Nebraska Television Network


The Nebraska Television Network is the ABC affiliate for most of central and western Nebraska. It consists of two full-power stations: KHGI-TV in Kearney, with its transmitter near Lowell; and KWNB-TV in Hayes Center—as well as two low-power stations in McCook and North Platte. NTV is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, alongside Lincoln-licensed Fox affiliate KFXL-TV, and operates from studios on Nebraska Highway 44 east of Axtell, about south of Kearney, with a secondary studio and news bureau at the Conestoga Mall in Grand Island.
NTV serves North Platte as well as the western half of the Lincoln–Hastings–Kearney market, though it has never been the ABC affiliate of record for Lincoln. Historically, Lincoln viewers watched Omaha stations; in 1996, KLKN was launched as a Lincoln-based ABC affiliate. Though KLKN and NTV generally focus on separate areas, satellite television providers Dish Network and DirecTV provide both stations across the entire market.
The first station in the network went on the air as KHOL-TV in December 1953. Owned by a group of businessmen from Holdrege, it was a primary affiliate of CBS and the first station in Nebraska outside of Lincoln or Omaha. To bring television to southwestern Nebraska, local residents contributed money to construct channel 6 at Hayes Center, originally designated KHPL-TV, which began broadcasting in February 1956. The stations became primary ABC affiliates in 1961. In the 1960s, two additional transmitters were built: KHQL-TV at Albion and KHTL-TV in Superior. The network was sold to NTV Enterprises in 1974; the stations adopted their present call signs. In 1983, the Albion station was separated from the network as the short-lived independent station KBGT-TV "Big 8"; the translators in McCook and North Platte were constructed in the late 1980s.
In 1994, NTV began managing KTVG-TV in Grand Island, which became a Fox affiliate; KSNB-TV was switched from ABC to Fox in 1996. NTV's owner in the 1990s and 2000s, Pappas Telecasting, started Lincoln's channel 51 in 2006; that station and subchannels of most of the NTV stations became Fox affiliates in 2009. Sinclair acquired NTV at bankruptcy auction in 2015. The station produces news programs focusing on southwestern Nebraska and the Tri-Cities area.

History

Early years

On March 20, 1953, the Bi-States Company, a group of businessmen from Holdrege and Alma, applied to the Federal Communications Commission for permission to build channel 13 at Kearney. For several months, it appeared as though Bi-States would have to compete for the channel with the Central Nebraska Broadcasting Company, which owned Kearney radio station KGFW; however, when that company withdrew its bid in July, the FCC immediately granted a construction permit to Bi-States. The station, KHOL-TV, was built on a plot of land near Axtell; it signed for affiliation with CBS in September and the DuMont Television Network in October. Even though the station was licensed to Kearney, it was largely intended by its founding owners as a vehicle to promote Holdrege.
Construction was completed on December 24, 1953, when the transmitter was turned on and began broadcasting a test pattern. The next day, December 25, the first program was broadcast. In February 1954, 5,000 people turned out for an open house, cars lining the highway for miles with just as many having turned away due to long lines. In 1954, the station also added secondary affiliations with ABC and NBC; however, KHOL nearly lost CBS that same year before protests from viewers, who sent in tens of thousands of postcards, led the network to sign a two-year renewal of the station's affiliation. Channel 13 would lose NBC a year later in advance of the 1956 launch of KHAS-TV, an NBC affiliate; to allow KHOL-TV to carry the 1955 World Series, community members started a fund drive to cover the expenses of arranging long lines service from Omaha to Axtell.
In its early years, KHOL-TV featured extensive local programming; by July 1954, the station was producing 13 of its 24 weekday programs from the lone studio at the facility in Axtell, including a women's program, The Woman's Voice, and local news and sports coverage. Bob Stoltz, an early station employee, described the studio as a "cracker box" before it was tripled in size in 1955. Early popular shows included Saturday night studio wrestling and Friday night boxing; the wrestling program was discontinued after hostile combatants kicked a television monitor.
Bi-States applied in February 1955 to have channel 6 allotted at Hayes Center after local residents petitioned the station to extend its service area further west. The request was part of a plan by which residents in an 11-county area would contribute $245,000 for the establishment of the additional transmitter. In North Platte, radio station KODY held a nine-hour radiothon that raised more than $12,000 in donations to support the effort to bring a television signal to the region. Once the FCC assigned channel 6, Bi-States filed for and received the construction permit for KHPL-TV, which was built north of Hayes Center. Even though the local fundraising goal fell tens of thousands of dollars short, the additional transmitter went into program service on February 8, 1956. Other proposals—none of which materialized—would have seen Bi-States support the establishment of similar stations at Ainsworth, Alliance, and Sterling, Colorado.
Bi-States expanded into radio in June 1959 with the launch of KHOL-FM ; in 1961, the company also purchased KRNY. KRNY was sold to Radio Kearney in 1964; the following year, the same company purchased KHOL-FM.
On February 2, 1961, KHOL-TV and KHPL-TV dropped CBS to become full ABC affiliates, eight months before KGIN-TV signed on from Grand Island in October as a satellite of Lincoln's CBS affiliate, KOLN-TV. In 1962, the FCC permitted KHOL-TV to build a new tower near Lowell, which would be tall—the tallest structure in the state—and carry a maximum-power signal. Construction was completed in 1963.
The 1960s brought two more transmitters into the network. Bi-States petitioned the FCC in 1960 and 1961, respectively, to allot channel 4 to Superior, to the southeast, and channel 8 to Albion, a community to the northeast of the Tri-Cities. In November 1962, the FCC affirmed the assignment of both channels after educational television interests also sought channel 8. Formal applications were then made for Superior and Albion in November 1963, with construction permits issued in February 1964 for both stations. With the call sign KHQL-TV—matching KHOL-TV and its satellite KHPL-TV—the Albion station was constructed and began telecasting on December 3, 1964. KHTL-TV in Superior followed on October 1, 1965. The four stations began branding as the Nebraska Television Network.
In the late 1960s, KHOL-TV produced a local weekly variety show: The Bobby Mills Show, featuring the Bobby Mills Orchestra, similar to The Lawrence Welk Show. The program aired for 86 consecutive weeks from 1968 to 1970.

NTV

NTV Enterprises—a company owned by the Oldfather and Payne families of Kearney—acquired the NTV stations in 1974 for $1.9 million. On June 3, the new owners changed the call letters of all the stations: KHOL became KHGI-TV, KHPL became KWNB-TV, KHQL became KCNA-TV, and KHTL became KSNB-TV. The new call signs were chosen to reflect the areas served by each station; KHGI stands for "Kearney, Hastings, Grand Island", while KWNB refers to that station's service to western Nebraska.
After negotiations with Grit Publishing of Pennsylvania stalled, Joseph Amaturo bought the NTV stations in 1979 in an $8.5 million deal funded by the sale of KQTV in St. Joseph, Missouri. KCNA was split off from NTV on November 1, 1983, to become an independent station under the call letters KBGT-TV; Amaturo Group sold KHGI-TV, KWNB-TV, and KSNB-TV to Gordon Broadcasting for $10 million in 1985; the sale separated the NTV stations from the money-losing KBGT-TV, which was separately sold a year later to Citadel Communications and became KCAN, a satellite of Sioux City, Iowa's KCAU-TV. Gordon passed on buying Big 8 because it was unsure if cable systems in Lincoln would continue to carry the station.
While NTV had lost one of its four high-power stations with the failed Big 8, Gordon Broadcasting tried to extend and improve the network's reach in the late 1980s. In January 1987, NTV attempted to enter Lincoln when it announced its intent to acquire a channel 45 construction permit held by Native American Communications Corporation. The permit had been awarded in April 1984 but never built; however, the deal fell apart when the FCC refused to grant additional time for channel 45 to be constructed. Later that year, Gordon applied for four new low-power facilities: channel 13 at North Platte, channel 21 in McCook, channel 17 in Beatrice, and channel 18 in Lincoln. Lincoln was of particular importance because, by 1993, 85,100 households lived in the "Metro 1" portion of the Arbitron-defined area of dominant influence, comprising Lancaster County, compared to 44,600 households in the "Metro 2" area of Adams, Buffalo, and Hall counties. The North Platte translator entered into service on October 10, 1989.
Gordon Broadcasting planned to sell the NTV stations to Sterling Communications for $11 million in 1989. However, the Sterling sale was unable to be completed, and in May, ownership reverted to Joseph Amaturo under a court-appointed receivership. The next month, Chicago-based Heller Financial sued Gordon Broadcasting; Gordon had borrowed $7 million from Heller to purchase the stations and still owed the entire principal and $1.6 million in interest on the loan. Joseph Girard was appointed successor receiver in 1991. During this time, NTV was put on the market; a bid by Pappas Telecasting in 1990 received court approval, but the company failed to obtain financing, while television meteorologist John Coleman later sought to purchase the stations. Under Girard, who operated NTV through Girard Communications, KHGI-TV, KWNB-TV, and KSNB-TV were sold to Fant Broadcasting, owner of WNAL-TV in Gadsden, Alabama, for $2 million in 1993. The Fant purchase took a year to come together because the receivership status required the company to buy NTV's assets on an individual basis.