KCTV — BrandWiki

KCTV

callsign	KCTV
branding	KCTV 5
digital	24 (UHF)
virtual	5
affiliations	5.1: CBS for others, see
owner	Gray Media
licensee	Gray Television Licensee, LLC
location	Kansas City, Missouri
country	United States
airdate	September 27, 1953
callsign meaning	Kansas City Television
sister stations	KSMO-TV
former callsigns	KCMO-TV (1953–1983)
former channel numbers	Analog: 5 (VHF, 1953–2009)
former affiliations	ABC (1953–1955) DuMont (secondary, 1954–1955)
erp	1,000 kW
haat	344 m
facility id	41230
coordinates	39.07067°N, -94.58264°W
licensing authority	FCC
website	https://www.kctv5.com

KCTV (channel 5) is a television station in Kansas City, Missouri, United States, affiliated with CBS. It is owned by Gray Media alongside KSMO-TV (channel 62), an independent station with MyNetworkTV. The two stations share studios on Shawnee Mission Parkway in Fairway, Kansas; KCTV's transmitter facility, the KCTV Broadcast Tower, is located in the Union Hill section of Kansas City, Missouri.

Channel 5 was the fourth television channel to go on the air in Kansas City; KCMO-TV began broadcasting on September 27, 1953, as the television adjunct of KCMO radio. Originally an ABC affiliate, it switched to CBS in 1955 as part of a group affiliation agreement negotiated by the Meredith Corporation, which agreed to buy KCMO radio and television less than a week after KCMO-TV began broadcasting. In 1956, the present tower, a Kansas City landmark, was completed to broadcast the station.

Despite protests from Kansas City civic leaders, KCMO-TV moved its studio facilities to Fairway, Kansas, at the end of 1977. Meredith sold the KCMO radio stations in 1983; as this required the television station to change its call sign, it paid a Texas station $25,000 to release the call sign KCTV for use in Kansas City.

History

Establishment

On January 26, 1948, the KCMO Broadcasting Corporation, owner of Kansas City radio station KCMO (810 AM), applied to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for a permit to build a new television station on channel 5.[1][2] It would be more than five years before that application was granted, largely because of a four-year freeze on TV station grants. Five different groups had pending applications for new TV stations in Kansas City: KCMO, the New England Broadcasting Company, and Kansas City radio stations KCKN, KMBC, and WHB.[3] The freeze ended in April 1952, at which time KCMO and KMBC were already buying and storing equipment with an eye to starting TV stations, and KCMO had already identified the use of its KCMO-FM tower at its studios at 31st and Grand streets to telecast its station.[4]

While KCMO had already applied for channel 5, KCKN had originally sought channel 2, which was removed from Kansas City in the final 1952 allocations; that station then amended its application to specify channel 5.[5] New England Broadcasting had also filed for channel 5, but its application was dismissed by the FCC in January 1953.[6]

KCKN withdrew its application at the start of June 1953 after co-owned WIBW became the sole applicant for channel 13 in Topeka, Kansas.[7] The FCC granted the construction permit on June 3, 1953, at which time KCMO estimated that KCMO-TV would begin in about four months, bringing to the city additional network programs that WDAF-TV, the only pre-freeze TV station in the city, could not fit in its schedule. This was the first VHF station construction permit awarded in Kansas City since the end of the freeze; a UHF station, KCTY, had been awarded for channel 25.[8] The grant of KCMO-TV's permit spurred KMBC and WHB, applicants for channel 9, to combine their bids and seek shared-time use of the channel.[9] The FCC promptly approved on June 25, and KMBC-TV and WHB-TV began transmitting from an interim facility on August 2.[10][11]

KCMO-TV made the September 27 start date, with an official dedication featuring former president Harry Truman as the guest of honor taking place on October 4.[13] It took the ABC affiliation, giving Kansas City four channels for the four networks: NBC on WDAF-TV, CBS on KMBC-TV and WHB-TV, DuMont on KCTY, and ABC on KCMO-TV.[14] Before the first week of telecasting on channel 5 had concluded, the KCMO Broadcasting Company agreed to sell itself to the Meredith Publishing Company of Des Moines, Iowa, for $2 million. Meredith executives had visited several weeks prior to tour the television facility; company president E. T. Meredith joked that he would like to have a radio and television property closer to Des Moines than its holdings in Syracuse, New York. He was more than joking; he expressed serious interest in the property to Tom L. Evans and Lester Cox, KCMO's stockholders, with Cox letting Evans sell the stations.[15] This gave Meredith its fourth television station: it had built WHEN-TV in Syracuse and made radio-TV purchases in consecutive years that brought WOW-TV in Omaha, Nebraska, and KPHO-TV in Phoenix, Arizona, into the fold.

Switch from ABC to CBS

In January 1955, Meredith reached a group affiliation deal with CBS covering its radio and television properties outside Phoenix. The agreement saw KCMO radio and television become CBS secondary outlets with immediate effect.[19] The news was received, per a report in Variety, with "puzzlement" in Kansas City, where KMBC radio was the sixth-oldest CBS affiliate with more than 25 years of service to the network.[20] KCMO-TV joined CBS and KMBC-TV joined ABC on September 28, 1955, with their radio counterparts exchanging affiliations on December 1.[21] After a year of construction, in February 1956, the original KCMO-FM tower was replaced by the present tower on the site, then measuring 1042 ft, and the station began broadcasting at the maximum effective radiated power of 100,000 watts.[22] KCMO continued to broadcast from the 31st Street studios for more than 20 years. However, in 1976, under general manager Charles McAbee, it announced plans to move its operation from Kansas City across the state line to Fairway, Kansas, where it planned to build a studio facility twice the size. Members of city government expressed dismay at the proposed relocation of the radio and television stations and even suggested dismantling the large tower beside the studios as an icing hazard; McAbee claimed to have scouted six sites in Kansas City itself, including

Becoming KCTV

In 1982, Meredith announced it would sell the Kansas City radio stations to Richard Fairbanks, retaining the television station; it noted that the radio properties were not meeting its "growth objectives".[29] The separation of KCMO radio from KCMO-TV required one or the other to change its call sign upon completion of the sale.[30] Meredith found its new call letters for channel 5 in San Angelo, Texas, where KCTV had been on the air with that designation since 1957. KCMO-TV approached the Texas station, which agreed to seek new call letters, leaving KCTV open to be claimed in Kansas City; the Texas station was reimbursed for all of its expenses in changing over.[31][32] The KCTV in Texas became KLST in March 1983,[33] and KCMO-TV became KCTV on June 6, 1983, with the station launching a promotional campaign among advertisers and the public.

Sale to Gray Television

On May 3, 2021, after 68 years of Meredith ownership, Gray Television announced its intent to purchase the Meredith Local Media division, including KCTV and KSMO-TV, for $2.7 billion.[52] The sale was completed on December 1.[53]