KCRA 5:30PM News - November 20, 1975 · 2:42pm Nov 13th, 2016
Nightly newscast from the NBC affiliate in Sacramento, CA, is anchored by Bob Whitten, with Mary Richardson consumer reports, Tom DuHain weather and Pete Liebengood sports.
KCRA was signed on 20 years and 17 days earlier by the Central Valley Broadcasting Company, a partnership of the E.C. Kelly and W.H. Hansen families of Sacramento. Central Valley Broadcasting also owned KCRA radio (1320 AM, now KIFM, and 96.1 FM, now KYMX). Kelly's half of the family inherited the KCRA stations two years after E.C. died in 1960; they kept KCRA-TV and other stations until 1999, when they were sold to Hearst-Argyle Television. It got its call letters from the radio counterpart, like most early TV stations did; interestingly, the AM station's call letters were intended to be KRCA (read: NBC's parent company at the time), but when that station's original license was drafted in 1945, someone at the FCC goofed off and swapped the middle two call letters. The name stuck!
All for the better though, as KCRA became (and is still) the leading TV station in the Sacramento market, and is credited with several notable innovations: by 1965, KCRA was the first NBC affiliate with "network color" programming, and was the first to utilize color film, slide and videotape footage. Starting in 1975 (when this was recorded), it began using remote cameras for live news reports. The station eventually began using helicopters and satellite remotes for newsgathering; as Y2K neared, it became the first station in the Sacramento market to broadcast HDTV programming. (they waited until 2007 for their newscasts to start being in HD.)
