KSTU (channel 13) 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 ...
in
Salt Lake City, Utah
Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the Capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Utah, most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the county seat, seat of Salt Lake County, Utah, Sal ...
, United States, affiliated with the
Fox
Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush'').
Twelve sp ...
network. It is owned by the
E. W. Scripps Company
The E. W. Scripps Company is an American broadcasting company founded in 1878 as a chain of daily newspapers by Edward Willis "E. W." Scripps and his sister, Ellen Browning Scripps. It was also formerly a media conglomerate. The company is he ...
alongside
Provo-licensed
Ion Television
Ion Television is an American broadcast television network owned by the Katz Broadcasting subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company. The network first began broadcasting on August 31, 1998, as Pax TV, focusing primarily on family-oriented enter ...
owned-and-operated station
In the broadcasting industry, an owned-and-operated station (frequently abbreviated as an O&O) usually refers to a television or radio station owned by the network with which it is associated. This distinguishes such a station from an affiliate ...
KUPX-TV
KUPX-TV (channel 16) is a television station licensed to Provo, Utah, United States, broadcasting the Ion Television network to Salt Lake City and the state of Utah. It is owned and operated by the Ion Media subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Compa ...
(channel 16). KSTU's studios are located on West
Amelia Earhart
Amelia Mary Earhart ( , born July 24, 1897; disappeared July 2, 1937; declared dead January 5, 1939) was an American aviation pioneer and writer. Earhart was the first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. She set many oth ...
Drive in the northwestern section of Salt Lake City, and its transmitter is located on
Farnsworth Peak
Farnsworth Peak is a peak located on the northern end of the Oquirrh Mountain range, approximately south west of Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. The mountain is named for Philo Farnsworth, the inventor of the first completely electronic te ...
in the
Oquirrh Mountains
The Oquirrh Mountains is a mountain range that runs north-south for approximately 30 miles (50 km) to form the west side of Utah's Salt Lake Valley, separating it from Tooele Valley. The range runs from northwestern Utah County–centr ...
, southwest of Salt Lake City. More than 80 dependent
translators
Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''transla ...
carry its signal throughout Utah and portions of neighboring states.
KSTU went on the air in 1978 as the first modern
independent station
An independent station is an independent radio or terrestrial television station which is independent in some way from broadcast networks. The definition of "independence" varies from country to country, reflecting governmental regulations, market ...
in Salt Lake City. Broadcasting on channel 20, it was also the first commercial
UHF
Ultra high frequency (UHF) is the ITU designation for radio frequencies in the range between 300 megahertz (MHz) and 3 gigahertz (GHz), also known as the decimetre band as the wavelengths range from one meter to one tenth of a meter (on ...
outlet in the state. It was built by and named for
Springfield Television
Springfield Television Corporation was a group owner of television stations based in Springfield, Massachusetts. The company was founded by William Lowell Putnam III, who launched the company's first television station, WWLP, on March 17, 1953. (Pu ...
, the Massachusetts-based firm that owned it. KSTU was sold to Adams Communications in 1984 and affiliated with Fox at its launch in 1986.
While KSTU was starting on channel 20, a decade-long proceeding began to assign
VHF
Very high frequency (VHF) is the ITU designation for the range of radio frequency electromagnetic waves (radio waves) from 30 to 300 megahertz (MHz), with corresponding wavelengths of ten meters to one meter.
Frequencies immediately below VHF ...
channel 13 to Salt Lake City, which was made available in 1980. Eight applicants submitted bids; Mountain West Television, a consortium of mostly local partners, emerged with the construction permit after buying out its competitors' interests. In what the partners later described as coerced action coordinated by their legal counsel and financial backers, the company bought KSTU instead of building and staffing its own station. As a result, KSTU and its programming moved to channel 13 in November 1987.
Between 1989 and 2007, KSTU was
owned and operated
In the broadcasting industry, an owned-and-operated station (frequently abbreviated as an O&O) usually refers to a television or radio station owned by the network with which it is associated. This distinguishes such a station from an affiliate ...
by Fox. During this time, in 1991, the station began producing local newscasts, which subsequent owners would build on to give the station a large emphasis on news. After Fox spun off its smaller owned-and-operated stations in 2007, KSTU has been owned in succession by
Local TV LLC
Local TV LLC was a television broadcasting company owned by Oak Hill Capital Partners which operated 20 television stations in the United States. The group was formed in 2006 by the acquisition of nine television stations owned by The New York T ...
,
Tribune Media
Tribune Media Company, also known as Tribune Company, was an American multimedia conglomerate headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.
Through Tribune Broadcasting, Tribune Media was one of the largest television broadcasting companies, owning 39 ...
, and Scripps.
History
The channel 20 years
Channel 20 was allocated to Salt Lake City in 1952,
but there was no interest in the channel until a 1967 application was made by the Great Desert Broadcasting Company, which was never granted.
In September 1977,
-based
Springfield Television
Springfield Television Corporation was a group owner of television stations based in Springfield, Massachusetts. The company was founded by William Lowell Putnam III, who launched the company's first television station, WWLP, on March 17, 1953. (Pu ...
, whose other holdings were network-affiliated TV stations in
Springfield, Massachusetts
Springfield is a city in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, United States, and the seat of Hampden County. Springfield sits on the eastern bank of the Connecticut River near its confluence with three rivers: the western Westfield River, the ...
, and
Dayton, Ohio
Dayton () is the sixth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County. A small part of the city extends into Greene County. The 2020 U.S. census estimate put the city population at 137,644, while Greater Day ...
, applied to the
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdiction ...
(FCC) for channel 20, which would become the first commercial UHF station in the state and its only independent.
There had been two attempts to operate independent stations on the VHF band in the late 1950s and early 1960s. KLOR-TV signed on in 1958 from
Provo. However, poor transmitter site selection hindered reception for many viewers in the Wasatch Front whose antennas were aimed at the Oquirrh Mountains. It signed off in 1960, having been placed in bankruptcy,
and the license was sold to
Brigham Young University
Brigham Young University (BYU, sometimes referred to colloquially as The Y) is a private research university in Provo, Utah. It was founded in 1875 by religious leader Brigham Young and is sponsored by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day ...
for reactivation as
KBYU-TV
KBYU-TV (channel 11) is a non-commercial educational independent television station licensed to Provo, Utah, United States, serving Salt Lake City and the state of Utah. The station is owned by Brigham Young University (BYU), an arm of the Church ...
.
At the other end of the
Wasatch Front
The Wasatch Front is a metropolitan region in the north-central part of the U.S. state of Utah. It consists of a chain of contiguous cities and towns stretched along the Wasatch Range from approximately Provo in the south to Logan in the north ...
, in
Ogden, KVOG-TV began on channel 9 in 1960 but was sold to the Ogden city school board in 1962 and converted to educational use as
KOET, which ceased broadcasting in 1973.
During KOET's life, the FCC blocked an attempt by the school board to sell the station back to a buyer to be reverted to commercial use because of the effects such a reclassification would have on the development of UHF, then an agency priority, and on educational broadcasting in northern Utah.
Nor was channel 20 to be the first UHF station in the state: also in Ogden and also having closed by 1977 was
KWCS-TV
KWCS-TV, UHF analog channel 18, was a non-commercial educational television station licensed to Ogden, Utah, United States, which broadcast from 1960 until the early 1970s. Owned by Weber County Schools, the station broadcast instructional pro ...
(channel 18), owned by the Weber County school system.
The Springfield Television application came at a time when the Salt Lake market appeared "ripe" for a fourth station. By this time, two other events were occurring: another attempt was being made to restore channel 9 at Ogden to commercial status, and the FCC was also considering adding channel 13 to Salt Lake City.
In March 1978, the FCC granted a construction permit to Springfield Television.
Office space in the Salt Lake International Center, west of the airport, was constructed,
KSTU began broadcasting on October 24, 1978,
with a programming lineup typical of independent stations
and broadcasting from a transmitter site leased from
KSL-TV
KSL-TV (channel 5) is a television station in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States, affiliated with NBC. It is the flagship television property of locally based Bonneville International, the for-profit broadcasting arm of the Church of Jesus Chr ...
in the Oquirrh Mountains.
As the first UHF station in Utah in five years and first-ever full-market UHF outlet, station promotions prior to the launch explained to viewers how to tune in: "Ever wonder what that other dial is for? It's for 'U'!"
Nearly immediately, Springfield Television also began building translators of its own in order to match the total coverage area of the existing local stations.
The first KSTU-owned translator, on Levan Peak serving
Aurora
An aurora (plural: auroras or aurorae), also commonly known as the polar lights, is a natural light display in Earth's sky, predominantly seen in high-latitude regions (around the Arctic and Antarctic). Auroras display dynamic patterns of bri ...
, went into service in September 1979.
Even though
Washington County rejected KSTU's initial proposal when the station did not offer funding to connect KSTU into the county translator network,
new translators continued to come into service for several years in areas such as
Orangeville,
Cedar City
Cedar City is the largest city in Iron County, Utah, United States. It is located south of Salt Lake City, and north of Las Vegas on Interstate 15. It is the home of Southern Utah University, the Utah Shakespeare Festival, the Utah Summer Gam ...
,
and
Vernal
Vernal, the county seat and largest city in Uintah County is in northeastern Utah, approximately east of Salt Lake City and west of the Colorado border. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 9,089. The population has since grown to ...
.
Springfield Television reached an agreement to sell its three stations to Adams Communications in 1983 for $47.3 million.
The Adams offer met the conditions for Springfield to sell: the stations were sold together, the current management was retained, and the price was agreeable. The deal was closed in 1984.
On October 9, 1986, the station became a charter affiliate of the new Fox network, though Fox's limited output continued to make the station generally an independent in programming philosophy.
Channel 13 drops in
When the FCC allocated television channels, the station spacing guidelines meant that inserting channel 13 in Salt Lake City was not possible. In 1968, the FCC denied a petition by Salt Lake radio station KLUB to add channel 13 to Salt Lake City, which would have required changes in unused VHF assignments in
Richfield, Vernal, and
Rock Springs, Wyoming
Rock Springs is a city in Sweetwater County, Wyoming, United States. The population was 23,036 at the 2010 census, making it the fifth most populated city in the state of Wyoming, and the most populous city in Sweetwater County. Rock Springs is ...
. That petition was opposed by Great Desert, which at the time was seeking channel 20; the Salt Lake VHF stations; and educational television interests in Utah, including KWCS-TV, who noted the intensive use of channel 13 by translators.
The concept of VHF drop-ins—changes to station spacing that permitted the insertion of new VHF channel allocations in cities across the United States—continued to be of interest, particularly because, in other cities, there were not enough VHF television stations for all three major networks. In 1977, the FCC initially approved four drop-ins—including channel 13 for Salt Lake—having whittled down the number of proposed new channels in the preceding years. Its studies found that Salt Lake could support not one but two independent VHF outlets. Springfield Television, then still applying for a permit, asked for a chance to establish itself in the market before a VHF station was dropped in; the group contended that a VHF station would not mean automatic failure for a new UHF. The FCC reaffirmed the decision on a 4–3 vote in 1980.
The approval came even though KSTU and KSL-TV expressed renewed concern over a high-power channel 13 in Salt Lake City causing problems for the translator system.
While KSTU was busy building translators to extend channel 20's reach, interested parties were busy filing applications for channel 13. In December 1980, the first application was received from Utah Television Associates, whose principals included Salt Lake businessman Richard S. McKnight. David and Deanna Williams, owners of a paging service and an AM station in
Bountiful, submitted a bid on March 10, 1981, under the name Intermountain Broadcasting. By May, when the commission set a deadline to receive other applications, the field had grown to eight with six further bidders:
* American Television of Utah, a subsidiary of Salt Lake City-based
American Stores Company
American Stores Company was an American public corporation and a holding company which ran chains of supermarkets and drugstores in the United States from 1917 through 1998. The company was incorporated in 1917 when The Acme Tea Company merge ...
, which had also applied for channel 14;
* West Valley City Television Associates Limited Partnership, led by Salt Lake advertising and real estate figures;
* Mountain West Television Company, in which the largest shareholders were
KCPX radio news director Joseph C. Lee and Salt Lake City land developer Sidney Foulger;
* Rocky Mountain Broadcasting, owned by real estate investor John Price;
* Salt Lake City Family TV, consisting primarily of Pennsylvania and Tennessee interests;
* and Salt Lake City Utah T.V., a company of
Malcolm Glazer
Malcolm Irving Glazer (August 15, 1928 – May 28, 2014) was an American businessman and sports team owner. He was the president and chief executive officer of First Allied Corporation, a holding company for his varied business interests, ...
, who owned network-affiliated stations in three smaller markets.
This made Salt Lake City the first of the four drop-ins to attract more than one application. By 1984, however, there were multiple applications in all four cities, and Salt Lake was the last of the four to receive a designation for
comparative hearing
The comparative hearing process was used by the United States Federal Radio Commission from 1927 to 1934 and its successor, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), from 1934 to 1994 for the evaluation of mutually exclusive applications for bro ...
among the applicants, on February 10, 1984.
By that time, two of the eight applicants had dropped out. American Television had already won the channel 14 construction permit (which eventually materialized as
KXIV in 1989), and Rocky Mountain Broadcasting was no longer in contention by the time the hearing designation order was issued.
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. ALJs can administer oaths, take testimony, rule on questions of evid ...
Edward Kuhlmann issued an initial decision in May 1985 that looked toward granting Salt Lake City Family TV the permit on account of its superior proposal for the integration of ownership and management. With Glazer's application having been abandoned, the four other contestants objected to the commission, whose review board slated oral argument in the case. Mountain West Television retained the advice of Wiley Rein, a Washington, D.C., law firm.
KSTU moves to channel 13; sale to Fox
Wiley Rein attracted two other clients which had interest in channel 13. One was Northstar Communications, a Washington company financially backed by insurance company
Allstate
The Allstate Corporation is an American insurance company, headquartered in Northfield Township, Illinois, near Northbrook since 1967. Founded in 1931 as part of Sears, Roebuck and Co., it was spun off in 1993 but still partially owned by S ...
. The Mountain West principals, with Northstar, formed MWT Limited Partnership; Northstar insisted that Mountain West buy out the other applicants, leading to it obtaining the channel 13 permit. MWT then signed an agreement to purchase all of the assets of KSTU on channel 20 for $30 million in June 1987,
with MWT to operate channel 20 until channel 13 was ready to be activated and then surrender the channel 20 license. The Mountain West partners would later claim that Adams had also been a client of Wiley Rein and that Northstar had refused to provide them financing to outfit their own station, essentially forcing the company to buy KSTU for relocation. To pay for the transaction, Mountain West borrowed $22.5 million and paid $10 million in a
non-compete agreement
In contract law, a non-compete clause (often NCC), restrictive covenant, or covenant not to compete (CNC), is a clause under which one party (usually an employee) agrees not to enter into or start a similar profession or trade in competition again ...
with Adams.
On November 2, 1987, with the new transmitter facility complete, KSTU moved from channel 20 to channel 13.
It also moved to channel 13 on local cable systems.
The obligations incurred by the Mountain West partners were financially debilitating. In August 1989, Mountain West and Farragut Communications—part of the Northstar group—put KSTU on the market. Multiple bidders, including
Meredith Broadcasting, inspected the station, but one attracted surprise: the Fox network itself. Fox had just sold
WFXT
WFXT (channel 25) is a television station in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, affiliated with the Fox network and owned by Cox Media Group. Its studios are located on Fox Drive (near the Boston-Providence Turnpike) in Dedham, and its t ...
in Boston, meaning it had the ability to buy another station. The $41 million deal resulted in the first network-owned TV station in Utah.
The sale's outcome led to long-running litigation. Mountain West's partners claimed that Northstar capitalized on their weakened position to squeeze them out of profits on the sale to Fox. In 1990, they sued Wiley Rein for $20 million, which they calculated as the financial value if Northstar had financed their venture as a competing independent station. The case became one of the longest civil trials in Utah history; while a trial court initially dismissed the case, the
Utah Court of Appeals
The Utah Court of Appeals is the intermediate-level appellate court for the state of Utah. It began operations in 1987.
Jurisdiction
The court's jurisdiction is complementary to that of the Utah Supreme Court. The Court of Appeals hears all app ...
ordered a trial be held in 1996. After a three-month trial in which 1,000 exhibits were presented and the case record filled 31 volumes, a jury awarded the partners a net total of $18 million in December 1998, but the
Utah Supreme Court
The Utah Supreme Court is the supreme court of the state of Utah, United States. It has final authority of interpretation of the Utah Constitution. The Utah Supreme Court is composed of five members: a chief justice, an associate chief justice, ...
discarded the monetary award in 2001 and ordered another trial be held, finding that the trial judge had improperly instructed jurors.
Under MWT, KSTU replaced KSL-TV as the exclusive broadcast television home of
Utah Jazz
The Utah Jazz are an American professional basketball team based in Salt Lake City. The Jazz compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Western Conference (NBA), Western Conference, Northwest Division (NBA), ...
basketball in 1988, having been carrying some Jazz games over the preceding four seasons.
However, KSTU indicated that it would not renew the deal after 1993, due to Fox initiating programming seven nights a week. This resulted in KXIV being purchased by Jazz owner
Larry H. Miller and becoming
KJZZ-TV
KJZZ-TV (channel 14) is an independent television station in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group alongside CBS affiliate KUTV (channel 2) and MyNetworkTV affiliate KMYU (channel 12) in St. George. The st ...
.
Under Fox, KSTU began airing local news programming in December 1991, progressively expanding its offerings through the next 15 years. At one time in the early 1990s,
Elisabeth Murdoch,
Rupert Murdoch
Keith Rupert Murdoch ( ; born 11 March 1931) is an Australian-born American business magnate. Through his company News Corp, he is the owner of hundreds of local, national, and international publishing outlets around the world, including ...
's daughter, served as programming manager.
In 2000, when Fox Television Stations acquired the
Chris-Craft Industries
Chris-Craft Industries, Inc., formerly National Automotive Fibers, Inc., was a publicly held American corporation that was traded on the New York and Pacific Stock Exchanges. In 1962, the company adopted the name of one of its acquisitions, Chris ...
station group, it traded away ABC affiliate
KTVX
KTVX (channel 4) is a television station in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States, affiliated with ABC. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group alongside Ogden-licensed CW owned-and-operated station KUCW (channel 30). Both stations share studios o ...
to keep KSTU.
Local TV and Tribune ownership
On June 13, 2007, Fox announced the sale of KSTU and seven other owned-and-operated stations to
Local TV LLC
Local TV LLC was a television broadcasting company owned by Oak Hill Capital Partners which operated 20 television stations in the United States. The group was formed in 2006 by the acquisition of nine television stations owned by The New York T ...
, a subsidiary of
Oak Hill Capital Partners
Oak Hill Capital Partners is a private equity firm headquartered in New York City, with more than $19 billion of committed capital from entrepreneurs, endowments, foundations, corporations, pension funds and global financial institutions. Robe ...
. The sale was finalized on July 14, 2008. Under Local TV LLC, KSTU bought the adjacent building to double its studio footprint to , part of a construction project that also outfitted the station for high-definition news production.
On July 1, 2013, the
Tribune Company
Tribune Media Company, also known as Tribune Company, was an American multimedia conglomerate headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.
Through Tribune Broadcasting, Tribune Media was one of the largest television broadcasting companies, owning 39 ...
acquired Local TV for $2.75 billion;
the sale was completed on December 27. That year, KSTU ranked third in revenue among the four major Salt Lake TV stations, far behind KSL and KUTV but well ahead of KTVX.
Sinclair and Fox purchase attempt; sale to Scripps
Sinclair Broadcast Group
Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. (SBG) is a publicly traded American telecommunications conglomerate that is controlled by the descendants of company founder Julian Sinclair Smith. Headquartered in the Baltimore suburb of Cockeysville, Maryland, t ...
entered into an agreement to acquire Tribune Media on May 8, 2017, for $3.9 billion plus the assumption of $2.7 billion in Tribune-held debt. As Sinclair already owned KUTV,
KJZZ-TV
KJZZ-TV (channel 14) is an independent television station in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group alongside CBS affiliate KUTV (channel 2) and MyNetworkTV affiliate KMYU (channel 12) in St. George. The st ...
, and
KMYU
KMYU (channel 12) is a television station licensed to St. George, Utah, United States, serving as the MyNetworkTV affiliate for the state of Utah. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group alongside Salt Lake City–based CBS affiliate KUTV (chann ...
in the market, the company offered to sell KSTU back to Fox Television Stations as part of a $910 million deal;
Howard Stirk Holdings
Armstrong Williams (born February 5, 1962) is an American political commentator, entrepreneur, author, and talk show host. Williams writes a nationally syndicated conservative newspaper column, has hosted a daily radio show, and hosts a nationa ...
concurrently agreed to purchase KMYU.
The merger was terminated on August 9, 2018 by Tribune Media, nullifying both transactions; this followed a public rejection of the deal by FCC chairman
Ajit Pai
Ajit Varadaraj Pai (; born January 10, 1973) is an American lawyer who served as chairman of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from 2017 to 2021. He has been a partner at the private-equity firm Searchlight Capital since April 20 ...
and vote by the commission to designate it for hearing.
Following the collapse of the Sinclair merger,
Nexstar Media Group
Nexstar Media Group, Inc. is an American publicly traded media company with headquarter offices in Irving, Texas; Midtown Manhattan; and Chicago, Illinois. The company is the largest television station owner in the United States, owning 197 te ...
announced its intention to purchase Tribune Media on December 3, 2018, for $6.4 billion in cash and debt. Due to Nexstar owning KTVX and
KUCW
KUCW (channel 30) is a television station licensed to Ogden, Utah, United States, broadcasting the The CW, CW network to Salt Lake City and the state of Utah. It is owned-and-operated station, owned and operated by network majority owner Nexstar ...
, the
E. W. Scripps Company
The E. W. Scripps Company is an American broadcasting company founded in 1878 as a chain of daily newspapers by Edward Willis "E. W." Scripps and his sister, Ellen Browning Scripps. It was also formerly a media conglomerate. The company is he ...
agreed to purchase KSTU as part of $1.32 billion in overall divestments by Nexstar in order to meet regulatory approval. The sale was completed on September 19, 2019.
News operation
![Fox 13 van (31812892707)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c1/Fox_13_van_%2831812892707%29.jpg)
In 1984, when the station was an independent owned by Adams, KSTU general manager Vickie Street told ''
Electronic Media
Electronic media are media that use electronics or electromechanical means for the audience to access the content. This is in contrast to static media (mainly print media), which today are most often created digitally, but do not require el ...
'' that the station could not hope to compete with the well-established VHF stations in news, commenting, "We have two giants here. Their news budget is bigger than my entire operations budget. It would be David versus Goliath." However, the acquisition by Fox made KSTU one of just two stations owned by the company not to produce local news programming (the other was
KDAF
KDAF (channel 33) is a television station licensed to Dallas, Texas, United States, serving the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex with programming from The CW. It is owned and operated by network majority owner Nexstar Media Group (based in nearb ...
in
Dallas
Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...
). As part of a corporate push to bring news to the remaining stations, in 1991, KSTU began building out a news department.
Nick Clooney
Nicholas Joseph Clooney (born January 13, 1934) is an American journalist, anchorman, and television host. He is the brother of singer Rosemary Clooney and the father of actor George Clooney.
Early life
Clooney was born in Maysville, Kentucky, t ...
, a veteran television anchor and the father of actor
George Clooney
George Timothy Clooney (born May 6, 1961) is an American actor and filmmaker. He is the recipient of List of awards and nominations received by George Clooney, numerous accolades, including a British Academy Film Awards, British Academy Film A ...
, was the original news anchor.
In addition to serving the Salt Lake market, the KSTU newscast was intended as a prototype for the development of similar newsrooms at mid-market Fox affiliates, and it also functioned as a test bed for
Sony
, commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...
and Fox to test a new video camera system based on the
Hi8
The 8mm video format refers informally to three related videocassette formats. These are the original Video8 (analog recording) format and its improved successor Hi8 (analog video and analog audio but with provision for digital audio), as well as ...
format.
The ''Fox News at Nine'' debuted on December 31, 1991.
It was not the first 9 p.m. newscast in modern Utah television, as KXIV briefly aired a KSL-TV-produced newscast between October 1991 and September 1992. Clooney was dismissed in 1993 as part of a change in direction for the local newscast.
These changes were driven by Lisa Gregorisch-Dempsey—later the producer of syndicated newsmagazine ''
Extra
Extra or Xtra may refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media Film
* ''The Extra'' (1962 film), a Mexican film
* ''The Extra'' (2005 film), an Australian film
Literature
* ''Extra'' (newspaper), a Brazilian newspaper
* ''Extra!'', an American me ...
''—who was placed at KSTU by Murdoch and increased the pace of the format.
Gregorisch-Dempsey then left Salt Lake in 1994 to start a newsroom at KDAF in Dallas, which was eventually scrapped when Fox announced its plans to sell the station and move its affiliation.
The half-hour newscast became an hour-long show in 1994.
The mid-1990s saw the start of KSTU's expansion beyond prime time news coverage with the addition of noon and morning newscasts in 1996.
While the noon newscast initially rated poorly, the morning news—now known as ''Good Day Utah''—was expanded to a second hour the next year.
With expansions of newscasts in a variety of time slots, KSTU was producing eight hours of news a day by 2012, ten hours by 2015, and hours—part of hours of news output a week—in 2016.
Notable former on-air staff
*
Brad Giffen
Brad Giffen is a retired Canadian news anchor who has worked on television in both Canada and the United States.
Over his broadcasting career he has also worked as a radio personality, disc jockey, VJ, television reporter, television producer a ...
– anchor (later at
CFTO-DT
CFTO-DT (channel 9) is a television station in Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, serving as the Flagship (broadcasting), flagship station of the CTV Television Network. It is owned-and-operated station, owned and operated by network parent Bell ...
and
CTV News Channel in
Toronto
Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...
; now a full-time voice-over artist)
Technical information
Subchannels
The station's digital signal is
multiplexed
In telecommunications and computer networking, multiplexing (sometimes contracted to muxing) is a method by which multiple analog or digital signals are combined into one signal over a shared medium. The aim is to share a scarce resource - a ...
:
Analog-to-digital conversion
KSTU shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 13, on June 12, 2009, as part of the
federally mandated transition from analog to digital television.
The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition
UHF
Ultra high frequency (UHF) is the ITU designation for radio frequencies in the range between 300 megahertz (MHz) and 3 gigahertz (GHz), also known as the decimetre band as the wavelengths range from one meter to one tenth of a meter (on ...
channel 28, using
virtual channel
In most telecommunications organizations, a virtual channel is a method of remapping the ''program number'' as used in H.222 Program Association Tables and Program Mapping Tables to a channel number that can be entered via digits on a receiver's ...
13.
Translators
More than 80 retransmitters broadcast KSTU's signal throughout Utah and into portions of neighboring states.
*
Antimony
Antimony is a chemical element with the symbol Sb (from la, stibium) and atomic number 51. A lustrous gray metalloid, it is found in nature mainly as the sulfide mineral stibnite (Sb2S3). Antimony compounds have been known since ancient time ...
: K30OS-D
*
Beaver, Utah
Beaver is a city in, and county seat of, Beaver County in southwestern Utah, United States. The population was 3,112 at the 2010 census.
History
Indigenous peoples lived in this area for thousands of years, as shown by archeological evidence ...
: K13AAL-D
*
Beryl
Beryl ( ) is a mineral composed of beryllium aluminium silicate with the chemical formula Be3Al2Si6O18. Well-known varieties of beryl include emerald and aquamarine. Naturally occurring, hexagonal crystals of beryl can be up to several mete ...
,
Modena
Modena (, , ; egl, label=Emilian language#Dialects, Modenese, Mòdna ; ett, Mutna; la, Mutina) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) on the south side of the Po Valley, in the Province of Modena in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern I ...
,
Newcastle Newcastle usually refers to:
*Newcastle upon Tyne, a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England
*Newcastle-under-Lyme, a town in Staffordshire, England
*Newcastle, New South Wales, a metropolitan area in Australia, named after Newcastle ...
: K25GY-D
*
Bicknell, etc.: K20MO-D
*
Blanding,
Monticello
Monticello ( ) was the primary plantation of Founding Father Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, who began designing Monticello after inheriting land from his father at age 26. Located just outside Charlottesville, V ...
: K36AK-D
*
Bluff
Bluff or The Bluff may refer to:
Places Australia
* Bluff, Queensland, Australia, a town
* The Bluff, Queensland (Ipswich), a rural locality in the city of Ipswich
* The Bluff, Queensland (Toowoomba Region), a rural locality
* Bluff River (New So ...
& Area: K15HN-D
*
Boulder
In geology, a boulder (or rarely bowlder) is a rock fragment with size greater than in diameter. Smaller pieces are called cobbles and pebbles. While a boulder may be small enough to move or roll manually, others are extremely massive.
In c ...
: K30OV-D
*
Caineville
Caineville is an unincorporated community in central Wayne County, Utah, United States.
Description
The community is located east of Capitol Reef National Park and west of Hanksville, along the Fremont River and Utah State Route 24. The set ...
: K31KN-D
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Cedar Canyon: K04RW-D
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Cedar City
Cedar City is the largest city in Iron County, Utah, United States. It is located south of Salt Lake City, and north of Las Vegas on Interstate 15. It is the home of Southern Utah University, the Utah Shakespeare Festival, the Utah Summer Gam ...
: K10PN-D
*
Circleville, etc.: K18MI-D
*
Clear Creek: K28KP-D
*
Coalville
Coalville is an industrial town in the district of North West Leicestershire, Leicestershire in the East Midlands of England, with a population at the 2011 census of 34,575. It lies on the A511 trunk road between Leicester and Burton upon Tr ...
, etc.: K30KG-D
*
Delta
Delta commonly refers to:
* Delta (letter) (Δ or δ), a letter of the Greek alphabet
* River delta, at a river mouth
* D (NATO phonetic alphabet: "Delta")
* Delta Air Lines, US
* Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 that causes COVID-19
Delta may also re ...
,
Oak City: K30PG-D
*
Duchesne Duchesne is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
* Joseph Duchesne (c. 1544–1609), French physician and chemist. Physician-in-ordinary to King Henry IV
* André Duchesne (1584–1640), French historian
* François Duchesne (1616 ...
, etc.: K36IM-D
* East
Carbon County: K18MY-D
* East
Price
A price is the (usually not negative) quantity of payment or compensation given by one party to another in return for goods or services. In some situations, the price of production has a different name. If the product is a "good" in the c ...
: K13AAP-D
*
Emery: K28PI-D
*
Escalante
Escalante may refer to:
People
*Amat Escalante (born 1979), Mexican filmmaker
*Bernardino de Escalante (born 1537), 16th-century Spanish writer, author of one of the first European books on China
*Enrique Escalante (born 1984), Puerto Rican volley ...
: K29HN-D
*
Ferron
Ferron (born Deborah Foisy on 1 June 1952) is a Canadian-born singer-songwriter and poet. In addition to gaining fame as one of Canada's most respected songwriters, Ferron, who is openly lesbian, became one of the earliest and most influential ...
: K30PP-D
*
Fillmore, etc.: K29MN-D
*
Fishlake Resort: K29JQ-D
*
Fountain Green: K29LZ-D
*
Fremont: K35NE-D
*
Fruitland: K19MH-D
*
Garfield
''Garfield'' is an American comic strip created by Jim Davis. Originally published locally as ''Jon'' in 1976, then in nationwide syndication from 1978 as ''Garfield'', it chronicles the life of the title character Garfield the cat, his human ...
, etc.: K21MX-D
*
Garrison
A garrison (from the French ''garnison'', itself from the verb ''garnir'', "to equip") is any body of troops stationed in a particular location, originally to guard it. The term now often applies to certain facilities that constitute a mil ...
, etc.: K34PA-D
*
Green River Green River may refer to:
Rivers
Canada
* Green River (British Columbia), a tributary of the Lillooet River
*Green River, a tributary of the Saint John River, also known by its French name of Rivière Verte
*Green River (Ontario), a tributary of ...
: K21JV-D, K30PN-D (Cedar Mountain)
*
Hanksville: K34NT-D
*
Hatch: K14QX-D
*
Heber City: K29MC-D
*
Helper: K12XI-D
*
Henefer, etc.: K33LV-D
*
Henriville: K20MY-D
*
Huntington: K30PS-D
*
Huntsville
Huntsville is a city in Madison County, Limestone County, and Morgan County, Alabama, United States. It is the county seat of Madison County. Located in the Appalachian region of northern Alabama, Huntsville is the most populous city in th ...
,
Liberty
Liberty is the ability to do as one pleases, or a right or immunity enjoyed by prescription or by grant (i.e. privilege). It is a synonym for the word freedom.
In modern politics, liberty is understood as the state of being free within society fr ...
: K28JK-D
*
Kanab
Kanab ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Kane County, Utah, Kane County, Utah, United States.[Find a Co ...]
: K28OS-D
*
Kanarraville, etc.: K36PA-D
*
Koosharem: K20MV-D
*
Laketown, etc.: K48GV-D
*
Leamington: K15LL-D
*
Logan
Logan may refer to:
Places
* Mount Logan (disambiguation)
Australia
* Logan (Queensland electoral district), an electoral district in the Queensland Legislative Assembly
* Logan, Victoria, small locality near St. Arnaud
* Logan City, local gover ...
: K28OS-D
*
Manila
Manila ( , ; fil, Maynila, ), officially the City of Manila ( fil, Lungsod ng Maynila, ), is the capital of the Philippines, and its second-most populous city. It is highly urbanized and, as of 2019, was the world's most densely populate ...
, etc.: K33PQ-D
*
Manti,
Ephraim
Ephraim (; he, ''ʾEp̄rayīm'', in pausa: ''ʾEp̄rāyīm'') was, according to the Book of Genesis, the second son of Joseph ben Jacob and Asenath. Asenath was an Ancient Egyptian woman whom Pharaoh gave to Joseph as wife, and the daughte ...
: K29EM-D
*
Marysvale: K13AAI-D
*
Mayfield: K15CD-D
*
Mexican Hat: K18IB-D
*
Milford Milford may refer to:
Place names Canada
* Milford (Annapolis), Nova Scotia
* Milford (Halifax), Nova Scotia
* Milford, Ontario
England
* Milford, Derbyshire
* Milford, Devon, a place in Devon
* Milford on Sea, Hampshire
* Milford, Shro ...
, etc.: K15FQ-D
*
Montezuma Creek,
Aneth: K23JC-D
*
Morgan, etc.: K28JL-D
*
Mount Pleasant: K23NR-D
*
Myton: K22NE-D
*
Navajo Mountain
, photo = NavajoMtn (cropped).jpg
, photo_caption = Navajo Mountain and Lake Powell, looking southeast from the Kaiparowits Plateau
, elevation_ft = 10348
, elevation_ref =
, prominence_ft = 4226
, prominence_ref =
, listing =
, locati ...
: K18HZ-D
*
Nephi: K22OO-D
*
Oljeto: K18IA-D
*
Orangeville: K21NP-D
*
Orderville: K16BT-D, K27KH-D (Alton)
*
Panguitch, etc.: K20MX-D
*
Park City
Park City may refer to: a city in Utah.
Places
* National Park City, London, England, UK; see parks and open spaces in London
in the United States
* Park City, Illinois
* Park City, Kansas
* Park City, Kentucky
* Park City, Montana
* Park City, ...
: K35OP-D
*
Peoa, etc.: K36PK-D
*
Randolph,
Woodruff: K30JG-D
*
Richfield, etc.: K20MS-D
*
Roosevelt
Roosevelt may refer to:
*Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919), 26th U.S. president
* Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945), 32nd U.S. president
Businesses and organisations
* Roosevelt Hotel (disambiguation)
* Roosevelt & Son, a merchant bank
* Rooseve ...
: K13AAN-D
* Rural
Garfield County: K28GM-D
* Rural
Juab, etc.: K13OG-D
* Rural
Juab County
Juab County ( ) is a county in western Utah, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the population was 10,246. Its county seat and largest city is Nephi.
Juab County is part of the Provo–Orem, Utah Metropolitan Statistical ...
: K14PA-D
* Rural
Sevier County: K20MW-D
*
Salina,
Redmond: K13AAH-D
*
Samak
fi, Työväenliikkeen pohjoismainen yhteistyökomitea da, Arbejderbevægelsens nordiske samarbejdskommitté no, Arbeiderbevegelsens nordiske samarbeidskomité
, logo = SAMAK logo.png
, colorcode =
, abbreviation = SAMAK ...
: K28JS-D
*
Santa Clara, etc.: KVBT-LD
*
Scofield: K29MT-D
*
Scipio: K15LK-D
*
St. George
Saint George (Greek: Γεώργιος (Geórgios), Latin: Georgius, Arabic: القديس جرجس; died 23 April 303), also George of Lydda, was a Christian who is venerated as a saint in Christianity. According to tradition he was a soldier ...
: KKRP-LD 21, K25PA-D
*
Summit County: K25OY-D
*
Tropic
The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the Equator. They are defined in latitude by the Tropic of Cancer in the Northern Hemisphere at N and the Tropic of Capricorn in
the Southern Hemisphere at S. The tropics are also referred to ...
,
Cannonville: K29GJ-D
*
Vernal
Vernal, the county seat and largest city in Uintah County is in northeastern Utah, approximately east of Salt Lake City and west of the Colorado border. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 9,089. The population has since grown to ...
, etc.: K35IQ-D
*
Wanship: K29HX-D
*
Wendover
Wendover is a market town and civil parish at the foot of the Chiltern Hills in Buckinghamshire, England. It is situated at the point where the main road across the Chilterns between London and Aylesbury intersects with the once important road a ...
: K16MN-D
*
Woodland
A woodland () is, in the broad sense, land covered with trees, or in a narrow sense, synonymous with wood (or in the U.S., the ''plurale tantum'' woods), a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade (see ...
,
Kamas Kamas may mean
* Kamas, Utah
* Kamas (raga), a ragam in Carnatic music
* KAMAS (program), an acronym for ''Knowledge and Mind Amplification System'', an outline processor
* Kamasins, a Samoyedic people
* Kamassian language, an extinct Samoyedi ...
: K13AAJ-D
*
Cortez, CO
Cortez () is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Home rule municipality, home rule municipality that is the county seat and the List of municipalities in Colorado, most populous municipality of Montezuma County, Colorado, Montezuma County, Color ...
: K23LH-D
*
Holbrook, ID: K33QF-D
*
Malad City, ID: K16MW-D
*
Mink Creek, ID: K07XM-D
*
Montpelier, ID: K34OH-D
*
Preston, ID: K19EW-D
*
Soda Springs, ID: K25OI-D
*
Big Piney, etc., WY: K24DA-D
Notes
References
External links
*
* – Antenna TV Salt Lake City
Details leading up to MWT Ltd being assigned the construction permit.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kstu
STU
Stu is a masculine given name or nickname, usually a shortened form (hypocorism) of Stuart or Stewart. It may refer to:
Stuart
* Stu Barnes (born 1970), Canadian retired National Hockey League player
* Stu Block (born 1977), Canadian singer-so ...
Fox network affiliates
Antenna TV affiliates
Court TV affiliates
Ion Mystery affiliates
Mass media in Salt Lake City
E. W. Scripps Company television stations
Television channels and stations established in 1978
1978 establishments in Utah
Former News Corporation subsidiaries