KTVO - History

History

KTVO signed-on November 21, 1955 airing an analog signal on VHF channel 3. It was a primary CBS affiliate, although its single market status allowed it to cherry-pick the most popular programming from NBC and ABC. The station was founded by Jim Conroy. Many people thought the Ottumwa/Kirksville DMA was too small to support a television station but Conroy persevered believing Southeastern Iowa and Northeastern Missouri would be proud to have a locally-based station. This was not a surprise given that KTVO was the area's only channel until 1986 when KOIA-TV (now Fox affiliate KYOU-TV) took to-the-air.

For the station's first twenty years, KTVO's operations were primarily based in Ottumwa in studios shared with then co-owned KBIZ-AM 1240. On January 7, 1964, KTVO was sold to Post Corporation which renovated the facilities in Ottumwa. In 1968, KTVO switched primary affiliation to ABC, although the station continued carrying a few CBS and NBC shows until 1974. In 1976, KTVO relocated its facilities outside Kirksville. Int the early to mid-1980s, KTVO operated a short-lived, low-power UHF station, K40AI, channel 40. A large bulk of K40AI's schedule was made up of programming from the now-defunct Satellite Program Network. K40AI also re-purposed a small amount of the syndicated programming aired on KTVO at the time, such as Solid Gold.

In 1984, George N. Gillett, Jr. bought the Post Corporation Stations; however, due to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ownership limit of five VHF television stations that was in effect at the time, KTVO was spun-off to a local telecommunications company called "Gillbro Communications". Federal Broadcasting (later Federal Enterprises) acquired the station in 1987.

On June 2, 1988, a three-member broadcast tower maintenance crew was killed when the KTVO transmitter tower collapsed. This forced the channel, along with radio station KRXL-FM 94.5 (which had been renting antenna space on the tower) off-the-air. Since the original tower was still available, KTVO was able to resume broadcasting within thirty hours of the collapse. An Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) investigation placed official blame for the tower collapse primarily on the maintenance crew citing the removal of too many tower cross-braces at once for repair. Although a relatively new structure, the steel cross-braces had already shown signs of cracking, rust, and other deterioration thus necessitating the early repair and maintenance.

KTVO was acquired by Raycom Media in 1996. In December 2003, Raycom acquired the television stations of Waitt Media, which included KYOU. However, due to FCC duopoly regulations, KYOU was transferred to Ottumwa Media Holdings, LLC and entered into a local marketing agreement (LMA) with KTVO. On March 27, 2006, the company announced that it would sell KTVO along with thirteen other stations across the country to Barrington Broadcasting. The sale closed that August. As a result, KYOU's owner, Ottumwa Media Holdings, was renamed American Spirit Media. At some point thereafter, KTVO terminated the LMA with KYOU although Raycom maintains management of the latter station through outsourcing and shared services agreements.

KTVO had been serving the Quincy, Illinois/Hannibal, Missouri/Keokuk, Iowa market as the default analog ABC affiliate on cable with some locations being able pick up its over-the-air signal. On August 28, 2007, sister station KHQA announced that it would launch a new second digital subchannel to offer ABC programming beginning September 30. However, KTVO remains on area cable systems. This station launched a CBS-affiliated second digital subchannel on May 15, 2010 effectively marking the network's return to the area after a 36 year absence. Until this point, KHQA had been the analog default affiliate. Like KHQA-DT2 currently, KTVO-DT2 originally offered American One as a secondary affiliate but has since added syndicated programming to its schedule. In addition to KTVO, Mediacom systems in Iowa offer fellow ABC station WOI-DT from Des Moines on channel 4.