WDAF-TV (channel 4) is a television station in Kansas City, Missouri, United States, affiliated with the Fox network. Owned by Nexstar Media Group, the station maintains studios and transmitter facilities on Summit Street in the Signal Hill section of Kansas City, Missouri.
WDAF-TV is Kansas City's oldest operating TV station, beginning broadcasts in October 1949, and was the only station in the city for three and a half years. It, along with WDAF radio (610 AM), was an NBC affiliate owned by The Kansas City Star newspaper. Under The Star, the station developed its news department with national coverage of the Great Flood of 1951 and aired a series of popular local programs. After the newspaper was investigated for monopolistic practices in advertising sales, it signed a consent decree in 1957 and sold the WDAF stations to National Theatres the next year. Under National and subsequent owner Transcontinent Television Corporation, WDAF-TV largely coasted on the news image it had crafted and enjoyed a slight edge in local ratings.
Taft Broadcasting acquired WDAF radio and television in 1964 as part of its purchase of most of Transcontinent. Under Taft, the station's news ratings suffered as cost-cutting and corporate mandates produced a revolving door of on-air personnel; one bright spot was the early evening news, which WDAF led in the 1970s and early 1980s. Between 1980 and 1992, the station was the local broadcaster of Kansas City Royals baseball games. Ratings took a dive in the years after Taft Broadcasting was purchased in 1987 and reorganized as Great American Broadcasting Company, with the station posting multi-year lows in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
New World Communications acquired WDAF-TV and three other Great American stations in 1994, then switched the affiliations of WDAF-TV and 11 other stations to Fox. The station's weekday news output more than doubled to accommodate extended news coverage throughout the day, including in morning news, which became a station strength. Fox parent News Corporation bought the New World Fox affiliates, including WDAF-TV, in 1996; channel 4 remained third in local news through this period. WDAF was sold to Local TV LLC in 2007, Tribune Media in 2013, and Nexstar in 2019, becoming more competitive with second- and first-place ratings finishes in news.
Early years Construction and launch On December 12, 1947, The Kansas City Star Company, the parent of The Kansas City Star newspaper as well as Kansas City radio station WDAF (610 AM), applied to build a television station on channel 4. One account stated that the newspaper's board of directors was deadlocked on whether to apply for a TV station. Publisher Roy A. Roberts cast the deciding vote in favor of the application, believing that television might "contribute to the good of our community". The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved the application on January 30, 1948. Though the permit was obtained in January 1948, The Star did not announce its plans for WDAF-TV until later. By the end of 1948, it had purchased land at 31st and Summit streets in Kansas City, Missouri, for a facility to house WDAF television (and eventually radio) and poured the bases for a tower to broadcast WDAF-TV on the same site. Employees trained in television at WNBT in New York, and TV cameras and other equipment were on order. The last section of the tower was put into place on May 23, and the first test pattern broadcasts were made on the evening of August 20. Despite no prior warning, it received phone calls commenting on the reception, including from as far away as Omaha. The Star held a three-day television expo in the Memorial Auditorium from September 11–13, demonstrating the new medium, and began regular broadcasts of the test pattern at that time.
The first program aired on WDAF-TV was not regularly scheduled. It was the September 29 testimonial dinner for William M. Boyle, live from the Arena in the Municipal Auditorium, an event at which president Harry S. Truman spoke and which five local radio stations covered. The first night of regular viewing on WDAF-TV was October 16, 1949, when channel 4 presented a four-hour schedule including a dedication, a live telecast from the American Royal, films of the station's construction, local news (a telegraph tape moved in front of the camera to display the news), and a salute to WDAF-TV by Arthur Godfrey. Program manager Bill Bates estimated that 7,000 sets were in use to watch WDAF-TV's inaugural broadcast and that 100,000 people watched that first night. Though WDAF-TV was the first modern station on the air, it was predated by the experimental W9XAL, which operated in the 1930s.
WDAF-TV was a primary affiliate of NBC, but as the only television station in Kansas City, it held program agreements with the other major networks: CBS, ABC, and the DuMont Television Network (from May 1950). All network programs the station aired in its first year of operation were kinescopes—filmed recordings off the television monitor of the original broadcast—before network coaxial cable service reached Kansas City beginning September 30, 1950. With the advent of live service for network entertainment and sports programming, the station nearly doubled its weekly output from 32–35 hours to 57–60 hours. In February 1951, WDAF-TV carried the Sugar Ray Robinson vs. Jake LaMotta fight live on the air. The telecast, sponsored by Pabst Blue Ribbon beer and aired over CBS, was a milestone, as neither WDAF-TV, WDAF radio, nor The Star had ever previously accepted any alcohol advertising.
The Great Flood of 1951 devastated the Kansas City area, and WDAF-TV provided ample coverage and public service during the incident. The station covered the flooding in its nightly weathercast by Shelby Storck and Heart of America Newsreel, aired live flood coverage by placing a camera on the studio roof and zooming in on damage, and commissioned an aircraft to shoot aerial footage. WDAF's flood footage was aired nationally by CBS. News director Randall Jessee, who held that position for WDAF radio and television, was cited in hindsight as a calming influence and earned the moniker "Mr. Television" locally. The station's first mobile outside broadcasting van was a converted Packard hearse; its successor, nicknamed "Cosa Nostra", once turned up at a bank robbery before police.
In 1952, the studios at 31st and Summit were expanded from , enabling WDAF radio to be co-located with channel 4. The enlarged facility boasted four TV studios, a kitchen for use in home programming, and facilities to originate network programming if necessary. The kitchen was used by a new women's program, Kitchen Klub with Bette Hayes, which by November 1952 was airing every weekday. It broadened from a cooking program to include in-studio interviews and was renamed The Bette Hayes Show, remaining on the air until its host departed in 1970. Other local programs of the 1950s included the children's show Dr. Inventor and the teen dance program TV Teen Town.
New competition WDAF-TV obtained its construction permit in January 1948, before the FCC that October imposed a freeze on new TV station grants to sort out possible changes to television broadcast standards. This freeze lasted until 1952, setting the stage for four competitors on three channels to enter the Kansas City television market within a four-month span in 1953. First to do so was an ultra high frequency (UHF) station, KCTY (channel 25), on June 6. It originally was affiliated with CBS, ABC, and DuMont. The former two networks each relocated to new very high frequency (VHF) stations that started shortly thereafter. On August 2, the time-share operation of KMBC-TV and WHB-TV on channel 9 launched as a CBS affiliate; ABC got its new affiliate on September 27, when KCMO-TV began on channel 5.
In addition to three new TV stations, WDAF-TV faced two other challenges in 1953. In January, the United States Department of Justice called for the revocation of the licenses of WDAF radio and television and filed a civil antitrust lawsuit against The Kansas City Star Company. Charging the firm with "monopolizing the dissemination of news and advertising in Kansas City", the department alleged that advertisers not using The Star or its sister, the morning Kansas City Times, were shut out of advertising on TV. It also questioned the use of discounts for cross-media buys of WDAF radio and the newspapers in the 1930s. On May 22, an announcer's strike put WDAF radio and television off the air as technicians refused to cross AFTRA picket lines. The strike lasted 28 days, until June 19, leaving Kansas City with no television at all for two weeks (until KCTY began).
The criminal portion of the anti-trust case proceeded to trial in January 1955, and The Star and its advertising director were found guilty of monopoly charges. The civil portion was settled by way of a consent decree approved on November 15, 1957. In addition to restrictions on the operations of The Star and Kansas City Times, it required the WDAF stations to be divested. Several buyers had already negotiated with the newspaper company, including Time Inc., Cox Broadcasting, and J. H. Whitney & Company. To comply with the terms of the consent decree, on November 26, The Kansas City Star Company sold the WDAF stations to National Theatres, a movie theater chain with 320 cinemas, for $7.6 million. The Los Angeles–based company had ties to Kansas City, as its president, Elmer C. Rhoden, had previously been the head of Fox Midwest Theatres and still had a home there. The WDAF stations marked the expansion of National into broadcasting. The FCC approved the sale in April 1958, and National assumed ownership in late May. Walt Bodine succeeded Randall Jessee as news director; he remained associated with the WDAF stations until 1965.
National merged with National Telefilm Associates and changed its name to National Theatres and Television in 1959, and shortly after, the company began selling off business divisions. NTA had owned KMSP-TV in Minneapolis, which was sold off in 1959 along with several money-losing movie houses. National Theatres and Television sold the WDAF stations in 1960 to Transcontintent Television Corporation for $9.75 million. An FM radio station, WDAF-FM 102.1, was added to the operation in March 1961. Under Transcontinent ownership, WDAF-TV continued to be, by a slim margin, the leading station in Kansas City. In a 1963 column in Variety, Les Brown noted that while the three major stations (WDAF, KCMO, KMBC) were in a "Mexican standoff" in prime time, WDAF had the slight edge in news but was "still rid[ing] on the news momentum of when it was owned by The Kansas City Star".
Taft/Great American ownership In 1963, Transcontinent sold the WDAF stations, as well as WGR AM-FM-TV in Buffalo, New York, and WNEP-TV in Scranton, Pennsylvania, to Cincinnati-based Taft Broadcasting. The Transcontinent purchases brought Taft to the limit of seven television stations. The transaction was part of the largest set of sales in broadcasting history to that time, totaling more than $38.5 million for three buyers to acquire nearly all of Transcontinent's radio and TV stations. After receiving FCC approval, the deal was finalized on April 1, 1964. In 1967, the existing tower on Signal Hill was replaced with a new, mast that was shared with a new Kansas City independent station, KBMA-TV (channel 41), which began broadcasting in 1970.