Early years
In December 1978, Superior Broadcasting of California, a Delano, California–based firm owned by Mel Querio and Jack Koonce, filed with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for authority to build a new television station on channel 24 in Chico.[1] Two other groups applied. Far West Broadcasting Corporation was a subsidiary of Kelly Broadcasting, owner of KCRA-TV, the NBC affiliate in Sacramento. Southwest Television was owned by Gene Adelstein and Edward Berger, partners in KZAZ in Tucson, Arizona.[2] At the start of 1981, the FCC designated these applications for comparative hearing,[3] with only Superior and Far West in contention.[4] FCC administrative law judge Joseph P. Gonzalez issued an initial decision in favor of Superior Broadcasting in January 1983. He found that Superior was substantially superior in the area of diversification of media ownership over Far West.[5] The commission upheld Gonzalez's decision.[6]
The new station, given the call sign KCPM, secured the NBC affiliation for the market.[7] Prior to KCPM's arrival, NBC programs were occasionally carried by Redding–based KRCR (channel 7).[8] The station set up in a studio building vacated by Chico's other commercial station, KHSL-TV (channel 12), outfitting it with almost all-new equipment.[9] Construction began on the station's transmitter site at Tuscan Buttes, east of Red Bluff. Additionally, television production company Telepictures acquired a 19-percent ownership stake in KCPM.[10]
After delays attributed to severe weather[11] and incorrect equipment being shipped,[12] KCPM began broadcasting on September 24, 1985, with the season premiere of the NBC show The A-Team.[13] In some areas, cable companies—including in Redding—did not provide the new station, owing to the recent removal of must-carry rules that would have required them to do so.[14] The signal was poor in the Paradise area, where the local cable system likewise refused to carry KCPM.[15] In an attempt to remedy the shortfalls in coverage in ridge communities like Paradise and Oroville, KCPM purchased a translator to rebroadcast its signal.[16] Shortly after the station signed on, minority owner Telepictures merged with Lorimar Television to create
On May 12, 1986, KCPM began producing a local newscast, titled 24 Reports, with a staff of 16, including live news equipment in Chico and Redding and access to a helicopter. The overall goal was to bring tools common in larger markets to the smaller Chico–Redding market.[19][20] A review of KCPM's newscast in the Paradise Post found that it succeeded at bringing "a big-city, big-budget news show" to the market and contained a good quantity of local news stories, as well as spurring the competitors to upgrade the look of their newscasts.[21] By 1988, KCPM also produced an 11 p.m. newscast and cut-ins during The Today Show.[22]
In 1987, Lorimar-Telepictures effectuated a corporate restructuring.[23] It sold its 19-percent interest in KCPM and ownership in two other stations—KSPR in Springfield, Missouri, and KMID in Midland, Texas—to Goltrin Communications, headed by Joseph Goldfarb, the president of Lorimar's broadcasting division.[24] In 1989, Marvin Davis, former owner of 20th Century Fox, acquired a stake in the company, which became known as Davis-Goldfarb.[25]
The Davis-Goldfarb stations were sold for $32.5 million to Cottonwood Communications Corporation in 1995.[26] Cottonwood was the first foray of longtime broadcast manager Al Seethaler into station ownership.[27] By the time it merged with GOCOM Communications, headed by Ric Gorman, in 1997,[28] the station's technical plant was facing a series of outages. In one instance, the antenna failed, forcing the local cable system to substitute KUSA from Denver during the 1997 Major League Baseball postseason, part of which aired on NBC.[29] In that instance, KCPM was out of service for nearly a week, but that was one of 14 outages over an 11-month period.[30] In July 1998, a new antenna and transmission line installed at the site.[31] On August 10, the station relaunched its newscasts and changed its call sign to KNVN, for "North Valley News".
