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KMBC-TV (channel 9) is a television station in Kansas City, Missouri, United States, affiliated with ABC. It is owned by Hearst Television alongside The CW affiliate KCWE (channel 29). The two stations share studios on Winchester Avenue near Swope Park in southeast Kansas City, Missouri; KMBC-TV's transmitter is located at 23rd Street and Topping Avenue, east of downtown in the Blue Valley area.
Channel 9 began broadcasting on August 2, 1953. For the first ten months, two stations operated on the channel: KMBC-TV, associated with KMBC radio, and WHB-TV, the television adjunct of WHB radio. The stations had separate studios and staffs, alternating every 90 minutes on the air, but shared transmitter facilities and an affiliation with CBS. The two stations were combined in 1954 when Cook Paint and Varnish Company, owner of WHB radio and television, bought out KMBC radio and television and retained the KMBC facilities and designation. In 1955, a multi-market affiliation switch by the Meredith Publishing Company forced KMBC-TV to switch from CBS to ABC.
Metromedia acquired the KMBC stations in 1961, selling KMBC radio off in 1967. Under Metromedia, KMBC-TV became a competitive station in the market, at first in non-news programming—where its offerings sometimes resembled one of Metromedia's own independent stations—and later in news in the 1970s. This began to change at the end of the decade, as KCMO-TV (now KCTV) mounted a ratings challenge, and one of Metromedia's last substantive decisions as owner of the station was a watershed. In 1981, KMBC-TV fired anchorwoman Christine Craft after seven months on the air, claiming negative audience acceptance. Believing she was fired because of her looks, which the news director did not like, Craft sued Metromedia in a highly watched sex discrimination case; while she ultimately lost, the trial embarrassed KMBC-TV, whose manager testified that appearance was "at the top of the list" of qualities desired in a news anchor, and spotlighted the unequal treatment of women in TV news.
KMBC-TV was sold to Hearst in 1981 to make room for Metromedia's purchase of WCVB-TV in Boston. The news department, which had initially weathered the loss of Craft in the ratings, fell to third place. In the late 1980s, under general manager Dino Dinovitz, the station orchestrated a turnaround, commanding a news ratings lead in the market throughout the 1990s. KMBC-TV began programming channel 29 in 1996. In 2007, the stations moved out of their longtime home—the historic Lyric Theatre building—and to their present studios in southeast Kansas City. KMBC continues to compete for first place in local news ratings.
Cook Paint and Varnish Company, the owner of WHB, agreed in April 1954 to purchase KMBC radio and television from Midland Broadcasting Company, retain the KMBC stations and their studio facility, and sell WHB radio to the Todd Storz of Omaha, Nebraska. A driving factor in the transaction was the share-time situation on channel 9. The principals of Cook and Midland issued a joint statement reading, "We have learned that shared-time operation of a television channel can be successfully accomplished, but we have learned also that the difficulties of such shared time can be eliminated by one ownership." On June 13, 1954, channel 9 became solely KMBC-TV; WHB-TV's staff and equipment were folded into the expanded operation, and the Power and Light Building studio was closed. In November 1954, the final transmitter facility was activated, bringing KMBC-TV's effective radiated power to the maximum of 316,000 watts and improving reception of the station.
In January 1955, the Meredith Publishing Company, owner of KCMO-TV (channel 5, now KCTV), reached a group affiliation deal with CBS covering most of its radio and television properties. The agreement saw KCMO radio and television become CBS secondary outlets with immediate effect. The news was received, per a report in Variety, with "puzzlement" in Kansas City, given KMBC's long association with CBS. KCMO-TV joined CBS and KMBC-TV joined ABC on September 28, 1955, with their radio counterparts exchanging affiliations on December 1.
Cook Paint acquired KDRO-TV (channel 6), an ABC affiliate in Sedalia, Missouri, in 1958. The call sign was changed to KMOS-TV on February 6, 1959. Cook operated KMOS-TV as a semi-satellite of KMBC-TV, simulcasting the Kansas City station about 40% of the time. The Kansas City studio building became home to the Victoria Theater and was converted to the Capri, a movie house, in 1959. It also housed other offices and a restaurant.
In its early years under Metromedia ownership, KMBC-TV was a comparatively high pre-empter of ABC network programs. Writing for Variety in 1963, Les Brown noted that KMBC-TV had 14 of the market's top 15 syndicated programs, reportedly owned "as much as syndicated film as an independent station, and reputedly programs in the manner of an indie". This was particularly apt for Metromedia, which had become known as a quality operator of major-market independent stations. In 1968, Variety Bill Greeley reported that one Metromedia sales executive had recommended to his bosses that the station drop its network affiliation, while some speculated that Metromedia could trade with Cox Broadcasting for its independent in Oakland, California, KTVU, giving Metromedia another independent and Cox another network affiliate. In 1969, Ellis Shook moved from Metromedia's WTTG in Washington, D.C., to run KMBC-TV. He put an end to the independent-style programming and pre-emptions while launching a series of new local programs: Dimensions in Black and the talk show Etcetera. During his tenure, KMBC began airing the ABC Evening News, which previously had not aired in Kansas City. In 1980, when ABC debuted the late-night newscast Nightline, KMBC-TV delayed it to show reruns after its late newscast; this practice of deferring ABC's late-night programming lasted until January 2015.
The theater inside the KMBC building was used by the Kansas City Lyric Theatre beginning in 1970 and renamed the Lyric Theatre in 1974.
Hearst helped put a new Kansas City TV station on the air on September 14, 1996. KCWB (channel 29), an affiliate of The WB, was programmed by the company under a local marketing agreement. A month after launching, KMBC and KCWB obtained rights to Kansas City Royals baseball in a 50-game agreement sublicensed from Fox Sports Rocky Mountain; 15 games were slated for airing on channel 9. After an affiliation exchange with KSMO-TV (channel 62) in 1998, KCWB became KCWE, a UPN affiliate. It affiliated with The CW in 2006, the same year Hearst-Argyle was approved to buy it outright, creating Kansas City's third duopoly.
In 2007, KMBC and KCWE moved from the downtown studios into a facility at the Winchester Business Center, near Swope Park in southeastern Kansas City, Missouri. The facility, five years in the planning and under construction since 2005, was designed after the buildings at Country Club Plaza. It enabled the KMBC–KCWE operation to operate more efficiently. Prior to the relocation, offices spilled out from the Lyric into an annex across the street. It also offered a helipad and secure parking, unlike the Lyric.
In 1977, Ridge Shannon took over as KMBC-TV's news director. Over the next few years, the station experienced a near-total turnover in news personnel as people were fired or, as in the case of anchor Larry Moore, took jobs elsewhere. KMBC fell in the ratings and lost a third of its audience share at 10 p.m. in two years with new anchor Scott Feldman. In January 1980, the Total News moniker was dropped and replaced with The News, in a format that utilized beat reporting and aimed to present more substantive stories. Three months later, Don Fortune–sports director since 1975 and last remaining member of the top-rated Total News anchor team of the 1970s–departed to work for KCMO.
Craft returned to Santa Barbara, working for half the salary she earned in Kansas City. She sued Metromedia—but not Hearst or KMBC-TV itself—in January 1983, seeking $1.2 million in damages and alleging a pattern of sex discrimination at Metromedia. Testifying in the trial, KMBC general manager R. Kent Replogle stated that appearance was "at the top of the list" of qualities desired in a news anchor. He noted that Arbitron—which showed KMBC in a worse ratings position than Nielsen—was how the station sold 90 percent of its advertising. Two juries awarded Craft monetary damages, but the verdicts against Metromedia were overturned, first by a judge and later by the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.
While Craft lost, the trial spotlighted the double standards faced by women in TV news. Columnists such as Ellen Goodman of The Boston Globe and Sally Bedell Smith in The New York Times grappled with the questions the trial posed about how the television industry treated women journalists. It also was damaging to KMBC-TV and to the industry. In a letter to the editor of Broadcasting, David Dary, a professor at the University of Kansas, claimed the trial "singed the image of professionalism of TV news" by exposing the behind-the-scenes maneuvering involved.
In 1985, Hearst hired former Kansas Citian Paul "Dino" Dinovitz as KMBC-TV's new general manager. At the time, KMBC was in third place in local news ratings at 5, 6, and 10 p.m. Things had not changed by January 1987, when Brian Bracco was hired as news director. Under Bracco, KMBC added a 6:30 a.m. newscast, the first in Kansas City. Ratings rose to levels not seen since 1984, and in October 1989, KMBC regained first place at 10 p.m. By the early 1990s, ratings showed KMBC in the lead in all three evening news time slots. In November 1994, its 10 p.m. audience share reached 34 percent, tied for its best in 15 years.
Three female employees of KMBC-TV—Maria Antonia, Kelly Eckerman, and Peggy Breit—sued the station in November 2008, alleging age and gender discrimination and a practice of demoting older women in favor of younger women. Antonia claimed that Godsey had told her that she "would never anchor at Channel 9 again", while Breit alleged that KMBC management passed over older assignment reporters for higher-profile shifts in favor of younger hires. Hearst settled with the three anchors in September 2010.
KMBC remained ahead of its competitors in 2010 in the morning, early evening, and late evening news ratings. By 2013, WDAF had moved past KMBC to first in early evening news, even though KMBC had surpassed channel 4 in mornings. That November, Larry Moore retired from regular anchor duties and transitioned into an anchor emeritus role, in which he contributed to special projects reports. A 4 p.m. afternoon newscast was added in 2016. KMBC's 10 p.m. newscast was a close second to KCTV in the ratings in 2020, with KMBC and WDAF in a close race in other time slots. A Sunday night sports program was added to the KMBC-TV lineup in 2024.
Despite being operated by KMBC, KCWB/KCWE did not air any local newscasts until March 3, 2008, with the debut of KMBC 9 FirstNews on KCWE, a morning newscast extension which aired weekdays from 7 to 9 a.m. In 2010, the station debuted a half-hour 9 p.m. newscast, seven nights a week; the weeknight editions were expanded to an hour in 2016. A noon newscast was added to the KCWE schedule in September 2020.
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KMBC-TV began broadcasting a digital signal on VHF channel 7 on April 24, 2002. It was the first commercial TV station in Kansas City to broadcast in digital, though public station KCPT had begun broadcasting in 1998. The signal was full-power but had to be curtailed to the south to protect KOAM-TV in Pittsburg, Kansas, which was short-spaced. Though KMBC-TV had originally been projected to continue digital broadcasting in VHF on channel 9 after the transition concluded, this would have made it the only major Kansas City station transmitting on the VHF band. The FCC granted permission to switch that assignment to channel 29 effective February 19, 2009. The channel had been vacated when KCWE terminated analog broadcasts on February 17. This also resolved the spacing issue to KOAM and allowed for a stronger signal to areas south of Kansas City. Analog service continued until the final digital television transition date of June 12, 2009, and was followed by a "nightlight" service to provide digital transition information.
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