History
KPLR-TV started broadcasting on Tuesday, April 28, 1959. It was the first independent station in Missouri.
KPLR is an abbreviation of the original owner's name, Harold Koplar, Ted Koplar's Father, who also founded the station. Between May 23, 1959 and September 10, 1983, KPLR produced and broadcast Wrestling at the Chase, a program featuring professional wrestling from the local Chase-Park Plaza Hotel. Originating from the hotel's Khorassan Ballroom until 1970, the show featured the most famous wrestlers in the National Wrestling Alliance, which was controlled in part by St. Louis promoter Sam Muchnick. Participants included Ric Flair, Harley Race, former NFL player Dick the Bruiser Afflis and Ted DiBiase among others, and is considered one of the pro wrestling industry's most historic programs. Approximately 1,100 episodes were made during a run of 24 years, and almost 4 months. Almost a quarter-century after the show went off the air, many of its fans still hope for its return.
For many years, KPLR was the broadcast home of the St. Louis Cardinals (1959-62 and 1988-2006) and St. Louis Blues. For most of its existence, KPLR was a traditional independent with The Three Stooges, cartoons, sitcoms, movies, dramas, sports, and news. It was also available on many cable systems in Missouri, Illinois and Arkansas until the late 1980s.
KPLR turned down FOX affiliation in 1986, instead choosing to remain an independent station. In 1995, KPLR decided to affiliate with the newly created WB Television Network. KPLR also passed on the ABC affiliation after longtime ABC affiliate KTVI switched to FOX, effectively sending ABC to the former FOX affiliate, KDNL. Koplar sold KPLR to ACME Communications in the mid '90s.
For many years, even after joining The WB, KPLR was known as "St. Louis 11." It often used a logo with the "O" in "St. Louis" converted into its "circle 11" numeric logo. KPLR became known as "WB11" in 1998. KPLR had secondary UPN affiliation from 1999-2002 running the cartoons from UPN's "Disney Block" and select other UPN shows. After WRBU assumed UPN affiliation, UPN shows disappeared from KPLR. In March, 2003 ACME Communications sold KPLR and sister station KWBP in Portland to Tribune Company. At that time, it adopted a logo very similar to sister station WPIX in New York City.
On January 2, 2006, the weekday Monday–Friday Kids' WB block was discontinued.
On January 24, 2006, the WB and UPN networks announced they would merge. The newly combined network would be called The CW, the letters representing the first initial of its corporate parents CBS (the parent company of UPN) and the Warner Bros. unit of Time Warner. KPLR became the network's St. Louis affiliate as part of a larger deal between the new network and Tribune. Former UPN station WRBU switched to News Corp's My Network TV, the sister network to FOX.
On Sunday, April 9, 2006, The Fan Show, hosted by Rich Gould, debuted. It is a live sports-related show broadcasted from The Casino Queen's Club Sevens,with audience-participation games and discussion. Gould remarked in a St. Louis Post-Dispatch interview about the show that "it's live TV in its rawest form. It's essentially a time machine back to the 1950s...in fact, some of the games I stole from Beat the Clock."
On Wednesday, May 31, 2006 The Tube debuted on 11.2 on ATSC broadcast. The Tube began broadcasting on Charter Cable channel 136 on August 2, 2006.
The 2006 St. Louis Cardinals' baseball season was the 19th and last broadcast on KPLR. Beginning in 2007, broadcasts of St. Louis Cardinals' games will return to KSDK for the first time since 1987. However, the Blues remained on KPLR, as they have for most of their existence.
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