History
In 1986, Steven D. King, an Atlanta businessman, successfully petitioned the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to add channel 12 to St. George as its first full-service television allocation.[3] In 1987, applications were received from Red Mountain Broadcasting Company, whose backers included Jim Rogers, owner of Las Vegas station KVBC;[4] and by KUTV, Inc.[5] The FCC designated these applications for comparative hearing in February 1988,[6] but before the hearing could begin, a settlement agreement was reached and approved on May 23 in which KUTV was granted the permit.[7]
Even though the station would not begin broadcasting until 1999, KUTV began to lay the groundwork for the new station, which received the call sign KUSG.[8][9] Potential was also recognized for KUSG to possibly create a new media market for southern Utah that then could lead to KCCZ in Cedar City becoming a network affiliate as well.[10] KUTV then drew the ire of the Washington County government, which owned KUTV's translators in the area, by proposing to begin local advertising insertion for the St. George area on the translators—in part to begin building an advertising base in southern Utah.[11] This was possible because of the way the signal was delivered from Salt Lake City. The first hop on the translator network going south was at Levan. The KUTV translator at Levan, which was owned by the station, was authorized as a low-power television station with program origination capabilities.[12] However, competing broadcasters, especially KCCZ, believed the deal gave KUTV an unfair advantage by allowing it to use translator infrastructure owned by local authorities.[13] To defuse this controversy, KUTV management worked out deals with service companies who took over maintenance of the translators in Washington and Iron counties, and local ad insertion began in February 1992.[14] In the meantime, plans to build KUSG itself continued to be delayed.[15]
KUSG began broadcasting on August 21, 1999, and initially operated as a satellite station of KUTV. However, after Four Points Media Group, a broadcast holding company operated by private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management, acquired KUTV, KUSG, and other smaller-market CBS-owned stations in January 2008,[19] Four Points spun out KUSG with separate programming. It became known as "Utah's RTN", an affiliate of the Retro Television Network (RTN) featuring Southern Utah news updates from KUTV; KUTV remained available over the air from its other translator on channel 49 as well as on cable and satellite, and the station estimated this switch left a small number of viewers without KUTV programming.[20]
Equity Media Holdings, which owned RTN, soon fell into major financial difficulties. Initially, KUSG's RTN programming was relayed on Equity-owned KUBX-LP (channel 58) in Salt Lake City and KCBU (channel 3) in Price, which respectively brought the station's programming into Salt Lake City and earned it must-carry status on cable and satellite systems. However, on January 4, 2009, a contract conflict between Equity and Luken Communications (which had acquired RTN in June 2008) interrupted the programming on many RTN affiliates.[21] As a result, Luken moved RTN operations to its headquarters in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and dropped all Equity-owned affiliates, including KUBX and KCBU, immediately.[22] KUSG itself was not affected (aside from the aforementioned interruption in network programming), as it was not an Equity station, but its satellite and Salt Lake City-area Comcast coverage was lost, as they received the station's programming via KUBX/KCBU.[23]
By June 2009, KUSG had dropped RTN (which rebranded to RTV that month) for This TV;[24] it then added programming from MyNetworkTV on September 20, 2010, and changed its call sign to KMYU on November 16, 2010.[8] Outside of MyNetworkTV, KMYU continued to air This TV programs until 2015. On September 8, 2011, Sinclair Broadcast Group announced its intent to purchase Four Points from Cerberus Capital Management for $200 million; Sinclair began managing the stations, including KMYU, under local marketing agreements following antitrust approval.[25] The deal was completed on January 3, 2012.[26]
In September and early October 2011, the station aired NBC's new period drama The Playboy Club in lieu of KSL-TV (channel 5), which refused to air it due to management concerns about content and the program's promotion of Playboy magazine. The program aired at NBC's original Monday night 9 p.m. (MT) timeslot for the series on KMYU.[27] Like Coupling in 2003 however, which KSL also declined to air and aired on the then-KUWB (channel 30, now KUCW), it only aired three episodes before the network made it the first canceled new series of the new television season.[28]
In 2017, Sinclair proposed the purchase of Tribune Media, which owned Salt Lake City Fox affiliate KSTU (channel 13).[29] As part of divestitures related to the deal, Sinclair announced in April 2018 that it would have sold KMYU to Howard Stirk Holdings while continuing to provide services to the station.[30] However, flaws with the deal in other cities—notably Chicago, Dallas, Houston, and St. Louis—resulted in the FCC commissioners designating the transaction for hearing before an administrative law judge in July 2018,[31] which led to its cancellation the following month.[32]
