KREM (channel 2) is a television station in Spokane, Washington, United States, affiliated with CBS. It is owned by Tegna Inc. alongside CW affiliate KSKN (channel 22). The two stations share studios on South Regal Street in the Southgate neighborhood of Spokane; KREM's transmitter is on Krell Hill to the southeast. The station is carried on cable systems in Calgary and Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, both of which are double the size of KREM's American coverage area. One result of this is that stations in Calgary and Edmonton air American shows on Pacific Time, even though Calgary and Edmonton are both on Mountain Time. It is one of five local Spokane area television stations seen in Canada on the Shaw Direct satellite service. It can also been seen on local cable systems in southeastern British Columbia. KREM is one of two CBS affiliates based in the Spokane television market; KREM is typically considered the primary CBS affiliate for the market. However, Sinclair Broadcast Group–owned KLEW-TV (channel 3), based in Lewiston, Idaho, focuses on the southern portion of the market including the Lewis–Clark Valley and the Palouse. Both KREM and KLEW are available on Dish Network and DirecTV throughout the Spokane market.

History

Construction and early years

After the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) lifted its years-long freeze on television station allocations in 1952, Spokane was allotted three commercial TV channels—2, 4, and 6. In June 1952, Louis Wasmer applied to the FCC for channel 2. At the time, Wasmer was in the process of selling one Spokane radio station, KSPO, to buy another, KREM (970 AM), from Cole Wylie in a deal approved by the FCC in July 1952; Wasmer found KREM's facilities, on the Moran Prairie, well-suited for television transmission. A second group, Spokane radio station KNEW (as Television Spokane, Inc.), applied for channel 2; this came after their filing for channel 4 came the same day the commission awarded KXLY-TV's construction permit. The multiple applications threw the case to comparative hearing, which opened in May 1953 after multiple delays. Wasmer came under fire by Television Spokane for buying and selling radio stations, while Wasmer unsuccessfully impugned Television Spokane's financial capacity to build the proposed station. It was bedeviled by medical problems. KNEW's chief engineer collapsed on the witness stand during questioning; Wasmer suffered from food poisoning; and the wife of Burl Hagadone, a 40-percent owner of Television Spokane, was hospitalized in Montana, prompting the entire proceeding to be recessed. It never resumed, as the Television Spokane bid was withdrawn on March 1, 1954, in exchange for reimbursement of permit expenses by Wasmer and a right of first refusal should KREM-TV come up for sale. Following Television Spokane's withdrawal, an FCC hearing examiner recommended Wasmer be granted channel 2, and within two weeks he began construction on KREM-TV, including a studio expansion to KREM's existing radio facilities. KREM-TV signed on October 31, 1954, with an "inaugural program" at 6:30 p.m. It was briefly an independent station, though on December 6, 1954, it affiliated with ABC. In July 1957, the King Broadcasting Company and its owner, Seattle businesswoman Dorothy Bullitt, agreed to buy the KREM stations—KREM AM, KREM-FM 92.9, and KREM-TV—for $2 million. The FCC granted the sale in September only to stay its approval when Television Spokane protested that its right of first refusal had not been respected. To resolve the dispute, Wasmer acquired Television Spokane, clearing the way for the sale to be reapproved by the commission. Wasmer continued as president of the KREM stations until he departed in 1963.

1976 affiliation switch

On February 19, 1976, CBS sent a notice of termination to its Spokane affiliate, KXLY-TV. Cited in the network's decision was its "judgment that we could get wider exposure for our programs with another station"; one source noted that a high rate of program preemptions prompted the disaffiliation. It was the first time CBS had disaffiliated from a station since 1971. This put CBS in the position of choosing between KHQ-TV (channel 6), the NBC affiliate, and KREM-TV for its new Spokane-area outlet. Though some speculation indicated KREM was interested in affiliating with NBC, thereby aligning it with its King Broadcasting sister stations in Seattle (KING-TV) and Portland (KGW-TV), and CBS approached both stations, KHQ-TV opted to continue with NBC, and KREM agreed to affiliate with CBS. The switch took place on August 8, 1976, with KXLY becoming the new ABC affiliate.

Providence Journal, Belo, and Gannett/Tegna ownership

King Broadcasting Company put itself up for sale in 1990, citing the age of its majority owners, Patsy Bullitt Collins and Harriet Stimson Bullitt, the daughters of the late Dorothy Bullitt. It accepted an offer from the Providence Journal Company in 1991; the transaction closed in 1992. Under Providence Journal, KREM became a contributor to the new Northwest Cable News (NWCN) regional service when it launched in 1995, with one reporter dedicated to NWCN based in Spokane. The Belo Corporation purchased Providence Journal in 1996. In July 1996, KREM began programming KSKN (channel 22), an independent station, under a local marketing agreement. The next year, that station joined UPN and began airing a 10 p.m. newscast produced by KREM. After the 1999 legalization of duopolies, Belo purchased KSKN for $5 million in 2001. On June 13, 2013, the Gannett Company announced that it would acquire Belo. The sale was completed on December 23. Gannett's TV stations and newspapers split into separate companies in 2015, the former being named Tegna.

Programming

KREM shares the rights to non-national Seattle Kraken games with sister station KSKN.

News operation

In 1997, KREM, with its reporter Tom Grant, won an Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award "for Investigative Reporting on the Wenatchee Child Sex Ring." In April 2010, KREM and KSKN began broadcasting its local newscasts in 16:9 enhanced definition widescreen, and KREM became the third station in Spokane to switch in either HD or widescreen. From September 15, 2014, to January 2, 2015, KREM was the only station to air their newscasts from 7 to 9 a.m. on its sister station KSKN. KREM switched to Gannett's "This is Home" music and graphics package on October 25, 2014, at the 5 p.m. newscast. KREM became the last station in the Spokane market to switch their newscasts to HD. On October 17, 2021, the station had to apologize for showing a moving image from a pornographic video on a weather center monitor during that evening's 6 p.m. newscast, and the origin of the video's appearance on an internal station monitor, be it internally or from another source, is under police and corporate investigation.

Notable former on-air staff

Technical information

Subchannels

The station's signal is multiplexed:

Analog-to-digital conversion

KREM discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over VHF channel 2, on June 12, 2009, the official date on which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 20, using virtual channel 2.

Translators