History
The station debuted on December 3, 1955 as KRBB. It was founded and owned by three men—Dr. Joe F. Rushton, W. C. Blewster, and William M. Bigley (hence the KRBB call letters)—under the company name South Arkansas TV Company. In 1957, Representative Oren Harris owned the station for one year with Rushston, Blewstar, and Bigley. On November 7, 1958, upon erecting a larger transmitter to better cover the Monroe/El Dorado area, it changed its call letters to KTVE. In 1960, the station was sold to Veterans Broadcasting Company, who owned then-NBC affiliate WROC-TV in Rochester, New York. It began broadcasting in color in 1961 and was purchased by J. B. Fuqua in 1963. It was a primary NBC affiliate, sharing American Broadcasting Company, ABC with KNOE-TV. Fuqua sold KTVE to Gray Television, Gray Communications in December 1967, making it Gray's third owned station. In February 1970, shortly after rival station KNOE installed a translator in El Dorado to better serve viewers there, KTVE installed a translator south of Monroe, W02AW. On August 1, 1972, KTVE, along with then sister-station WJHG-TV in Panama City, Florida, switched its primary affiliation to ABC, leaving NBC programming largely absent from the Monroe area until future sister station KLAA (now KARD) signed on in 1974, save select programming broadcast on the station and KNOE. For many years, the station had two news studios—one in Monroe and one in El Dorado. However, KTVE closed its Monroe studios sometime in the early 1970s. On December 6, 1981, KTVE rejoined NBC while KLAA became an ABC affiliate (that station changed its call letters to KARD one year later), clearing the entire network schedule except for two local daytime programs and ''Saturday Night Live''. The first program the station aired as a full-time NBC affiliate was an National Football League, NFL game between the 1981 New England Patriots season, New England Patriots and 1981 Miami Dolphins season, Miami Dolphins. Originally, the station wanted to return to being a primary NBC affiliate with secondary ABC affiliation, yet there were contractual issues preventing such. In 1983, Gray moved KTVE's main studio to Kilpatrick Blvd in Monroe; it only retained a satellite studio in El Dorado with only a few staff members, including a video journalist. This led to many complaints from Arkansas viewers that KTVE only featured stories from the Louisiana side of the market. In the late 1990s, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) forced KTVE to adopt a split-anchor format as a condition of renewing its license. During the weekday morning and weekday 5:00 p.m. newscasts, one anchor was stationed in Monroe, while another was stationed in El Dorado. This condition is no longer enforced by the FCC, although KTVE does still report news from El Dorado. In 1996, Piedmont Television acquired KTVE from Gray Communications (Gray would later return to the Monroe–El Dorado market in 2014 when it purchased rival station KNOE from Hoak Media). KTVE originally aired Louisiana Lottery (modern), Louisiana Lottery numbers during the station's 10 p.m. newscast until KNOE complained to the FCC in 1997. Due to a technicality in FCC rules, KTVE could not air the lottery numbers since it was licensed in Arkansas, which had no lottery at the time; this would change in 2009 when the Arkansas Scholarship Lottery began operations. In 2002, KTVE took over the operations of KARD (then owned by Quorum Broadcasting) through aProgramming
Syndicated programming
Broadcast syndication, Syndicated programming on KTVE includes ''Entertainment Tonight'', ''The Good Dish'', ''Rachael Ray (TV series), Rachael Ray'' and ''Family Feud''.News operation
Former El Dorado Mayor Mike Dumas served the station as news writer and later as the main evening anchor, before he was elected Union County, Arkansas, Union County Judge and later Mayor. In 2006, KTVE was the winner of the Radio Television Digital News Association, Radio-Television News Directors Association's Ultimate News Makeover contest. The station received about $300,000 in free design, consultation, manufacturing, production and coaching. On the same day that the station revealed its new set, it dropped the longstanding "Region 10" brand in favor of "NBC10". This news set and graphics package remained in use until the station began broadcasting its local news in HD in 2012. In early 2012, KTVE began airing its newscasts in high definition (studio cameras are not HD; only those in the field are HD). When this occurred, the station upgraded its set and graphics and changed its news theme from Stephen Arnold Music, Stephen Arnold's "The Rock" to "Evolution." In June 2012, sister station KTAL-TV, KTAL in Shreveport, Louisiana, Shreveport made the same move. On April 2, 2012, KTVE debuted a half-hour midday newscast titled ''Arkansas Today'', airing weekdays at noon; produced by Little Rock, Arkansas, Little Rock sister station KARK-TV (anchor Mallory Hardin and meteorologist/co-host Greg Dee also appear on KARK's weekday morning newscast) and broadcast in high definition, the statewide newscast also features news stories filed by reporters from all four Nexstar-owned NBC stations serving Arkansas as well as a sports segment produced by Fayetteville, Arkansas, Fayetteville sister station KNWA-TV, focusing on Arkansas Razorbacks, University of Arkansas athletics, called ''Razorback Nation''. KTVE also provides a weather insert for southern Arkansas during the broadcast. In addition to airing on KTVE, KNWA and KARK, the program is also simulcast on KTAL-TV in Shreveport–Texarkana (the coverage areas of KTVE and KTAL include several counties in southern Arkansas [fourteen in KTVE's viewing area, ten in KTAL's], though both stations primarily serve parts of northern Louisiana).Technical information
Subchannels
The station's digital signal is multiplexed: On January 3, 2007, KTVE-DT signed on with a full-power digital signal with an ERP of 822 kW. KTVE-DT then started broadcasting the network feed of NBC in high definition on January 12, 2007. In March 2009, KARD and KTVE informed the FCC that they needed to end analog operations sooner than June 12 (the earliest they could do so is April 16). KARD stated that a transmitter tube failed, bringing power down to 50%; KTVE claimed that its power was at 40%. Used parts were deemed unreliable, and staffers had to travel to the transmitter from the studio; two to three visits per week were required to monitor the analog facilities, according to Nexstar. The FCC denied the request based on the fact that they were the last two analog channels in the market. Since launching its digital signal, KTVE aired a standard definition simulcast of KARD to serve areas of North Louisiana and Southern Arkansas that cannot receive the station's signal. In 2020, KTVE upgraded KARD's simulcast to high definition, originally airing it in 1080i but, by 2022, airing it in Fox's default resolution of 720p.Analog-to-digital conversion
KTVE shut down its analog signal, over Very high frequency, VHF channel 10, on April 16, 2009. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 27. Through the use of Program and System Information Protocol, PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former VHF analog channel 10.Out-of-market cable coverage
KTVE was previously seen by CMA Cable in Springhill, Louisiana. Springhill is about from the nearest parish/county that lies within the viewing area of KTVE. But, it was shown as many viewers could see the station over the air. The digital transition is believed to be why the station was taken off the line-up.References
External links