WB affiliation
Upon that network's launch, on January 11, 1995, KPLR-TV became a charter affiliate of The WB (a venture between Time Warner and Chicago-based Tribune Broadcasting), marking the first time it maintained an affiliation with a broadcast television network. Koplar had reached a deal to affiliate with The WB in November 1993, more than a year before the network's launch.[15] The WB offered prime time programs only on Wednesday evenings during its first half-season of operation, but would gradually evolve into offering a six-night-a-week schedule by September 1999; as such, for its first few years as a WB affiliate, KPLR continued to fill the 7–9 p.m. time slot with feature films and some first-run syndicated programs on nights when the network did not offer programming. During this period, alongside WB prime time programming and eventually animated series from the Kids' WB children's program block, KPLR carried recent and some older off-network sitcoms and drama series, movies on weekends as well as in prime time on weekdays, some first-run syndicated shows, and a blend of animated and live-action children's shows (including shows acquired via the syndication market as well as The Disney Afternoon block). For many years, even after joining The WB, KPLR was branded on-air as "St. Louis 11", often using a logo with the "O" in "St. Louis" converted into its "circle 11" numeric logo. At one point, KPLR almost picked up Fox Kids since KTVI (which was a part of an affiliation agreement between Fox and New World Communications) declined to carry it, but Fox Kids was turned down by channel 11 station management (including its owner at that time Koplar Communications) because the owner felt that "they had a strong slate of children's programming and no room for the Rangers", and KNLC (channel 24), a religious independent station in the St. Louis market had to pick the affiliation up.[16][17] Ultimately, by the spring of 1996, due to objections to program content and accompanying national advertising, New Life Evangelistic Center/KNLC owner Rev. Larry Rice began refusing to sell local advertising during the Fox Kids weekday and Saturday blocks ceding local advertising slots to air public service messages from Rice's ministry that discussed various controversial moral issues (such as the death penalty, same-sex marriage and abortion), and reached an agreement with KTVI to carry Fox Kids starting in September 1996, making it the only New World-owned Fox station to carry the block.[18]
On September 26, 1997, Koplar Communications announced it would sell KPLR to ACME Communications (owned by Jamie Kellner, who then also served as the chief executive officer of The WB) for $146 million. Five days later, on October 1, ACME assumed operational responsibilities for the station under a local marketing agreement with Koplar. The sale was finalized on March 1, 1998, ending 38 years of local, family ownership and earning a handsome return on their original investment. It would be ACME's only station on the VHF band during the analog era, as all of the other stations they owned were on UHF. As part of the sale agreement, Ted Koplar signed a three-year contract to remain with KPLR-TV as the station's CEO, along with serving as a consultant to ACME, for an annual salary of $1 million. However, Koplar resigned from KPLR/ACME in October 1999 after one year, citing an irreconcilable rift with ACME management.[19][20][21] In September 1998, KPLR changed its branding to "WB11". In 2000, KPLR began carrying UPN programming in off-hours, running select prime time shows and cartoons from the network's children's program block, Disney's One Too. UPN programs had previously run on KDNL during overnight and weekend timeslots and then on KNLC (channel 24, which subjected the network to several program preemptions due to content objections by owner, Larry Rice).
On December 30, 2002, Tribune Broadcasting announced it would purchase KPLR-TV and sister station KWBP in Portland, Oregon, from ACME Communications for $275 million; the sale was finalized on March 21, 2003.[22][23][24][25] Also in 2003, KPLR moved its studios from the Chase Park Plaza (which by that time, went from a gutted complex where the station had been the only major tenant into a boutique hotel) to a new purpose-built studio facility in Maryland Heights.
