KRCG - History

History

The station was founded on February 13, 1955 and was owned by the Jefferson City News Tribune. The paper's publisher, Betty Goshorn Weldon, named the station in honor of her late father, Robert C. Goshorn. Goshorn had wanted to bring a television station to the area before he died in 1953. Ms. Weldon inherited the paper on his death and took over his dream. She thus became one of the first women to own and operate a television station.

KRCG has always been a CBS affiliate, though it shared ABC with KOMU-TV until KCBJ-TV (now KMIZ-TV) signed on in 1971. It is the only station in Mid-Missouri to have never changed its affiliation. KOMU and KMIZ have switched networks twice (first in 1982, then reverting back to their original networks in 1986). During the late 1950s, the station was also briefly affiliated with the NTA Film Network.

In 1961, the News Tribune bought KMOS-TV in Sedalia, operating it as a full-time satellite for the western portion of the market. However, later in the decade KMOS began breaking away from KRCG to produce its own newscasts at 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. KRCG operated KMOS at a relatively low power level, and shied away from selling KMOS to another commercial owner. By this time, Columbia/Jefferson City was just barely big enough to support a third full network affiliate. With this in mind, KRCG and KOMU feared that if KMOS was sold, the station could potentially become a full-power ABC affiliate.

In 1967, KRCG and KMOS were sold to Kansas City Southern Industries. In 1978, Kansas City Southern donated KMOS to Central Missouri State University (now the University of Central Missouri) in Warrensburg. At that time, KMOS was converted to a stand-alone PBS station. KRCG then signed on a Sedalia translator, K11OJ. In 1985, Kansas City Southern sold the station to Price Communications Corporation. After three years KRCG was sold to Mel Wheeler, Inc., which owned the station until March 2005, when KRCG was purchased by Barrington Broadcasting. In the late 1980's and early 1990's the station carried some Fox programming on late night weekends.