Switch to ABC
The ABC affiliation in San Diego had belonged to XETV (channel 6), a station licensed across the international border to Tijuana, Mexico, since 1956. ABC and XETV were required to obtain special permission from the FCC, renewed annually, for the network to provide its programming to XETV via the "bicycling" delivery method. In 1973, KCST-TV (channel 39), San Diego's UHF independent station, prevailed in a years-long attempt to contest this arrangement and secure ABC programming in the market; KCST claimed that ABC should no longer be affiliated with a station located in Mexico when there was now a third U.S.-based station which could carry its programming. At the time of the switch, ABC was still the third-ranked network, behind second-rated NBC and perennial leader CBS.
Over the next several years, however, ABC began to experience ratings growth in their prime time programming and rose to first place during 1975–76, finishing the year with ten programs in Nielsen's top twenty. In San Diego, KCST-TV experienced a carryover effect and also rose to first place locally, knocking KGTV down to third behind CBS station KFMB-TV (channel 8).[12] But ABC was never happy with having been forced onto the UHF dial in San Diego, and the unprecedented success gave the network the impetus to actively upgrade its affiliate roster nationwide.
Despite having more than a year remaining in its current agreement with NBC, KGTV announced it was joining ABC in June 1976.[13] After KCST-TV (now KNSD) signed with NBC,[14] the switch between the two stations took place on June 27, 1977.[15]
In 1994, as part of repercussions stemming from CBS' acquisition of KCNC-TV and KUTV, McGraw-Hill signed a long-term deal with ABC that would keep KGTV as an affiliate of the network (it remains an ABC affiliate to this day). As a condition of that agreement, television stations in other cities, including KUSA in Denver and KBAK-TV in Bakersfield, would lose their ABC affiliations to competing McGraw-Hill-owned stations (KMGH-TV, KERO-TV) in those cities.[16]
KGTV shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 10, on February 17, 2009, the original target date on which full-power television stations in the United States were to transition from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate (which was later pushed back to June 12, 2009). The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition UHF channel 25 to VHF channel 10.[17][18]
On October 3, 2011, McGraw-Hill announced it was selling its entire television station group, including KGTV and Azteca América affiliate KZSD-LP, to the Cincinnati-based E. W. Scripps Company for $212 million.[19] The deal was completed on December 30, 2011.[20]
Due to their current Scripps ownership, the station makes disclaimers regularly, especially in its medical reporting, that it has no ties to the local Scripps Health system, a completely separate organization created in 1923 from a bequest from Ellen Browning Scripps, a sister to Scripps founder E. W. Scripps, as Scripps Health personnel are regularly asked to comment on medical stories in the San Diego area, including by KGTV.
