WCCO WCCO Sahti Category="CBS network affiliates"Category="Radio stations in Minneapolis-St. Paul"Category="Television stations in Minneapolis-Saint Paul"Category="Viacom radio stations"Category="Viacom television stations"WCCO is a set of Radio and Television stations with a storied history spanning more than 80 years that serves the Minneapolis-St. Paul area of Minnesota. WCCO-AM is a clear channel station broadcasting at 830 kHz, reaching a wide area of North America at night when other transmitters on the frequency are required to reduce power or shut down for the night. In television, WCCO-TV broadcasts on channels 4 (analog) and 32 (digital). Additional TV transmitters in the north serve Alexandria (KCCO 7, 24 DT) and Walker, Minnesota (KCCW 12, 20 DT). The call sign comes from the Washburn Crosby Company (now known as General Mills), which was an early owner.

From 1947 to 1996, WCCO-AM and WCCO-TV won twelve George Foster Peabody Awards, more than any other Twin Cities broadcast outlet.

Radio

**8•3•0 WCCO**

[image]
First air date	September 4, 1922
Frequency	830 kHz AM
Broadcast area	Minneapolis-St. Paul (day), Upper Midwest (night)
Style	Talk radio
Group	Viacom

The history of WCCO Radio begins with the "Call of the North" station WLAG, which began broadcasting in the region on September 4, 1922. However, the station soon landed in financial trouble and closed down in 1924. Washburn Crosby Company (a flour milling company; predecessor to General Mills) took over the station and renamed it to WCCO, and broadcasts resumed less than two months later on October 2, 1924. (But for that brief interruption, WCCO would be the oldest station on the air today in Minnesota.) Early broadcasts took place on the frequency of 710 kHz.

In the early days of radio, WCCO was a powerful force in the development of better and more powerful transmitters. In 1928, WCCO changed its frequency to 810 kHz and in 1929 was granted a clear channel license. Construction of a new 50,000-Watt tower operating at this frequency was complete by September 1932. In the 1930s, two additional 300-foot towers were added to increase the range of the station's signal, allowing it to be picked up as far away as Hawaii and the Caribbean Sea when atmospheric conditions were right. The Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) added WCCO to its network in 1937, and it remains affiliated with the CBS Radio Network to this day.

In 1939, construction of a new transmitter, still at 810 kHz, was completed in Coon Rapids, Minnesota. This is the same tower used today, although the broadcast frequency was changed to 830 kHz just before World War II.

During the day, WCCO's signal covers 88 counties in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and South Dakota. At night, the station's signal typically reaches across 28 U.S. states and three Canadian provinces. Certain conditions can make the signal stretch much farther-former station announcer Howard Viken says that he once picked up the station while he was stationed at Guadalcanal in 1943.

During those days, WCCO broadcasters were minor celebrities across the Midwest. One of them, Steve Cannon, had a distinguished broadcasting career spanning nearly six decades. WCCO Radio is known in its home market by its call letters, the phrase "Radio 8-3-0" or "Minnesota's 8-3-0" or the nicknames "'CCO" or "The Good Neighbor," and plays a talk-oriented format, presenting news, opinion and a number of shows throughout the day, with occasional short stories like the station's "Point of Law" program which serves to both entertain and educate the station's listeners about finer points of the American legal system.

WCCO engineers were experimenting with Frequency modulation by 1939, operating W9XHW at 42.3 MHz, but at just 50 watts. The station continued to only consider the medium tepidly. Around 1970, WCCO-FM was broadcasting at 2700 watts and only for the minimum number of hours required to keep a license to the frequency. It eventually became today's WLTE 102.9 FM.

WCCO was the top-rated station in the Twin Cities for decades until shifting demographics and interests finally brought KQRS-FM to the top spot. One sign of the changing times: the well-known Farm report was dropped in early 2004, reflecting the fact that many farmers now rely more on the Internet for such information and that the number of farmers in Minnesota has drastically shrunk since the station first began broadcasting (though agriculture remains vital to the region).

For several years, WCCO has hosted a weekly radio show with the Governor of Minnesota. Jesse Ventura had a show while in office, and successor Tim Pawlenty has followed suit.

Coverage

[image]

Television

WCCO-TVKCCO and KCCW
[image]
Minneapolis-St. Paul
Branding	WCCO 4
Slogan	The Twin Cities News Station
Analog channel	4, 7, 12 (VHF), 4 more translators
Digital channel	32, 24, 20 (UHF)
Affiliations	CBS (since 1952)
Owner	CBS Corporation
Founded	1949
Call letters meaning	Washburn Crosby Co.
Former affiliations	ABC (1949-52)
Website	www.wcco.com

In 1952, WCCO Radio merged with WTCN-TV. The TV channel originated in another radio station, WRHM, which took to the air in 1925. In 1934, two newspapers-the Minneapolis Tribune and the Saint Paul Pioneer Press-Dispatch-formed a joint venture named Twin Cities Newspapers which purchased the station and correspondingly changed the station's call letters to WTCN. WTCN-TV went on the air on July 1, 1949 as Minnesota's second television station, and became an ABC affiliate.

After the merger, WTCN-TV became WCCO-TV and became a CBS affiliate. The WTCN radio station had remained outside the merger, however, and the WTCN call sign was reborn on television a few years later, again as an ABC affiliate. That station broadcast on channel 11 and eventually became KARE (now an NBC affiliate).

In 1954, a live CBS broadcast from the Foshay Tower provided a view an early-morning Solar eclipse, the first time such an event had been televised nationally. In 1955, a mobile unit was formed, using a van dubbed the "Blue Goose" which would be used for more than a decade.

WCCO-TV participated in the first TransAtlantic television broadcast via the Telstar Satellite on July 23, 1962 when a mobile crew provided video of Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. This video was broadcast across the three major networks of the time: ABC, CBS, and NBC.

The station had broadcast from studios in the Radio City Theater building in downtown Minneapolis since the first WTCN-TV went on the air in 1949. Despite renovations in 1956, the space eventually became too small, so the station moved into a new space at the south end of Nicollet Mall when a new building was finished in 1983. WCCO is the only area TV station broadcasting from downtown Minneapolis today.

In 1987, WCCO bought KCMT, channel 7 in Alexandria and its satellite KNMT, channel 12 in Walker. KCMT had signed on in 1957 and had been the only full-power VHF station in central Minnesota. KNMT signed on in 1962 as a satellite of KCMT in northern Minnesota. They were renamed KCCO and KCCW respectively, and their local operations were progressively cut back until 2002, when local news segments on both stations were discontinued. WCCO has opened bureaus in Brainerd and St. Cloud, and stories produced in Alexandria, Brainerd and St. Cloud can be seen in the Twin Cities as well. Shortly after that, WCCO began identifying itself on-air as "WCCO-TV, channel 4, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Alexandria, Walker."

WCCO was purchased by CBS in 1992, many believe that the station was mis-managed in the following years.

Until Cable television became common in the early 1990s, WCCO was the exclusive carrier of most Twin Cities sporting events (Twins baseball, Minnesota Vikings football, Minnesota North Stars hockey and U of M athletics) on television and radio. Since 1992, however, rival Fox won NFL football from CBS and carried with it the Vikes, and the North Stars skipped town entirely; when hockey returned to Minnesota in the form of the Minnesota Wild, it would affiliate with former hometown independent KMSP.

WCCO experimented with cable in the 1980s. Known initially as WCCO II or 'CCO cable, it was a way to transmit programs that wouldn't ordinarily make it onto the over-the-air frequency. During this time, WCCO II aired local forecasts when not airing sports or other programming. This later morphed into the Midwest Sports Channel (MSC), which operated for several years. Following Viacom's purchase of CBS, MSC was sold to News Corp and became Fox Sports Net North.

A later experiment in 1995, this time in the field of evening newscasts, also proved to be interesting. WCCO partnered with KLGT channel 23 and fed a second news show to that station. This was known as "News of Your Choice," where the news anchors would periodically describe the upcoming items on each channel. This allowed viewers to decide which stories they wanted to see. Multiple factors contributed to the shutdown of the experiment after about one year.

WCCO-TV's transmitter is located in Shoreview, Minnesota, at the Telefarm paired tower installation also used by KSTP, KARE, and KMWB. The market's northern portion gets WCCO from four low-power translators, all privately owned:

K36FI, channel 36 Frost
K51AL, channel 51 Olivia
K54AC, channel 54 St. James
K46AC, channel 46 Willmar, Minnesota, Willmar

Notable personalities

An early local program broadcast by the station was a children's program named Axel and His Dog, featuring Clellan Card as Axel. In 1954, the first local program to be broadcast in color by the station was an episode of Axel.

Some notable personalities at the station have had long careers. Dave Moore, a Minneapolis native who had worked almost his entire career in the city, did evening newscasts from 1957 until the early 1990s when he moved to a more leisurely schedule broadcasting Moore on Sunday. In 1962 he had helped create The Bedtime Nooz, a satirical view of newscasts that aired on Saturday nights. Another program called The Scene Tonight was created in 1968. Both programs featured meteorologist Bud Kraehlig and other members of the regular station staff. Moore passed away in 1998.

Bill Carlson joined the station in 1959, working in several roles over the years including news anchor, and still provides film reviews as of 2004.

Don Shelby joined the station as a news anchor in 1978 and also has done investigative reporting, although he quit doing that after one report was heavily criticized. Shelby suffered a mild stroke in early 2004, and returned to news reading duties by the end of that year. As of 2005, Shelby continues the unique dual responsibility of hosting an afternoon radio show which ends at 5:00, immediately after which he anchors the TV newscast, which is also simulcast on radio.

Weather forecaster Paul Douglas, sports commentator Mike Max, talk show host Dark Star (real name George Chapple) and other personalities also cross over between TV and radio.

External links

WCCO Television
WCCO Radio

References

(2001). Radio and Television. A History of Minneapolis. Minneapolis Public Library. Accessed September 25, 2004.
Jeff Baenen (September 24, 2004). Good Neighbor WCCO Radio celebrates 80 years. Associated Press. Accessed September 25, 2004.
History of WCCO Tower. City of Coon Rapids. Accessed September 25, 2004.
(July 16, 2003). History of WCCO-TV. WCCO. Accessed September 26, 2004.

AM radio stations in the Minneapolis-St. Paul market

By Frequency: 630 | 690 | 740 | 770 | 830 | 900 | 950 | 980 | 1030 | 1130 | 1220 | 1280 | 1330 | 1400 | 1440 | 1470 | 1500 | 1570

Broadcast television in Minneapolis-Saint Paul
KTCA 2 (PBS) - WCCO 4 (CBS) - KSTP 5 (ABC) - KMSP 9 (Fox) - KARE 11 (NBC) - WUMN 13 (UNI)
KTCI 17 (PBS) - KMWB 23 (The WB) - WFTC 29 (UPN) - KPXM 41 (i) - KSTC 45 (IND)

Broadcast television in Minneapolis-Saint Paul
KTCA 2 (PBS) - WCCO 4 (CBS) - KSTP 5 (ABC) - KMSP 9 (Fox) - KARE 11 (NBC) - WUMN 13 (UNI) KTCI 17 (PBS) - KMWB 23 (The WB) - WFTC 29 (UPN) - KPXM 41 (i) - KSTC 45 (IND)