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 so it could apply to build a companion TV station, which would have required changes in unused VHF assignments in Richfield, Vernal, and Rock Springs, Wyoming. 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 were concerned that a commercial station on channel 13 would affect the translators they used to rebroadcast their programming.[28]
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 nationwide—including channel 13 for Salt Lake—having whittled down the number of proposed new channels in the preceding years.[29] Its studies found that Salt Lake could support not one but two independent VHF outlets.[30] 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.[31] The FCC reaffirmed the decision on a 4–3 vote in 1980.[32][33] The approval came even though KSTU and KSL-TV had expressed renewed concern over a high-power channel 13 in Salt Lake City causing problems for the translator system.[34]
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:[35]
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 among the applicants, on February 10, 1984.[36][37] 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 Edward Kuhlmann issued an initial decision in May 1985 that looked toward granting Salt Lake City Family TV the permit because of its superior proposal for the integration of ownership and management.[38] With Glazer's application having been abandoned, the four other contestants objected to the commission, whose review board scheduled oral argument in the case.[39] Mountain West Television retained the advice of Wiley Rein, a Washington, D.C., law firm.[40]
- American Television of Utah, a subsidiary of Salt Lake City–based American Stores Company, which had also applied for the unused UHF 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, who owned network-affiliated stations in three smaller markets.
