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KRON-TV history
KRON-TV company history timeline
Managed by Michael de Young's grandson Charles de Young Thieriot, KRON signed on the air on November 15, 1949 as a full-time NBC affiliate.
In August 1959, the Chronicle reported that the tower was severely damaged by an unusually strong thunderstorm, requiring major repairs before KRON-TV could return to the air.
In 1982, the deYoung family's Chronicle Publishing Company unit discussed a possible trade of KRON-TV to the Gannett Company (whose broadcasting division is now part of Tegna) in exchange for acquiring Gannett's Oklahoma City station KOCO-TV, plus an additional $100 million.
By about 1991, this evolved into the "circle 4" logo in use to this day, with the "4" using a simpler bridge design.
On June 16, 1999, the deYoung family announced the liquidation of Chronicle Publishing's assets.
In 1999, KNTV joined The WB in conjunction with the network's existing Bay Area affiliate, then co-owned KBWB (channel 20, now KOFY-TV). KNTV agreed to drop its ABC affiliation at the behest of network-owned KGO-TV, the market's primary ABC station.
Debt incurred from its 1999 purchase of KRON was believed to be one key factor behind the company's cash problems.
NBC accepted KNTV's deal in February 2000.
In December 2001, NBC purchased KNTV from Granite Broadcasting for a fraction of KRON's sale price of $230 million.
January 1, 2002 was KRON's first full day as an independent station.
Rather than give in to NBC's demands, Young decided not to renew channel 4's affiliation contract, which was set to expire at the beginning of 2002.
In 2005, KRON downsized its news production staff to send teams of two people, specifically a reporter and camera operator, to generate news stories on scene.
SF Weekly reported in 2006 that KRON was the first major market television station to make such a decision and commented, "the results at times are more akin to home movies than news programming broadcast to the nation's sixth-largest TV market."
On January 10, 2008, Young Broadcasting announced it would sell KRON-TV. The company had been encountering difficulties in meeting interest payments on its outstanding debt.
Young originally hoped to close a sale of the station by the end of the first quarter of 2008, but no buyer emerged.
Young's stock, which had been trading for a few cents per share, was ultimately delisted from NASDAQ in January 2009, after failing to meet the minimum standards for being on the exchange.
On February 13, 2009, the company declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
In February 2010, Young discussed the possibility of entering into a shared services agreement (SSA) with KNTV's owner NBCUniversal.
Station management announced at a November 2011 meeting that no such agreement would take place, and that KRON would instead relocate to a smaller, state-of-the-art facility within the next year to year-and-a-half.
The move to new studios, and plans to operate master control from Atlanta, were scrapped by June 2012.
On June 6, 2013, Media General announced it would acquire Young Broadcasting in an all-stock deal.
The merger was completed on November 12, 2013.
In June 2014, Fox Television Stations announced it would acquire KTVU and KICU-TV in a trade with Cox Media Group in exchange for that company's stations in Boston and Memphis.
On January 27, 2016, Nexstar Broadcasting Group announced that it had reached an agreement to acquire Media General.
The transaction was consummated on January 17, 2017, and with it, KRON became part of the Nexstar Media Group.
As of December 2020, MyNetworkTV programming airs from midnight to 2 a.m.
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Zippia gives an in-depth look into the details of KRON-TV, including salaries, political affiliations, employee data, and more, in order to inform job seekers about KRON-TV. The employee data is based on information from people who have self-reported their past or current employments at KRON-TV. The data on this page is also based on data sources collected from public and open data sources on the Internet and other locations, as well as proprietary data we licensed from other companies. Sources of data may include, but are not limited to, the BLS, company filings, estimates based on those filings, H1B filings, and other public and private datasets. While we have made attempts to ensure that the information displayed are correct, Zippia is not responsible for any errors or omissions or for the results obtained from the use of this information. None of the information on this page has been provided or approved by KRON-TV. The data presented on this page does not represent the view of KRON-TV and its employees or that of Zippia.
KRON-TV may also be known as or be related to KRON 4, KRON-TV and Kron-tv.