KXLJ-TV
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) allotted two VHF channels to Helena. Helena TV filed for channel 10, while Peoples Forum of the Air, owner of radio station KXLJ (1240 AM) and part of the statewide Z-Bar Network, also applied for channel 10 on April 14, 1956.[1] After the latter amended its application to specify channel 12, both parties were granted construction permits on February 13, 1957; the FCC also rejected a proposal to reallocate channel 12 from Helena to Bozeman.[2] The application from Peoples Forum of the Air specified the station to operate as a satellite service to KXLF-TV in Butte. Peoples Forum of the Air transferred the permit to Capital City Television, Inc., in September 1957, and the first broadcast—the Rose Bowl—went out on January 1, 1958. However, the station was not yet ready in terms of equipment to begin full-time program service on that date;[3] viewers would have to wait until January 30 to see a full slate of programs from the new station. As with its Butte parent, the stations were affiliated with NBC and ABC, NBC being the affiliation across the Z-Bar network.[4] Studios and transmitter were located at the southwest corner of Cherry Street and Montana Avenue, and the station broadcast with an effective radiated power of just 973 watts.
The early years of channel 12 in Helena were marked by turbulence and a dispute that pitted the local television station versus a cable system importing out-of-market signals, which Helena TV also owned. In January 1959, arguments were heard in a lawsuit by Z-Bar versus Helena TV, with KXLJ-TV's counsel arguing that the cable firm had "used our property for gain without our consent".[5] The manager of KXLJ-TV warned that the station might have no choice but to close unless an appeals court granted an injunction against the cable company bringing stations from Spokane, Washington, to Helena viewers; he predicted that cable systems and an FCC decision negatively impacting the use of over-the-air VHF boosters to retransmit stations' signals could ultimately force every television station in Montana out of business.[6] On February 1, 1959, KXLJ-TV ceased broadcasting.[7]
The plight of KXLJ-TV attracted significant political attention. The four-member Montana delegation to Congress wrote to the FCC, asking for an investigation.[8] FCC chair John C. Doerfer planned to visit Montana, but he was called to present the commission's budget to the House of Representatives and could not make the trip.[9] Helena TV, which had abandoned its application for channel 10, made a new request to build a station.[10] The appeals court ordered the FCC to give Capital City Television a hearing in May.[11]
KXLJ-TV won a favorable order from the FCC ordering the removal of the Spokane channels from the Helena cable system in July 1959; when an appeals court placed a 30-day temporary injunction on the order, the station waited to resume operations.[12] When the injunction was vacated and the Spokane stations removed[13] at 3:45 p.m. on August 6, channel 12 returned at 6:50 p.m. that night.[14] The cable firm won out in the long run: a Helena district judge ruled in 1960 that the cable company's rebroadcast of other Montana stations, particularly KFBB-TV from Great Falls, did not violate Z-Bar's rights.[15]
KBLL-TV and KTCM
In October 1960, Ed Craney—owner of the Z-Bar Network—announced that Joe Sample would acquire his remaining broadcasting holdings and would sell KXLJ radio and television in Helena to Helena TV, the cable firm with which channel 12 had been dueling for almost all of its brief history.[16] The $300,000 purchase was not only significant in separating KXLJ-TV from KXLF-TV; it also meant that the TV station would drop its longstanding opposition to supplementing the area with Spokane stations, allowing the cable company to reinstate the Spokane stations to its lineup.[17] After the FCC approved of the sale, the stations became KBLL radio and television formally on March 29 and began using the designation on April 10; that same day, Spokane's KREM and KHQ-TV returned to the cable lineup after 20 months.[18] This was a major economic relief for the company, which in a January 1960 open letter had noted the decision had a material impact on its income.[19] The new KBLL-TV also added programming from CBS
KTVG and KTVH
In 1979, Babcock sold KTCM to Lynn Koch, who had previously been associated with KMSO-TV in Missoula.[32] Koch announced a focus on improving local news coverage, which under Babcock had received updated equipment and electronic news gathering facilities.[33] On July 28, 1980, Koch changed the call letters to KTVG, hoping to emphasize the "television" part of the call sign.[34]
Rumors of a potential sale of the station were floated as early as February 1983.[35] However, KTVG's financial picture was quickly becoming complicated. With debts coming due, licensee Helena TV, Inc. (of no relation to the 1960s company) filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization in June 1983.[36] In May 1984, one of the company's creditors filed to liquidate the business.
The Sunbelt and Beartooth years
In September 1996, Grapevine Broadcasting of Atlanta, owned by Wendell Reilly, announced its intention to buy KTVH and another Radeck property, KSWT in Yuma, Arizona; Reilly had a background in the publishing and outdoor advertising industries.[43] The sale, however, had a wrench thrown into it by an owner of four other NBC affiliates. Meridian Communications of Montana, a subsidiary of Sunbelt Communications Company of Las Vegas, proposed constructing a new NBC affiliate on channel 10, which was still unused by a full-service station. If KTVH had lost the NBC affiliation, with Helena in the viewing areas of KFBB-TV from Great Falls for ABC and KXLF-TV from Butte for CBS, its future would have been uncertain.[44]
For a time at the end of 1996, the result was two competing plans to build: one by Meridian with minority stockholder the Uhlmann Company for channel 10—which, if it could not secure NBC, would look to acquire the Fox affiliation for the market—and another by Grapevine, which included a new building for KTVH.[45] In February 1997, with the Grapevine sale application having fallen apart the month before, Sunbelt then moved to buy the station from Big Sky,[46]
Gray, Cordillera, and Scripps ownership
In January 2014, Jim Rogers announced he had bladder cancer for the second time. He had already begun to sell off IWCC's stations, and in May 2014, Beartooth NBC was the next property to be sold and the last outside of the state of Nevada. That May, IWCC announced the sale of KTVH and KBGF to Gray Television; Gray also purchased KMTF, by then an affiliate of The CW, through a failed station waiver. Gray took over KTVH's operations through a local marketing agreement on June 1,[70] two weeks before Rogers died on June 14.[71] The sale of KTVH to Gray closed on November 3, 2014.[72] After the sale closed, Gray dropped the "Beartooth NBC" brand in favor of "KTVH/KBGF". It also completed a much-needed digital conversion for the Great Falls transmitter, which as a low-power station was not subject to the 2009 digital television transition deadline; on December 1, KBGF-LP converted to digital as KBGF-LD, having started on October 26.[73][74]
