User:HangingCurve/KSVI

KSVI (channel 6) is a television station in Billings, Montana, United States, affiliated with ABC. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group, which provides certain services to Hardin-licensed Fox affiliate KHMT (channel 4) under joint sales and shared services agreements with Mission Broadcasting. Both stations share studios on South 24th Street West in Billings, while KSVI's transmitter is located on Old Hardin Road east-northeast of the city. Its programming is relayed on translator station K25BP-D (channel 25) in Billings, in areas where KSVI's signal is poor. It can also be seen in Miles City on K16DH-D (channel 16), and in Howard on K32MN-D (channel 32).

KSVI traces its roots to Billings' third commercial television station, KOUS-TV, which signed on in 1980 on channel 4 in Hardin. It was originally an NBC affiliate, joining ABC in 1987. It spent most of the 1980s plagued by marginal coverage in Billings itself. In 1993, the station's owners won a construction permit for channel 6 in Billings proper and essentially moved there under new calls, KSVI. It subsequently reactivated channel 4 as Fox affiliate KHMT.

History
The station signed on November 26, 1980, as KOUS-TV, owned by a company that shared two stockholders with KYUS-TV (channel 3) in Miles City. In 1982, KOUS became a primary NBC affiliate, which Billings lacked at the time; while the station already carried some NBC programming, it had primarily been an independent station. Since 1968, NBC had largely been relegated to secondary clearances on CBS affiliate KTVQ (channel 2) and ABC affiliate KULR-TV (channel 8)—as was PBS until 1984. Billings was one of the last markets in the nation to receive full service from all three networks. In 1984, the ownership of KOUS and KYUS was formally consolidated when KOUS' owners bought KYUS for $200,000; afterward, KYUS, which had been a separate station, became a satellite of KOUS. This created an instance of a satellite station older than its parent, as KYUS signed on in 1969.

In 1987, NBC chose to move its affiliation from KOUS-TV to KULR-TV (which had been a primary affiliate of the network from 1958 to 1968) effective that August; at that time, the stations swapped affiliations, and channel 4 picked up KULR's former ABC affiliation. That September, KOUS' programming began to be simulcast in Bozeman on new station KCTZ. Shortly afterward, the station's owner changed its name from KOUS-TV, Inc. to Big Horn Communications.

KOUS-TV's tower was located 18 mi east of Billings, which resulted in difficult reception in portions of the city; as a result, in 1987, the station established a translator, K25BP channel 25, in Billings. Big Horn subsequently obtained a construction permit for channel 6 in Billings (a channel that was originally intended to be used on a noncommercial basis in Miles City before being reallocated to Billings). On January 8, 1993, KOUS-TV signed off from channel 4, and the KOUS intellectual unit moved to channel 6 as KSVI, which inherited KOUS' ABC affiliation.

KOUS signed off for the last time on January 8, and later that day the KOUS intellectual unit—including the ABC affiliation—moved to KSVI on channel 6. KOUS' satellite stations, KYUS-TV and KCTZ, immediately became satellites of KSVI; translator K25BP also began to carry channel 6's programming. (KYUS is now a satellite of KULR-TV, while KCTZ is now KBZK, a satellite of KXLF-TV in Butte.)

KSVI added a secondary affiliation with Fox in April 1994; this was primarily to carry the network's NFL coverage, but 15 hours a week of other Fox programs, such as Married... with Children and The Simpsons, were aired in overnight and weekend timeslots not programmed by ABC. Following this deal, cable systems in the Billings area removed Foxnet from their lineups. The secondary Fox affiliation ended when channel 4 returned to the air in August 1995 as Fox affiliate KHMT under a local marketing agreement with KSVI. Also in June 1995, channel 6 added a secondary affiliation with UPN (it had carried the first season of the network's Star Trek: Voyager on a standalone basis before signing as a formal secondary affiliate that June). this affiliation, which was eventually shared with KHMT, continued until UPN closed down in 2006.

Big Horn Communications sold KSVI to Great Trails Broadcasting Corporation for $17.37 million in 1997. The following year, Great Trails exited broadcasting and sold the station (and its LMA with KHMT), along with WHAG-TV in Hagerstown, Maryland, and WFFT-TV in Fort Wayne, Indiana, to Quorum Broadcasting Company for $65 million. Nexstar Broadcasting Group acquired Quorum for $230 million in December 2003.

Due to the manner in which the move from channel 4 to channel 6 was structured legally, the FCC reckons KSVI's current facility on channel 6 as a new license dating from 1993, while KHMT operates under KOUS' former license and facility in Hardin.

News operation
Unlike the other Big Three affiliates in Billings, KOUS/KSVI has never had much success operating a news department. As KOUS, it first started a news operation in 1982; this newscast was short-lived and was eventually canceled. KSVI launched a news operation, shared with sister station KHMT, on April 18, 2002. After 18 months, the newscasts were canceled in September 2003, following Nexstar taking control of the stations in advance of its purchase of Quorum. Though the news operation had won Montana Broadcasters Association and Associated Press awards during its run, it was not successful in the ratings, as KSVI's newscasts trailed KTVQ (channel 2) and KULR-TV (channel 8) by a substantial margin. Nexstar said that shutting down the news operation was necessary to keep the stations profitable.

Subchannels
The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

Translators

 * Billings: K25BP-D
 * Bridger, etc.: K31LE-D
 * Columbus: K33EA-D
 * Colstrip: K07WJ-D, K24KM-D
 * Emigrant: K23LW-D
 * Hardin: K16DZ-D
 * Harlowton–Shawmut: K07ZR-D
 * Harlowton: K15JA-D
 * Howard: K32MN-D
 * Judith Gap: K04RT-D
 * Martinsdale–Lennep: K09LW-D
 * Miles City: K16DH-D
 * Roundup: K07WP-D
 * White Sulphur Springs: K11MP-D