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KTIV
KTIV (channel 4) is a television station in Sioux City, Iowa, United States, affiliated with NBC and The CW Plus. Owned by Gray Media, the station has studios on Signal Hill Drive in Sioux City, and its transmitter is located near Hinton, Iowa.
KTIV was the second television station to be built in Sioux City. It signed on in 1954 as a joint operation between Sioux City radio stations KCOM and KSCJ and was an NBC affiliate from the first day on air, though it also aired some programs from ABC until 1967. Tom Brokaw, later the anchor of the NBC Nightly News and a native of Yankton, South Dakota, got his start in television at the station in the early 1960s. KSCJ's owners, the Perkins Bros. Corp., became the full owners of the station in 1965, a year in which it built its present tower at Hinton as a joint venture with its primary competitor, KVTV (now KCAU-TV).
Black Hawk Broadcasting acquired KTIV in 1974 and opened the station's present studios on Signal Hill three years later. Under the ownership of American Family Broadcasting in the 1980s, KTIV improved its news department and pushed past a once-dominant KCAU-TV to become the highest-rated station in Sioux City, a position it has retained ever since. Quincy Newspapers Inc. acquired KTIV in 1989. Gray Television acquired Quincy in 2021.
The KCOM Broadcasting Company applied on February 27, 1952, for a new television station on channel 4 in Sioux City. The application was made in anticipation of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) lifting in the near future a years-long freeze on television station grants. Soon after, another group also filed for channel 4: Perkins Bros. Inc., the owners of Sioux City radio station KSCJ and sister to the Sioux City Journal newspaper. In September 1952, the FCC ordered hearings to be held on the competing applicants for channel 4. However, no hearings were held, as the commission worked through a large backlog of competing TV applications. Instead, in December 1953, KCOM and KSCJ combined their applications; the KCOM Broadcasting Company gave KSCJ an option to acquire half the company and agreed to sell off KCOM. The merger of the KCOM and KSCJ applications cleared the way for the FCC to grant a construction permit on January 20, 1954.
Tower construction began in May at a site in Plymouth County, and KTIV affiliated with NBC and ABC. However, the company had yet to announce where its studios would be located. The station put out its first test pattern on September 23 and intended to be on air in time for the 1954 World Series, but officials could not establish a link between the studio and transmitter site to air the games, leaving Sioux City's other TV station—KVTV (channel 9)—to air the Series. In order to get the signal past a tree that blocked the way, the height of the microwave antenna had to be raised twice. KTIV went on the air on October 10, 1954, with programming from NBC, ABC, and the DuMont Television Network; it had no local programming, as its studios at 10th and Grandview streets had not been completed. Shortly after signing on the air, KSCJ exercised the option to buy half of KTIV, which the FCC approved in March 1955. After the change in ownership, the station increased its effective radiated power to 100,000 watts, the maximum allowed on channel 4, improving reception in rural areas beyond Sioux City; the FCC granted this on May 13, 1955, and the increase took effect five days later. The DuMont network disappeared in September 1955; the station also briefly affiliated with the NTA Film Network, which began in 1956.
In 1961, KTIV hired Tom Brokaw, a native of Yankton, South Dakota. Brokaw earned $75 a week (equivalent to $783 in 2024) to be a staff announcer and part-time weatherman and newscaster. Brokaw worked at the station while enrolled at the University of South Dakota. From KTIV, Brokaw went on to jobs in Omaha and Atlanta before joining KNBC in Los Angeles in 1966, the first in a series of posts at NBC before later anchoring the NBC Nightly News.
Perkins Bros. acquired the remainder of the company from the former KCOM group in 1965, spending $2.2 million. Prior to then, Perkins Bros. had been a silent partner, and management duties belonged to Dietrich Dirks, who had founded KCOM. That December, after seven years of joint work and the withdrawal of an objection by KQTV in Fort Dodge, KTIV moved to a new tower near Hinton, Iowa, that it co-owned with KVTV. KTIV then donated its previous 700 feet (210 m) tower to South Dakota Educational Television, which reassembled the mast near Beresford. The station continued to split ABC programs with KVTV until 1967, when KVTV became KCAU-TV and a full-time ABC affiliate, while new station KMEG acquired the CBS affiliation.
When I started here [in 1976], we were an embarrassment. We used to be located behind the cathedral on 10th Street, we had a pool hall over us, no money and only one news guy.
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KTIV
KTIV (channel 4) is a television station in Sioux City, Iowa, United States, affiliated with NBC and The CW Plus. Owned by Gray Media, the station has studios on Signal Hill Drive in Sioux City, and its transmitter is located near Hinton, Iowa.
KTIV was the second television station to be built in Sioux City. It signed on in 1954 as a joint operation between Sioux City radio stations KCOM and KSCJ and was an NBC affiliate from the first day on air, though it also aired some programs from ABC until 1967. Tom Brokaw, later the anchor of the NBC Nightly News and a native of Yankton, South Dakota, got his start in television at the station in the early 1960s. KSCJ's owners, the Perkins Bros. Corp., became the full owners of the station in 1965, a year in which it built its present tower at Hinton as a joint venture with its primary competitor, KVTV (now KCAU-TV).
Black Hawk Broadcasting acquired KTIV in 1974 and opened the station's present studios on Signal Hill three years later. Under the ownership of American Family Broadcasting in the 1980s, KTIV improved its news department and pushed past a once-dominant KCAU-TV to become the highest-rated station in Sioux City, a position it has retained ever since. Quincy Newspapers Inc. acquired KTIV in 1989. Gray Television acquired Quincy in 2021.
The KCOM Broadcasting Company applied on February 27, 1952, for a new television station on channel 4 in Sioux City. The application was made in anticipation of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) lifting in the near future a years-long freeze on television station grants. Soon after, another group also filed for channel 4: Perkins Bros. Inc., the owners of Sioux City radio station KSCJ and sister to the Sioux City Journal newspaper. In September 1952, the FCC ordered hearings to be held on the competing applicants for channel 4. However, no hearings were held, as the commission worked through a large backlog of competing TV applications. Instead, in December 1953, KCOM and KSCJ combined their applications; the KCOM Broadcasting Company gave KSCJ an option to acquire half the company and agreed to sell off KCOM. The merger of the KCOM and KSCJ applications cleared the way for the FCC to grant a construction permit on January 20, 1954.
Tower construction began in May at a site in Plymouth County, and KTIV affiliated with NBC and ABC. However, the company had yet to announce where its studios would be located. The station put out its first test pattern on September 23 and intended to be on air in time for the 1954 World Series, but officials could not establish a link between the studio and transmitter site to air the games, leaving Sioux City's other TV station—KVTV (channel 9)—to air the Series. In order to get the signal past a tree that blocked the way, the height of the microwave antenna had to be raised twice. KTIV went on the air on October 10, 1954, with programming from NBC, ABC, and the DuMont Television Network; it had no local programming, as its studios at 10th and Grandview streets had not been completed. Shortly after signing on the air, KSCJ exercised the option to buy half of KTIV, which the FCC approved in March 1955. After the change in ownership, the station increased its effective radiated power to 100,000 watts, the maximum allowed on channel 4, improving reception in rural areas beyond Sioux City; the FCC granted this on May 13, 1955, and the increase took effect five days later. The DuMont network disappeared in September 1955; the station also briefly affiliated with the NTA Film Network, which began in 1956.
In 1961, KTIV hired Tom Brokaw, a native of Yankton, South Dakota. Brokaw earned $75 a week (equivalent to $783 in 2024) to be a staff announcer and part-time weatherman and newscaster. Brokaw worked at the station while enrolled at the University of South Dakota. From KTIV, Brokaw went on to jobs in Omaha and Atlanta before joining KNBC in Los Angeles in 1966, the first in a series of posts at NBC before later anchoring the NBC Nightly News.
Perkins Bros. acquired the remainder of the company from the former KCOM group in 1965, spending $2.2 million. Prior to then, Perkins Bros. had been a silent partner, and management duties belonged to Dietrich Dirks, who had founded KCOM. That December, after seven years of joint work and the withdrawal of an objection by KQTV in Fort Dodge, KTIV moved to a new tower near Hinton, Iowa, that it co-owned with KVTV. KTIV then donated its previous 700 feet (210 m) tower to South Dakota Educational Television, which reassembled the mast near Beresford. The station continued to split ABC programs with KVTV until 1967, when KVTV became KCAU-TV and a full-time ABC affiliate, while new station KMEG acquired the CBS affiliation.
When I started here [in 1976], we were an embarrassment. We used to be located behind the cathedral on 10th Street, we had a pool hall over us, no money and only one news guy.
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