Early years
The Chrysostom Corporation, a group of five investors that included the Casper police chief,[2] was formed in 1977 to apply for a license to build a station on channel 14 in Casper. The Federal Communications Commission approved the application on August 31, 1979, and KCWY-TV began broadcasting on August 12, 1980.[3] Channel 14, which has been affiliated with CBS since its launch, was the first new television station to go on the air in Casper since 1957 and marked the first time the city had two competing stations since 1959, when KSPR-TV folded. It also was Wyoming's first UHF television station.[4]
The new station entered into a tough years-long battle with KTWO-TV, the other station in town. Channel 14 found itself at a constant disadvantage against the longer-established station. In its first ratings book, its Action News newscasts attracted two percent of the audience, compared to KTWO's 59 percent.[5] KTWO trumpeted that it aired all 50 of the top 50 programs in Casper.[6]
Undaunted, Chrysostom then began a push to build full-power satellites of KCWY. It filed for the open channel 4 at Lander, Wyoming, which put it in competition with Central Wyoming College's application to build the first educational television station in the state.[7] Channel 5 was found to be available, and both groups received channels. Chrysostom put KOWY on the air in Lander in 1982. At the same time, it bought KTUX-TV—a station on channel 13 in Rock Springs that had signed on October 21, 1977, but was silent—and renamed it KWWY-TV.[8]
Sale to Stauffer
The Chrysostom Corporation sold KCWY-TV and its satellites to Stauffer Communications of Topeka, Kansas, in 1986 for $3.5 million.[9] At the same time, Stauffer bought KYCU, the CBS affiliate in Cheyenne.[10] On New Year's Day 1987, the stations adopted new call letters of KGWC-TV, KGWL-TV (Lander), and KGWR-TV (Rock Springs), matching the Cheyenne station, which became KGWN-TV, representing the "Great Western Network". The KCWY call letters later returned to Casper on channel 13.[11]
Under Stauffer, cuts were made to the operation in Casper to reduce costs, respond to the weak regional economy, and take advantage of synergies with the Cheyenne station. In early 1987, the station ceased producing its own local weathercasts and began taking legislative and state capitol reports from KGWN; it cut its news department from 11 reporters down to 8.[12] Even deeper cutbacks followed the next year, eliminating additional news positions in Casper; KGWC switched to producing local news and weather inserts into KGWN's newscasts from Cheyenne.
Benedek revival
In 1995, Stauffer sold its holdings to Morris Communications. Morris kept the newspapers and spun off the television stations to Benedek Broadcasting of Rockford, Illinois, for $60 million.[15]
Benedek poured considerable resources into KGWC, relaunching a full schedule of newscasts. Channel 14 increased the visibility of its product, running billboards and TV advertisements for its newscasts. In December 1996, it poached Rich Bircumshaw from KTWO radio to serve as the news director[16] and KTWO-TV news director Vicki Daniels as assignment editor. It added weekend newscasts and doubled its staff. Benedek leased an electronics store building on CY Avenue to serve as the station's studios and outfitted it with $500,000 in new equipment, improving the technical quality of its broadcasts.[17]
However, the product failed to be viable in the long run for Benedek. The news department's size slowly shrank, and the station had three general managers in less than two years. On June 4, 2000, the station turned into a satellite of KGWN with no local newscasts or advertising. All but two KGWC staffers were laid off; only an engineer and one other staffer—the bare minimum to run the station-were retained.
After the closure of the KGWC-TV operation, financial problems developed at Benedek. The early 2000s recession reduced ad sales and caused the company to miss interest payments on a set of bonds issued in 1996, prompting a filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.[20] While most of Benedek's stations were sold to Gray Television, some—including KGWC-TV and KGWN-TV—went to Chelsey Broadcasting, an affiliate of the Chelsey Capital hedge fund.[21]
In 2003, Chelsey Broadcasting divested its Wyoming stations in two separate sales. KGWN and Scottsbluff, Nebraska, satellite KSTF were sold to SagamoreHill Broadcasting, while KGWC, KGWL, and KGWR were sold separately to Mark III Media, headed by Mark Nalbone, general manager of Casper Fox affiliate KFNB. Nalbone also served as a consultant to KTWO-TV. The sale languished during a lengthy approval process at the FCC due to several objections, primarily concerning whether the sale would effectively put the stations under common ownership with KFNB and KTWO-TV. James Cable, the parent of the cable system serving Douglas, Wyoming, wrote in its objection, "To paraphrase Shakespeare, something is rotten in the state of Wyoming". Equity Broadcasting Corporation also objected to the arrangement but withdrew its protest shortly before selling KTWO-TV to the company consulted by Nalbone, leaving James wondering whether Equity had been truthful in stating it did not receive any compensation for withdrawing the objection.[22]
Gray sale attempt and sale to Big Horn
Mark III Media announced the sale of KGWC-TV to Gray Television, owner of KCWY-DT and KGWN, on February 12, 2018.[25] Under the terms of the deal, the KGWC license was to be donated to a non-profit organization and would receive a new call sign and virtual channel number;[26] on March 6, Gray agreed to donate the license and transmitter to Central Wyoming College. Central Wyoming College planned to convert channel 14 into a non-commercial license as KEWY, with the station being used to broadcast PBS Kids programming full-time.[27][28][29]
Gray would have retained the KGWC call letters and CBS programming, moving them to its low power KCBZ-LD, formerly KSBF-LD (channel 36); per the donation agreement, KCBZ-LD was to have taken the virtual channel 14 to maintain CBS programming on channel 14.
