KRLR and KUPN
In 1980, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) designated four applications for comparative hearing to determine who would be the first to build and operate a television station on the ultra high frequency (UHF) band in Las Vegas. The applications came from DRES Media of Las Vegas, led by the Scott and Foremaster families; Alden Communications, a California firm which also filed for channels in Seattle and Portland, Oregon; Broadcast West Inc., based in North Las Vegas; and Channel 21 Corporation, whose principals were two New Jersey businessmen.[2][3] Three of the applications had been filed in 1978, anticipating a possible boom in subscription television broadcasting.
Under DRES Media ownership, the station began broadcasting on July 31, 1984,[4] as KRLR. It originally broadcast as "Vusic 21", devoting most of its time to music videos; KRLR management boasted that theirs was the first 24-hour music video station in the country, though the format was also an aid to getting the station on the air in short order.[5][6] Over the course of the next year, the independent station transformed its schedule into a broader mix of entertainment programming by acquiring movies and syndicated programs.[7] The first notable exception to the music video format came months after signing on, when the station signed for rights to air telecasts of Las Vegas Americans indoor soccer.[8] Sports played a key role in the station's schedule in the late 1980s; channel 21 broadcast a partial-season package of UNLV Runnin' Rebels basketball and selected UNLV football games,[9][10] and it was also a heavy baseball broadcaster, featuring the San Diego Padres and Oakland Athletics on its schedule.[11]
Dennis Todd, a subcontractor for KRLR, was working on the station's Black Mountain tower on May 4, 1988, when the nearby Pacific Engineering and Production Company facility exploded. Todd was known to tape some of his work and had a video camera with him while on the tower. After the first blast, he began recording the unfolding disaster; he was flown with his camera to NBC in Burbank, California, from which his footage was fed to NBC affiliates nationwide.[12]
As the first Las Vegas station on the UHF band, KRLR's promotion in tuning and antennas forged a path for two stations that followed it in the decade: KBLR-TV (channel 39) and KFBT (channel 33).[13][14] However, in the ratings, it was a distant second to KVVU, one of the nation's strongest independent outlets.
In 1993, DRES Media filed to sell KRLR to Las Vegas Channel 21 Inc., a company owned by Michael J. Lambert, for $4.875 million.[15] The new ownership affiliated channel 21 with the new United Paramount Network (UPN) at its launch on January 16, 1995,[16] and changed its call letters to KUPN on March 6 of that year.[17] Lambert more than recouped his investment by selling KUPN to Sinclair Broadcast Group for $87 million in 1997; the transaction represented the company's entry to a market where TV revenues had doubled within four years.[18]
KVWB and KVMY
The purchase of KUPN came months before Sinclair's relationship with UPN frosted over. On July 21, 1997, Sinclair signed a long-term affiliation agreement with Time Warner, under which the group committed five of its UPN-affiliated stations to that network in 1998, with a sixth independent station to join in 1999.[19] The high-profile move by Sinclair to move five stations from UPN to The WB, its direct competitor, led to a legal dispute between the companies. UPN sued Sinclair, alleging it had breached its affiliation contract by exiting it early.[20] On January 14, 1998, Sinclair announced that KUPN would join The WB, taking the affiliation from KFBT, in a switch later postponed to March 1; KFBT did not pick up UPN, making it an independent station,[21][22] and a month later, Sinclair struck a deal to operate KFBT under a local marketing agreement.[23]
2014 license swap and sale to Howard Stirk Holdings
On September 3, 2014, Intermountain West Communications Company announced that it would sell KSNV-DT, Las Vegas's NBC affiliate, to Sinclair for $120 million. As Sinclair already owned a duopoly in Las Vegas, it could not add a third license, the company planned to sell the license assets (though not the programming) of one of the three stations to comply with FCC ownership restrictions, with the divested station's programming being moved to the other stations.[41] On November 1, 2014, Sinclair began the process of realigning KSNV, KVCW, and KVMY. It moved the MyNetworkTV programming to a subchannel of KVCW and relocated KSNV's call letters, programming, and channel number to what had been KVMY. The KSNV technical facility then became KVMY, retaining virtual channel 21 but not the MyNetworkTV programming, and was sold to Howard Stirk Holdings, a company owned by conservative commentator Armstrong Williams.[42] The $150,000 purchase price primarily consisted of the transmission facility.[43] The call sign on channel 21 changed to KHSV on March 7, 2016.
