KMOV

KMOV (channels 4 and 32), branded as First Alert 4, is a television station in St. Louis, Missouri, United States, affiliated with CBS and ABC. It is owned by Gray Media alongside KDTL-LD (channel 32.2), a sports-oriented independent station. Both stations broadcast from studios on Progress Parkway in suburban Maryland Heights and share transmitter facilities in Lemay, Missouri. Channel 4 in St. Louis was built by radio station KWK and began broadcasting on July 8, 1954, as KWK-TV. Its construction culminated six years of legal activity—prolonged by a federal freeze on new stations—and a contested battle to bring the city its second very high frequency (VHF) station. Operating from studios in the Globe-Democrat Tower Building, KWK-TV's early history was precarious. CBS at the time was fighting to build its own station in St. Louis, which could have left KWK-TV without network programming. Even though CBS won the construction permit for channel 11 in 1957, it opted to speed up its arrival into the market by instead buying KWK-TV. When CBS took over channel 4 on March 16, 1958, the station changed call signs to KMOX-TV, after CBS-owned KMOX radio. KMOX-TV was one of the network's five owned-and-operated stations. In 1968, KMOX radio and television moved to the new Gateway Tower in downtown St. Louis. KMOX-TV led local news in the market in the late 1950s and early 1960s but fell behind KSD-TV (channel 5, now KSDK) in the ratings. This changed beginning in 1973, when—under general manager Tom Battista—KMOX-TV revamped its newscast with younger, more attractive personalities to attract a female audience. At the same time, KMOX-TV became the first station in the world to move to entirely electronic news gathering, ceasing the then-standard and time-intensive use of film to record news footage. In 1975, it was the first local...