KSTP-TV (channel 5) is a television station licensed to Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States, serving the Twin Cities area as an affiliate of ABC.
The five outlets share studios on University Avenue, on the Saint Paul–Minneapolis border; KSTP-TV's transmitter is located at Telefarm Towers in Shoreview, Minnesota.
Nielsen Media Research treats KSTP-TV and its satellites as one station in local ratings books, using the identifier name KSTP+.
That station's license expired in 1938 as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was not interested in continuing mechanical TV broadcasts.
Channel 5 claims to have been the NBC television network's first affiliate located west of the Mississippi River; however, this distinction is actually held by KSD-TV (now KSDK) in St. Louis, which signed on one year earlier.
In 1961, due to its status as an NBC affiliate, it was the first television station not owned by a network to broadcast all of its local programs in color.
Channel 5 surprised the industry on August 29, 1978, by announcing its intention to sever ties with then third-place NBC after 30 years to join ABC.
Later on, the first prime time ABC program to air on the station was a first-run episode of the short-lived series, Salvage 1.
The tower also houses the transmitter for KEC65, the NOAA Weather Radio station serving the Twin Cities area.
Over the next four months, numerous television personalities served as guest co-hosts on TCL until the producers could find the best fit.
The extra half-hour replaced Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (which was canceled in May 2019) which was moved to 2 p.m. Patterson left Twin Cities Live in 2021.
[citation needed] The title Twin Cities Live was first used from 1985 to 1991 for a short-lived morning talk show that debuted at a time when KSTP was trying to reinvent its news image.
The other talk show that aired on KSTP-TV is Live with Kelly and Ryan, which was on KSTP for 33 years beginning in the late 1980s under prior hosts Kathie Lee Gifford and Regis Philbin and ending in 2021, when it moved to KARE.
In addition, the station produces a political discussion show called At Issue, which is hosted by Tom Hauser, and Sports Wrap, a sports highlight program that airs on Sunday evenings at 10:45 p.m. and on special occasions, such as when KSTP airs ESPN Monday Night Football telecasts featuring the Minnesota Vikings, or the final game of the NBA Finals.
The station formerly ran a Friday night edition of the program focusing on high school sports that aired from September through May.
A week prior to Hutchinson's departure, High School Sports Wrap was canceled due to low revenues.
[16] For much of the time since the 1980s, KQRS-FM morning show host Tom Barnard has served as the station's voice-over announcer.
[citation needed] The station ran advertisements in 2005 featuring Ed Asner (emulating Lou Grant).
KSTP hosts the ATSC 1.0 signal of CW affiliate WUCW (channel 23) through an agreement with Sinclair Broadcast Group.
These two stations carry KSTP on their DT1 signal, KSTC on DT2, and MeTV on DT3, leaving the other four subchannel services exclusive to the Twin Cities.
On September 11, 2014, KSTP-TV filed a complaint with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) regarding its carriage in Canada and simultaneous substitution (simsubbing), as well as notifying the CRTC of viewer complaints of problems with closed captioning and poorly-timed simsubbing on its cable feed in Canada.
Hubbard Broadcasting, the owners of KSTP-TV, also argued concerns about their video feed being modified for Canadian viewers via simsubbing, removal of its closed-captioning information (a Broadcast Act violation, if proven), not having its digital subchannels carried as well, and that this might be a potential Copyright Act of Canada violation for its programming to air in Canada.