List of KTVX Translators - History

History

KTVX signed-on as Utah's first television station in November 1946 under the experimental call sign W6XIS. It began broadcasting regularly on April 19, 1948 as KDYL-TV owned by Sid Fox and his Mountain Broadcasting Corporation along with KDYL radio (AM 1320, now KFNZ, and FM 98.7, now KBEE). The floor in the first studio was sloped and cameras would easily roll. The original analog transmitter sat on the top of the Walker Bank Building. The station was originally an NBC affiliate owing to KDYL-AM's long relationship with NBC Radio and had been one of the network's original 26 affiliates when it premiered in 1926. This channel is the oldest station in the Mountain Time Zone and the third oldest west of the Mississippi River. It was the first independently-owned channel to sign-on in America. The station changed its call letters to KTVT in 1953, KCPX-TV in 1959, and finally KTVX in 1975. The change of call letters to KCPX came with the sale to Screen Gems Broadcasting, a division of Screen Gems, then the television division of Columbia Pictures.

For a brief period during the mid-1950s, it was owned by Time Life Inc. The channel adopted its present-day call letters when United Television (then the broadcasting division of 20th Century Fox) acquired the station from Screen Gems. The channel swapped affiliations with KUTV in 1960 and became an ABC affiliate. Some of the memorable shows from the 1960s included Fireman Frank and Nightmare Theater which were both hosted by Ron Ross. At this time, the station was using a popular "Open 4" logo that was later implemented by WAPA-TV in San Juan, Puerto Rico. That station used several variations of the logo from the 1970s until implementing a new logo in 1990.

In 1975 when the station changed its call letters to KTVX, the title for the newscasts was NewsCenter 4. This was the first news title under the current call letters and lasted until 1981. The KTVX call letters were formerly used by KTUL-TV in Tulsa, Oklahoma which is also an ABC affiliate. In 1981, United Television merged with Chris-Craft Industries. After Chris-Craft's stations were sold to Fox (briefly bringing KTVX and KMOL back under common ownership with 20th Century Fox while a third ex-United station, then-UPN affiliate KMSP-TV in the Twin Cities, eventually became a Fox O&O outright when the network moved from WFTC in 2002), KTVX and KMOL (now WOAI-TV) in San Antonio were traded to Clear Channel Communications for WFTC.

Since Fox already owned KSTU, it was forced to sell KTVX due to current Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations prohibiting one company from owning two of the four highest-ranked stations in a single market. KTVX was traded because it had a long-term ABC affiliation. Fox also wanted to offer an attractive package to Clear Channel for WFTC. KTVX was the only Chris-Craft owned station to have never been affiliated with UPN during the time Chris-Craft owned a partial stake in the network. In August 2005, President George W. Bush visited Salt Lake City to speak to the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Cindy Sheehan appeared in a paid political message protesting the Iraq War and the ad was submitted to the top four stations in the market (KSL-TV, KSTU, KTVX, and KUTV). KTVX management declined the offer saying that "the content could very well be offensive to our community in Utah, which has contributed more than its fair share of fighting soldiers and suffered significant loss of life in this Iraq war." KTVX aired "TheHive TV" on its second digital subchannel which featured locally-produced programs and sports by residents in the Salt Lake City area. The schedule resembled a cable public access but because the subchannel must conform to FCC content guidelines, externally-produced programs were approved by the station before they were aired. This service shut down in December 2008 and was replaced in January 2009 by Untamed Sports TV of which KTVX-DT2 is the flagship station. In April 2011 KTVX changed the DT2 to air TheCoolTV.

On November 16, 2006, Clear Channel announced plans to sell all of its television stations, including KTVX, after being bought by private equity firms. On April 20, 2007, Clear Channel entered into an agreement to sell its entire television stations group to Providence Equity Partners's Newport Television. That company closed on the station group on March 14, 2008. In May, Newport Television agreed to sell KTVX and five other stations to High Plains Broadcasting because of an ownership conflict. Newport would have continued to operate KTVX through a joint sales agreement after the sale was finalized. However on August 22, the channel was removed from the sale after Univision Communications, owner of KUTH and of which Providence Equity Partners holds a 19% stake, canceled its plans to purchase KUTF thus alleviating the need to sell KTVX (although sister station KUCW was eventually sold to High Plains Broadcasting due to FCC single-market ownership limits but remains managed by Newport Television). KUTF has since been sold to the Daystar Television Network. As a result, KTVX remains owned by Newport Television. On June 12, 2009, it ended analog broadcasts and began to transmit exclusively digitally. In 2010, Live with Regis and Kelly moved to KSTU.

On July 19, 2012, Newport Television reached a deal to sell 22 of its 27 stations to the Nexstar Broadcasting Group, Sinclair Broadcast Group and Cox Media Group. KTVX and KUCW are among the twelve that would be sold to Nexstar who would acquire both stations outright. The JSA and SSA between KTVX and KUCW was terminated upon the completion of the sale, which occurred on December 3, as both stations officially became co-owned for the first time since Clear Channel sold the pair back in 2008. The purchases of KTVX and KUCW would also mark a reentry into Utah for Nexstar, who had managed CBS affiliate KUTV and MyNetworkTV/This TV affiliate KMYU while they were owned by the Four Points Media Group before that entire group was sold to Sinclair at the beginning of 2012. Also, WOAI-TV, which has been a sister station to KTVX since United Television acquired both stations in 1975, was sold to Sinclair, which resulted in the two stations coming under entirely separate ownership and management for the first time in over 37 years; as a result, WOAI is now sister to rival KUTV.