History
KTTU was granted a construction permit on March 21, 1983 and went on the air on December 31, 1984 as KDTU, a family-friendly independent station under the ownership of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tucson. Its call letters meant K Diocese of TUcson, its first owner. Its programming consisted of the typical independent station fare: cartoons, old sitcoms and dramas, old movies, and sports. KDTU was home for Notre Dame, Marquette and DePaul college basketball broadcasts, a reflection of their ownership by the Roman Catholic Diocese. It was one of two UHF independent stations that signed on the air around the same time in the Tucson market (the other was KPOL Channel 40, now Telemundo O&O KHRR). KDTU offered only half an hour a day of religious programming except on Sunday, when they offered several hours. In spite of being owned by a religious organization, KDTU offered the second least amount of religious programming of all the commercial stations in the market.
Most markets the size of Tucson only supported one commercial independent while Tucson had three. KDTU was not profitable and the Diocese put the station up for sale in 1988. In 1989, they sold the station to Clear Channel Communications, then a small but growing media owner. Clear Channel changed the call letters to KTTU. The programming only changed slightly while presentation became more modern, In spite of the fact that channel 40 went dark and Tucson was down to two commercial independents (including Fox 11), KTTU continued to be unprofitable. Clear Channel decided to focus on their other markets and in radio so they opted to enter into a local marketing agreement with KMSB-TV channel 11, the affiliate of the then-new Fox Broadcasting Company. KMSB would then move into KTTU's more modern studios. Clear Channel continued to program KTTU with separate programming but shows could move from station to station at any time. KMSB's owners would operate KTTU while Clear Channel still held the broadcast license.
1995 brought UPN to KTTU, and two years later, Belo Corp. purchased KMSB from the Providence Journal Company. Belo continued to operate KTTU through a limited marketing agreement until 2002, when federal ownership laws were relaxed, and Belo purchased the license from Clear Channel.
In January 2006, UPN and The WB Television Network announced that they would cease operations and would combine forces to launch a new network, to be called The CW Television Network. Shortly afterward, Fox announced that it would form a new network of its own, to be called My Network TV. KTTU, the UPN affiliate, and KWBA, the WB affiliate in Tucson, were both losing their affiliations, and it was unknown which station would affiliate with which network, if at all. On March 21, 2006, KWBA was announced as the market's CW affiliate, and two days later, Belo announced that KTTU would be the MyNetwork affiliate.
In November 2011, Belo announced that it would enter into a shared services agreement with Raycom Media beginning in February 2012. This outsourcing arrangement will result in CBS affiliate KOLD-TV taking over daily operations of KMSB and KTTU and moving their advertising sales department into the big three outlet's studios. All remaining positions at the two stations will be eliminated and master control will move from KTVK in Phoenix to KOLD.
Read more about this topic: KTTU (TV)
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