not considered much of

3680-416: The country, even in months without baseball. Twins games earned channel 11 placement on cable systems far from the Twin Cities, including Mankato and Rochester, Minnesota , and Eau Claire and La Crosse, Wisconsin . Building on the success of the Twins telecasts, the station sought to broaden its image as a sports outlet by adding wrestling (broadcast from the studio) and college sports to its lineup. In

3760-541: The first Twin Cities station to offer closed captioning of its local news in 1988. When the Minnesota Poll in 1988 found KARE's viewership concentrated among young adults, Noel Holston of the Star Tribune predicted that the station could be dominant "for years to come" based on the age of its news watchers. In September 1988, Pat Miles left her job at WCCO-TV and signed a five-year agreement to work at KARE, including

3840-627: The freeze was lifted, WMIN refiled its pre-freeze application in July to specify channel 11, as channel 2 had been set aside for educational broadcasting by the FCC. Later that month, Meredith Publishing filed for channel 11 in Minneapolis alongside stations in Rochester, New York , and St. Louis . Meredith owned three stations and had three pending station applications when the FCC ruled that companies could only have as many applications as additional stations it could own—the limit being five—in February 1953. With six stations and applications for stations,

3920-655: The money. Chris-Craft Industries agreed to purchase WTCN-TV alone for $ 4 million in a deal announced in May 1964; it was the company's third TV property after two other independents, KCOP in Los Angeles and KPTV in Portland, Oregon . WTCN radio was sold separately to the Buckley-Jaeger Company and became WWTC that October. Chris-Craft fortified the station's children's and movie offerings to complement its strong sports coverage. The children's relaunch included

4000-437: The name from NewsCenter 11 to 11 News , similar to the 9 News title used by KBTV. Armed with research identifying WCCO and KSTP as having older-skewing viewership and seeing a void for a newscast for a younger audience, the station added as many as 40 new staff members in addition to the 40 that it had at the time of purchase—compared to 100 apiece for the newsrooms at WCCO-TV and KSTP-TV. To keep pace with its competitors,

4080-513: The national newscasts they offered at that time. This did not stanch turmoil in the newsroom, nor did it forestall Metromedia from shuttering the profitable Metro Productions commercial production unit of WTCN in December 1980. One bright spot for the station was a 1982 series on herpes reported by anchor John Bachman, Herpes Is Forever , which won an Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award . To increase revenue, which lagged behind other major-market network affiliates, Metromedia ceased airing

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4160-557: The network's The Tomorrow Show in favor of sitcoms from which it earned all the advertising, doing the same with the occasional network movie. In early 1982, the station temporarily lost the ability to air the Tonight Show ; NBC strictly enforced the show airing at 10:30 p.m. and would take the show to another station in the market if it was aired on tape delay , which WTCN did to air syndicated repeats of M*A*S*H . WTCN defended its decision by citing Carson's older demographics at

4240-414: The network, which threatened to re-affiliate with WTCN, and further rumors of network dissatisfaction with KMSP's news effort surfaced in 1977. Channel 9's news budget was reportedly less than half that of WCCO-TV or KSTP-TV. In the late 1970s, as ABC soared to number one in the national ratings, it began a campaign to upgrade its affiliate base and put out feelers to WCCO-TV, KSTP-TV, and WTCN-TV. KSTP-TV,

4320-408: The network. As part of the process, it reached out to former employees of KMSP-TV, at least one of whom told NBC that its management "didn't care about news" and that it was "a stepchild of their operation". At the end of September, NBC announced its decision: it would affiliate with WTCN-TV. The network picked channel 11 over channel 9 on the strength of its facilities and performance. In reaching

4400-750: The new Minnesota North Stars hockey team. In June 1971, WTCN-TV joined other local stations in moving its tower to the Telefarm site in Shoreview, Minnesota . The relocation to the newer, taller masts was necessitated because of the construction of the IDS Center , a Minneapolis skyscraper that shaded many viewers from the Foshay Tower site. The new tower, which was shared by the former Foshay stations—WCCO-TV, KSTP-TV, and WTCN-TV—collapsed on September 7 during further construction work, killing seven workers. In lieu of

4480-408: The new anchor team and set improvements, the newscasts were rebranded News 11 , the second change in title in three months. Ratings did not improve immediately, but they began to rise slowly as early as November 1983. By November 1984, the station had increased its audience share at 10 p.m. to 15 percent, a significant increase from the previous year. The gap with second-place KSTP narrowed as

4560-518: The new news team and continued to prefer market leaders WCCO-TV and KSTP-TV. Metromedia agreed to buy Chicago independent station WFLD in 1982 and sold WTCN to Gannett to raise capital and make room in its station group. Gannett engineered a comprehensive overhaul of the station's news programming. Between 1983 and 1987, the station moved from last to first in late news ratings, battling WCCO for two decades. It changed call signs twice in that period, to WUSA in 1985 and KARE in 1986, when Gannett moved

4640-587: The news operation and beating back a challenge to the KUSA assignment from the USA Network cable service. After Gannett won that fight, it sought and received permission to change WTCN-TV's call sign to WUSA effective July 4, 1985. The new designation replaced WTCN-TV—a call sign associated with the station's independent days—at a time when the station was finally becoming a local news competitor. The WUSA call letters lasted less than one year in Minneapolis. Gannett acquired

4720-488: The next year. Ironically, the abandoned WDGY call letters were quickly picked up by WDGY's former rival station at 630 kHz . The original call sign for the station's construction permit was WAOZ , but the station was never on the air with those call letters. 740 AM began broadcasting as WRPX , featuring a locally-based MOR / adult contemporary format targeting the Hudson/ St. Croix Valley area on December 14, 1983. After

4800-500: The program pedestrian, formulaic, overdone, and out of tune with Twin Cities viewers' tastes. He criticized Kurtz for laughing at skiers in bikinis, writing, "Someone also ought to let him in on a fact of Minnesota life: Sexism is out of style." John Carman of The Minneapolis Star called it "a near-perfect case history of how not to put together a successful and respected news operation", calling its format too conventional and Gil Amundson (later relieved of news director duties) too weak

4880-413: The sale of WTCN-TV to Metromedia for $ 18 million on July 29, 1971. Chris-Craft sold the station as part of its pursuit of a large-market VHF television station elsewhere. After taking over, Metromedia made major changes in the station's programming. Citing declining ratings and a company policy against live children's hosts, Lunch with Casey finished its run at the end of 1972. Channel 11 dropped

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4960-468: The shared-station setup. It announced that it would keep the WTCN call letters. When Consolidated completed the purchase in April, WMIN left the air and merged into the full-time WTCN. At that time, the new owner consolidated the station's activities at WTCN's Minneapolis studios and closed WMIN's St. Paul facilities, with only a handful of WMIN technical employees not continuing with channel 11. During this time,

5040-860: The station acquired a news helicopter, as well as new cameras and vehicles. Gannett filled the meteorologist position, left unfilled on a permanent basis since Burns's departure in January 1982, by hiring Paul Douglas , who had worked for the Satellite News Channel . The station cut a hole through the wall of its studio to create an outdoor weather set for Douglas's forecasts. It replaced the existing anchor pairing of John Bachman and Cora-Ann Mihalik with Paul Magers and Diana Pierce, both hired in August from California stations. The station increased its emphasis on news photography; in addition to hiring anchors, it hired new news photographers. The revamped newscasts debuted quietly in September 1983. Along with

5120-580: The station affiliated with the NTA Film Network , which began in 1956. The Bitner group had owned the WTCN stations for less than two years when it announced the sale of three of its broadcasting properties—the WTCN stations, WFBM radio and television in Indianapolis, and WLAV radio and television in Grand Rapids, Michigan —to Time, Inc. in December 1956. The $ 15.75 million deal came after

5200-409: The station became WDGY after sister station 630 AM switched to Regional Mexican music, using the call letters WREY . The WMIN call sign was used from 1936 until 1972 by the predecessor to today's 1400 KMNV and from 1972 to 1993 at 1010 and 1030 ; the call sign was also briefly used for a shared-time television station on channel 11 that was launched by the original WMIN Radio. In 2014,

5280-649: The station began broadcasting in HD . In May 2016, WDGY began simulcasting on FM translator W279DD 103.7 in Hudson, Wisconsin. In February 2017, WDGY added another FM translator, W221BS 92.1, broadcasting from an antenna atop Wells Fargo Place in Downtown St. Paul. On March 7, 2017, WDGY discontinued broadcasting in HD and began broadcasting in C-QUAM AM stereo. Due to the re-heightened awareness of HD broadcasting on AM surrounding

5360-506: The station cut back its sports broadcasts on radio and TV due to difficulty selling advertising time and intense competition, particularly for the radio broadcasts of Minnesota Golden Gophers football . By the start of the 1960s, Time's relationship with ABC had become strained. Variety reported in March 1960 that station management was insisting on a protection clause, a guarantee that ABC would not go to KMSP-TV (channel 9), an independent station then owned by 20th Century Fox . KMSP

5440-512: The station increased its audience share to 23 percent by February 1986. The FCC liberalized rules around call signs in late 1983. Gannett—the publisher of USA Today —acquired the rights to the call sign KUSA in early 1984 and won approval to use the letters on the former KBTV in Denver after years of being stymied under the old rules. While Gannett initially intended to do the same immediately after acquiring WTCN-TV, it instead focused on rebuilding

5520-516: The station maintains studios on Olson Memorial Highway ( MN 55 ) in Golden Valley and a transmitter at the Telefarm site in Shoreview, Minnesota . Channel 11 began broadcasting on September 1, 1953. It was originally shared by WMIN-TV in St. Paul and WTCN-TV in Minneapolis; the two stations shared an affiliation with ABC and alternated presenting local programs. In 1955, Consolidated Television and Radio bought both stations and merged them as WTCN-TV from

5600-412: The station to preempt prime-time network programs for baseball, forcing channel 4 to back out. The station agreed to telecast 50 night and weekend games, simulcast with WCCO radio, with Bob Wolff and Ray Scott as announcers. The Twins, movies, and feature programs became the station's top program draws, as well as newscasts timed to air just before the network affiliates, including hourly news breaks and

5680-423: The station was sold by his estate. WDGY went through several ownership changes until 1956, when it was purchased by Todd Storz ' Storz Broadcasting, an Omaha -based owner of a five-to-seven-station group (the maximum number allowed at the time). Storz quickly changed the format to Top-40 , taking advantage of the early rise of rock and roll music. The station was nicknamed "WeeGee," the phonetic pronunciation of

5760-423: The strength of its facilities, ownership, and promise to build a first-class news operation, for which KMSP had never been known as an ABC station. On March 5, 1979, channel 11 became an NBC affiliate and began broadcasting NewsCenter 11 newscasts. In spite of a major promotional campaign, the news product was a high-profile commercial failure, beaten by entertainment shows on KMSP in the ratings, as viewers rejected

5840-479: The three years Time owned WTCN-TV as an independent, it negotiated with several groups to sell the television station and WTCN radio. In July 1961, Variety reported that Chicago -based WGN Inc. was considering buying WTCN-TV from Time; other buyers looked at and passed on the station at this time. A Twin Cities–based consortium agreed to pay $ 2 million for the WTCN stations in 1963 but failed to come up with

5920-444: The understanding that we have a lot of problems and trying to figure out what we have to do in order to do a good news job. Gannett is in the news business, and that's what we're proud of. We better have the best source of local news and information that we can offer to the public or else we're down the drain. Jeffrey Davidson, president of broadcasting, Gannett Gannett took control of WTCN in April 1983 and began implementing

6000-421: Was already carrying some ABC shows that were not seen on channel 11's schedule. Channel 11's fears were well-founded; in January 1961, ABC announced it would move its programs to KMSP effective April 16. The newly independent channel 11 became the market's first station to telecast major league baseball with the newly relocated Minnesota Twins ; WCCO-TV had agreed to broadcast the games, but CBS refused to allow

6080-490: Was evident in its photojournalism style, which the Star Tribune later called "highly visual and emotional"; KARE became a regular winner of National Press Photographers Association awards. This prompted WCCO-TV, a station known for its hard news format, to become more image-conscious, and the other TV news outlets in the Twin Cities began incorporating longer, photojournalism-driven stories into their newscasts. KARE became

6160-565: Was founded in 1923 by Dr. George Young, an optometrist who dabbled in radio as a hobby, and was one of the first radio stations in the Twin Cities area. The original call sign was KFMT , broadcasting at 1300 kHz. The following year, the station moved to 1140 kHz. After several call letter changes, including WHAT and WGWY , Young settled on WDGY , which was based on his name. The WDGY call letters lasted from 1925 until 1991, first at 1140 kHz, then to its longtime home at 1130 kHz beginning in 1941. Following Young's death in 1945,

6240-495: Was sustained through late 1987 and early 1988, even as an expansion to the Twin Cities market gave WCCO an edge in counting viewers in Alexandria. The ratings increase boosted the station's bottom line, as the cost of a 30-second commercial during channel 11's newscasts rose from $ 200 in 1983 to as much as $ 2,300 by 1987. KARE attracted criticism for its newscasts' style: trendy and designed to draw an emotional response. The latter

6320-597: Was taken off the weeknight newscasts and replaced with Tom Ryther, formerly of KSTP-TV, returning to the Twin Cities from WKYC-TV in Cleveland . Burns was the last of the original three news presenters to leave WTCN; in January 1982, he accepted a position with WSB-TV in Atlanta , where he would spend 40 years. Ratings improved modestly when channel 11 shifted its early newscast from 6 to 5:30 p.m., moving it out of direct competition with WCCO and KSTP, though it still trailed

6400-696: Was widely requested by scientists and meteorologists. In 1986, the station took the lead among the coveted demographic of adults 25–54, a demographic with which it placed first in all but one ratings survey between 1986 and 2000. In October 1986, the station notched its first-ever second-place finish in local news ratings, sending KSTP-TV's 10 p.m. news to third. But the station lagged badly in early evening news, contending that its younger viewers were still at work and not able to watch 5 or 6 p.m. newscasts. The July 1987 sweeps period brought another historic achievement for KARE: it finished first at 10 p.m., with an audience share of 29 percent. This momentum

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