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Seeing Stars: the Television Studios..

5515 Melrose Avenue,
Hollywood, CA. / (323) 467-9999
KCAL was bought
by Viacom, which owns CBS, and the KCAL news staff was moved from
this Melrose studio to Columbia Square
on Sunset Blvd, where they shared the studio with the KCBS news staff.
In 2006, both KCAL and KCBS will move from Columbia Square to a new
headquarters being built at CBS Studio
Center in the Valley.
The Melrose studio
is now the home of oldies radio station K-Earth 101.1 FM (part of
Infinity Broadcasting), which had formerly been at Columbia Square.
I will leave this
page up for those interested in the history of KCAL and/or the property
at 5515 Melrose, but bear in mind that the article below was written when
KCAL was still located at this Melrose studio.
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KCAL
is a local TV station (Channel 9 in Los Angeles), located near the south
end of the giant Paramount
Studios (KCAL owns the building, but it also rents Paramount's Stage
21, which serves as the base of operations for its the KCAL news department.)
It is the last remaining independent television station in Los Angeles,
unaffiliated with any network.
After beginning life
as the old Consolidated Film Corp., the studio was purchased by the National
Broadcasting Company and became the NBC west coast
network headquarters for their popular radio broadcasts. In 1938, NBC moved
to a new studio at Sunset & Vine.
.JPG)
The studio in 1935 (as NBC)
.JPG)
The studio in the 1970's (as KHJ-TV)
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For
many years, the building housed the studio for KHJ-TV, until it was purchased
in the 90's by the Walt Disney Company, and its station name was changed
to KCAL.
Since Disney's acquisition
of the ABC Network (and its local affiliate,
KABC, Channel 7) forced them to sell KCAL, the station once again has new
owners, but the call letters remain the same.
The station was owned
by Young Broadcasting for a few years. But in 2002, KCAL was purchased
(for $650 million) by Viacom, the parent company of CBS & Paramount.
CBS already owns one station in L.A., of course, KCBS.
There was speculation
that they might turn KCAL into the L.A. UPN affiliate, since its affiliate
agreement with Fox-owned KCOP expires in 2003. That wouldn't have been
too surprising, considering KCAL is located right next to Paramount Studios.
Instead, though,
in 2002, KCAL was bought out by CBS-Viacom for $650 million in cash. The
local CBS affiliate (KCBS) now uses news footage from KCAL's broadcasts.
You'll still see
a lot of residual Disney programming on KCAL, though, most notably live
coverage of the games of Disney's hockey team, The Mighty Ducks
and of Disney's baseball team, the Anaheim Angels (remember
"Angels In The Outfield"?).
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.JPG) Channel
9 also carries the Lakers basketball games live, as well as the
usual mix of reruns, movies and syndicated shows - plus a lot of
news coverage. (In 2000, KCAL news won more Emmy Awards than any other
local station.)
Despite having a
prime-time schedule that is dominated by news broadcasts, KCAL also broadcasts
a few shows that require a live studio audience; unfortunately for fans
of those shows, none of them are actually taped at the KCAL studio. For
instance, "Judge Judy" tapes at KTLA Studios; "Jerry
Springer" is taped in Chicago; "The Maury Povich
Show" is taped in New York... At this time, there are no live
shows taping at KCAL which require a studio audience.
The KCAL studio
does not offer a tour, and is not open to the public. But the huge Paramount
Studio next door offers a guided walking tour
of their historic studio.
Getting
there:
KCAL studios are located just east of the northeast corner of Melrose Avenue
and Gower Street, at the south end of the giant Paramount Studios, across
from Lucy's El Adobe Cafe, (See the
directions for Paramount
Studios.) / From the Paramount ticket office,
just drive south on Gower and turn left (east) on Melrose. The KCAL studio
will be on your left (north) side in the next block.
(Historical
photos of the studio are compliments of O.
Lytle Hoover.)
[For
more information on this subject, you can access KCAL's official website
at: http://www.kcal.com.]
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for something in particular? Search the Seeing-Stars website!
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