WKMG-TV, channel 6, is the CBS network affiliate for Central Florida (the Orlando-Daytona Beach-Melbourne, Florida market). WKMG is licensed to Orlando and is owned and operated by Post-Newsweek Stations, Inc., a subsidiary of the Washington Post Company. It is branded as "Local6", under the "Local Mandate," a station standardization adopted for all stations owned by Post-Newsweek. WKMG's transmitter is located in Bithlo, Florida. WKMG's studios are located on John Young Parkway. Said station, WFTV and WRDQ are the only three stations with studios located inside the Orlando city limits. It is the only "big-six" network station in Orlando to use a -TV suffix.

WKMG-TV can be seen on Bright House Networks channel 5 and Comcast channel 7. The station can also be found on Bright House Networks in Citrus County, although that county is part of the Tampa market.

WKMG also has a repeater in Ocala, W29AB channel 29. This station originally served as a repeater for Tampa Bay's WTOG during the 1980s and 1990s.

Digital subchannel 6.2 carries LATV.

Syndicated programming on the station includes Rachael Ray, The Doctors, Inside Edition, Dr. Phil & Extra.

History

The station first took to the air on July 1, 1954; as WDBO-TV, which stood for "Daytona Beach Orlando", But locals would call it "Way Down By Orlando." It is the sixth-oldest station in Florida, and the oldest in Central Florida. It was originally owned by the Orlando Broadcasting Company along with WDBO radio (AM 580 and FM 92.3, now WWKA).

As the only station in the market at its inception, it originally carried programming from all four networks of the time — CBS, NBC, ABC and DuMont. DuMont would shut down most network operations in 1955, but honor network commitments until 1956; at that point, DuMont disappeared from the schedule. It lost NBC when Daytona Beach's WESH expanded its signal to cover all of Central Florida in 1957, and ABC when WLOF-TV (now WFTV) signed on in 1958.

Orlando Broadcasting merged with Cherry Broadcasting in 1957. In 1963, WDBO-AM-FM-TV were sold to The Outlet Company.

In 1982, WDBO AM-FM was sold to Katz Broadcasting, as Outlet decided to begin exiting radio. Outlet was nearly bought out by Columbia Pictures around the same time. In advance of this, channel six prematurely changed its call letters to WCPX-TV, which stood for "W Columbia PiX" (shorthand for "Pictures"). While the deal fell through, channel 6 kept the WCPX calls for 16 years.

Outlet pared down its holdings after a buyout in 1986, selling off many stations. At that point, WCPX was sold to First Media, Inc.

In the early 1990s WCPX decided to move the CBS program Picket Fences from Friday evening to 11:35 pm on Saturday so that it could air Star Trek: The Next Generation on Friday evenings. WCPX also pre-empted some CBS sports programs as well. In 1994, WCPX hired a new general manager, Brooke Spectorsky, from WUAB in Cleveland. (Spectorsky is now general manager of WKYC-TV in Cleveland.) Under Spectorsky, WCPX put Picket Fences back at its normal time.

In 1995, WCPX was one of the first CBS affiliates to air Guiding Light at 10 a.m. instead of 3 p.m., which was the normal time to air it. Under this arrangement, the program would air on a one day delay. However, CBS soon discovered that several of its O&O's were doing the same thing. CBS then decided to provide two (eventually three) same day feeds of Guiding Light to its stations (one at 9 a.m., 10 a.m., and 3 p.m.). WKMG aired Guiding Light at 9 a.m. up until September 18, 2009. It currently airs Let's Make a Deal at 9 a.m.

In 1997, First Media merged with Meredith Corporation, which already owned Fox affiliate WOFL. At the time, duopolies were not allowed, and Meredith decided to keep WOFL (which has since been sold to Fox). In mid-1997, Meredith swapped WCPX to Post-Newsweek Stations in exchange for Hartford, Connecticut's WFSB (which at the time was Post-Newsweek's flagship). On January 30, 1998, the station changed its callsign to WKMG in honor of longtime Washington Post publisher, Katharine M. Graham. As of recently, WKMG is the last "Big Six" affiliate in Orlando that is not part of any television duopoly (Fox/Newscorp's WOFL/WRBW, Cox's WFTV/WRDQ and Hearst-Argyle's WESH/WKCF).

With sister station Jacksonville's WJXT's decision to drop CBS in 2002, rumors abounded that WKMG would ditch CBS in favor of becoming an independent or joining another network. However, this was highly speculative at best, and WKMG signed a long-term contract extension with CBS in 2005.

Today WKMG clears all available CBS programs but sometimes will pre-empt programs. It also pushes back the Late Late Show by a half-hour as well.

News operation

From the late 1980s until 2001, the station was almost always in last place in the ratings. At the same time, WESH and WFTV battled for first place in the Orlando market, and basically continued to do so into the early 2000s; however, in the past few years, WFTV has become the dominant station (though channel 6 claimed first place at 11 p.m. in the May 2006 ratings period). Management changes had a number of GMs on the treadmill with Mike Schweitzer, Kathleen Keefe, Jeff Sales and Henry Maldonado all taking a turn at the top. News and Sales Departments had similar turnover with at least 5 News Directors taking the chair between 2000 and 2008. Sales Managers included Connie Albino for a short tenure before being replaced by Tom Calato. Internet Broadcasting Systems provided the Internet site named "myCFnow.com" by Sales; it then switched to "local6.com", and is currently known as "clickorlando.com". Currently, despite the strength of CBS prime-time programming, WKMG has been trading second and third place with WESH in the evening newscast ratings except at 11 pm, where until recently it waged a spirited battle with WFTV for first. From late 2007 until March 2009, WKMG's 11 pm newscast was in second place behind WFTV. Continuing its ratings slide, the May 2009 sweeps found WKMG's newscasts finishing in third place in all time slots, behind WFTV and WESH. In fact, despite being number one in prime time WKMG's late night newscast has failed to hold on to its lead-in audience for the most part. The siphoning off in news audience share appears to have held in the November 2009 sweeps period, when WKMG remained in a distant third place weekday evenings while its morning and late night newscasts improved slightly although still in a distant second place.

The main news anchors at WKMG currently are Mike Garofalo and Jacqueline London; they anchor the 6pm newscast. Original main anchor Lauren Rowe moved to help co-anchor the morning news with Erick Weber before returning to nights, joining Garafalo for the 11pm news. Reporter Laura Diaz now anchors The Morning News with Erick Weber. Before May 1, 2009, London anchored the 4pm, 5pm, 6pm, and 11pm newscasts with Garofalo and solo anchored the 5:30pm newscast.

In 2008, WKMG-TV began broadcasting its news in SD 16:9 widescreen format. WKMG is currently the only major station in the Orlando market which has yet to upgrade its newscasts to full high definition.

In June 2009 WKMG-TV General Manager Henry Maldonado retired, thus stepping down from his role at Local 6.

As of Monday, May 1, 2009, the 4:00, 5:00 and 5:30 newscasts were axed, thus shaking up the afternoon/early evening schedule. Extra airs at 4:00; Inside Edition still holds the 4:30 half hour, and now has an additional airing at 7:30; and Dr. Phil moved to 5:00 (following the leads of Post-Newsweek sister station WPLG and cross-state rival WTSP). Local 6 News at 6:00 expanded to an hour - creating the market's first and only full hour of news at 6:00 (titled "The 6:00 News") and pushed the CBS Evening News to 7:00.

Digital television

Channel	Programming
6.1	WKMG-DT
6.2	LATV

After the analog television shutdown and digital conversion was completed on June 12, 2009, WKMG-TV digital broadcasts remained on channel 26. Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers continue to display WKMG-TV's virtual channel as 6.1. WKMG-TV terminated analog programming on June 12, 2009.

Personalities

News Anchors

• Mike Garofalo - The 6:00 News and Local 6 News at 11pm
• Lauren Rowe - Local 6 News at 11pm
• Jacqueline London - The 6:00 News
• Erick Weber - The Morning News (5am-7am) and Local 6 News at Noon
• Laura Diaz - The Morning News (5am-7am) and reporter
• Erik von Ancken - Weekends 6:30pm & 11pm and reporter Monday-Wednesday at 11pm
• Ramin Khalili- 5am-7am (Saturday) and 5am-7:30am (Sunday) and reporter on The Morning News Monday, Tuesday and Friday

Meteorologists

• Troy Bridges - Meteorologist seen on The 6:00 News and 11pm (AMS)
• Tom Sorrells - Meteorologist seen on The 6:00 News (AMS-CBM/NWA)
• Eric Wilson - The Morning News (5am-7am) & Local 6 at Noon (AMS/NWA)
• Elizabeth Hart - Weekends, all newscasts

Sportscasters

• David Pingalore (on-air stage name: Ping) - sports director - The 6:00 News & Local 6 News at 11
• Todd Romero - Weekends 6:30pm and 11pm and sports reporter

Reporters

• Mike DeForest - weekdays, The 6:00 News
• JR Stone - weekdays, The Morning News
• Louis Bolden - weekdays, The 6:00 News
• Jessica D'Onofrio - Wednesday on The Morning News, Thursday-Friday 11pm and weekends
• Tarik Minor - weekdays, The 6:00 News as Volusia County reporter
• Jessica Sanchez - weekday traffic, The Morning News
• Chris Trenkmann - weekdays, The 6:00 News

Local 6 Problem Solvers

• Steven Cooper - consumer reports
• Donald Forbes - To Catch a Criminal reports
• Mike Holfeld - investigative reports
• Tony Pipitone - investigative reports

Notable Alumni

• Bob Frier Now at WOFL
• Todd Jurkowski - Currently Press Secretary for Rep. Alan Grayson (D)-FL
• Marla Weech
• Todd Lewis
• David Wittman - Now at WOIO-TV
• Grace Rabold
• Lisa Colagrossi - Now at WABC-TV
• Michele Muro
• Glenn Rinker - Deceased (1993)
• Mike Burger - Now at KTXA-TV
• Mary Hamill
• Mona Scott - Creator of the "Newsblues" blog, with husband Mike James
• Ben Aycrigg
• Charna Davis - Now with UCF-TV
• Shepard Smith - At Fox News Channel since its inception in 1996
• Pat Michaels
• Shawn Killinger - Now at QVC. Appeared on The Apprentice Martha Stewart
• Annetta Wilson
• Leslye Gale - Now at Magic 107.7
• Ryan Baker - Now at WBBM-TV
• Bud Hedinger - Now at AM-540 WFLA
• Mike Storms
• Gordy Herschiser
• Michele Cimino
• Pamela Kister Brady
• Tom Terry - Now at WFTV-TV
• Larry Mowry - Now at KTXA-TV
• Reynolds Wolf - Now at CNN
• Trace Gallagher - At Fox News Channel since its inception in 1996
• Charnel Wright - Founder of Scared Safe NOW, a women's crime safety and awareness organization

News/Station Presentation

Newscast Titles

• Newswatch 6 (1977-1987)
• WCPX Channel 6 News (1987-1992)
• 6 News (1992-1995)
• Channel 6 News (1995-1998)
• WKMG 6 News (1998-1999)
• Newscenter 6 (1999-2001)
• WKMG News (2001-2002)
• Local 6 News (2002-present)

Station Slogans

• Channel 6 is On Your Side (1987-1989; image campaign based on Frank Gari's "Turn To News")
• Get Ready for Channel 6 (1989-1991, local version of CBS ad campaign)
• Where Will We Take You Tonight? (1996)
• Channel 6, Welcome Home (1997-1998); localized version of CBS image campaign at the time
• Working Harder for You (1998-2001; used in image campaign by Frank Gari)
• The One To See (2000-2001; local campaign based on the "It's All Here" CBS campaign of 2000-2001)
• The Problem Solvers (2001-2005)
• Your Breaking News Station (2005-2007)
• Never Miss A Moment (2008-2009; general slogan)
• Always Here For You (2008-2009; news slogan)
• News You Need (2009-present; news slogan)

News Music Packages

• WDBO News (1977-1982)
• WCPX News (1982-1984)
• Determination (1984-1987)
• Turn To News (1987-1989)
• The Great News Package (1989-1992)
• Palmer News Package (1992-1995)
• Millenium 3 (1995-1998)
• The One And Only (1998-2004)
• Headliners (2001-2004)
• All The News (2004-2007)
• The CBS Enforcer Music Collection (2007-present)

Radio

WKMG's audio signal disappeared on June 12, 2009 when the station converted from analog to digital broadcasting.

References

External links

• WKMG Official Website
• WKMG History