News operation
KGW-TV had a local news department from the start. Richard Ross was the first main news anchor at 6:30 p.m. and news director, arriving from KING-TV.[83] Ivan Smith, previously of KPTV, anchored the 11 p.m. Night Beat newscast.[84] Jack Capell and Doug LaMear covered weather and sports, respectively.[85] Tom McCall, already an editorialist on KGW radio, was signed as news commentator for the station's 6:30 p.m. early newscast.[86] The early news was 30 minutes long at a time when the leading television news in the area, from KOIN-TV, lasted 15 minutes.
These news personalities had longevity and were later recalled as the best news team in Portland television history, a unit described by The Oregonian as "formidable" and a "news dynasty".[87] KGW and KOIN fought for first place in the local evening news ratings race; KGW was surpassed by KOIN between 1967 and 1971, when KGW retook a narrow lead, which widened in the mid-1970s. McCall remained with the station until 1964, when he departed to run for Oregon Secretary of State;[88] he was elected that November[89] and served as Governor of Oregon from 1967 to 1975.[90] Ross departed in 1975 to take the news director role at KATU, where he joined McCall.[91] Smith retired in 1980[92] LaMear remained a sportscaster and outdoors show host from 1956 to 1991–with the exception of several days in May 1989 when he was fired and then reinstated by viewer demand.[93][94] Capell continued to work in spite of ALS, first at noon[95]
In the 1970s, KGW won two Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Awards, the first Oregon station to do so, and became the third news organization to that time to be honored twice. In 1973, it won for Death of a Sideshow, a series profiling Portland's skid row.[98] The station won again in 1978 for The Timber Farmers, a 15-part news series and documentary on the timber industry.[99] A 1984 documentary, Rajneesh: Update, won the station a Peabody Award.[100] Floyd J. McKay, who worked at KGW from 1970 to 1986, credited King Broadcasting and its president, Ancil Payne, with providing the support necessary to produce strong journalism.[101]
By 1980, KGW was fighting for second place in local news ratings behind KOIN;[102] it fell to third place a year later,[103] after lengthening its 5 p.m. news to an hour,[104] but had rebounded by 1984 to a tie for second in the 5 p.m. ratings and a lead at 11 p.m.[105] A morning newscast debuted in 1985. By 1987, it was challenging KOIN for the lead.[106]
However, in the years that followed, KGW slumped in the ratings, suffered from leadership turnover, and moved away from its traditional emphasis on politics and government reporting.[107] McKay attributed this development to the 1986 retirement of King Broadcasting president Ancil Payne and the 1989 death of Dorothy Bullitt. Under news director Dave Wenstrand, who arrived from King Broadcasting–owned KREM in Spokane in 1989,[108] the morning newscast was expanded to an hour.[109] A 4 p.m. newscast, First at Four, debuted in 1990 as the market's first newscast in the time slot[110] but was eliminated the next year as part of station-wide cutbacks that saw the dismissal of 25 employees;[111] in 1992, KGW instituted Portland's first Saturday morning TV newscast.[112] But ratings for KGW's newscasts fell; the 5 p.m. news had fallen to fourth behind comedies on KPTV, and Wenstrand was dismissed in April 1992.
Providence Journal dispatched Mike Rausch, the news director of co-owned WHAS-TV in Louisville, Kentucky, to Portland in hopes of turning around the KGW newsroom, with its low morale and low ratings.[117] Under Rausch, the station became newly aggressive as it aimed to compete with then–market leader KATU. The evening newscasts were rearranged into 5, 6, and 6:30 p.m. half-hours; the 6:30 p.m. hour was new[118] and provided competition to KATU, which had the only newscast in the time slot.[119] The station rebranded from "News 8" to "Northwest NewsChannel 8".[120] Budget cuts were replaced with more financial support from corporate.[121] The next year, the morning news was extended to 5:30 a.m.;[122] Providence Journal launched Northwest Cable News, a regional cable channel utilizing the resources of the King Broadcasting stations including KGW;
In 1999, the morning newscast was extended again to two hours, and the weekend morning newscasts were lengthened.[128] That year, the station was running neck-and-neck with a resurgent KOIN in the evening news ratings.[129] By February 2001, it was winning in all news timeslots except noon after a sustained increase in viewership.[130] When KGW managed KPXG-TV, the station provided newscasts for air on channel 22, initially reruns of its 6 and 11 p.m. newscasts and, from January 2003 to October 2005, a live 10 p.m. newscast. When the agreement ended, the 10 p.m. news moved to Portland's WB affiliate, KWBP-TV (channel 32).[131][132]
On January 21, 2008, KGW became the first television station in the Portland market to begin broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition.[133] The station developed a high-definition news studio in downtown Portland at Pioneer Courthouse Square, in a space previously occupied by Powell's Books. Regular broadcasts from the location that KGW named the "Studio on the Square" began on March 17, 2009.[134] KGW's noon newscast and Live at 7 originated from the downtown location.[135] While KGW continued to have the number-one 11 p.m. newscast during this time, KPTV's 10 p.m. news surpassed it in total viewers.[136][137]
When The Oprah Winfrey Show ended production in 2012, KGW debuted a 4 p.m. newscast, originally anchored from the Studio on the Square.[138] Two years later, it put Sky 8 up for sale and began sharing a helicopter with KPTV.[139] During the 2010s, it slowly lost its lead in news timeslots. In 2014, KOIN narrowly attracted more viewers than KGW at 11 p.m., while KATU surpassed it at 6 p.m.[140] KGW's 10 p.m. news for KWBP, which became KRCW-TV in 2006, ended in September 2019 when that station was sold to Nexstar Media Group, owner of KOIN.[141] By 2021, KGW was tied for second at 11 p.m. with KPTV in late news, but KPTV's 10 p.m. newscast had higher ratings.[142]
