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KQTV
KQTV (channel 2) is a television station in St. Joseph, Missouri, United States, affiliated with ABC and owned by Heartland Media. The station's studios and transmitter are located on Faraon Street in eastern St. Joseph.
KQTV went on the air as KFEQ-TV, the sister station to KFEQ radio, on September 27, 1953. It was the only major network affiliate based in St. Joseph for 59 years and commanded news viewership in the small market, even as it had to compete with Kansas City stations for viewers during non-local programming. The station changed its call sign to KQTV in 1969 when it and KFEQ radio were separated and has had a succession of owners, with Heartland acquiring KQTV in 2017 from Nexstar Broadcasting Group.
St. Joseph radio station KFEQ applied to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on April 17, 1948, for permission to construct a new television station on channel 13. This application was still pending when the FCC, in October 1948, imposed a freeze on new TV station construction permits. In the shuffling of channel allocations during the freeze, St. Joseph lost channel 13 but picked up channel 2 from Kansas City. The FCC lifted the freeze beginning in April 1952, and KFEQ amended its application to specify the new channel. KFEQ-TV received its construction permit on October 15, 1952. By the start of 1953, construction was underway on the station's studios on a plot at 40th and Faraon streets in St. Joseph, which would also house a 750-foot (229 m) transmission tower. Delays in fabricating structural steel components for the tower caused the launch to be postponed; the tower sections did not make it to St. Joseph until the start of July, and work moved slower than anticipated, causing an August 15 projected start date to be missed.
KFEQ-TV began broadcasting on September 27, 1953. It was an affiliate of CBS and the DuMont Television Network. For viewers in the St. Joseph–Kansas City region, it was the second station to sign on that day, alongside KCMO-TV (now KCTV) on channel 5 from Kansas City. The DuMont network ceased distributing programming in 1955.
Barton Pitts, founder of KFEQ-TV and owner of the morning St. Joseph Gazette and afternoon St. Joseph News-Press newspapers, opted to exit broadcasting for health reasons in 1955. He sold the KFEQ stations to the Midland Broadcasting Company, whose owners included actor Bing Crosby and John Fetzer, for $700,000. During its ownership, the channel 2 studios were expanded in size. Midland owned the stations for less than two years before selling to the Fine family, a theater operator and former owner of WFIE in Evansville, Indiana, in 1957; the transaction was motivated by Midland's investors' recent acquisition of KCOP-TV in Los Angeles.
In its early years, KFEQ-TV presented a range of local non-news programs. In 1957, channel 2 debuted a local teen dance show, Let's Dance, hosted by KFEQ radio DJ Allen Shaw and in later years by Bill Foster. Women's talk show host Marge Miner received a national award from McCall's magazine in 1959 for her series of programs on cerebral palsy. The station also aired Saturday night wrestling telecasts from its studio, put on by local wrestling promoter Gust Karras; this continued into the mid-1970s.
After a 1960 attempt to sell the KFEQ stations and KLIK in Jefferson City to Connie B. Gay fell through, the Fines sold the properties to Mid-States Broadcasting, headed by John P. McGoff, in 1963. In 1967, KFEQ-TV switched affiliations from CBS to ABC, with KCMO-TV serving as the nearest CBS affiliate to St. Joseph.
McGoff sold the KFEQ stations to separate owners over the course of 1968. Channel 2 went to ISC Industries for $3.1 million. ISC—a diversified firm based in Kansas City with interests ranging from truck manufacturing to pen production and securities—pledged to upgrade the station to allow it to broadcast local color programming. The sale required one or the other of KFEQ radio and television to change call signs; the radio station kept KFEQ and channel 2 became KQTV on February 1, 1969. As KFEQ-TV had been informally known as "The Q", the new call sign retained brand equity from the old. After ISC closed on the purchase in July 1969, the company expanded into radio by buying two radio stations in the Kansas City area.
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KQTV
KQTV (channel 2) is a television station in St. Joseph, Missouri, United States, affiliated with ABC and owned by Heartland Media. The station's studios and transmitter are located on Faraon Street in eastern St. Joseph.
KQTV went on the air as KFEQ-TV, the sister station to KFEQ radio, on September 27, 1953. It was the only major network affiliate based in St. Joseph for 59 years and commanded news viewership in the small market, even as it had to compete with Kansas City stations for viewers during non-local programming. The station changed its call sign to KQTV in 1969 when it and KFEQ radio were separated and has had a succession of owners, with Heartland acquiring KQTV in 2017 from Nexstar Broadcasting Group.
St. Joseph radio station KFEQ applied to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on April 17, 1948, for permission to construct a new television station on channel 13. This application was still pending when the FCC, in October 1948, imposed a freeze on new TV station construction permits. In the shuffling of channel allocations during the freeze, St. Joseph lost channel 13 but picked up channel 2 from Kansas City. The FCC lifted the freeze beginning in April 1952, and KFEQ amended its application to specify the new channel. KFEQ-TV received its construction permit on October 15, 1952. By the start of 1953, construction was underway on the station's studios on a plot at 40th and Faraon streets in St. Joseph, which would also house a 750-foot (229 m) transmission tower. Delays in fabricating structural steel components for the tower caused the launch to be postponed; the tower sections did not make it to St. Joseph until the start of July, and work moved slower than anticipated, causing an August 15 projected start date to be missed.
KFEQ-TV began broadcasting on September 27, 1953. It was an affiliate of CBS and the DuMont Television Network. For viewers in the St. Joseph–Kansas City region, it was the second station to sign on that day, alongside KCMO-TV (now KCTV) on channel 5 from Kansas City. The DuMont network ceased distributing programming in 1955.
Barton Pitts, founder of KFEQ-TV and owner of the morning St. Joseph Gazette and afternoon St. Joseph News-Press newspapers, opted to exit broadcasting for health reasons in 1955. He sold the KFEQ stations to the Midland Broadcasting Company, whose owners included actor Bing Crosby and John Fetzer, for $700,000. During its ownership, the channel 2 studios were expanded in size. Midland owned the stations for less than two years before selling to the Fine family, a theater operator and former owner of WFIE in Evansville, Indiana, in 1957; the transaction was motivated by Midland's investors' recent acquisition of KCOP-TV in Los Angeles.
In its early years, KFEQ-TV presented a range of local non-news programs. In 1957, channel 2 debuted a local teen dance show, Let's Dance, hosted by KFEQ radio DJ Allen Shaw and in later years by Bill Foster. Women's talk show host Marge Miner received a national award from McCall's magazine in 1959 for her series of programs on cerebral palsy. The station also aired Saturday night wrestling telecasts from its studio, put on by local wrestling promoter Gust Karras; this continued into the mid-1970s.
After a 1960 attempt to sell the KFEQ stations and KLIK in Jefferson City to Connie B. Gay fell through, the Fines sold the properties to Mid-States Broadcasting, headed by John P. McGoff, in 1963. In 1967, KFEQ-TV switched affiliations from CBS to ABC, with KCMO-TV serving as the nearest CBS affiliate to St. Joseph.
McGoff sold the KFEQ stations to separate owners over the course of 1968. Channel 2 went to ISC Industries for $3.1 million. ISC—a diversified firm based in Kansas City with interests ranging from truck manufacturing to pen production and securities—pledged to upgrade the station to allow it to broadcast local color programming. The sale required one or the other of KFEQ radio and television to change call signs; the radio station kept KFEQ and channel 2 became KQTV on February 1, 1969. As KFEQ-TV had been informally known as "The Q", the new call sign retained brand equity from the old. After ISC closed on the purchase in July 1969, the company expanded into radio by buying two radio stations in the Kansas City area.