KONG (TV)

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KONG, virtual channel 16 (UHF digital channel 31), is an independent television station serving Seattle, Washington, United States. Licensed to Everett, Washington, the station is owned by Belo, as part of a duopoly with KING-TV. The two stations share offices and studios located in the city's Denny Regrade district (just east of Seattle Center), and KONG-TV's transmitter is located in the Queen Anne neighborhood of Seattle.

The station is usually carried on most cable television providers in Western Washington on cable channel 6, next to KING-TV's position on channel 5. KONG's high definition feed is carried Comcast and Wave Broadband digital channel 106. The KONG call letters were retained as a tongue-in-cheek reference to King Kong, which made both stations easily marketable together.

History

The KONG-TV call sign was first granted by the Federal Communications Commission on April 6, 1984. When it was applied for, it immediately drew a legal complaint from King Broadcasting against Carl Washington's KONG TV, Inc., the first broadcaster to apply for a license for Everett's channel 16. The station had planned to go on the air on June 1 of that year, with studios in Everett and an advertising sales office in Seattle, but kept getting bogged down by years of legal challenges from residents on Cougar Mountain who objected to the Electromagnetic radiation from an additional broadcaster. After the legal challenges to the transmitter, KONG lay dormant until broadcasters came up with innovative ways to program additional stations in their area.

KONG-TV signed on the air on July 8, 1997. It was locally owned, but managed by KING-TV (which Belo had just acquired) through a local marketing agreement. Belo bought channel 16 outright in 2000, when the Federal Communications Commission began to permit television station duopolies. On June 13, 2013, the Gannett Company announced that it would acquire Belo.

Digital television

Digital channels

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

Channel	Video	Aspect	PSIP Short Name	Programming
5.1	1080i	16:9	KONG-HD	Main KONG-TV programming
5.2	480i	4:3	KONG-SD

Analog-to-digital conversion

KING-TV discontinued regular programming on its analog signal and KONG shut down its analog signal outright on June 12, 2009, as part of the FCC-mandated transition to digital television for full-power stations. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 31, using PSIP to display KONG-TV's virtual channel as 16 on digital television receivers.

In 2009, KONG became one of the first four television stations in the country to begin broadcasting mobile DTV signals. The OMVC chose KONG and KOMO-TV in Seattle and WPXA-TV and WATL in Atlanta as the stations to beta test the ATSC-M/H standard, which has since been officially adopted for free-to-air broadcast television with clear reception on mobile devices, overcoming many of the defects of the original ATSC standard.

Programmierung

Initially, the station ran a general entertainment format with classic sitcoms, westerns, old movies, cartoons, and a 10 p.m. newscast. Along with the newscast, the station now airs KING-TV's syndicated shows (such as Dr. Phil) during primetime or other time slots, giving viewers a second chance to watch the shows that day. It also carries a few syndicated programs that KING-TV does not air such as Extra, Access Hollywood and America's Funniest Home Videos. KONG also aired Who Wants to Be a Millionaire until 2011. KONG also broadcasts certain NBC network programs in lieu of KING, including Meet the Press and Early Today.

Because of its relationship with KING, KONG can air NBC programming that may get displaced by other programming such as local events or extended breaking news coverage. An example of this is when in 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009, KONG aired NBC's coverage of the Stanley Cup Finals for games that occurred on the East Coast, with KING airing local programming and news in its place and ceding that more viewers usually watched CBC's NHL coverage on the network's Vancouver owned-and-operated station CBUT. For the 2008 and 2012 NFL preseasons, Seattle Seahawks preseason football games that are not televised nationally aired on KONG as NBC held the rights to the Summer Olympic Games. KONG also airs Seattle Sounders FC matches, and airs a weekly magazine program on Sunday nights during the Major League Soccer season called Sounders FC Weekly.

Newscasts

KING-TV produces a nightly 10 p.m. newscast for KONG, which competes with an in-house hour-long newscast on Fox affiliate KCPQ; the program airs for one hour on Monday through Friday evenings and a half-hour on weekend evenings. KONG also broadcasts a two-hour extension of KING's weekday morning newscast starting at 7 a.m., which also competes with KCPQ's morning newscast. The station airs a rebroadcast of the Northwest Cable News sports highlight and discussion program Northwest Sports Tonight on Monday through Saturday evenings, which ironically airs opposite KING's 11 p.m. newscast; the first segment of the program is occasionally broadcast live on KONG if a sporting event ends late. KONG also broadcasts an hour-delayed rebroadcast of KING's noon newscast at 1 p.m. weekdays. It's the only newscast shown on KONG that comes from the main sister channel, KING.

On-air staff

Current on-air staff

Members of KING-TV's news staff serving as anchors of KONG's newscasts are Dennis Bounds (weeknights at 10:00 p.m.), Greg Copeland (weekdays at 1:00 p.m.), Mimi Jung (weekdays at 1:00 p.m.), Lori Matsukawa (weeknights at 10:00 p.m.), Joyce Taylor (weekday mornings from 7:00-9:00 a.m.) and Mark Wright (weekday mornings from 7:00-9:00 a.m.).

The weather team includes chief meteorologist Jeff Renner (AMS Certified Broadcast Meteorologist Seal of Approval; weeknights at 10:00 p.m.); meteorologists Rich Marriott (AMS Seal of Approval; weekday mornings from 7:00–9:00 a.m. and weekdays at 1:00 p.m.) and Jim Guy (AMS Seal of Approval; weekends at 10:00 p.m.); and fill-in weather anchor Keisha Burns.

The sports team includes sports director Paul Silvi (weeknights at 10:00 p.m.; also host of Northwest Sports Tonight), and sports anchors Andrea Nakano (weekends at 10:00 p.m.; also sports reporter) and Chris Egan (fill-in sports anchor, also sports reporter).

The station's reporting staff includes Zahid Arab (general assignment reporter), Linda Brill (general assignment reporter), Linda Byron (investigative reporter), Gary Chittim (general assignment reporter and environmental specialist), Chris Daniels (general assignment reporter), Glenn Farley (general assignment reporter and aviation specialist), Jim Forman (general assignment reporter), Susannah Frame (investigative reporter), Joe Fryer (general assignment reporter), Heather Graf (general assignment reporter), Elisa Hahn (general assignment reporter), Chris Ingalls (general assignment reporter), Christie Johnson (weekday morning feature reporter from 7:00-9:00 a.m.), Jesse Jones (also consumer specialist), John Langler (general assignment reporter), Drew Mikkelsen (South Bureau chief/reporter), Roberta Romero (general assignment reporter), Natasha Ryan (general assignment reporter), Natalie Swaby (general assignment reporter), Tracy Taylor (weekday morning traffic reporter from 7:00-9:00 a.m.), Jake Whittenberg (North Bureau chief/reporter), Eric Wilkinson (general assignment reporter) and Teresa Yuan (general assignment reporter).

External links

• Official website
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