KFBB-TV (channel 5) 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 earth's s ...
in
Great Falls, Montana
Great Falls is the List of cities and towns in Montana, third most populous city in the U.S. state of Montana and the county seat of Cascade County, Montana, Cascade County. The population was 60,442 according to the 2020 United States census, 2 ...
, United States, affiliated with
ABC
ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script.
ABC or abc may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media Broadcasting
* Aliw Broadcasting Corporation, Philippine broadcast company
* American Broadcasting Company, a commercial American ...
,
Fox
Foxes are small-to-medium-sized omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull; upright, triangular ears; a pointed, slightly upturned snout; and a long, bushy tail ("brush").
Twelve species ...
and
MyNetworkTV
MyNetworkTV (stylized as mynetworkTV; unofficially abbreviated MNT or MNTV) is an American commercial broadcast television syndication service and former television network owned by Fox Corporation, operated by its Fox Television Stations ...
. Owned by the
Cowles Company
The Cowles Company is an American diversified media company based in Spokane, Washington. The company owns and operates ''The Spokesman-Review'' in Spokane, founded in 1894, and owned the ''Spokane Daily Chronicle'' until it was shut down in 19 ...
, the station maintains studios and transmitter facilities on Old Havre Highway in
Black Eagle
The black eagle (''Ictinaetus malaiensis'') is a bird of prey. Like all eagles, it is in the family Accipitridae, and is the only member of the genus ''Ictinaetus''. They soar over forests in the hilly regions of tropical and subtropical South a ...
(with a Great Falls mailing address).
KHBB-LD (channel 21) in
Helena
Helena may refer to:
People
*Helena (given name), a given name (including a list of people and characters with the name)
*Katri Helena (born 1945), Finnish singer
* Saint Helena (disambiguation), this includes places
Places
Greece
* Helena ...
operates as a
semi-satellite
A broadcast relay station, also known as a satellite station, relay transmitter, broadcast translator (U.S.), re-broadcaster (Canada), repeater (two-way radio) or complementary station (Mexico), is a broadcast transmitter which repeats (or trans ...
of KFBB-TV. As such, it
simulcast
Simulcast (a portmanteau of "simultaneous broadcast") is the broadcasting of 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, simultaneously) ...
s all network and
syndicated programming as provided through KFBB-TV, but airs separate commercial inserts and
legal identifications. KHBB-LD is operated out of KFBB's sales office and news bureau on Euclid Avenue in Helena, while its transmitter is located atop Copper Butte. Both stations offer Fox via their second
digital 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 compress ...
s (until 2009, only KHBB-LD did so, as Fox programming in Great Falls was seen on
KLMN
KLMN (channel 26) was a television station in Great Falls, Montana, United States, affiliated with the Fox network. The station was owned by Equity Media Holdings.
History
Founded on December 19, 2000, KLMN signed on in mid-2003 as a Fox aff ...
). KFBB-TV is also repeated on several translators.
History
KFBB-TV began broadcasting on March 21, 1954. As the first television station in Great Falls, KFBB-TV was affiliated with all four major networks, and would broadcast programming from all three until
KRTV
KRTV (channel 3) is a television station in Great Falls, Montana, United States, affiliated with CBS. It is owned by the E. W. Scripps Company alongside KTGF-LD (channel 50), the local NBC affiliate, and is part of the Montana Television Network ...
signed on and took the
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...
affiliation in October 1958. KFBB-TV continued to air
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS (an abbreviation of its original name, Columbia Broadcasting System), is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...
and ABC programming as a member of the Skyline Network (as the
Montana Television Network
The Montana Television Network (MTN) is a statewide network of CBS network affiliate, affiliates in the United States, U.S. state of Montana. It also includes one NBC station. All but one of these stations are owned by the E. W. Scripps Company. ...
was then called).
At first KFBB-TV was owned by Wilkins Broadcasting along with KFBB radio (1310 AM, now
KEIN Kein or KEIN may refer to:
*Kein language
Kein, also known as Bemal, is a Papuan language of Papua New Guinea.
References
Kokon languages
Languages of Madang Province
{{Madang-lang-stub ..., a language of Papua New Guinea
* ''Kein'' (EP), ...
), of which
The Anaconda Company
The Anaconda Company, also known historically as the Anaconda Gold and Silver Mining Company (1881–1891), Anaconda Mining Company (1891–1895), Anaconda Copper Mining Company (1895–1899), Amalgamated Copper Company (1899–1915), and Anacon ...
owned a 27.5% share. Anaconda, through its Fairmount division, controlled most of the major newspapers in Montana (although not the ''
Great Falls Tribune
The ''Great Falls Tribune'' is a daily morning newspaper printed in Helena, Montana. It is one of Montana's largest newspaper companies.
History
The first edition of the newspaper then called the ''Weekly Tribune'' was printed on May 14, 1885 ...
'') and was notorious for manipulating the state's political visions for its own needs. Then in 1959, Anaconda sold its media holdings to
Lee Enterprises
Lee Enterprises, Inc. is a publicly traded American media company. It publishes 72 daily newspapers in 25 states, and more than 350 weekly, classified, and specialty publications. Lee Enterprises was founded in 1890 by Alfred Wilson Lee and is b ...
of
Davenport, Iowa
Davenport ( ) is a city in Scott County, Iowa, United States, and its county seat. It is situated along the Mississippi River on the eastern border of the state. Davenport had a population of 101,724 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 cen ...
. Because of antitrust concerns, Lee decided to sell KFBB. The station was sold in 1962 to Harriscope Broadcasting, which in 1965 scored a deal for a primary ABC affiliation—Montana's first. The new affiliation took effect on February 1, 1966. Harriscope severed KFBB's links with the Skyline Network (which signed up with KRTV), and sold off KFBB radio in February 1969, but continued to run KFBB-TV, eventually selling it to Donald P. Nathanson in 1977. After affiliating primarily with ABC, the station continued secondary affiliation with CBS until that network switched to KRTV in 1969, and then started running NBC on a per program basis as late as December 1986, when KTGF (now
KJJC-TV
KJJC-TV (channel 16) is a television station in Great Falls, Montana, United States, affiliated with MeTV and owned by Northwest Capital Corporation. The station's transmitter is located on 47th Avenue SW in unincorporated Cascade County, nea ...
) signed on and took over the NBC affiliation. KFBB also carried ''
Sesame Street
''Sesame Street'' is an American educational television, educational children's television series that combines live-action, sketch comedy, animation, and puppetry. It is produced by Sesame Workshop (known as the Children's Television Worksh ...
'' for several years, before Montana had a
PBS
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...
service of its own.
KFBB's ABC affiliation allowed it to be carried on
cable television
Cable television is a system of delivering television programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This contrasts with bro ...
systems in both
Alberta
Alberta is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Canada. It is a part of Western Canada and is one of the three Canadian Prairies, prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to its west, Saskatchewan to its east, t ...
and
Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Western Canada. It is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and to the south by the ...
; it even maintained a sales office in
Saskatoon
Saskatoon () is the largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Saskatchewan. It straddles a bend in the South Saskatchewan River in the central region of the province. It is located along the Trans-Canada Hig ...
, as did
Williston stations
KUMV-TV
KUMV-TV (channel 8) is a television station licensed to Williston, North Dakota, United States, affiliated with NBC and Fox. Owned by Gray Media, the station maintains a news studio and advertising sales office at the intersection of Main Stree ...
and
KXMD-TV
KXMD-TV (channel 11) is a television station in Williston, North Dakota, United States, serving as an affiliate of CBS and an owned-and-operated station of The CW Plus. Owned by Nexstar Media Group, the station maintains a news bureau and adverti ...
. This arrangement continued until 1986, when KFBB was largely replaced by a satellite signal from
WXYZ-TV
WXYZ-TV (channel 7) is a television station in Detroit, Michigan, United States, affiliated with American Broadcasting Company, ABC. It is owned by the E. W. Scripps Company alongside independent station WMYD (channel 20). The two stations shar ...
, the ABC affiliate in
Detroit
Detroit ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Michigan, most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated on the bank of the Detroit River across from Windsor, Ontario. It had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 United State ...
.
An April 1981 application with the
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, internet, wi-fi, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains j ...
(FCC) requested transfer of control of the licensee corporation from owner Donald P. Nathanson to his estate, following his death. In early 1982, the station saw a flurry of transfers that saw KFBB-TV moved, first from the Nathanson estate to Advance TV of California, then from Advance TV to Wooster Republican Printing Company of Ohio, which would operate the station through various holding companies (e.g., KFBB Corporation, KFBB LLC, Dix Communications).

In June 2003, Wooster Republican Printing made deep cuts in local news production, ending morning, noon and weekend newscasts. It retained KFBB until November 2004, when it was sold to
Max Media
Max Media is a company that owns radio stations throughout the United States. It is based in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
History
Max Media was founded in 2001. Prior to this, some of the company's management had run the TVX Broadcast Group from 1 ...
of Montana, owner of KTGF. Since the Great Falls market did not have enough full-power television stations to allow a
broadcast duopoly, Max Media kept the more-established KFBB and sold KTGF. In 2008, the station began using an on-air logo identical to the former logos of ABC affiliate
WEWS-TV
WEWS-TV (channel 5) is a television station in Cleveland, Ohio, United States, affiliated with ABC. It has been owned by the E. W. Scripps Company since its inception in 1946, making it one of three stations that have been built and signed on ...
in
Cleveland
Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–U.S. maritime border and approximately west of the Ohio-Pennsylvania st ...
and CBS affiliate
KREX-TV
KREX-TV (channel 5) is a television station in Grand Junction, Colorado, United States, serving as the CBS affiliate for Colorado's Western Slope region. Owned by Nexstar Media Group, it is a sister station to low-power, Class A MyNetworkTV ...
in
Grand Junction, Colorado
Grand Junction is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Home rule municipality, home rule municipality that is the county seat and largest city of Mesa County, Colorado, United States. Grand Junction's population was 65,560 at the 2020 United St ...
—neither station is related to KFBB. In 2012, the station returned to the "ABC 5" branding (which had been used prior to 2006).
On September 30, 2013, the
Cowles Company
The Cowles Company is an American diversified media company based in Spokane, Washington. The company owns and operates ''The Spokesman-Review'' in Spokane, founded in 1894, and owned the ''Spokane Daily Chronicle'' until it was shut down in 19 ...
acquired Max Media's Montana television station cluster (KULR, and ABC affiliates
KWYB
KWYB (channel 18) is a television station in Butte, Montana, United States, affiliated with ABC and Fox. Owned by the Cowles Company, the station has studios on Dewey Boulevard in Butte, and its transmitter is located on XL Heights east of the ...
/
Butte
In geomorphology, a butte ( ) is an isolated hill with steep, often vertical sides and a small, relatively flat top; buttes are smaller landforms than mesas, plateaus, and table (landform), tablelands. The word ''butte'' comes from the French l ...
, KFBB-TV/Great Falls, KHBB-LD/Helena and
KTMF
KTMF (channel 23) is a television station in Missoula, Montana, United States, affiliated with ABC and Fox. Owned by the Cowles Company, the station has studios on Stephens Avenue in Missoula, and its transmitter is located on TV Mountain north ...
/
Missoula
Missoula ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Missoula County, Montana, Missoula County, Montana, United States. It is located along the Clark Fork River near its confluence with the Bitterroot River, Bitterroot and Blackfoot River (Montana), ...
) for $18 million. The sale was completed on November 29. Soon after the purchase, Cowles merged its Montana ABC stations into a regional network based at KFBB, under the branding "ABC Montana."
KFBB-DT2/KHBB-LD2 (Fox Montana)
Since July 13, 2009, KFBB's subchannel has been carrying
Fox
Foxes are small-to-medium-sized omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull; upright, triangular ears; a pointed, slightly upturned snout; and a long, bushy tail ("brush").
Twelve species ...
programs. Prior to that, only KHBB did so, since October 2008, as Fox was received via KLMN, and before that, in Helena, viewers received Fox programming via
KMTF, later from
Foxnet
Foxnet was a national cable programming service of the Fox Broadcasting Company (known simply as Fox) that was owned by the Fox Entertainment Group division of News Corporation. The service, which operated (in its original form) from June 6, 1991 ...
, when KMTF joined Pax TV (later i, now
Ion
An ion () is an atom or molecule with a net electrical charge. The charge of an electron is considered to be negative by convention and this charge is equal and opposite to the charge of a proton, which is considered to be positive by convent ...
) in 2001, and then from the network's Denver affiliate
KDVR
KDVR (channel 31) is a television station in Denver, Colorado, United States, affiliated with the Fox network. It is simulcast full-time over satellite station KFCT (channel 22) in Fort Collins. Nexstar Media Group owns KDVR and KFCT alongsi ...
after Foxnet shut down in 2006. Fox is broadcast on digital channel 21.2, and, like 21.1, is available in
720p
720p (720 lines progressive) is a progressive HD signal format with 720 horizontal lines/1280 columns and an aspect ratio (AR) of 16:9, normally known as widescreen HD (1.78:1). All major HD broadcasting standards (such as SMPTE 292M) includ ...
high definition
High definition or HD may refer to:
Visual technologies
*Blu-ray Disc, the universal optical High Definition disc format
*HD Photo, former name for the JPEG XR image file format
*HDV, format for recording high-definition video onto magnetic tap ...
. Programming from Fox's secondary
MyNetworkTV
MyNetworkTV (stylized as mynetworkTV; unofficially abbreviated MNT or MNTV) is an American commercial broadcast television syndication service and former television network owned by Fox Corporation, operated by its Fox Television Stations ...
service is aired unbranded an hour after Fox prime time, after a half-hour newscast and ''
Inside Edition
''Inside Edition'' is an American tabloid television program that is distributed in Broadcast syndication, first-run syndication by CBS Media Ventures. Having premiered on January 9, 1989, it is the longest-running syndicated-newsmagazine progr ...
'' on weeknights.
News operation
Of the three full-service television stations in Montana owned by Cowles Company, only KFBB-TV offers a significant schedule of local news. There are two half-hour local newscasts at 5 and 6 p.m. and a 35-minute newscast at 10 p.m. each weeknight, plus half-hour newscasts at 5 and 10 p.m. on the weekends. KFBB also produces a ten-minute nightly newscast for Cowles' other ABC Montana stations, KTMF in Missoula and
Kalispell
Kalispell (, Montana Salish: Ql̓ispé, Kutenai language: Kqayaqawakⱡuʔnam) is a city in Montana and the county seat of Flathead County, Montana, United States. The 2020 census put Kalispell's population at 24,558. Among cities in Montana, ...
and KWYB in Butte and
Bozeman
Bozeman ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Gallatin County, Montana, United States. The 2020 United States census put Bozeman's population at 53,293, making it Montana's fourth-largest city. It is the principal city of the Bozeman, Montan ...
. The newscast is called ''10@10'', and focuses on Montana sports and weather in the first ten minutes.
In February 2005, Max Media instituted a regional newscast, branded as ''Montana News Network'', which was produced at KFBB. The regional newscast did not last long. KFBB was then rebranded ''NewsChannel 5'', with a focus on "Live, Local, Late-Breaking Coverage". In addition to the morning weather cut-ins and its weeknight newscasts at 5:30 and 10 p.m. newscasts, the station soon added weekend newscasts back to the lineup.
In 2009, KFBB added staff to become the largest news team in central Montana. The newscasts took on a new slogan, "''NewsChannel 5'' is Everywhere", to capitalize on its reporting strength in Great Falls and its three bureaus. The weather segments took on the identity of "Pinpoint Weather", showcasing the station's award-winning customized forecasts for central and northern Montana. The station also increased its news production on the weekend, adding a 5:30 p.m. newscast, as well as the 10 p.m. weekend news already running.
On September 21, 2009, KFBB expanded further, adding a 5 p.m. newscast and moving the 5:30 newscast to 6 p.m., swapping with ''
ABC World News Tonight
''ABC World News Tonight'' (titled ''ABC World News Tonight with David Muir'' for its weeknight broadcasts since September 2014) is the flagship daily evening television news program of ABC News, the news division of the American Broadcasting ...
''. A full page ad in ''Signature Montana'' magazine in April 2010 highlighted the fact that KFBB has the most TV newscasts in the evening in the market.
Technical information
Subchannels
The stations' signals are
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— ...
:
Analog-to-digital conversion
KFBB-TV received its digital television (DTV) allocation from the FCC in April 1997. Originally, KFBB-DT was to be on channel 39, but in June 2001, the FCC agreed to change the allocation to channel 8, and granted the permit to construct digital facilities on March 14, 2002. By the end of April 2002, the station was already on the air and was licensed on November 1, 2002. The station shut down its analog signal, over
VHF channel 5, on June 12, 2009, the official date on which full-power television stations in the United States
transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition VHF channel 8,
using
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 as digits on a receiver's ...
5.
On August 9, 2006, the FCC granted "flash-cut" authorization to KHBB-LD, meaning that on or before August 9, 2009, analog station KHBB-LP would shut down and digital station KHBB-LD would commence broadcasting on channel 21. On November 27, 2008, KHBB-LP turned off its analog signal and began broadcasting in digital, with ABC programming on 21.1, and Fox programming on 21.2. Both subchannels broadcast in 720p high definition.
Translators
All translators relay KFBB-TV unless noted.
*
Belt, etc.
*
Big Sandy Big Sandy may refer to:
Communities
*Big Sandy, Montana, a town in Chouteau County
* Big Sandy, Nebraska, in Thayer County, Nebraska
* Big Sandy, Tennessee, a town in Benton County
* Big Sandy, Texas, a town in Upshur County
* Big Sandy, West Virg ...
*
Chinook
*
Circle
A circle is a shape consisting of all point (geometry), points in a plane (mathematics), plane that are at a given distance from a given point, the Centre (geometry), centre. The distance between any point of the circle and the centre is cal ...
, etc.
*
Conrad
Conrad may refer to:
People
* Conrad (name)
* Saint Conrad (disambiguation)
Places
United States
* Conrad, Illinois, an unincorporated community
* Conrad, Iowa, a city
* Conrad, Montana, a city
* Conrad Glacier, Washington
Elsewher ...
*
Denton
*
Dodson
*
Fort Peck
*
Four Buttes, etc.
*
Glasgow
Glasgow is the Cities of Scotland, most populous city in Scotland, located on the banks of the River Clyde in Strathclyde, west central Scotland. It is the List of cities in the United Kingdom, third-most-populous city in the United Kingdom ...
*
Joplin
*
Jordan
Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and Israel and the occupied Palestinian ter ...
*
Lewistown
*
Malta
Malta, officially the Republic of Malta, is an island country in Southern Europe located in the Mediterranean Sea, between Sicily and North Africa. It consists of an archipelago south of Italy, east of Tunisia, and north of Libya. The two ...
*
Phillips County
*
Saco
*
Tampico
Tampico is a city and port in the southeastern part of the Mexican state of Tamaulipas. It is located on the north bank of the Pánuco River, about inland from the Gulf of Mexico, and directly north of the state of Veracruz. Tampico is the fif ...
*
Townsend (translates KHBB-LD)
*
Whitewater
Whitewater forms in the context of rapids, in particular, when a river's Stream gradient, gradient changes enough to generate so much turbulence that air is trapped within the water. This forms an unstable current that foam, froths, making t ...
*
Wolf Point
References
External links
Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kfbb-Tv
1954 establishments in Montana
American Broadcasting Company affiliates
Cowles Company
Fox Broadcasting Company affiliates
MyNetworkTV affiliates
Television channels and stations established in 1954
FBB-TV