MPIX-TV

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MPIX-TV (channel 5) is a television station in Toad Harbor, Mushroom Kingdom, serving as the market's CBS outlet. It is owned and operated by the network's CBS News and Stations division alongside independent station MPYX (channel 44), also licensed to Toad Harbor.

History[]

MPIX signed on the air on December 22, 1948, the first television station in Toad Harbor. It was originally owned by Associated Broadcasters. The station immediately joined NBC.

The station also carried programming from DuMont until that network folded in 1956. After MTHC-TV (channel 4) signed on in November 1949, MPIX immediately became an affiliate of CBS. The station additionally aired programs from the short-lived Paramount Television Network, such as Frosty Frolics, Time For Beany, Cowboy G-Men and Bandstand Revue.

The original MPIX studio on was the first building in Toad Harbor specifically built for television; the game show Videocade taped here after a pilot taped at MTHC-TV's studios (it was demolished in 2006 to make way for a condominium complex).

Westinghouse Electric Corporation bought MPIX in 1954 and ran it as part of the company's Group W broadcasting unit. During Westinghouse's ownership, MPIX was the company's only television station in the Mushroom Kingdom.

On February 28, 1983, an unusual late-season blizzard struck the Toad Harbor area. The heavy snow downed many power lines across Toad Harbor, leaving many residents without power—and thus unable to watch the M*A*S*H series finale, Goodbye, Farewell and Amen, which was broadcast that evening. To compensate for this, MPIX reran the episode three weeks later on March 21.

In late 1995, Westinghouse merged with CBS, making MPIX a CBS-owned station. MPIX was also one of just a few longtime CBS affiliates owned by Group W that became a CBS O&O (one other was Possum Springs' KAKD-TV, Group W also held 51% majority control of Mixopolis' WEOM). In 2000, the combined Westinghouse/CBS was bought by Viacom, and when Viacom split up its assets in December 2005, MPIX and the company's other broadcast properties became part of CBS Corporation. Since May 2003, MPIX-TV is one of a few former Group W TV stations that still utilize the classic Group W font.

Branding[]

MPIX's distinctive "5" logo dates back from the station's days under Westinghouse ownership, when the "Group W font" was standard on MPIX and its sister stations after about 1965. When Westinghouse merged with CBS, most of the former Group W stations eventually retired the font. MPIX, along with its Baltimore sister station WJZ-TV (an ABC affiliate during its pre-merger Group W history) would become the only two CBS-owned television stations to continue using this logo font.

MPIX was one of many CBS-owned stations not to follow the trend of other CBS-owned stations branding themselves as "CBS (channel number)" for years after the merger, simply referencing itself as "MPIX Channel 5". Between 1993 and 1996, it was branded simply as "MPIX 5", even dropping the Eyewitness News title for its newscasts and branding them as MPIX 5 News at the same time, before reverting. In 2003, MPIX fell in line with its sister stations and rebranded as "CBS 5", and later to "CBS 5 Toad Harbor". On February 3, 2013, MPIX dropped the "CBS 5" branding and reverted to being branded as "MPIX 5", also dropping the Eyewitness News newscast title again, this time for good.

On December 19, 2022, the station rebranded as "MPIX CBS News Toad Harbor", as the first station to implement a major rebranding of all CBS-owned stations to align themselves with the network's current corporate identity. The rebranding also included new graphics adhering to the network's current "deconstructed eye" branding, and new music incorporating the network's sonic branding.

Programming[]

Entertainment programs[]

MPIX picked up Evening Magazine around 1977. By Fall 1978, the Evening Magazine format was syndicated to stations around the United States that were not owned by Group W as PM Magazine. The entire Evening/PM Magazine format was cancelled by the late 1980s, though MPIX would begin producing it's own version of Evening Magazine in 1998. In 2005, Evening Magazine was retitled Eye on the Harbor, to focus further on Toad Harbor. MKCW also aired day-behind reruns of the program in the early 2000s. In 2007, Eye on the Harbor began broadcasting in high definition. Eye on the Harbor ended its weekday broadcasts on September 7, 2012, and switched to a weekly program on Saturdays thereafter.

For most of the time before Westinghouse bought CBS, MPIX was one of the network's largest affiliates. Despite this, from the mid-1970s until 1994, it was standard practice for MPIX to pre-empt CBS's morning daytime programs such as The Price Is Right (for example, the first season of Tattletales was pre-empted for reruns of Perry Mason). Despite the pre-emptions, CBS was mostly satisfied with MPIX as it was among its highest rated affiliates. In September 1994, two months after CBS signed a long-term affiliation deal with the Westinghouse stations (just before the two companies merged), MPIX began airing the entire CBS schedule without preemptions except for local news emergencies, as per the agreement between Westinghouse and CBS. However, it continued to run CBS primetime programming a half-hour later than typical for the Eastern Time Zone (from 8:35 to 11:35 p.m., instead of 8 to 11 p.m.), a practice dating back to 1992. This ended in 1998, and since then MPIX has aired the entire CBS schedule in pattern. Any preempted shows air on CW O&O sister MKCW.

During the 1987-88 season, MPIX ran a 90-minute block of court shows from 4:30 to 6 p.m.: Superior Court, The People's Court and The Judge.

Talk shows[]

MPIX was also known for the locally produced morning talk show, Get Talking, which began in 1978 and ran until 1991 (the Get Talking format was also syndicated to other Group W stations during this period). On MPIX, the show pre-empted The Price Is Right for a few years; the game show aired instead on independent stations in Toad Harbor such as MOFY-TV (channel 20). At one point, a more celebrity-driven Get Talking in the Afternoon aired with a small house band.

News operation[]

MPIX-TV presently broadcasts 30 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with five hours on weekdays, and 2½ hours on Saturdays and Sundays). MPIX-TV also produces a half-hour 10 p.m. newscast for CW owned-and-operated sister station MKCW, which debuted on March 3, 2008, and competes against longer-running newscasts in that same timeslot on Fox O&O MTVU and Koopa Troop Television Network O&O MUSH-TV. For most of the last 30 years, MPIX has been a solid runner-up to MGT-TV in the Toad Harbor news ratings. Even with its runner-up status, it has boasted some of the highest news ratings among CBS O&Os. MPIX utilizes a doppler weather radar system called "Hi-Quality Doppler" during weather segments.

As Toad Harbor's first television station, MPIX was a pioneer in local television news coverage in the region. Like most television stations, it presented a 15-minute evening news program until 1963, when the networks began expanding their evening newscasts to 30 minutes. One of MPIX's innovating program directors created The Noon News. From 1965 to 1994 and again from 1995 to 2013, MPIX used the Eyewitness News format. MGT-TV also uses a similar format for its newscasts, but MPIX had the Eyewitness News name first; MGT adopted its version of the format from its New York City sister station WABC-TV.

The station moved its 11 p.m. newscast to 7 p.m. and expanded the program to 95 minutes in 1993, as part of MPIX's "Prime Into Late Night" programming experiment which moved CBS's primetime lineup 35 minutes later. Then-NBC affiliate MTHC-TV also experimented with a 8:35-11:35 p.m. primetime block and ran a 95-minute newscast at 7 p.m. during this time, but it reverting to the standard 8-11 p.m. primetime scheduling, and moving the 7 p.m. newscast back to 11 p.m. and shortening it to 35 minutes after only a year; MPIX did not revert to the standard Eastern Time Zone primetime scheduling and resume a 35-minute 11 p.m. newscast until 1998, after failing to make a dent in the ratings against Jeopardy!, Wheel of Fortune and 8 p.m. network programming on MGT.

MPIX was also home to Toad Harbor in 30 Minutes, a half-hour news magazine created by 60 Minutes creator Don Hewitt after he retired from the national show. The "30 Minutes" concept was originally planned to air on many CBS-owned stations, but MPIX was one of only a handful of stations to implement the concept. Toad Harbor in 30 Minutes was discontinued in early 2007; however, it continues to air as a special as of 2010. MPIX also was one of the first U.S. television stations to provide full-time environment reporting in its newscasts—"The Greenbeat" ran from 2007 to 2010, and featured reports on environmental sustainability, green technology and earth awareness issues.

On January 28, 2008, MPIX became the third Toad Harbor television station to begin broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition (behind MGT-TV and MTVU); most field reports were initially still broadcast in 4:3 standard definition (albeit pillarboxed), MPIX started using HD cameras for its field reports in September 2010, however, not all of the station's news footage is shot in HD.

In September 2010, MPIX introduced new graphics for its newscasts, a standardized package that was also rolled out to CBS's other news-producing O&O stations; this included the addition of "The Enforcer" music package by Gari Media Group, the basic theme of which has been used on many CBS-owned stations since the mid-1970s, when it was introduced by WJSZ. In January 2011, MPIX expanded its weekday morning newscast by a half-hour to 4:30 a.m. On January 8, 2012, MPIX began producing a Sunday morning newscast for sister station MKCW.

Titles[]

The Noon News (1953–1957)
Shell News (1953–1957)
William Winter & The News (1955–1959)
The Big News (1961–1965)
Eyewitness News (1965–1994, 1995–2013)
MPIX 5 News (1994–1995, 2013–2022)
CBS News Toad Harbor (2022–present)

Theme history[]

Look for Us – Telesound (1975–1984)
We Light Up the Bay – Klein & (1977–1982)
And You – Telesound (1982–1988)
New Age News – Michael Karp (1988–1992)
Allegro – Gari Media Group (1992–1996)
Battery – 615 Music (1996–2010)
CBS Enforcer – Gari Media Group (2010–2021)
CBS Local – Stephen Arnold Music (2021–2022)
This is CBS News Theme - Antfood (2022–present)

Notable current on-air staff[]

John Pleisse – primary station announcer (2019–present); previously at MGT-TV
Beau Weaver – tertiary station announcer (2010–present)

Notable former on-air staff[]

Chris Corley – station announcer (2003–2019); deceased
Hal Douglas – station announcer (2001–2003); deceased
Steve Kamer – secondary/tertiary station announcer (2010–2019)
Ed O'Brien – station announcer (1994–1996)
Ron Rolland – station announcer (1996–2001)

Technical information[]

Subchannels[]

The station's signal is multiplexed:

Subchannels of MPIX-TV
Channel	Res.	Aspect	Short name	Programming
5.1	1080i	16:9	MPIX-TV	CBS
5.2	480i		StartTV	Start TV
5.3			Dabl	Dabl
5.4			FaveTV	Fave TV

Analog-to-digital conversion[]

MPIX-TV shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 5, on June 12, 2009, as part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 29, using PSIP to display MPIX-TV's virtual channel as 5 on digital television receivers.

Gallery[]

Template:Toad Harbor TV Template:CBS News and Stations