KTVB - History

History

The station, Idaho's oldest, signed on July 12, 1953, as KIDO-TV. It was originally owned by Georgia Davidson, along with radio station KIDO-AM. Davidson was one of only three female station owners in the NBC network. The others were Marietta Meyer Ekberg of KFYR-TV in Bismarck, North Dakota, and Dorothy Bullitt of future sister station KING-TV in Seattle. Davidson sold KIDO-AM in 1959 but kept KIDO-TV, which she renamed KTVB.

KTVB has always been a primary NBC affiliate. After KBOI-TV (Channel 2, CBS) signed on in November 1953, the two stations briefly shared secondary DuMont affiliations, and shared secondary ABC affiliations until KITC (Channel 6) signed on in 1974. Before KAID-TV (Channel 4, PBS) signed on in December 1971, KTVB pre-empted the second hour of the Today Show to carry Sesame Street without commercials on weekday mornings.

In the early 1960s, KTVB built a satellite station in La Grande, Oregon. KTVR-TV channel 13 went on the air December 6, 1964, as a semi-satellite of KTVB, but had a La Grande studio at 1605 Adams Ave., producing a nightly newscast and other local programming. However, by 1967, the La Grande studio and office had been closed and KTVR was a total satellite of KTVB. KTVR was unique in the Pacific time zone because as a repeater of a Mountain time zone station, its "prime-time" schedule was broadcast from 6 to 9 p.m. PT, two hours early. OEPBS (now Oregon Public Broadcasting) bought KTVR on August 31, 1976, and converted it to PBS programming on February 1, 1977.

Philo Farnsworth, the father of television and an Idaho native, was present as the station signed on the air. During KTVB's fiftieth year celebration, the tag line "the first television station in the state where TV was invented" was used in some promotional announcements.

In 1979, KTVB was sold to the Bullitts' King Broadcasting Company, joining KING in Seattle, KREM-TV in Spokane, and KGW-TV in Portland, as part of King Broadcasting. That company was sold to the Providence Journal Company in 1992, which was later sold to current owner Belo Corp. in 1997.

KTVB started transmitting digital signals only, effective June 12, 2009. The station was one of four VHF digital stations granted a power increase later that month after stations experienced signal problems as a result of changing their digital channel from UHF to VHF.

In November 2003, KTVB launched Idaho's Very Own 24/7, a unique 24-hour channel consisting primarily of syndicated programming and original newscasts; the network is distributed on digital channel 7.2 as well as on a variety of local cable systems. It started as a newscast repeat station before evolving into its current form.

KTVB has branched out in to non-traditional areas, such as its free "Idaho Classifieds" project on the ZIdaho website. In August 2011, KTVB became the first station in Boise to broadcast its entire weekday schedule in High Definition.