News operation
From the station's first day on air, KATU produced local newscasts. As an independent, its late-night local news aired at 10 p.m. This changed after the station switched to ABC in 1964, but KATU remained mired in third place in local news coverage behind KOIN-TV and KGW-TV, which were said to have a "stranglehold" on Portland viewers.[28]
One Oregon news event covered by KATU cameras in the station's first decade on air acquired lasting notoriety. In November 1970, reporter Paul Linnman, who worked at KATU from 1967 to 1972 before returning to the station in 1984[29] and retiring from TV news in 2004,[30] traveled to Florence, Oregon, where a sperm whale washed ashore; its carcass was exploded unsuccessfully. The station continued to receive requests for footage years after the event and has since commemorated anniversaries of the exploding whale, including a news special in 1995[31] and a remaster of the original newsfilm in 2020.[32] The 4K remaster was conducted by the Oregon Historical Society, which has held the original film in its collection since the 1980s.[33]
In 1975, Richard Ross left KGW-TV after 19 years to become the news director at channel 2.[34] That same year, former Oregon governor Tom McCall joined KATU as commentator; prior to becoming governor, he had also worked at KGW.[35] Under Ross, the station produced such efforts as Kidwitness News, a monthly newscast for kids anchored by puppets;[36] the station's documentary unit won a Peabody Award in 1981.[37] McCall's commentaries continued appearing despite his battle with cancer leading up to his death in January 1983.[38]
News hires at KATU in the 1980s included Jeff Gianola, who initially joined as a weekend weather presenter in 1983[39] and became evening anchor before defecting to KOIN in 1998,[40] and Bill O'Reilly, the future Fox News Channel anchor whose tenure in Portland lasted less than a year due to family reasons.[41] O'Reilly's time with the station was marked by remarks about Portland being a "vacation" compared to his previous job in Boston, which displeased management, and an incident in which he left his paycheck in a copy machine, unwittingly divulging a six-figure salary that irked underpaid colleagues.[42] By 1985, what had once been a five-person staff in the early days had become a 60-person news department.[43]
KATU had worked its way up to having the top-rated newscasts in Portland by 1997,[44] but ratings were starting to decline before Gianola's departure for KOIN, which was responsible for leading a resurgence at that station. In 1997, the station's general manager concocted a promotional strategy, known as the "Power of 2", by which the station acquired two news helicopters, in an attempt to increase falling ratings, even though the news director had previously said helicopters were primarily a marketing tool.[45] The campaign was produced with such secrecy that its first airing took newsroom employees by surprise.[46] Within a month of the highly publicized debut of the second helicopter, the leased helicopter, "JetRanger II", crashed and burned in November while harvesting Christmas trees.[47][48]
By 2021, KATU had returned to first place in early and late evening news in total viewership, though Fox affiliate KPTV beat it out in morning news.[49] That year, the station attracted industry attention for suspending an entire day of newscasts so the station staff could take stress management training in light of increasing burnout in television news.[50]
Sports
On September 23, 2024, the Portland Trail Blazers announced a new television deal with Sinclair to create the Rip City Television Network, with Sinclair stations and subchannels to air the team's games in the Portland, Seattle, Medford, Eugene, and Yakima/Tri-Cities markets. In Portland, KATU will broadcast six games on its ABC subchannel, with additional games to be aired by KATU's 2.2 subchannel and—beginning January 1, 2025—KUNP.[51][52]
