Early years
On November 1, 1952, Harkins Broadcasting, Inc. filed an application to build a new television station on channel 12 in Mesa, Arizona.[1] Harkins Broadcasting was a joint venture of two movie theater operators, Harkins Theatres and Harry Nace, and owned Mesa radio stations KTYL (1310 AM) and KTYL-FM 104.7. The Federal Communications Commission granted the construction permit on February 18, 1953.[2] At the end of March 1953, the city of Phoenix's parks board approved a South Mountain transmitter, reversing an earlier decision that would have denied television stations not licensed to Phoenix the use of the site and which was protested by television set owners who wanted to be assured reception of all stations from one site.[3]
With the site approved by the FCC and the city of Phoenix, construction began nearly immediately. Much of the studio equipment, installed at an expansion to the KTYL facilities on Main Street in Mesa, was already on hand.[4] The station began broadcasting on May 2, with its introductory program being a 19-hour telethon to benefit United Cerebral Palsy.[5] An NBC affiliate from the outset,[6] the station briefly maintained a Phoenix office which closed just two months after launch.[7]
Lurking under the embryonic Phoenix television landscape was the absence of one of the state's pioneer radio stations. In 1948, KTAR (620 AM) had filed for Phoenix's channel 3, only to see the FCC plunge television applications into a four-year-long freeze. As early as 1945, KTAR had arranged for exclusive rights to the South Mountain space that would later be used by all of the Phoenix TV stations as a transmitter site—a concession that was overturned in the run-up to KTYL-TV's launch. When the freeze was lifted in 1952, KTAR declared it would be on the air within three months of a construction permit grant, having already selected a site for and broken ground on a proposed television and radio studio at Central Avenue and Portland Street and contracted for equipment to furnish it.[8][9] It was speculated that KPHO-TV owner Meredith Corporation—whose station was the only pre-freeze outlet in the state—might have decided to let KTYL-TV have NBC because of the sense that, as soon as KTAR won a television station, it would sign up with NBC, mirroring the radio station.[10]
However, KTAR's channel 3 picture became cloudy in February 1953, just as the FCC was about to hand down a decision. A new applicant, the Arizona Television Company, filed for the channel. This applicant added a major power broker to its ranks months later: Ernest McFarland, former senator and soon to be governor.[11] In February 1954, hearings were held on the channel 3 assignment.[12]
The channel 3 contest ended in April 1954, when KTAR announced it would buy KTYL-TV for $250,000, a decision that cleared the way for the Arizona Television Company to build KTVK.[13][14] In announcing the purchase, KTAR owner John J. Louis explained that he wanted to give KTAR a television sister without going through hearings.
When the sale closed in July 1954, KTYL-TV became KVAR; immediately, KTAR-purchased equipment was added to the studios,[15] which were then moved to Phoenix in 1956 over KTVK's objection;[16] the station was also allowed to identify as "Phoenix/Mesa" in 1958. In 1960, a new tower and maximum-power transmitter were commissioned;[17] the prior facility was then sold to Arizona State University and used to launch educational station KAET on channel 8 in 1961.[18][19] In April 1961, the call sign was changed to KTAR-TV, which had not been previously available to the television station because it was licensed to a different location from the radio station.
Growth
In 1968, the Louis family's KTAR and Eller Outdoor Advertising, owned by Karl Eller, merged into Combined Communications Corporation.[20] Combined then grew into owning other television and radio stations and owned a full complement of seven by 1974, when it merged with Pacific & Southern Broadcasting Company.[21]
In 1978, Combined Communications agreed to merge with the Gannett Company. The merged company opted to retain channel 12 and divest the Phoenix radio stations;[22] Combined's ownership of the KTAR stations had been grandfathered earlier in the decade when the FCC forbade common ownership of television and radio stations in top-50 markets, but with the Gannett merger, the KTAR cluster lost its grandfathered protection. The radio stations were traded to Pulitzer Broadcasting in 1979 for KSD radio in St. Louis and $2 million.[23] KTAR-TV then changed its call sign to KPNX on June 4, 1979, since the radio properties had held the KTAR call letters first.[24]
Newspaper co-ownership
In 2000, Gannett merged with Central Newspapers, owner of The Arizona Republic, in the second-largest newspaper deal ever at the time.[29] While the FCC barred the common ownership of newspapers and television stations in the same market, Gannett successfully banked on a potential rule change; even as written at the time before being relaxed in 2003, the issue would not have been pressed until KPNX's license came up for renewal in 2006.[30] With Gannett owning the then-number-one station in Phoenix and the state's largest newspaper, the two merged their websites in 2001.[31]
In January 2011, KPNX left its longtime home on Central Avenue and consolidated its operations with The Republic at the Republic Media Building on East Van Buren Street in downtown Phoenix, with the station's local newscasts broadcasting from a streetside studio.[32] The Central Avenue facility was then significantly renovated and became the Parsons Center for Health and Wellness, the headquarters complex for the Southwest Center for HIV/AIDS.[33]
