KSHB-TV

KSHB-TV, virtual channel 41, is the NBC-affiliated television station serving the entire Kansas City metropolitan area; the station is commonly known by its branding NBC Action News. It is owned by the E.W. Scripps Company, alongside independent station KMCI (channel 38) as the company's only existing duopoly. The station runs NBC's entire network schedule, along with first-run talk and reality shows, and about 30 hours a week of local news.

The station broadcasts a digital signal on UHF channel 42, using its former analog channel assignment of 41 as its virtual digital channel via PSIP. KSHB also runs a 24-hour weather channel, Action WeatherPlus, on KSHB-DT digital subchannel 41.2. On cable, KSHB can be seen in standard definition on channel 13 on Time Warner Cable and Surewest in the Kansas City area and channel 14 on Sunflower Broadband and RESNET Cable in Lawrence, and in high definition on digital channel 1441 on Time Warner, digital channel 630 on Surewest, and digital channel 214 on Sunflower Broadband.

History
Channel 41 signed on August 10, 1970 as KBMA-TV (for Businessmen's Assurance Company of America, which provided initial funds for the station's founding), owned by Wilson D. Grant. KBMA was originally an independent station—the second in Kansas City. However, it had stronger financing and programming than the city's original independent, KCIT-TV (channel 50, now KPXE). KCIT went off the air in 1971, and for the next 12 years, channel 41 was the only general entertainment station in Kansas City (channel 50 eventually signed on once again in 1978, but as a religious station). From the early 1970s through the 1980s, it was available on many cable systems in Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma, effectively becoming a regional superstation. This included many large Midwestern cities that didn't have independent stations of their own, such as Des Moines, Omaha, Lincoln, and Wichita.

KBMA was sold to Scripps Howard Broadcasting in 1977. To reflect its new ownership, the station later changed its call letters to KSHB-TV in 1981. The station acquired some strong off-network sitcoms and movie packages and remained the area's leading independent station. The station affiliated with the upstart Fox network in 1986, but it remained essentially an independent station since Fox only provided a couple of hours of network programming a day. During its Fox affiliation, KSHB was known on-air as "Fox 41". The station began to add a few talk and reality shows in the early 1990s.

On May 22, 1994, New World Communications announced an affiliation agreement with the Fox Broadcasting Company, months after Fox won the broadcast rights to NFC football games. This resulted in most of its stations set to become Fox affiliates. One of the stations due to switch was Kansas City's longtime NBC affiliate, WDAF-TV (channel 4). NBC sought to find a new affiliate, eventually finding one in KSHB. On September 12, 1994, WDAF dropped its NBC affiliation after 45 years and took over the Fox affiliation, while Fox Kids moved to KSMO (channel 62). Meanwhile, NBC agreed to affiliate with KSHB on the condition that KSHB run as much local news as WDAF had as an NBC affiliate, and as a result, launched newscasts in the morning and at 5 and 6PM, and moved its 9 p.m. newscast to 10 p.m. KSHB was not part of the Scripps-ABC affiliation deal due to ABC's long-term affiliation contract with KMBC-TV (channel 9).

Scripps Howard began to manage KMCI (channel 38) in 1996, and moved KSHB's sitcoms to that station. From 2000 to 2003, KSHB also produced a 30-minute 9 p.m. newscast on KMCI; by the time it was canceled, the newscast was called "38 News Now" and had completely differentiated itself from KSHB, using different graphics, different (and drastically smaller) set, and a different all-percussion theme.

Digital television
KSHB-DT broadcasts on digital channel 41.

KSHB's analog broadcast ended on June 12, 2009.

Programming
KSHB broadcasts all of NBC's schedule, while Early Today is aired live at 3:30 a.m. rather than the usual one-hour delay to 4:30 a.m. (NBC stations whose morning newscasts start at 4:30 a.m. air it from 4-4:30 a.m.). Current syndicated programming includes The Doctors, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, Deal or No Deal and Comics Unleashed with Byron Allen, with weekend telecasts of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Lost, Cold Case and Whacked Out Sports. KSHB is also home to the syndicated game shows Jeopardy! and Wheel Of Fortune, which were both formerly seen on KCTV.

News operation
KSHB-TV broadcasts a total of 32 hours of local news per week, with five hours on weekdays, four hours on Saturdays and 2½ hours on Sundays. The station had already run news in various formats for years. In its KBMA days, UPI news updates would air over a 41 Newsbreak slide. The station did live news updates during prime time and 15 minutes of local news at 10 p.m. as 41 Express during the 1980s. In 1993, KSHB began producing a 9 p.m. newscast called Fox 41 News at Nine, anchored by Jim Condelles and Pam Davis. The following year when KSHB picked up the NBC affiliation, it became 41 News; during which the newscasts started running at 5, 6, and 10 p.m.

KSHB has since become a more news-intensive operation—to the point where the station currently brands itself as Your NBC Action News Station, rather than by its call letters or channel number. The Action News branding, as a UHF owned by Scripps, is also shared with sister station WFTS in Tampa-St. Petersburg, which is an ABC affiliate. But in the case of the Kansas City market, KSHB is the second station to use the branding—dating from when WDAF used it for its news branding back when it was an NBC affiliate.

In September 2005, KSHB started its mid-morning chat program, Kansas City Live. This show is similar to Kansas City Today which aired on the station in the late 1990s, and AM Live which aired in the 1980s. The show was cancelled in early 2008, replaced with a late-morning newscast at 11 a.m. KSHB is also one of ten television stations that air consumer reports from John Matarese of ABC affiliate (and sister station) WCPO in Cincinnati.

KSHB began broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition on April 24, 2008, starting with its 11 a.m. newscast, becoming the second station in the Kansas City market (behind KMBC (channel 9)) to switch to HD. The new high definition set was unveiled on August 8, 2008. As of January 2010, the station has recently made several new hires, including one new meteorologist, one new reporter, and two new anchors.

On February 6, 2010, it was announced that KSHB's assistant news director and general manager would both be resigning from the station. The assistant news director would move to WFTX-TV in Cape Coral, Florida to become the station's new news director (the fifth in seven years at the station). The station's general manager announced that he would be taking an early retirement, thus the reason for his resignation. He had been associated with the station for 15 years and officially stepped down on March 5, 2010. On February 25, 2010, KSHB's new general manager was announced.

On August 19, 2010 KSHB management announced that it was adding an additional four hours of newscasts to its lineup; this included re-expanding morning newscast to a 4:30 a.m. start time on August 23 (at one point, the morning newscast began straight at 4 a.m.), extending their Saturday morning newscast from one hour from 8-9 a.m. to two hours from 8-10 a.m. on September 4, and adding an hour-long Saturday evening 6 p.m. newscast on that same date. It was also announced that former WDAF-TV sports director Frank Boal would be joining the station for the stations football season coverage. Boal had announced in 2009 that he was retiring. This too, sparked some little controversy.

Ratings
Although KSHB's newscast ratings are generally lower than WDAF, KCTV (channel 5) and KMBC-TV (and NBC's ratings have been lower than ABC, CBS and Fox in the past three years), the station has seen some slow growth in the last several years. However the station does appear to try its best to attract the audience it does. In the recent November sweeps of 2010, KSHB showed significant growth, hovering more towards 3rd place in the mornings, becoming the 2nd place station at 6pm, and only a "microscopic .03 rating point" away from being the 2nd place station at 5pm according to their press release. The station remains somewhere between 3rd and 4th place at 10pm however. The news release itself is interesting in the sense that KSHB is well known for being last in all newscasts for the past several years, so the issue of the news release makes it seem as if KSHB knows they've been last in the market, but are finally improving to a station to be reckoned with.

Controversy
On April 6, 2010 it was announced that KSHB's former news director (who resigned in 2009), was sued after a fired reporter claimed that she was fired, after her replacement slept with the former news director. It is unknown which reporter it is that took the job, or if the reporter took the job. In 2009, the news director resigned suddenly, stating his resignation for "personal matters".

Newscast titles

 * 41 News Update (1981-1993)
 * 41 Express (1985-1988)
 * Fox 41 News at Nine (1993-1994)
 * 41 News (1994-1999)
 * NBC 41 News (1999-2003)
 * NBC Action News (2003-present)

Station slogans

 * Kansas City's 41 (1980s)
 * The Answers You're Looking For (1994-1999)
 * Kansas City's In-Depth News (1999-2003)
 * Your Source for Breaking News (2003-2005)
 * Complete Coverage (2005-2008; news slogan)
 * Always On (2005-2008; general slogan)
 * Stand Up and Tell'em You're from KC (2007-2009; used in image campaign using Frank Gari's "Turn To...")
 * Kansas City's Breaking News Leader (2008-present)
 * Kansas City's Weather Leader (weather slogan; 2008-present)

Current on-air staff (as of January 10, 2010)
Current Anchors
 * Elizabeth Alex - weeknights at 5, 6 and 10 p.m.
 * Mark Clegg - weeknights at 5, 6 and 10 p.m.
 * Christa Dubill - weekday mornings "NBC Action News Today" (4:30-7 a.m.) and 11 a.m.
 * Curtis Jay - weekday mornings "NBC Action News Today" (4:30-7 a.m.) and 11 a.m.
 * Amy Hawley - weekend mornings "NBC Action News Today"; also reporter
 * Cynthia Newsome - Saturdays at 6, and weekends at 5 and 10 p.m.; also health reporter
 * Najahe Sherman - weekend mornings "NBC Action News Today"

Action Weather Plus
 * Gary Lezak (AMS Seal of Approval) - Chief Meteorologist; weeknights at 5, 6, and 10 p.m.
 * Brett Anthony (AMS and NWA Seals of Approval) - Meteorologist; weekday mornings "NBC Action News Today" (4:30-7 a.m.) and 11 a.m.
 * George Waldenberger (AMS Seal of Approval) - Meteorologist; weekend mornings, Saturdays at 6, and weekends at 5 and 10 p.m.
 * Jeff Penner (AMS Seal of Approval) - Meteorologist; fill-in, also weather producer

NBC Action Sports
 * Jack Harry - Sports Director; weeknights at 5, 6 and 10 p.m.
 * Lance Veeser - Sports Anchor; Saturdays at 6, and weekends at 5 and 10 p.m., also sports reporter
 * Frank Boal - Regular sports guest for the Kansas City Chiefs during the football season. Used to work for WDAF-TV.

Reporters
 * Lisa Benson - general assignment reporter
 * Marissa Cleaver - general assignment reporter
 * Sloane Heller - morning and midday reporter
 * Chris Hernandez - political and city hall reporter
 * Ryan Kath - general assignment reporter
 * Keith King - investigative reporter
 * John Matarese - consumer reporter (based out of WCPO in Cincinnati)
 * Christina Medina - general assignment reporter
 * Russ Ptacek - investigative reporter
 * Larry Seward - general assignment reporter
 * Lindsay Shively - morning reporter; also multimedia journalist
 * Beth Vaughn - general assignment reporter

Trivia

 * Gary Lezak was seen with Windy, the weather dog, in an episode of Animal Planet's K-9 to 5.