KCRA

A local television station, and an affiliate of the NBC network. The relationship with NBC Universal grants KCRA the rights to broadcast Late Night with Conan O'Brien, to use NBC's WeatherPlus system for weather reporting, and to sell knick-knacks at a store called "The KCRA Experience". Syndicated programming includes The Oprah Winfrey Show and reruns of stuff.

KCRA airs the news live from their glass windowed studio at Arden Fair Mall everyday at noon. You can be on live TV when you to go to Arden Fair. Just stand behind the anchors at the windows.

KCRA was started at the California State Fair by a local Sacramento family in the 1950s.

KCRA has more bureaus throughout California than any other station in the state. KCRA takes pride in their traffic and breaking news chopper, nicknamed "LiveCopter 3." In 1997, pilot of LiveCopter 3 Michael Kidd rescued a dog named Rodeo from a rooftop during a flood. This earned Kidd, LiveCopter 3 and KCRA fame on Sacramento's PBS station. It also earned Kidd a guest appearance on Oprah as well as a story the following year in Reader's Digest.

"KCRA 3 Reports" is the highest-rated local news broadcast in the Central Valley as of this writing. The most well-known anchors of this newscast are Dave Walker and Lois Hart, who were also CNN's very first anchors.

The station is owned by Hearst-Argyle Television, as is WB 58. History buffs will certainly recognize the name; the company is spun off the same Hearst who owned the newspaper empire and built the castle on the California coast. Business types will recognize the Hearst television presence in Sacramento as a duopoly.

In July 2006, KCRA announced it would bring to its viewing audience a brand-new breaking news LiveCopter. A sneak-peek video of the new LiveCopter has appeared on KCRA's website.

• Dave and Lois shop at the Sacramento Natural Foods Co-Op. Whoohooo. — ss
• So if KCRA is the most powerful and biggest TV station around, how come their broadcast signal is so much weaker than the other stations around? It is so hard to get a good signal via my rabbit ear antenna. Yet all the other local stations are as clear as cable... — BrianSolecki
• Biggest, yes. Most powerful, not so much. A great many Davis residents have the same complaint; I sold antennas to many of them. The people I talk to are divided as to the cause; some say weak transmission power, others say that KCRA has their transmitter pointed the "wrong" way. Others have said both, but I think KCRA didn't want to compete with then-NBC affiliate KRON out of San Francisco in places where their signals would overlap. In any case, KCRA is aware of reception issues in Davis, but I haven't seen any change in a long time. Best remedy — buy an outdoor antenna, like the big spiny ones everyone had on their rooftops in the 1950's. They're still the best, even for HDTV. — jlc