KMPH-TV

KMPH-TV is a television station in Fresno, California broadcasting on television channel 26, and is licensed to Visalia, California. It is the flagship station of Pappas Telecasting and the sister station to KFRE, the CW affiliate for the Central Valley. It is the Fresno-area affiliate of the Fox Broadcasting Company.

History

KMPH began broadcasting on October 11, 1971 as an independent station. The funding for KMPH came from station co-founder and General Manager Harry Pappas' plan of having hundreds of investors each investing a small amount of money needed to construct the station, rather than having one investor providing all the capital. Throughout the early- to mid-1980s, KMPH was one of the top independent stations in the country. Pappas signed an affiliation deal with Fox for KMPH and one of its two other UHF start-ups, KPTM in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1986 (The other Pappas-owned station, WHNS in Greenville, South Carolina, took the Fox affiliation from WAXA two years later). KMPH and KSEE are the two stations in Fresno to keep the same network affilaition unaffected by the network swaps of ABC and CBS in 1985 and the network changes of The CW Television Network and My Network TV in 2006. The Fox affiliation remains on KMPH to this day.

Programming

KMPH airs 32 hours of local news each week, including the oldest 10 p.m. newscast in the Fresno market, as well as the "Great Day" morning show which debuted October 6, 2003 featuring long-time anchor Kopi Sotiropolous and Bay Area native Anchor, Kim Stephens. In spring 2007, "Great Day" expanded to 5 hours; it now runs from 5:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m. In January 2006, KMPH also produced a half-hour newscast for sister station KFRE that aired every night at 11:00 p.m., but due to low ratings, KMPH cancelled that newscast in mid Feb of 2007. A few months later, KFRE news anchor Allison Ruddell re-joined KMPH as the "Midday" anchor. As of July 2007, Ruddell has not been seen on the air and there has been much speculation that she may have resigned. Reporter Nicole Garcia has been filling in during the Midday show as Anchor. KMPH also airs court/reality/talk shows, sitcom reruns, and movies in addition to news and the Fox broadcasting schedule. In recent years KMPH has discontinued cartoons, relocating the 4Kids TV schedule to KFRE, which airs the 4Kids TV lineup on Sunday mornings. (Under that technicality, since the mid-90s, Fox allowed its affiliates (especially the newer ones formerly owned by New World) to preempt Fox Kids programming by sending it to another local station, a practice continued to this day). Many television news stations have updated their studio cameras to robotically-controlled systems, but it is unique to KMPH to train Floor Crew to operate the cameras manually, edit news feeds, and also participate in other pre-broadcast office duties in the newsroom. This station also operates KMPH-CA in Merced, California on channel 17. KMPH Fox 26 can also be picked up in and around the Bakersfield area.

Past Personalities

• Tom Adams (anchor/reporter) now at KVAL
• Andrew Amador (weekend anchor); now at KSWT (CBS/Yuma) as main anchor
• Terry Allen (sports/weather)
• Eric Alvarez (anchor) later at KOVR (CBS/Sacramento), now freelancing at KNTV (NBC/San Jose/San Francisco)
• Andy Asher (anchor/reporter)
• Bill Bird (reporter)
• Gerrick Brenner (reporter); went to KFSN (ABC/Fresno) as reporter; now at WTVD (ABC/Raleigh-Durham) - read his ABC 11 bio
• Mike Bryant (sports)
• Terry Bryant (weather/news/sports anchor/reporter)
• Amy Carlisle (anchor/reporter)
• Dick Carr (anchor/news director)
• Mike Cully (reporter); now President/CEO Visalia Chamber of Commerce
• Brendan Conway (reporter); now at WISN
• Denise Dador (reporter); now at KABC as health reporter
• Rusty Dornin (anchor); now at CNN
• Jim Fannin (anchor/reporter/talkshow host, KMPH-FM); now in Reno at KKOH
• Joanne Feldman (weather anchor); went to KFSN (ABC/Fresno) as meteorologist & morning show anchor and WTVD (ABC/Raleigh-Durham) as meteorologist; now at WAGA (Fox/Atlanta) as the same position
• Liza Fernandez (anchor) now at KRON
• Dana Greene (sports); now at KTXV (ABC/Salt Lake City) - read his ABC 4 bio
• Silva Harapetian (reporter); went to KBAK (CBS/Bakersfield) as producer; then to a TV station in Lawton, Oklahoma; then to KXAN (NBC/Austin) as reporter; now at WDIV (NBC/Detroit) as reporter
• Tamara Henry (anchor)
• Brandi Hitt (producer/reporter/anchor); now at KOVR (CBS/Sacramento)
• Kristin Hoke (reporter/anchor), now at WPBF Palm Beach,Florida
• Cathy Isom (anchor - KMPH-FM)
• Vic "The Brick" Jacobs (sports); now at KLAC AM 570 in Los Angeles.
• John Kessler (Anchor); now at KPIX (CBS/San Francisco)
• Lloyd Lindsey Young (weather); now at KERO (ABC/Bakersfield)
• Paul Lowe (reporter/anchor); now at KFWB News 98 Los Angeles.
• John Malos (main anchor); retired in 2005
• Kye Martin (reporter/anchor); now at KTXL (FOX/Sacramento)
• Marc Martinez (reporter); now at KSAZ-TV (FOX/Phoenix)
• Josh McElveen (reporter); now at NECN in Boston
• Steve Miles (anchor)
• Eric Mitchell (reporter)
• Bonni Montevecchi (reporter)
• Kellie Morris (features reporter)
• Leticia Ordaz (reporter); now at KCRA (NBC/Sacramento)
• Laurie Penco (features reporter), KFSN (ABC/Fresno)
• Ken Pritchett (reporter); now at KTVU (FOX/San Francisco)
• Evy Ramos (Traffic Safety Advocate for Great Day); now at KGTV (ABC affiliate/San Diego) as reporter
• Erika Razo (features reporter), now at KSEE (NBC/Fresno)
• Gary Radnich (sports); now at KRON as a sports director
• Justin Red (reporter)now at K-JEWEL Radio
• Bill Rice (anchor/reporter)
• Larry Rice (weather/reporter); now at KOB-TV
• Allison Ruddell (anchor); resigned in 2007,why is she still on web site?
• Nick Ryan (anchor - KMPH-FM); now in prison
• Catalina Salmeron (reporter)
• Veronica Sanchez (reporter); went to KTNV (ABC/Las Vegas) as reporter; now at KPNX (NBC/Phoenix) as reporter
• Julie Sedenko (reporter)
• John Soderman (anchor); now at KUSI-TV in San Diego
• Alysia Sofios (reporter)
• Janet Stoll (anchor); now Public Affairs Officer for Clovis, CA Police Department
• Mark Thomas (reporter)
• Sean Thomas (reporter)now at KSEE
• Angelica Urquijo (anchor) went to KVVU (FOX/Las Vegas); now Current Director of Public Relations USC School of Dentistry
• Cynthia Yip (anchor/reporter)
• Kim Yonenaka (anchor/reporter) went to KTVU (FOX/San Francisco); now unknown
• Don York (Valley Ag News Anchor/Reporter 1995-1998) now KMPH-TV Marketing Department Commercial Producer
• Karen Zarsadiaz (reporter)
• Kim Quintero (reporter) now at KVAL Eugene

External links

• KMPH-TV
• KMPH Old Station Idents from TV Ark
• Query the FCC's TV station database for KMPH-TV
• Query the FCC's TV station database for KMPH-CA