KMBC-TV

KMBC-TV (channel 9) is a television station in Kansas City, Missouri, United States, affiliated with ABC. It is owned by Hearst Television alongside CW affiliate KCWE (channel 29). The two stations share studios on Winchester Avenue near Swope Park in southeast Kansas City, Missouri; KMBC-TV's transmitter is located at 23rd Street and Topping Avenue, east of downtown in the Blue Valley area.

Channel 9 began broadcasting on August 2, 1953. For the first ten months, two stations operated on the channel: KMBC-TV, associated with KMBC radio, and WHB-TV, the television adjunct of WHB radio. The stations had separate studios and staffs, alternating every 90 minutes on the air, but shared transmitter facilities and an affiliation with CBS. The two stations were combined in 1954 when Cook Paint and Varnish Company, owner of WHB radio and television, bought out KMBC radio and television and retained the KMBC facilities and designation. In 1955, a multi-market affiliation switch by the Meredith Publishing Company forced KMBC-TV to switch from CBS to ABC.

Metromedia acquired the KMBC stations in 1961, selling KMBC radio off in 1967. Under Metromedia, KMBC-TV became a competitive station in the market, at first in non-news programming—where its offerings sometimes resembled one of Metromedia's own independent stations—and later in news in the 1970s. This began to change at the end of the decade, as KCMO-TV (now KCTV) mounted a ratings challenge, and one of Metromedia's last substantive decisions as owner of the station was a watershed. In 1981, KMBC-TV fired anchorwoman Christine Craft after seven months on the air, claiming negative audience acceptance. Believing she was fired because of her looks, which the news director did not like, Craft sued Metromedia in a highly watched sex discrimination case; while she ultimately lost, the trial embarrassed KMBC-TV, whose manager testified that appearance was "at the top of the list" of qualities desired in a news anchor, and spotlighted the unequal treatment of women in TV news.

KMBC-TV was sold to Hearst in 1981 to make room for Metromedia's purchase of WCVB-TV in Boston. The news department, which had initially weathered the loss of Craft in the ratings, fell to third place. In the late 1980s, under general manager Dino Dinovitz, the station orchestrated a turnaround, commanding a news ratings lead in the market throughout the 1990s. KMBC-TV began programming channel 29 in 1996. In 2007, the stations moved out of their longtime home—the historic Lyric Theatre building—and to their present studios in southeast Kansas City. KMBC continues to compete for first place in local news ratings.