KNTV

KNTV (channel 11), branded NBC Bay Area, is a television station licensed to San Jose, California, United States, serving the San Francisco Bay Area. It is owned and operated by the NBC television network through its NBC Owned Television Stations division. Under common ownership with Telemundo outlet KSTS (channel 48) and regional sports networks NBC Sports Bay Area and NBC Sports California, both KNTV and KSTS share studio facilities on North 1st Street in the North San Jose Innovation District, while KNTV's transmitter is located on San Bruno Mountain, and two of its subchannels are also broadcast from the KSTS tower on Mount Allison.

KNTV was established as an independent station in 1955; in 1960, it became an affiliate of ABC as the affiliate of record for Salinas and Monterey, otherwise a separate market. Even though San Francisco had its own ABC television station, KGO-TV, KNTV focused its news and other programming on the Santa Clara Valley. In 1999, ABC paid KNTV to end its affiliation in 2000 in order to allow KGO-TV to serve as the only source of ABC programming in the San Jose area. The station operated as an independent for a year and a half before securing a 10-year affiliation with NBC and then being sold to the network outright. Local news covering the entire Bay Area is produced from the San Jose studios.

KNTV signed on the air on September 12, 1955, originally operating as an independent station covering the entire north-central California coast from Monterey to San Francisco. It was the first television station in San Jose and was originally operated by Standard Radio and Television Corporation, which was owned by Allen T. Gilliland. The station's studios and offices were located at 645 Park Avenue, a short distance from the Caltrain railroad tracks and adjacent to the Gilliland-owned Sunlite Baking Company in downtown San Jose. Its antenna was originally located on Loma Prieta, some 60 miles (97 km) south of San Francisco. Channel 11 often aired shows from CBS, DuMont and NBC that were respectively turned down by San Francisco's KPIX-TV (channel 5) and KRON-TV (channel 4), as well as some ABC shows that also aired on KGO-TV (channel 7). The station was not viable as an independent, despite the Bay Area's size. The going got even more difficult when Oakland-based KTVU (channel 2) signed on in 1958, and it soon became apparent that the Bay Area was not large enough at the time to support two independent stations.

However, due to KNTV's transmitter and antenna location, its signal could be received fairly well in the nearby areas of Monterey and Salinas; the transmitter was located approximately halfway between San Jose and Monterey. Taking advantage of this, KNTV sought and was granted the ABC affiliation for the Monterey Bay area in 1960, on the condition that the station reduced its transmitter power so as not to overlap with network-owned KGO-TV's signal. Previously, all three networks had been shoehorned onto Salinas-based KSBW-TV (channel 8). KNTV, therefore, became one of the few stations located outside the market it served.

Following the death of Allen T. Gilliland in 1960, ownership of KNTV was held by the executors of his estate, which included son Allen T. Gilliland Jr. The younger Gilliland acquired majority ownership in August 1966 and later operated it as part of Gill Industries, which also controlled San Jose's cable television system. KNTV was highly regarded locally by viewers and seen as a "hometown" station for the South Bay, with news coverage and local commercials reflecting its South Bay roots, rather than focusing almost solely on San Francisco as the other network outlets did^{[citation needed]}. Gill Industries sold KNTV to Norfolk, Virginia–based Landmark Communications in 1978. Twelve years later, Landmark sold the station to a minority-owned firm, Granite Broadcasting.

In 1999, KGO-TV agreed to pay Granite a substantial fee to stop channel 11 from running ABC programming once the station's affiliation contract expired. ABC's corporate parent, The Walt Disney Company, saw the need to expand KGO-TV's exclusive advertising market share into San Jose for this reason, and it felt that KNTV was taking away from the share.

That same year, the deYoung family, owners of KRON-TV and the San Francisco Chronicle, put all of its media properties up for sale. NBC, which had been in the midst of renewing its affiliation agreement with KRON-TV, jumped into the bidding. It had been one of the bidders for the channel 4 license in the late 1940s when it wanted a sister television station to complement West Coast flagship KNBC (AM 680, now KNBR), but lost out to Chronicle. The deYoungs had built KRON into one of NBC's strongest affiliates, though NBC had long felt chagrin at KRON's frequent preemptions of network programming. NBC was thought to be the favorite to buy KRON-TV, but in a move that shocked the broadcasting industry, lost a bidding war for the station to Young Broadcasting in November 1999. NBC responded by threatening to yank its programming from KRON unless Young agreed to run it under the conventions of an NBC-owned outlet, including disallowing the station from preempting NBC programs outside of breaking news coverage. The network also made the unprecedented demand that Young pay NBC $10 million annually to carry the network's programming—a form of reverse compensation. Young refused and announced that it would end KRON-TV's 52-year relationship with NBC once its affiliation contract ended in December 2001.

In February 2000, Granite contacted NBC to negotiate an affiliation deal and offered to pay an average of $37 million annually (totaling roughly $362 million over 10 years) for the rights to broadcast NBC programs on KNTV. This agreement was groundbreaking and notable, as KNTV became the first major market affiliate to pay a network for programming, reversing a long-standing model where networks paid affiliates to carry their programming. NBC accepted the deal, which was due to take effect in January 2002. In preparation for this switch, KNTV boosted its signal to reach the entire Bay Area. This increased KNTV's potential audience to more than seven million viewers, including 90% of the Bay Area.