KBAK-TV

KBAK-TV is a television station serving Bakersfield, California. It's a CBS affiliate,and transmits on UHF channel 29. KBAK also operates the local Fox affiliate, KBFX-CA, from a shared facility in Bakersfield, using an identical staff.

History

KBAK was the first television station on the air in Bakersfield, initiating broadcast in August 1953. KERO followed one month later. At its inception, KBAK had been a CBS affiliate, under the call letters KAFY. In 1959, those call letters were changed to KBAK; and in 1974 changed its network affiliation to ABC, swapping with KJTV (now present NBC affiliate KGET-TV).

As a CBS and later ABC affiliate, KBAK had aired all of its color programs in color, and went to full color in 1967.

During the 1970s and into the 1980s, KBAK was owned by Chicago-based Harriscope Broadcasting, which also owned WSNS in Chicago (now a Telemundo O&O) and a partial stake in KRQE in Albuquerque (now owned by LIN TV). In the late 1980s, KBAK started signing off only on Fridays, and Saturdays, which as a CBS affiliate it continued to do until May 2008, when the sign-offs on KBAK and KBFX were discontinued and were replaced by a simulcast of the Kern Weather Channel, which is also available on digital cable systems in the Bakersfield area.

In 1986, Harriscope sold KBAK to Burnham Broadcasting, which also owned KHON-TV in Honolulu and would later acquire WVUE in New Orleans, WALA-TV in Mobile, Alabama and WLUK in Green Bay. In 1995, Burnham sold most of its stations to SF Broadcasting, a joint venture between Fox and Savoy Pictures, but KBAK was not included in the sale to SF Broadcasting, and was instead sold to Westwind Communications, a locally-based company linked to former Burnham executives.

In 1995, KBAK's contract with ABC expired and was not renewed. McGraw-Hill, the owner of KERO, cut an affiliation deal switching the two stations which hadn't already affiliated with ABC (KERO and then-CBS affiliate KMGH in Denver, Colorado) to that network, and in the process returning KBAK back to its CBS affiliation in March 1996.

On August 6, 2007, Westwind Communications announced the sale of KBAK and KBFX-CA to Fisher Communications of Seattle. The deal closed on January 1, 2008. This marked a re-entry to a California-based market for Fisher, who previously bought and sold KJEO (now KGPE) in Fresno in the late 1990s.

29 Eyewitness News Team

AMITY ADDRISI reporter/fill-in anchor
SIEMNY CHHUON 5am/6am/noon anchor
JOHN DABKOVICH 5p/6p/11pm weekend anchor
CAROL FERGUSON reporter/fill-in anchor
BERNADETTE FLORES reporter/fill-in anchor
JOHN FRANCHI 5p/6p/11pm weekend sports
JOSE GASPAR reporter/fill-in anchor
KEITH JONES 5am/6am traffic
GREG KERR 5p/6p/11pm sports director
LISA KRCH 5p/6pm anchor
JEFF LEMUCCHI 5am/6am/noon anchor
MILES MUZIO 5p/6p/11pm chief meteorologist
AARON PERLMAN 5am/6am/noon weathercaster
KURT RIVERA 5p/6p/11pm anchor

Newscast Titles

"KAFY Television Newsreel" (1953–1959)
"The Big News" (1959–1966)
"The Night Report" (1966–1969)
"The Television 29 News" (1969–1973)
"The Hal Lafoon News" (1973–1974)
"29 TV ABC News" (1974–1977)
"The News Today" (1977–1979)
"TeleNews 29" (1979–1981)
"NewsForce 29" (1981–1985)
"News 29" (1985–1992)
"29 Eyewitness News" (1992–present)

News Themes

Package	Composer	Years Used
Fanfare for the Common Man	Aaron Copland, Arrangement by Emerson Lake and Palmer	1979–1980
Allegro	Frank Gari Communications	1989–1997
Millennium 3	Shelly Palmer	1997–2001
Impact (V.1, V.2, V.3, V.4)	615 Music	2001–2003
Right Here, Right Now	615 Music	2003–2008
The Viper	615 Music	2008–Present