KYW-TV - News Operation

News Operation

Shortly after Westinghouse regained control of KYW-TV in 1965, news director Al Primo popularized the Eyewitness News format and branding. This format has the reporters actually presenting their stories instead of having an anchor read them. Primo used the cue "007" from the film From Russia with Love as the theme. Within a few years, Group W's other television stations had adopted the format. Around this same time, sister station KYW radio became one of the first all-news radio stations in the country.

Channel 3's newscasts, anchored by Vince Leonard starting in 1958 (during its stint as NBC-owned WRCV-TV), had long been second behind WCAU-TV, but the new format catapulted KYW-TV to first place. Also seen on the air during that time were future talk show host Tom Snyder and Marciarose Shestack. Primo took the concept with him to WABC-TV in New York in 1968, albeit an improved version which introduced the concept of chatter among the anchors ("happy talk"). It was this modified format that was emulated throughout the United States.

Channel 3 dominated the ratings for the rest of the 1960s, but faced a new challenger after WFIL-TV introduced Action News to Philadelphia. For most of the 1970s, KYW-TV traded first place with WFIL/WPVI. In 1972, KYW-TV hired Philadelphia-area native Jessica Savitch as a reporter, and later co-anchor alongside Leonard. Mort Crim also joined as an anchor during that period, forming what native Philadelphians called the "Camelot of television news." However, in 1977, WPVI beat KYW-TV in most timeslots by a wide margin during a sweeps period. In a case of especially bad timing, Savitch left for NBC News later that year. Crim left for WDIV in Detroit in 1978. Channel 3's ratings went into rapid decline. The station tried to stop the decline by adopting a new format called "Direct Connection", with reporters assigned to "beats" such as medical, consumer, entertainment, and gossip, among others. It did not work, and by the time Leonard left for KPNX in Phoenix in 1980, Eyewitness News had crashed into last place. For most of the next 20 years, KYW-TV was a very distant third behind WPVI-TV and WCAU-TV. Despite the presence of personalities such as Maria Shriver and Maury Povich (who anchored briefly in the early 1980s), Eyewitness News stayed in the ratings basement.

In 1991, KYW-TV rebranded itself as KYW 3 after being known on-air as simply "channel 3" for most of its history (except for the "Direct Connection" era, when it was known as "3 for All"). It also abandoned the longstanding Eyewitness News name after 26 years and experimented with giving each newscast a different name. The morning and noon news became "Newsday," the 6 p.m. news "Newsbeat," and the 11 p.m. news "The News Tonight." It also started using a theme based on the musical signature of its radio sister, one of the top all-news stations in the country and the highest-rated radio station in Philadelphia for most of the last 40 years. Group W hoped to gain the trust of viewers who already associated KYW radio with high-quality news. However, neither of these fixes worked, and channel 3 stayed in the ratings basement. The experiment with different newscast names ended in 1994, just before it became a CBS station, when the station began calling its news operation "News 3". The Eyewitness News name was restored in early 1998.

KYW-TV used music packages based on KYW radio's musical signature until 2003. That year it adopted "News in Focus", by composer John Hegner as its theme song. This package, like the majority of themes for CBS' owned and operated stations, is based on "Channel 2 News," written in 1975 for WBBM-TV in Chicago. Channel 3 used an updated version written in 2003 for sister station WCBS-TV in New York. The change to "News In Focus" came just after KYW began calling itself CBS 3. Ironically, WCAU-TV used music based on this theme for its last decade as a CBS-owned station. In 2005, KYW-TV ditched "News In Focus" in favor of another "Channel 2 News"-based tune, "The Enforcer" by Frank Gari.

Also in 2003, KYW-TV became a factor in the Philadelphia news race for the first time in over 20 years. The previous summer, it persuaded WPVI-TV's longtime 5 p.m. anchor, Marc Howard, to jump ship to anchor its 11 p.m. news. Kathy Orr, weekend weathercaster at WCAU, also moved to channel 3. But those moves did nothing to help the ratings, and the station languished in last place for almost a full year.

Then, in September 2003, the station lured Larry Mendte away from WCAU. Mendte had been the lead anchor at that station when it defeated WPVI in the ratings for the first time in 30 years. Alycia Lane, a weekend anchor at WTVJ in Miami, was added to compliment Mendte, and they became the station's new top anchor team, anchoring the 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. news.

The 5 p.m. news was moved to 4 p.m. and Marc Howard moved off the 11 p.m. newscast to anchor with Denise Saunders. The change proved successful, as KYW moved ahead of WCAU at 11 p.m. and came within a point of knocking off WPVI in the time slot. Saunders left the station in 2004 and was replaced by Angela Russell. Russell left the station on December 26, 2008. The 4 p.m. newscast has since been co-anchored by 6 p.m. co-anchor Susan Barnett. Today, KYW-TV is in second place in most time slots while WPVI-TV (a.k.a. 6ABC) continues to dominate with its newscasts despite having its digital signal on interference-prone channel 6. WTXF-TV (a.k.a. FOX 29) leads in prime time programming.

In 2005, KYW introduced a customized graphics package created by Emmy Award winner Randy Pyburn of Pyburn Films. Interestingly, the Pyburn graphics package is quite similar to the one it created for WNBC-TV in 2003, which some of NBC's owned and operated stations are currently standardizing around.

In April 2007, KYW-TV began broadcasting its newscasts in high-definition, becoming the third Philadelphia television station to do so. The switch coincided with the station's move from its former Independence Mall studios to its new facility on Hamilton Street.

On February 2, 2009, KYW's news department began broadcasting a 10pm newscast on sister station WPSG. It was announced in the fall of 2009 that the noon news on KYW would be ditched in favor of a talk show, "TalkPhilly". Only WPVI and WTXF aired noon newscasts after this format change.

KYW-TV cooperates with sister station WCBS-TV in the production and broadcast of statewide New Jersey political debates. When the two stations broadcast a statewide office debate, such as Governor or U.S. Senate, they will pool resources and have anchors or reporters from both stations participate in the debate. Additionally, the two stations cooperate in the gathering of news in New Jersey where their markets overlap; sharing reporters, live trucks, and helicopters. Like other CBS-owned stations, KYW-TV offers a web only newscast called "CBS 3 At Your Desk", shown daily. On September 1, 2010, KYW-TV switched to the same graphics package used by WCBS-TV and KCBS-TV.