KTKA-TV

The station first signed on the air on June 20, 1983, as KLDH (for original owner Larry D. Hudson), becoming the third commercial television station in the Topeka market. Channel 49 has been an ABC affiliate since its sign-on; prior to its debut, ABC programming had been relegated in the market to off-hours clearances on CBS affiliate WIBW-TV (channel 13) and NBC affiliate KTSB (channel 27, now KSNT); WIBW had been a secondary ABC affiliate since it signed on in November 1953, with ABC network programs that the station was unable to clear airing on KTSB beginning with its sign-on in December 1967.

The inception of channel 49 made Topeka one of the last television markets in the United States to have full-time affiliations from all three networks. Most of the area, however, could receive the entire ABC schedule from KMBC-TV in Kansas City or KQTV in St. Joseph. Both KMBC-TV and KQTV decently covered Topeka over the air, and KMBC-TV continued to be available on cable in Topeka for decades until Cox Communications removed the station from its lineup on March 6, 2013 due to frequent programming blackouts from enforcement of syndication exclusivity and network non-duplication rules.[1] Channel 49 originally operated from studio facilities located in downtown Topeka at 101 SE Monroe.

However, KLDH was plagued by technical problems during its first two years on-air, including a transmitter fire that knocked it off the air for a few weeks, as well as a total collapse of its transmitter tower due to heavy ice build-up shortly thereafter. To relay its signal to the entire market, KLDH operated translator station K58CX in Lawrence; this repeater ceased operations in 1999. In May 1986, the station was purchased by Northeast Kansas Broadcast Services (owned by Berl Brechner), who changed the call letters to the current KTKA-TV on December 7, 1987. That year, the station also signed on a second translator, K39BR in Junction City; that repeater operated until 2009.

KTKA-TV logo, used from 2006 to 2011.

In 1998, KTKA relocated its operations to new studio facilities located on 21st Street and Chelsea Drive in the southwestern side of the city; the following year, the station began sharing the facility with radio station KTPK (106.9 FM), which Brechner purchased through his Kansas Capital Broadcasting subsidiary in 1997.[2]

On August 29, 2005, Northeast Kansas Broadcast Services, which had previously sold KTPK to JMJ Broadcasting Co. for $5.7 million earlier that year, sold KTKA-TV to Lawrence-based Free State Communications—an indirect subsidiary of the World Company, publisher of the Lawrence Journal-World and then-owner of Lawrence cable television provider Sunflower Broadband—for $6.2 million.[3] Among those who considered buying KTKA included Bill Kurtis (who began his career in television journalism as a reporter for competitor WIBW-TV in the 1960s), who at the time of Northeast Kansas Broadcast Services' sale of the station, was considering purchasing a broadcast television outlet in Topeka; Kurtis, upon further consideration, decided against purchasing channel 49.[4] On July 26, 2008, Free State Communications announced that it was putting KTKA up for sale;[5] the company reversed course in October of that year, pulling KTKA from the sale block, unable to find any buyers.

On February 4, 2011, Free State Communications announced that it would sell KTKA to Los Angeles-based PBC Broadcasting for $1.5 million.[6] As part of the deal, New Vision Television – then-owner of KSNT, and which already maintained shared services and local marketing agreements with PBC-owned stations in Youngstown, Ohio and Savannah, Georgia, would operate KTKA-TV under a local marketing agreement. Despite objections to the sale by the American Cable Association, who alleged the sale could give the virtual triopoly involving KSNT, KTKA and KTMJ-CA too much leverage in negotiations for retransmission consent agreements, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved the sale on July 21, 2011.[7] PBC officially consummated on the purchase one week later on July 28. As a result, on July 30, 2011, KTKA merged its operations with KSNT and KTMJ-CA at the two station's facilities on Northwest 25th Street.

On May 7, 2012, LIN TV Corporation announced that it would acquire the New Vision Television station group, including KSNT and KTMJ-CD, for $330.4 million and the assumption of $12 million in debt. Along with the outright ownership of KSNT and KTMJ, the agreement included the acquisition of New Vision's shared services agreement with PBC Broadcasting, giving LIN operational control of KTKA-TV.[8][9] LIN and Vaughan Media (which concurrently purchased the PBC stations) also entered into a joint sales agreement to provide advertising services for KTKA.[10] The sale of New Vision to LIN Media and KTKA's purchase by Vaughan Media was approved by the FCC on October 2,[11] with the transaction closing on October 12, 2012.[12]

On March 21, 2014, Media General announced that it would purchase the LIN Media stations, including KSNT, KTMJ-CD, and the SSA/JSA with KTKA-TV, in a $1.6 billion merger.[13] The FCC approved the merger on December 12, 2014, with the deal being consummated on December 19;[14] however as a condition of the sale's approval, Media General was originally required to terminate the joint sales agreement between KTKA-TV and KSNT within two years, due to the FCC's ban on agreements involving the sale of advertising encompassing more than 15% of a separately-owned station's airtime.[15]

KTKA-DT3's history traces back to the September 21, 1998 launch of a cable-only affiliate of The WB that was originally managed and promoted by Cox Communications, alongside the launch of The WB 100+ Station Group, a national service that was created to expand coverage of The WB via primarily local origination channels managed by cable providers to smaller areas with a Nielsen Media Research market ranking above #100. The channel–which was branded on-air as "WB5", in reference to its primary cable position on Cox Communications in its Topeka service area–used the callsign "WBKS" (for "WB Kansas), an unofficial callsign assigned by Cox as it was a cable-exclusive outlet not licensed by the Federal Communications Commission. Before the launch of "WBKS", viewers in the Topeka market received WB network programming from the network's January 1995 launch via the superstation feed of Chicago affiliate WGN-TV; residents in the far eastern portions of the market began receiving the network over-the-air through Kansas City affiliate KCWB (now CW affiliate KCWE) from its sign-on in September 1996, then from KSMO-TV when that station took over the market's WB affiliation in January 1998.

On January 24, 2006, Time Warner and CBS Corporation announced that the two companies would respectively shut down The WB and UPN to create The CW, which would feature programs from its two predecessors as well as new series that were produced specifically for the jointly-owned network.[16][17] A national feed of the network, The CW Plus, was created by The CW as a replacement for The WB 100+ Station Group to allow the existing cable outlets as well as low-power analog stations and digital subchannels of major network affiliates in smaller markets that had joined The WB 100+ in the years following its launch to maintain a network affiliation. On April 10, 2006, Montecito Broadcast Group signed an affiliation agreement with The CW, allowing KSNT to serve as the network's Topeka affiliate (through The CW Plus) via its second digital subchannel.[18] Montecito took over the operations of "WBKS" (now rebranded as "Northeast Kansas CW 5") on September 18, 2006, when The CW officially launched, providing the channel with full market coverage over-the-air.

On November 1, 2008, KSNT displaced CW programming from its 27.2 subchannel in favor of a standard-definition simulcast of Fox affiliate KTMJ-CA (which KSNT's then-owner New Vision Television acquired from Montgomery Communications earlier that year) to relay the station's programming to areas in the far northern and eastern fringes of the Topeka market that could not receive KTMJ's low-power signal; then-KTKA owners The World Company subsequently took over the operations of "Northeast Kansas CW 5", moving it to the station's third digital subchannel. By the end of 2016, KTKA-DT3 upgraded its signal resolution to 720p high definition.[19]

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

KTKA-TV shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 49, at 12:01 a.m. on February 17, 2009, the original target date in which full-power television stations in the United States were to transition from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate (which was later pushed back to June 12, 2009). The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 48.[21][22] Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former UHF analog channel 49. In mid-2010, the station relocated its digital signal to its former analog allocation on UHF channel 49.

• Tim Joyce – meteorologist (now at KCPQ in Seattle, and KRCW-TV in Portland, Oregon)