KVLY-TV (channel 11) is a

television station A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity, such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the eart ...

in Fargo, North Dakota, United States, affiliated with

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

. It is owned by Gray Television alongside Horace-licensed low-power dual

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

/ CW+ affiliate

KXJB-LD KXJB-LD (channel 30) is a low-power television station licensed to Horace, North Dakota, United States, serving the Fargo–Grand Forks market as an affiliate of CBS and The CW Plus. It is owned Gray Television alongside NBC affiliate KVLY-T ...

(channel 30). Both stations share studios on 21st Avenue South in Fargo, while KVLY-TV's

transmitter In electronics and telecommunications, a radio transmitter or just transmitter is an electronic device which produces radio waves with an antenna. The transmitter itself generates a radio frequency alternating current, which is applied to the ...

is located near Blanchard. In addition to its main studio in Fargo, KVLY-TV operates a news bureau and sales office in the

US Bank U.S. Bancorp (stylized as us bancorp) is an American bank holding company based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and incorporated in Delaware. It is the parent company of U.S. Bank National Association, and is the fifth largest banking institution ...

building in downtown Grand Forks. KVLY-TV is considered a part of the

NBC North Dakota NBC North Dakota is a network of four television stations that serve most of central and western North Dakota, along with parts of South Dakota and Montana. All four stations are dual NBC/ Fox affiliates, and the flagship station is KFYR-TV in Bi ...

state network of NBC affiliates, although it airs separate newscasts and syndicated programming from flagship and sister station

KFYR-TV KFYR-TV (channel 5) is a television station in Bismarck, North Dakota, United States, affiliated with NBC and Fox. Owned by Gray Television, the station has studios on North 4th Street and East Broadway Avenue in downtown Bismarck, and its tran ...

in Bismarck. KVLY-TV is most notable for its broadcast tower, which was the fourth tallest above-ground structure in the world at . The tower was at one time the tallest structure in the world and was the tallest broadcast structure in the

Western Hemisphere The Western Hemisphere is the half of the planet Earth that lies west of the prime meridian (which crosses Greenwich, London, United Kingdom) and east of the antimeridian. The other half is called the Eastern Hemisphere. Politically, the te ...

. In 2019, the top mount antenna was removed for the

FCC The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdictio ...

spectrum repack, dropping the overall height to . The KRDK-TV tower is located just from the KVLY-TV tower, and now holds the record noted here.

History

The station signed on the air on October 11, 1959, as KXGO-TV (the "GO" for Fargo), an ABC affiliate. It was originally owned by North Dakota Broadcasting. In 1963, the call letters were changed to KEND-TV (for "Eastern North Dakota"). On August 13, 1963, channel 11 moved to its current tower near Blanchard. In 1964, the call letters were changed to as KTHI-TV (for "Tower-Hi"). Fuqua sold the station to

Morgan Murphy Media The Evening Telegram Company, d/b/a Morgan Murphy Media, is an American television and radio company based out of Madison, Wisconsin. The company is named for publisher Morgan Murphy, who expanded the business after he took over from his grandfathe ...

(owner of

KXLY-TV KXLY-TV (channel 4) is a television station in Spokane, Washington, United States, affiliated with ABC and owned by Morgan Murphy Media. Its studios are located on West Boone Avenue in Spokane, and its transmitter is located on Mount Spokane. ...

Spokane, Washington Spokane ( ) is the largest city and county seat of Spokane County, Washington, United States. It is in eastern Washington, along the Spokane River, adjacent to the Selkirk Mountains, and west of the Rocky Mountain foothills, south of the Cana ...

) in 1968. On August 22, 1983, KTHI became an NBC affiliate, swapping affiliations with longtime NBC outlet WDAY-TV (channel 6). The current call sign, adopted on May 2, 1995, represents the station's slogan, "The Valley's Choice for Local News," as it serves the communities along the

Red River of the North The Red River (french: rivière Rouge or ) is a river in the north-central United States and central Canada. Originating at the confluence of the Bois de Sioux and Otter Tail rivers between the U.S. states of Minnesota and North Dakota, it fl ...

and its tributaries. From 1968 until the mid-1980s, channel 11 was carried by cable systems across

Manitoba , image_map = Manitoba in Canada 2.svg , map_alt = Map showing Manitoba's location in the centre of Southern Canada , Label_map = yes , coordinates = , capital = Winn ...

and northwestern

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

, including the

Winnipeg Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the province of Manitoba in Canada. It is centred on the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, near the longitudinal centre of North America. , Winnipeg had a city population of 749, ...

area. When KTHI switched affiliation to NBC, it was replaced by ABC affiliate WDAZ-TV (channel 8) in Grand Forks, until Canadian cable companies were granted permission to replace most of the North Dakota stations with network affiliates from

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...

. Meyer Broadcasting of Bismarck, North Dakota, owner of

in Bismarck and its network of satellites in western North Dakota, bought the station in 1995. It sold its television stations to Sunrise Television in 1997. In 2002, Sunrise sold its North Dakota stations to the Wicks Group of

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. Hoak Media bought all of Wicks' television stations, including KVLY, in January 2007. In September 2005, ten years after changing its call sign from KTHI, KVLY became the first major network affiliate in Fargo to broadcast in high-definition. In May 2006, KVLY made its logo bolder to reflect the change to HDTV. KVLY is the second-most-watched television station in the Red River Valley, behind WDAY/WDAZ, which are owned by Forum Communications Company. In 2003, KVLY began operating

affiliate KXJB-TV under a local marketing agreement (LMA), and the two stations began sharing facilities. In April 2007, KVLY-TV and KXJB-TV began

simulcast Simulcast (a portmanteau of simultaneous broadcast) is the broadcasting of programmes/programs or events across more than one resolution, bitrate or medium, or more than one service on the same medium, at exactly the same time (that is, simulta ...

ing weekend newscasts, and in November 2007, the stations began simulcasting news during weekdays rebranded as '' Valley News Live''. In January 2010, KVLY added classic movie network

This TV This TV (also known as This TV Network and alternately stylized as thisTV) is an American free-to-air television network owned by Allen Media Broadcast Networks, LLC, part of the Allen Media Group division of Entertainment Studios. Originally f ...

subchannel In broadcasting, digital subchannels are a method of transmitting more than one independent program stream simultaneously from the same digital radio or television station on the same radio frequency channel. This is done by using data compressi ...

11.2. It was replaced by classic television network

MeTV MeTV, an acronym for Memorable Entertainment Television, is an American broadcast television network owned by Weigel Broadcasting. Marketed as "The Definitive Destination for Classic TV", the network airs a variety of classic television program ...

January 1 January 1 or 1 January is the first day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. There are 364 days remaining until the end of the year (365 in leap years). This day is also known as New Year's Day since the day marks the beginning of the yea ...

, 2013. On November 20, 2013, Hoak announced the sale of most of its stations, including KVLY-TV, to Gray Television. Sister station KXJB-TV was to be sold by Parker Broadcasting to Excalibur Broadcasting and would have continued to be operated by KVLY under an LMA. The sale was completed on June 13, but upon the closing of the sale, and in the wake of the new FCC rules restricting LMAs, Excalibur abandoned its plans to acquire the station. Gray would continue to provide certain services to KXJB in the interim, and later moved its CBS programming to a multicast subchannel of KVLY. If a buyer was not found for KXJB, the station would cease broadcasting in the interim. KXJB would then be spun off to minority interests, which under this arrangement would allow the station to continue operating on the conditions that it operated independently (under minority, female and/or non-profit ownership) and not make any partnerships or sharing arrangements with other broadcasters. On November 12, 2014, CBS affiliate KXJB-TV's programming began being simulcast on KVLY's second digital subchannel, displacing MeTV to the third subchannel, as KXJB was sold to Major Market Broadcasting. KXJB signed off at midnight on December 1, 2014, as its programming moved to KVLY's subchannel. KVLY-DT2 began simulcasting in full

1080i 1080i (also known as Full HD or BT.709) is a combination of frame resolution and scan type. 1080i is used in high-definition television (HDTV) and high-definition video. The number "1080" refers to the number of horizontal lines on the scre ...

HD on

30.1 in September 2016, along with

translators Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''transl ...

K28MA-D 28.1 in Argusville (covering north and west of Fargo) and K30LR-D 30.1 in Grand Forks. CBS programming remains on KVLY-DT2 in downconverted

720p 720p (1280×720 px; also called HD ready, standard HD or just HD) is a progressive HDTV signal format with 720 horizontal lines/1280 columns and an aspect ratio (AR) of 16:9, normally known as widescreen HDTV (1.78:1). All major HDTV broadcast ...

to provide full-market access to CBS in HD. KXJB-TV would return to the air as KRDK-TV in January 2015, carrying various networks on its subchannels. On May 28, 2019, KVLY moved from UHF channel 44 to UHF channel 36.

Programming

Syndicated programming

Syndicated programming on KVLY includes '' Dr. Phil'' and '' Wheel of Fortune'' among others. ''

Jeopardy! ''Jeopardy!'' is an American game show created by Merv Griffin. The show is a quiz competition that reverses the traditional question-and-answer format of many quiz shows. Rather than being given questions, contestants are instead given gene ...

'', which is paired with ''Wheel of Fortune'' in most markets, airs instead on CBS-affiliated sister station KXJB-LD; Fargo is one of the few markets where ''Jeopardy!'' and ''Wheel of Fortune'' are carried on separate stations.

Sports programming

KVLY has been home to

North Dakota State Bison football The North Dakota State Bison football program represents North Dakota State University in college football at the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision level and competes in the Missouri Valley Football Conference. The Bison play in ...

games in recent years. The station broadcasts regular season games and produces a pregame show. In the 2019–2020 season the pregame show featured former NFL player and Bison alum

Kyle Emanuel Kyle Emanuel (born August 16, 1991) is a former American football linebacker. He won the Buck Buchanan Award in 2014. He played college football for North Dakota State University where they won four straight FCS championships. He was drafted by ...

as one of the hosts.

News operation

''Valley News Live'' is the name of the news department shared by KVLY and KXJB. KVLY and KXJB started simulcasting weekend news in April 2007. The same news is broadcast on both channels. KXJB uses its "4" digital on-screen graphic, while KVLY uses the "11" bug during newscasts. Beginning November 5, 2007, KVLY and KXJB expanded their simulcasting to weekdays. KVLY broadcasts 26 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with five hours each weekday, one hour on Saturdays and a half-hour on Sundays). It also broadcasts an additional 13 hours of locally produced newscasts each week for KVLY-DT 11.2 and KXJB-LD 30.1 and 30.2, consisting of the noon and 5:30 p.m. newscasts, an hour-long extension of KVLY's morning newscast ''The Valley Today'' at 7:00 a.m. on weekdays and a half-hour nightly prime time newscast at 9:00 p.m. Combined across the four channels, KVLY produces a total of 40 hours of newscasts each week.

Ratings

Recently, KVLY has been the ratings leader for the immediate

Fargo–Moorhead Fargo–Moorhead, also known as the FM area, is a common name given to the metropolitan area comprising Fargo, North Dakota; Moorhead, Minnesota; and the surrounding communities. These two cities lie on the North Dakota–Minnesota border, on opp ...

metro area and the southern part of the market, however WDAZ's dominance in the Grand Forks metro area and the northern part of the market make the WDAY/WDAZ combo the ratings leader for the Fargo–Grand Forks market as a whole. Due to many of KVLY's newscasts being simulcast on KXJB, KVLY and KXJB's ratings are combined. However, until recently, KVLY and KXJB were not counted as one station due to different network and syndicated programming. CBS and KXJB's programming moved to KVLY's second subchannel in December 2014 (and later KXJB-LD), therefore KVLY can now count all of its subchannels as one station for ratings purposes.

Former on-air staff

Dennis Bounds Dennis Bounds is a former weeknight news anchor for KING-TV, a television station in Seattle, Washington. Dennis started with KING-TV in March 1991 and accepted a retirement buy-out by Tegna, formerly Gannett, in April 2016. He will no longer be s ...

– news anchor (later evening news anchor for

KING 5 KING-TV (channel 5) is a television station in Seattle, Washington, United States, affiliated with NBC. It is owned by Tegna Inc. alongside Everett-licensed independent station KONG (channel 16). Both stations share studios at the Home Plate ...

in Seattle; retired in 2016) *

Robert Ivers Robert Ivers, also known as Bob Ivers, (December 11, 1934 – February 13, 2003) was an American actor who appeared in films and television in the 1950s and 1960s. Background Ivers was born in Seattle, Washington. He attended Tucson High Schoo ...

– news anchor and talk-show host; deceased *

Jim Lounsbury Jim Lounsbury (February 24, 1923, in Colo, Iowa – January 8, 2006, in Tucson, Arizona) was an early pioneer in rock and roll music and a radio news anchor. Lounsbury hosted many of the first rock and roll radio programs (WIND and WJJD, Chicago ...

– news anchor (early 1980s; pioneer rock and roll DJ earlier in his career); deceased *

Ed Schultz Edward Andrew Schultz (January 27, 1954 – July 5, 2018) was an American television and radio host, political commentator, news anchor and sports broadcaster. He was the host of '' The Ed Show'', a weekday news talk program on MSNBC fro ...

– sports anchor (1982; was Fargo-based syndicated radio host); deceased

Technical information

Subchannels

The station's digital signal is

multiplexed In telecommunications and computer networking, multiplexing (sometimes contracted to muxing) is a method by which multiple analog or digital signals are combined into one signal over a shared medium. The aim is to share a scarce resource - a ...

: In January 2010, KVLY-TV began broadcasting the This TV network on subchannel 11.2. On January 1, 2013, This TV programming was replaced on digital channel 11.2 with its former sister network MeTV (both networks were owned at the time by

Weigel Broadcasting Weigel Broadcasting Co. is an American television broadcasting company based in Chicago, Illinois, alongside its flagship station WCIU-TV (Channel 26), at 26 North Halsted Street in the Greektown neighborhood. It currently owns 25 television s ...

; This TV was later taken over by

Tribune Broadcasting Tribune Broadcasting Company, LLC was an American media company which operated as a subsidiary of Tribune Media, a media conglomerate based in Chicago, Illinois. The group owned and operated television and radio stations throughout the United St ...

and is now owned by Allen Media Group). In addition to the main MeTV programming, KVLY used the subchannel for live events (including NDSU Bison basketball), and to repeat its morning newscast, ''The Valley Today'', in the late morning. On November 12, 2014, KXJB's programming was moved to KVLY's second digital subchannel (now also carried as KXJB-LD's main channel), displacing MeTV to the third.

Heroes & Icons Heroes & Icons (H&I) is an American digital broadcast television network owned by Weigel Broadcasting. Usually carried on the digital subchannels of its affiliated television station in most markets, the network airs classic television series fr ...

was added during November 2016 to KVLY's fourth subchannel, bringing a full-market coverage simulcast of KXJB-LD's third subchannel. KVLY's fourth subchannel was switched to

Circle A circle is a shape consisting of all points in a plane that are at a given distance from a given point, the centre. Equivalently, it is the curve traced out by a point that moves in a plane so that its distance from a given point is con ...

in 2021, while Heroes & Icons continues to be carried on KXJB-LD's third subchannel.

Analog-to-digital conversion

KVLY-TV shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 11, on February 16, 2009, the day prior to the original date in which full-power television stations in the United States were set to transition from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate (which was later rescheduled for June 12, 2009). The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 44. Through the use of

Program and System Information Protocol The Program and System Information Protocol (PSIP) is the MPEG (a video and audio industry group) and privately defined program-specific information originally defined by General Instrument for the DigiCipher 2 system and later extended for the AT ...

, digital television receivers display the station's

virtual channel In most telecommunications organizations, a virtual channel is a method of remapping the ''program number'' as used in H.222 Program Association Tables and Program Mapping Tables to a channel number that can be entered via digits on a receiver's ...

as channel 11, its former VHF analog channel.

Translators

KVLY-TV serves its large coverage area with three

. All are owned by local municipalities.

Active translators

Defunct translators

Some of the defunct translators were actually in the western part of the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Minnesota, broadcast television market.

References

External links

* * – MeTV Fargo {{DEFAULTSORT:Kvly-Tv NBC network affiliates MeTV affiliates Gray Television Television channels and stations established in 1959 Television stations in North Dakota 1959 establishments in North Dakota