BayTV — BrandWiki

BayTV was a 24-hour regional cable news and sports channel that served the San Francisco Bay Area and operated from July 1994 to August 2001. It was originally owned as a joint venture between the locally based Chronicle Publishing Company (which owned a controlling 51% interest) and cable provider Tele-Communications, Inc. (which owned the remaining 49% share). Young Broadcasting acquired majority control of the channel after it acquired parent television station KRON-TV (channel 4) in November 1999, while TCI's interest transferred to AT&T Broadband upon its acquisition of TCI earlier that year.

The channel operated from KRON-TV's (now-former) studio facilities at 1001 Van Ness Avenue in the Western Addition neighborhood of San Francisco.

History

The channel launched on July 1, 1994, operating as companion service to NBC affiliate KRON-TV (channel 4; now a The CW affiliate) The company was founded by the San Francisco-based Chronicle Publishing Company, in conjunction with Tele-Communications, Inc. (TCI), which carried it on cable channel 35 throughout the provider's San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose service area, and its affiliate company Liberty Media

Programming

The programming format of BayTV was modeled similarly to that of news-talk radio stations, featuring a mix of full-length newscasts produced by KRON's news department – which comprised much of the channel's daytime and evening schedule – and personality-driven talk and local interest programs (which were preceded by news updates produced by BayTV news staff).

Throughout its seven-year existence, BayTV underwent several changes to its programming, originally focusing mainly on news and talk programs (including the Pete Wilson-hosted political affairs program Take Issue; the interview program Close-Up with Belva Davis; and book discussion series Bookmark). By the late 1990s, it also incorporated cooking shows (such as Bay Cafe), consumer news and movie review programs (such as All Consuming, hosted by Laurel Pallock of the consumer fraud unit of the San Francisco District Attorney's Office; and Talkin' Pictures, hosted by longtime KRON film critic Jan Wahl).[1]

In March 1998, the channel debuted an hour-long newscast at 9:00 p.m., which utilized staff from both the BayTV and KRON news departments with limited duplication of news content from the two operations. Originally co-anchored by Michelle Blaine and longtime KRON anchor Evan White on weeknights and Diana Yee on weekends, the program was reduced to a half-hour – matching the existing length of the weekend editions of the broadcast – on February 12, 2001, as a result of budget cuts related to the consolidation of the KRON and BayTV news departments (KRON would revive the 9:00 p.m. newscast as part of its schedule, after it became an independent station on January 1, 2002).[6] The channel also rebroadcast KRON-TV's hour-long 6:00 p.m. newscast one hour after its initial broadcast each night at 7:00 p.m.

The channel also produced New Media News, a half-hour Silicon Valley-focused technology newsmagazine which aired nationally on Mind Extension University/Knowledge TV from 1995 until it was sold to Discovery Communications in 1999; the daily program was relaunched in February 2000 as Next Step (a title previously used by a separate technology program co-produced by KRON and the Discovery Channel that aired from 1994 to 1997) through a content agreement with Imagine Media-owned magazine Business 2.0.[8]

Sports programming

In additional to its local programming, BayTV also carried a moderate amount of sports programming. Until the team moved its over-the-air telecasts to San Jose independent station KICU-TV (channel 36) in 1999,[9] the channel carried a limited schedule of Major League Baseball games from the Oakland Athletics that KRON could not air due to its NBC programming commitments, as well as weekly news conferences held by the head coaches of the San Francisco 49ers and Oakland Raiders.[10]

In March 1997, BayTV signed a three-year programming agreement with Fox Sports West, under which it carried the daily news program Fox Sports News and select sports events aired nationally by Fox Sports Net (including Major League Baseball games on Thursday nights during the regular season, and college basketball games not carried by Fox Sports Net Bay Area due to scheduling conflicts with events featuring local and state teams). The Fox Sports Net agreement ended on January 22, 1998, with most of the programming moving to newly converted FSN outlet SportsChannel Bay Area, which rebranded as Fox Sports Bay Area on that date (Fox Sports News continued to air on BayTV until March 31, 1998; most of FSN's Pac-10 telecasts also remained on the channel until the package transferred to Fox Sports Bay Area, which aired a limited number of games beforehand, in January 2000).[11]

launch date	July 1, 1994
closed date	August 30, 2001 (7 years, 62 days)
picture format	480i (SDTV)
owner	Chronicle Publishing Company (51%)/ Tele-Communications, Inc. (49%) (1994–1999) Young Broadcasting (51%)/ AT&T Broadband (49%) (1999–2001)
country	United States
language	English
area	San Francisco Bay Area
headquarters	San Francisco, California
replaced by	Food Network (on AT&T Broadband systems)
sister channels	KRON-TV

History

Programming

Sports programming

References