Early years
Channel 3 was the last commercial VHF allocation in Phoenix to be awarded. Prior to the 1948 freeze on new TV applications, there had been one application made, from radio station KTAR, one of the state's largest. In February 1953, however, after the freeze was lifted, a second applicant filed for the channel: the Arizona Television Company. That put the plans of KTAR—which already had television equipment on order—on hold.[2] Originally owned by Buckeye rancher and car dealer Ralph Watkins as well as two other principals, a new stockholder was added to the company in May: former senator Ernest McFarland, who bought a 40 percent interest.[3] Also seeking channel 3 was Herb Askins, a local businessman,[4] but his Desert Advertising Co. dropped out late in the year, setting up a high-stakes showdown between Phoenix's NBC radio affiliate and the McFarland group in hearings in February 1954.[5]
The staring contest, however, ended two months later. KTAR owner John J. Louis was unwilling to go through a hearing process to get a television sister for his radio station. Instead, in late April, he announced that KTAR would purchase Mesa-based NBC affiliate KTYL-TV channel 12,[6] for $250,000, effectively awarding the channel 3 allocation to the Arizona Television Company.[7] With no other applications to consider, a Federal Communications Commission hearing examiner recommended the company be granted a construction permit weeks later.[8] The permit was duly granted on June 11.[9]
The transmitter was built atop South Mountain, and a $500,000 studio building was constructed at 16th Street and Osborn Road.[10] The station affiliated with ABC, filling a void that would have been created when existing ABC outlet KOOL-TV announced plans to change to CBS.[11] By the time KTVK began broadcasting on February 28, 1955, McFarland had been elected Governor of Arizona.[12] Channel 3 boasted the first color-equipped studios in Phoenix and the largest in the state.[13]
Channel 3 lost money in its early years. Unlike its three competitors, it did not have a long-established radio sister on which to draw revenue.[15] According to a 1990 interview, in the early 1960s, Walter Cronkite sought to buy a stake in the Arizona Television Company. He would have become KTVK's main anchor, with a salary of $25,000 a year. However, Arizona Television Company could not afford to meet Cronkite's salary demands.
McFarland bought out the remaining partners in the Arizona Television Company in 1977. Long before then, McFarland had intended for KTVK to be a locally focused station. As Delbert Lewis, husband of McFarland's adopted daughter, Jewell, put it in a 1978 interview with The Arizona Republic, his father-in-law wanted channel 3 to be "a family corporation. All Arizonans. To keep it local." In an era when the television industry was already dominated by large station groups, Lewis said that his family took pride in the fact that major decisions were made in Phoenix, not in New York.
The socially laudatory aims of the McFarland-Lewis family initially did not translate into ratings success. Channel 3 spent most of its first 30 years stubbornly in third place. In January 1985, Arizona Republic television columnist Bud Wilkinson referred to the station as a "blot on [ABC]'s affiliate ledger" and claimed, citing a conversation with a top network executive, that the network had occasionally tried to move to another station and still was interested in the idea.[16]
The rise
In March 1984, Delbert Lewis and Jewell McFarland Lewis were named the conservators of McFarland's estate, just three months before the former governor and senator died. In the preceding decade, Delbert Lewis had taken the reins of the station; he was named president of the Arizona Television Company in 1975 and assumed the role of general manager in 1980. McFarland ceded day-to-day control of the station to his relatives after undergoing brain surgery in 1977, shortly after buying out his partners. Upon McFarland's death, the Lewises inherited full control of KTVK. Eventually, Jewell and Delbert held a 60 percent controlling interest in the Arizona Television Company, with the remaining 40 percent divided between their four children. In 1986, Lewis made the most consequential hires in channel 3's history when he poached a dozen employees from long-dominant KTSP-TV. Included in the raid were KTSP's news director, Bill Miller, and his assistant news director, Phil Alvidrez. Miller became KTVK's station manager, while Alvidrez became KTVK's news director.
Under Miller and Alvidrez, the station relaunched its news department as NewsChannel 3 and began a climb to the top of the ratings. The station dismissed its existing weeknight news anchor team and rolled out a new lineup, led by new hire Cameron Harper and former weekend anchor Heidi Foglesong.[17] Lewis bankrolled major investments in people, syndicated programming and equipment and dramatically boosted KTVK's promotional budget. He had no qualms about spending what he believed it would take to increase KTVK's profile; in 1990, he told The Republic that if Miller and others showed that they needed something, he would ensure that they would get it. As a "one-man board of directors", he was able to make decisions in mere minutes that took years at KTVK's corporate-owned competitors. For example, when Miller sought a new $500,000 satellite truck, Lewis greenlighted it in only 15 minutes. Improvement started slowly but was noticeable by 1988.[18]
Going independent
On May 23, 1994, New World Communications and Fox announced a pact that would see KSAZ-TV leave its longtime affiliation with CBS to join Fox. The landmark deal also left CBS looking for new affiliates in several other markets, including Detroit, Cleveland, and Tampa, and set off a mad dash to secure network affiliations. KTVK was at a distinct disadvantage in the ensuing affiliate shuffle even though it was now one of the strongest ABC affiliates in the country. By this time, it had firmly established itself as the Valley's news leader, and its overall ratings were 20 points ahead of the runner-up.[24] However, even though channel 3 had left its ratings-challenged past far behind, its gains over the previous decade meant little in the affiliate shuffle. It took place in an environment which favored station groups with presences in multiple cities, not KTVK—by this time, one of the last family-owned major-market stations in the country.[25]
In this environment, Scripps-Howard Broadcasting, owner of displaced Fox affiliate KNXV-TV, found itself in a strong position. Scripps owned two powerful bargaining chips in its successful and longstanding ABC affiliates in Detroit and
Belo ownership
In what Del Lewis described as "the most difficult decision our family has ever made", MAC America sold KTVK and its other remaining assets to the Belo Corporation of Dallas, Texas, for $315 million in July 1999–a handsome return on McFarland's investment 44 years earlier.[39] The Lewises cited the costs of conversion to digital television, economies of scale that station groups had in purchasing syndicated programming, and competition from cable and satellite TV in their decision to sell; the transaction capped two years of selling the rest of the company, including Phoenix Magazine, the production facility, and the radio stations, which had suffered from the needed investments in programming and news expansion at KTVK. Later that year, Belo announced that it would purchase KASW from Gregory Brooks, forming the first television duopoly in the Phoenix market just as they were being legalized.[40] Bill Miller retired a year later.[41]
In 2000, Belo and Cox expanded their existing partnership with a new Spanish-language channel, ¡Más! Arizona, that launched on October 16 of that year.[42]
Helicopter crash
On July 27, 2007, KTVK's news helicopter "News Chopper 3" was involved in a mid-air collision when another news helicopter, belonging to KNXV-TV, struck it from behind.[44] The collision occurred above Steele Indian School Park (near Third Street and Indian School Road), while both aircraft were covering a police pursuit in downtown Phoenix.[45] All four people aboard both helicopters were killed, including KTVK pilot Scott Bowerbank and photographer Jim Cox.[46] An investigation conducted by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determined that the accident was caused by both pilots' inability to see one another and avoid a collision with the other helicopter.[44]
The helicopter collision resulted in the establishment of shared news helicopters in the Phoenix market; while KTVK initially shared a helicopter with KPHO-TV and KPNX,[47]
Sale to Meredith
On June 13, 2013, the Gannett Company, the owner of KPNX and the Arizona Republic, acquired Belo. As FCC rules restrict one company from owning more than two television stations in the same market, Gannett announced that it would spin off KTVK and KASW to Sander Media, LLC, a company operated by former Belo executive Jack Sander. While Gannett intended to provide services to the stations through a shared services agreement, KTVK and KASW's operations would have remained largely separate from KPNX and the Republic.[49] Despite objections to the Gannett-Belo merger by anti-consolidation groups (such as Free Press) and pay television providers (due to ownership conflicts involving television stations and newspapers both companies owned in other markets, the use of Sander as a third-party licensee to buy stations that would be operated by the owner of a same-market competitor, concerns over any future operational consolidation of the stations involved in the deal, and the Gannett and Sander stations colluding in retransmission consent negotiations),[50][51] the FCC granted approval of the deal on December 20.[52]
As the sale was completed on December 23, 2013,
Sale to Gray Television
On May 3, 2021, Gray Television announced its intent to purchase the Meredith Local Media division, including KTVK and KPHO, for $2.7 billion. These would be Gray's second and third stations in Arizona, having already bought KOLD-TV in Tucson. The sale was completed on December 1.[59]
