KTFT

KTVB (channel 7) is a television station in Boise, Idaho, United States, affiliated with NBC and owned by Tegna Inc. The station's studios are located on West Fairview Avenue (off I-184) in Boise, and its transmitter is located on Deer Point in unincorporated Boise County. It is rebroadcast by KTFT-LD (channel 7) in Twin Falls, which airs KTVB programming with local advertising for the Magic Valley area from its transmitter on Flat Top Butte near Jerome, Idaho (channel 6) in Nampa beat KIDO-TV to the air by a month, KIDO-TV was by far the more organized operation with network and local programming, neither of which KFXD-TV featured in its brief two-month tenure on air. It was owned by Georgia Davidson alongside Boise radio station KIDO and a primary affiliate of NBC, though it also held affiliations with other networks in its early history. Davidson sold off the radio station in 1958, and channel 7 changed its call sign to KTVB the next year. Davidson was for years the only woman at NBC affiliate meetings. By the 1970s, KTVB had emerged as the news ratings leader in Boise, a position it has not yielded since.

Davidson sold KTVB to King Broadcasting in 1979. The station continued to lead local news ratings in the market with long-tenured personalities. In 1986, KTVB established K38AS (now KTFT-LD), the first low-power NBC affiliate. KTVB has changed ownership in larger transactions three times since 1990: to the Providence Journal Company, Belo Corporation, and Gannett, whose broadcast division split off as Tegna in 2015.

History

Construction and early years

Boise radio station KIDO, owned by Georgia Davidson, filed with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in March 1952 seeking to build a television station on the city's allotted channel 7. The application arrived in anticipation of the end of the FCC's multi-year freeze on TV station applications. The construction permit was granted on December 23, KIDO already had some equipment on hand; the month before, it conducted a closed-circuit demonstration of television at its AM transmitter site. On an elevation behind the city, construction began in February on the transmitter site. The station signed for affiliation with the CBS, NBC, and DuMont networks; KIDO radio had maintained NBC affiliation since 1937.

From studios on 700 Crestline Drive, KIDO-TV began broadcasting on July 12, 1953; Philo Farnsworth, a television pioneer, was one of the guests of honor at the dedication. It was the second television station to make its bow in Idaho, but under the circumstances, it was effectively the first serious station to set up. On June 18, KFXD-TV (channel 6) in Nampa put out its first test pattern, initiating regular programming under special temporary authority 11 days later. Where KIDO-TV had studios and network affiliations, KFXD-TV had neither; it was reliant exclusively on old movies and operated with the bare minimum of personnel. KFXD-TV lasted less than two months before leaving the air. The lone missing national network, ABC, affiliated with KIDO-TV in December. This replaced CBS, which had moved to new station KBOI-TV (channel 2) the previous month.

National live programming became a reality beginning with the 1955 World Series after a microwave transmission link between Boise and Salt Lake City was set up by KIDO-TV and KBOI-TV. KIDO-TV's tower was relocated to Deer Point in 1956, which together with an increased effective radiated power extended the station's coverage to a further 80,000 people. Davidson agreed to sell KIDO radio to the Mesabi Western Corp. in November 1958; the radio station retained its call sign, and channel 7 became KTVB on February 1, 1959. The sale alleviated cash issues for the television station, which struggled financially in its early years and particularly after Boise became a two-station market; in a 1978 interview, Davidson noted that she "lived with the spectre of bankruptcy, a very embarrassing bankruptcy, day or night".

KTVB in La Grande, Oregon: KTVR

KTVB received a construction permit on December 18, 1963, to expand its reach with the construction of a satellite station on channel 13 in La Grande, Oregon, northwest of Boise. KTVR began broadcasting on December 6, 1964. It initially offered local news and information for Eastern Oregon from studios in La Grande. In 1967, KTVB closed the local operation in La Grande and converted KTVR into a full-time rebroadcaster of the Boise station.

In 1974, KTVB received an offer from the Oregon Educational and Public Broadcasting Service (OEPBS) to acquire KTVR for integration into its statewide public television network and serve large areas of Eastern Oregon. Citing a lack of local viewership and the availability of NBC stations from Spokane and Portland, KTVB took KTVR out of service on March 7, 1975, while the deal was pending; it did not return to the air under OEPBS ownership until February 1977. It was the second time KTVB had provided facilities to public television; in Boise, KTVB aired ''Sesame Street'' when the show debuted in 1969, as Idaho did not have a public station at the time, and it provided its transmitter site and engineering resources to launch KAID-TV (channel 4) in 1971.

Growth and new studios

Ground was broken for new studios at 5400 Fairview Avenue in 1970, and the facility formally opened the next year. The facility boasted the largest TV studio in Idaho. In 1974, KTVB lost ABC programming to a new station—KITC-TV, soon renamed KIVI-TV, on channel 6.

Davidson—long the only female owner within the NBC television network among 125 men at annual meetings—announced the sale of KTVB to King Broadcasting of Seattle in 1979. The sale to King Broadcasting left Boise without any locally owned television stations. Despite this, Davidson believed the sale was necessary to ensure the continued existence of KTVB. She feared saddling her family with a large estate tax burden upon her death, diminishing KTVB's profits and ability to invest. King Broadcasting took over in April 1980. While the new owners retained senior management, they dropped paid religious programming on Sunday mornings to conform with longstanding company policy.

Providence Journal, Belo, and Gannett/Tegna ownership

King Broadcasting Company put itself up for sale in 1990, citing the age of its majority owners, Patsy Bullitt Collins and Harriet Stimson Bullitt, the daughters of the late company matriarch, Dorothy Bullitt. It accepted an offer from the Providence Journal Company in 1991; the transaction closed in 1992. Under Providence Journal, KTVB became a contributor to the new Northwest Cable News (NWCN) regional cable channel when it launched in 1995, with one reporter dedicated to NWCN based in Boise. The Belo Corporation purchased Providence Journal in 1996.

At the end of October 2003, KTVB launched 24/7 NewsChannel on its second digital subchannel and local cable, one of the first digital secondary subchannels in the nation. The subchannel's programming initially consisted of time-shifted newscasts and feature programs, though plans called for original news programs and other local programming. By 2011, the station had rebranded its 24/7 NewsChannel as "Idaho's Very Own 24/7", and it aired a dedicated 6:30 p.m. newscast and 7 a.m. morning news extension. The subchannel more recently has served as an outlet for local sports coverage, including for the 2023-24 season a package of Boise State Broncos men's basketball games and Idaho Steelheads minor league hockey.

On June 13, 2013, the Gannett Company announced that it would acquire Belo. The sale was completed on December 23. Gannett's TV stations and newspapers split into separate companies in 2015, the former being named Tegna.

KTVB in Twin Falls: KTFT-LD

Plans to extend channel 7 to Twin Falls had existed almost as long as the station. In 1955, then-KIDO-TV partnered with Twin Falls radio station KTFI to obtain a construction permit for channel 13 in that city, awarded as KHTV. The station grant was reinstated despite protests by KLIX-TV (channel 11, now KMVT) that it would put the local outlet out of business; it was sold and dropped the proposal.

Renewed interest in bringing KTVB over-the-air to Twin Falls began in 1981, when King Broadcasting filed for a construction permit for a low-power TV station. This was later abandoned in favor of a channel 38 permit acquired from American Community Broadcasting, Inc., which already had another channel. The station debuted on July 1, 1986, as K38AS, the first low-power station to be an NBC affiliate; KMVT ceased offering NBC programs leading up to its launch. Its programming consisted of KTVB with Twin Falls-area commercials, sold from an advertising office in town. In December 1994, the station took a four-letter call sign of KTFT-LP (for "Twin Falls Television").

News operation

News coverage from channel 7 started with its first day on air. Vern Moore, a KIDO announcer, was the first voice heard on the new KIDO-TV and the first TV news anchor in Idaho. However, the station was initially not very competitive against KBOI-TV. When Robert Krueger—Georgia Davidson's son-in-law, who would serve in management for 40 years—started at then-KIDO-TV in 1956, he'd joke that "we ranked fifth in a two-station town".

Under Krueger, the station cemented itself as the news ratings leader in Boise, with such public affairs programming as ''Viewpoint''. As early as 1978, it was the "undisputed ratings king" in the market, well ahead of KBCI and KIVI. KTVB was the first Boise station to present an hour of local early evening news when it debuted the 5 p.m. newscast ''Idaho at Five'' in 1984 and first with weekend morning news in 1992. The dominance in news ratings has continued; for instance, in November 2010, each of KTVB's local newscasts had more viewers than their competition combined.

During this time, the station became known for long-tenured and popular local news personalities. Dee Sarton spent nearly 42 years with KTVB, most of that time anchoring ''Idaho at Five'' and other early evening newscasts; one of her co-anchors, Carolyn Holly, worked at channel 7 for nearly 34 years. Anchor Mark Johnson spent 30 years with the station, retiring in 2021. Larry Gebert was the station's meteorologist for 30 years until his death in 2022.

KTVB added a 4 p.m. news hour in 2013. In 2020, the station debuted a local lifestyle program, the midday ''Idaho Today'', and reformatted its weeknight 5 p.m. news as the interactive ''The 208''. As of 2024, the station aired 30 hours a week of news and public affairs programming.

Notable former-on air staff

* Trace Gallagher – reporter and weekend news anchor, 1990–1992
* Michael Jenkins – weekend sports anchor, 1998
* Eric Johnson – weekend sports anchor, 1984–1986
* David Kerley – anchor, early 1980s
* Christi Paul – weekend morning anchor, 1990s
* Wayne Walker – host of outdoors show ''Incredible Idaho'', 1994–1999

Technical information

Subchannels

The stations' signals are multiplexed:

Analog-to-digital conversion

KTVB began broadcasting a digital signal on UHF channel 26 on November 1, 2002. KTVB shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 7, 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 relocated from channel 26 to channel 7 for post-transition operations. To solve issues some viewers had receiving the station, KTVB was authorized to increase its effective radiated power weeks after the switch.

Translators

Notes

References

External links

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{{Tegna

1953 establishments in Idaho
24-hour television news channels in the United States
NBC affiliates
The Nest (TV network) affiliates
Quest (American TV network) affiliates
Rewind TV affiliates
Tegna Inc.
Television channels and stations established in 1953
TVB
True Crime Network affiliates