KTVD (channel 20) 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
Denver
Denver ( ) is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Consolidated city and county, consolidated city and county, the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Colorado, most populous city of the U.S. state of ...
, Colorado, United States, affiliated with
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 ...
. It is owned by
Tegna Inc. alongside
NBC affiliate
KUSA (channel 9). The two stations share studios on East Speer Boulevard in Denver's
Speer neighborhood; KTVD's transmitter is located atop
Lookout Mountain (near
Golden).
KTVD began broadcasting as Denver's third major
independent station
An independent station is a broadcast station, usually a television station, not affiliated with a larger broadcast television network, network. As such, it only broadcasts broadcast syndication, syndicated programs it has purchased; brokered pr ...
on December 1, 1988. Its initial owner, Twenver Inc., sank under the weight of a weak local advertising market and expensive programming purchases and filed for bankruptcy reorganization within two years of launching the station; Twenver's financial issues caused the station's primary programming attraction,
Denver Nuggets
The Denver Nuggets are an American professional basketball team based in Denver. The Nuggets compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Northwest Division (NBA), Northwest Division of the Western Conference (NBA), W ...
basketball, to break ties. In 1993, the station was acquired out of bankruptcy by the Chicago-based
Newsweb Corporation, which focused the station on entertainment and sports programming with the new
UPN network and broadcasts of the Nuggets,
Colorado Avalanche
The Colorado Avalanche (colloquially known as the Avs) are a professional ice hockey team based in Denver. The Avalanche compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Central Division (NHL), Central Division in the Western Con ...
, and
Colorado Rockies
The Colorado Rockies are an American professional baseball team based in Denver. The Rockies compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (baseball), National League (NL) National League West, West Division. Th ...
.
The station was acquired by
Gannett
Gannett Co., Inc. ( ) is an American mass media holding company headquartered in New York City. It is the largest U.S. newspaper publisher as measured by total daily circulation.
It owns the national newspaper ''USA Today'', as well as several ...
—the predecessor to Tegna—in 2006. KTVD's operations were consolidated with KUSA, and it added morning and evening newscasts to expand that station's market-leading news presence. As a consequence of being bypassed in the merger of UPN and
The WB
The WB Television Network (shortened to The WB, stylized as "THE WB", and nicknamed the "Frog Network" and/or "The Frog" for its former mascot Michigan J. Frog) was an American television network that ran from 1995 to 2006. It launched on ter ...
into
The CW
The CW Network, LLC (commonly referred to as The CW or simply CW) is an American commercial broadcast television network which is controlled by Nexstar Media Group through a 75% ownership interest. The network's name is derived from the firs ...
, the station affiliated with
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 ...
. KTVD is the primary preseason broadcaster of
Denver Broncos
The Denver Broncos are a professional American football team based in Denver. The Broncos compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC West, West division. The team is headquartered in E ...
football and airs 20 Nuggets and Avalanche games per year.
History
Channel 20 had been among the earliest television channel assignments to Denver, and two unsuccessful attempts to activate it preceded KTVD. In 1952, the Mountain States Television Company filed for the channel; while the application was pending at 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 ...
, theatrical producer and major stakeholder
Irving Jacobs died of a heart attack. The permit was awarded on September 18, 1952, after which time Irving's wife Anne also died. The remaining owners—the Sigman family, the brothers of Anne Jacobs—held off on construction in hopes that a national network could form and extend affiliation to the proposed KIRV. Ultimately, Mountain States surrendered the permit in December 1953. The second permit was granted to publishing firm
Harcourt, Brace & World in 1966. Harcourt, which had filed for three
UHF stations in western states, later sold the permit to ''
The Denver Post''.
New interest bubbled around channel 20 beginning in the late 1970s. In 1977, Denver-based American Television & Communications—the pay-television division of
Time, Inc.—applied for the channel as a hybrid commercial and
subscription television station. A firm headed by John H. Gayer, originally known as Family Television Inc. but later as Colorado Television Inc., applied in 1978, specifying a lineup of religious and family-oriented secular programming. The FCC took these two applications as well as those of Alden Communications of Colorado and
Oak Television of Denver and designated them for
comparative hearing in October 1980. American Television & Communications had withdrawn by August 1983, when FCC
administrative law judge
An administrative law judge (ALJ) in the United States is a judge and trier of fact who both presides over trials and adjudicates claims or disputes involving administrative law, thus involving administrative units of the executive branch of go ...
Frederic J. Coufal ruled in favor of Alden's application. He disqualified Colorado Television, finding it lacked access to a suitable transmitter site, and selected Alden over Oak owing to diversification of media ownership policy. A principal reason for the Colorado Television disqualification was the withdrawal by
KWGN-TV
KWGN-TV (channel 2) is a television station in Denver, Colorado, United States, serving as the local The CW, CW outlet. It is owned and operated by network majority owner Nexstar Media Group alongside Fox Broadcasting Company, Fox affiliate KDVR ...
(channel 2) of permission to set up its transmitter facility at that station's site on
Lookout Mountain.
Twenver ownership
Alden Communications of Colorado sold the channel 20 permit—still unbuilt and then bearing the call sign KTZO-TV—to Twenver, Inc., headed by N. Richard Miller, in January 1988. After the sale to Twenver, activity accelerated. In August, the station—now KTVD—reached a five-year
deal with the
Denver Nuggets
The Denver Nuggets are an American professional basketball team based in Denver. The Nuggets compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Northwest Division (NBA), Northwest Division of the Western Conference (NBA), W ...
basketball team to air 30 road games a season. The KTVD–Nuggets contract was part of a major shakeup of the club's television rights. They abandoned their longtime broadcaster, KWGN-TV, for a split arrangement between KTVD and
KMGH-TV (channel 7), which took on 10 road games; signed a deal with
Prime Sports Network, a new
regional sports network
A regional sports network (RSN) in the United States and Canada is a television channel that presents sports programming to a local media market or geographical region. Such channels often focus on one or a few teams who currently play in Major L ...
, for 25 home games on cable; and assumed production duties for all telecasts.
After setbacks in construction caused channel 20 to miss telecasting some of the first games in its new deal, KTVD began broadcasting on December 1, 1988. Its backers believed Denver—the 19th-largest television market at the time—could, like other similarly sized markets, support three competing independent TV stations (KWGN-TV, KTVD, and
KDVR), as the two existing independents captured less audience share than the three independents in comparable cities. The Nuggets were the anchor of a lineup that included syndicated sitcoms, classic movies, and wrestling.
KTVD's debut into the marketplace came at a time when the Denver economy had flatlined. In 1987 and 1988, television ad revenues had posted year-over-year declines, with only minimal increases projected for the years to come. Also during this time, the Nuggets were sold to
Bertram Lee and
Peter Bynoe; former owner
Sidney Shlenker retained the Nuggets' ownership stake in KTVD. Unlike Shlenker, who believed increased television revenue would make up for any shortfalls in attendance, the new Nuggets ownership believed it was overexposed on television, with 67 of 82 games aired in the 1989–90 season, depressing gate revenue.
By April 1990, the station was facing financial difficulties. When Prime Sports Network told its affiliates—in error—that it would carry two late-season road games in light of the station closing, it brought to the fore a payment dispute between KTVD and the Nuggets and the station's financial struggles; the station had lost $7.5 million in 1989 on $6.2 million in gross revenue. That May, Twenver agreed to sell a majority stake in KTVD to Pennsylvania BancShares, Inc., an investment company, but BancShares did not want to advance any funding to Twenver until the FCC approved the transaction amid other disputes. This proved to be a major problem. On June 7, 1990, Chrysler Capital Corporation—a secured creditor—declared Twenver in default on its loan and drew a $1 million line of credit. On top of the station's existing issues with cash flow problems and a large outlay on syndicated programming, this forced Twenver to file for
Chapter 11 bankruptcy
Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code ( Title 11 of the United States Code) permits reorganization under the bankruptcy laws of the United States. Such reorganization, known as Chapter 11 bankruptcy, is available to every business, w ...
reorganization on July 11, 1990.
Nine of the top twenty creditors were program distributors. Two days later, the Nuggets—owed nearly $1 million—and KTVD terminated their agreement, and before the end of the month, general manager Jack Moffitt was fired as a cost-saving move. During this time, in November 1990, channel 20 rented three hours of prime time on Election Day to
KCNC-TV in a first-of-its-kind arrangement to present extended election coverage. The station experimented with local comedy; in 1992, it aired the series ''Denver Friday Night'', similar in format to ''
Saturday Night Live
''Saturday Night Live'' (''SNL'') is an American Late night television in the United States, late-night live television, live sketch comedy variety show created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Michaels and Dick Ebersol that airs on NBC. The ...
''.
Newsweb ownership and UPN affiliation
KTVD remained in bankruptcy for more than three years until the Chicago-based
Newsweb Corporation acquired KTVD and paid $7.5 million to creditors, who received 25 cents on the dollar. Newsweb owned the Chicago market's
WPWR-TV, a similarly situated independent with similar programming. Newsweb held the construction permit for channel 14 in Boulder, which it sold to
Roberts Broadcasting in order to acquire channel 20. Newsweb programmed the station with talk shows in prime time as a strategy to mitigate the impact of its relatively meager syndicated inventory, particularly compared to KWGN and KDVR, but an upturn in the Colorado economy increased advertising revenue as the station increased its audience share.
In 1995, KTVD debuted two new program packages. One was a network affiliation as
UPN started up with channel 20 as its Denver affiliate. The other was the
Colorado Avalanche
The Colorado Avalanche (colloquially known as the Avs) are a professional ice hockey team based in Denver. The Avalanche compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Central Division (NHL), Central Division in the Western Con ...
, Denver's new
NHL
The National Hockey League (NHL; , ''LNH'') is a professional ice hockey league in North America composed of 32 teams25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. The NHL is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Cana ...
team. In the Avs' first season, KTVD aired 19 games. The Avs, who made the playoffs in their first season, were credited with immediately boosting channel 20's image; general manager Terry Brown noted that KTVD had better ratings in the team's first season than
KTXA did in the first season of
Dallas Stars
The Dallas Stars are a professional ice hockey team based in Dallas. The Stars compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Central Division (NHL), Central Division in the Western Conference (NHL), Western Conference. The Stars ...
hockey. Though the team switched to a six-game over-the-air package with KMGH in 1996–97, KTVD aired playoff road games; it returned to broadcasting Avs regular-season games in 1997–98.
Owner Ascent Sports packaged Avs and Nuggets games with
KPXC-TV (channel 59) for the 1998–99 season, but after one season, the package moved to KTVD. The station also experimented with local program production, including a documentary series and a weekly talk show hosted by
Denver Broncos
The Denver Broncos are a professional American football team based in Denver. The Broncos compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC West, West division. The team is headquartered in E ...
players
Ed McCaffrey and
Rod Smith, as well as high school football telecasts. All rights to the Avalanche and Nuggets moved to
Altitude Sports and Entertainment
Altitude Sports and Entertainment (usually referred to as simply Altitude or Altitude TV) is an American regional sports cable and satellite television channel owned by Stan Kroenke's Kroenke Sports & Entertainment. The channel, which serves ...
, a new team-owned regional sports network, in 2004. In 2003, KTVD took over from KWGN-TV as the over-the-air broadcaster of the
Colorado Rockies
The Colorado Rockies are an American professional baseball team based in Denver. The Rockies compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (baseball), National League (NL) National League West, West Division. Th ...
, with 75 baseball games a year; Rockies games remained on channel 20 through the 2008 season, by which time telecasts had been restricted to Sunday afternoons.
Newsweb acquired
KTVS (channel 3) in
Sterling, Colorado, some north of Denver, from
Benedek Broadcasting in 1999. The station switched to rebroadcasting KTVD.
Duopoly with KUSA
On December 15, 2005, Newsweb announced it would sell KTVD to
Gannett
Gannett Co., Inc. ( ) is an American mass media holding company headquartered in New York City. It is the largest U.S. newspaper publisher as measured by total daily circulation.
It owns the national newspaper ''USA Today'', as well as several ...
, owner of Denver's
NBC affiliate,
KUSA (channel 9). This would form the second
duopoly
A duopoly (from Greek , ; and , ) is a type of oligopoly where two firms have dominant or exclusive control over a market, and most (if not all) of the competition within that market occurs directly between them.
Duopoly is the most commonly ...
within Gannett, after the
First Coast News
First Coast News is the newsroom of television stations WTLV (channel 12) and WJXX (channel 25), the NBC and American Broadcasting Company, ABC affiliates in Jacksonville, Florida, United States. It is owned with the stations by Tegna Inc.
T ...
stations in
Jacksonville, Florida
Jacksonville ( ) is the most populous city proper in the U.S. state of Florida, located on the Atlantic coast of North Florida, northeastern Florida. It is the county seat of Duval County, Florida, Duval County, with which the City of Jacksonv ...
. The agreement required adjustment when, amid final negotiations, UPN announced its merger with
The WB
The WB Television Network (shortened to The WB, stylized as "THE WB", and nicknamed the "Frog Network" and/or "The Frog" for its former mascot Michigan J. Frog) was an American television network that ran from 1995 to 2006. It launched on ter ...
into
The CW
The CW Network, LLC (commonly referred to as The CW or simply CW) is an American commercial broadcast television network which is controlled by Nexstar Media Group through a 75% ownership interest. The network's name is derived from the firs ...
. That network would affiliate with KWGN-TV, which had been the WB affiliate. The deal received FCC approval in June 2006 and was shortly followed by an affiliation agreement with
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 ...
to replace the closing UPN.
Few employees moved with KTVD from its offices in
Englewood to KUSA. Newsweb retained KUPN, the former KTVS, in the deal.
KTVD, along with KUSA and several other Denver stations, was among the last major-market TV stations to provide high-power digital television. The reason related to myriad siting, permitting, and other challenges that impeded construction of a new digital TV tower on Lookout Mountain for the "Lake Cedar Group" (KCNC, KMGH, KUSA, KTVD) until an act of Congress broke the impasse. KTVD provided high-power digital service before KUSA, by July 2008, and both stations ceased analog broadcasting on April 16, 2009.
Gannett split in two on June 29, 2015, with one side specializing in print media and the other side specializing in broadcast and digital media. KUSA and KTVD were retained by the latter company, named
Tegna.
Programming
Newscasts
Within months of Gannett's acquisition, KTVD began airing local news. On September 5, 2006, coinciding with the launch of MyNetworkTV, KTVD debuted a half-hour 9 p.m. newscast from KUSA; three months later, the station added a weekday morning newscast extension from 7 to 9 a.m. The 9 p.m. newscast was expanded to a full hour in 2010.
Sports programming
With KUSA, KTVD shares rights to the preseason games of the
Denver Broncos
The Denver Broncos are a professional American football team based in Denver. The Broncos compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC West, West division. The team is headquartered in E ...
of the
NFL. In some years—such as 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2023—KTVD carried the entire preseason schedule, then comprising four games. In 2024, of three preseason games, one was a national telecast, and the other two were split by KTVD and KUSA.
Beginning with the
2024–25 NBA season
The 2024–25 NBA season is the 79th season of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The regular season began on October 22, 2024, and ended on April 13, 2025. The NBA held an in-season tournament for the second consecutive year, now called ...
and the
2024–25 NHL season, KTVD reached an agreement with
Altitude Sports and Entertainment
Altitude Sports and Entertainment (usually referred to as simply Altitude or Altitude TV) is an American regional sports cable and satellite television channel owned by Stan Kroenke's Kroenke Sports & Entertainment. The channel, which serves ...
to simulcast 20
Denver Nuggets
The Denver Nuggets are an American professional basketball team based in Denver. The Nuggets compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Northwest Division (NBA), Northwest Division of the Western Conference (NBA), W ...
games and 20
Colorado Avalanche
The Colorado Avalanche (colloquially known as the Avs) are a professional ice hockey team based in Denver. The Avalanche compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Central Division (NHL), Central Division in the Western Con ...
games. Ten games will also be simulcast on KUSA. Altitude had previously distributed two nights of the
2019–20 Nuggets season and two nights of the
2019–20 Avalanche season in light of a near-total blackout of Altitude by pay television providers that caused ratings for the channel to drop by more than 70 percent. KTVD agreed to simulcast ten
Colorado Rockies
The Colorado Rockies are an American professional baseball team based in Denver. The Rockies compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (baseball), National League (NL) National League West, West Division. Th ...
games produced by
MLB Local Media in the
2025 MLB season, with five of those scheduled for simulcast on KUSA.
Technical information
Subchannels
The station's signal is
multiplexed:
Translators
KTVD is broadcast by translator systems in parts of Colorado. Note that most transmitters listed only broadcast the main subchannel of KTVD, typically on the same transmitter as the main channel of other stations.
*
Anton: K16NJ-D (20.1 and 20.2)
**
Wray: K14SA-D
*
Holyoke
Holyoke is a city in Hampden County, Massachusetts, United States, that lies between the western bank of the Connecticut River and the Mount Tom Range. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the city had a population of 38,247. Loca ...
: K23OX-D (20.1 and 20.2)
**
Idalia: K24EZ-D
**
Pleasant Valley: K28IX-D
*
Jacks Cabin: K24KR-D (20.1 only)
*
Wray: K16NH-D (full multiplex)
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ktvd
1988 establishments in Colorado
Heroes & Icons affiliates
MyNetworkTV affiliates
Tegna Inc.
Television channels and stations established in 1988
TVD