KVTV

For the television station in Sioux City, Iowa, which formerly held the call sign KVTV from 1953 to 1965, seeKCAU-TV.

Not to be confused withWVTV,KTTV,KTVT,orVietnam Television.

KVTV

Laredo, Texas United States
Channels	Digital:13 (VHF) Virtual:13
Branding	KVTV CBS 13
Programming
Affiliations	Defunct
Ownership
Owner	Eagle Creek Broadcasting of Texas (Eagle Creek Broadcasting of Laredo,LLC)
History
First air date	December 28, 1973(1973-12-28)
Last air date	July 1, 2015(2015-07-01) (41 years, 185 days)
Former channel number(s)	Analog:13 (VHF, 1973-2009) Digital:14 (UHF,2001–2006), 31 (UHF, 2006–2009)
Former affiliations	CBS(1973–2015)
Call signmeaning	disambiguation of former sister stationKZTV
Technical information
Licensing authority	FCC
Facility ID	33078
ERP	3kW
HAAT	284 m (932 ft)
Transmitter coordinates	27°31′12″N99°31′19″W
Links
Public license information	Public file LMS

KVTV(channel 13) was atelevision stationinLaredo, Texas,United States, affiliated withCBS.The station was owned byEagle Creek Broadcasting.

On July 1, 2015,Gray Television,owner of NBC affiliateKGNS-TV,bought the non-license assets of KVTV and establishedKYLX-LP,to which it moved all of KVTV's program streams. KVTV then ceased broadcasting after nearly 42 years.The KVTV full-power license was surrendered on September 19, 2016.

History

One of several stations serving the Laredo–Nuevo Laredoborderplex, KVTV signed on December 28, 1973, as asatellite stationofKZTV,the CBS affiliate inCorpus Christi, Texas,owned byK-Six Television.Both stations were run on tight budgets, which meant that the lack of investment in the station's operations sometimes showed up on-air. In 2002,Alta Communicationsand Brian Brady acquired K-Six Television, renaming the company Eagle Creek Broadcasting of Texas.

KVTV operated newscasts during the 1980s and early 2000s under the nameNewswatch 13.At the peak of their news operations KVTV produced three daily 30-minute newscasts at noon, 6 p.m., and 10 p.m. After making significant strides in theNielsen ratingsagainst then powerhouseKGNS-TV'sPro 8 Newsin the mid 1990s, KVTV management decided in 1996 to move the 6 p.m. newscast to 6:30 to make way for the new entertainment showAccess Hollywood.Many KVTV alumni working at that time believe that decision proved to be the start of the demise ofNewswatch 13.

Soon after the new owners took over they made significant changes to KVTV. All newscasts the station produced were dropped, except for the noon show, which was said to help reduce the strain put upon the news and production departments. Later that year, the station made cosmetic and personnel changes on almost every level and renamed their operationsCBS 13 News.The midday newscast was retained for a year and a half and later dropped. Late night news was revived on the station on April 19, 2004, withCBS 13 News: Nightcast,a similar title to its Corpus Christi sister. For this, former KGNS anchorman Richard Noriega was hired out of semi-retirement to lead the newscast. Several months prior to the newscast, Noriega worked as a consultant and helped with the planning involved in revamping the station's news department.

Nightcastwas the station's only local newscast, and was seen weekdays from 10 to 10:35 p.m. Prior to this program, a taped five-minute news bulletin calledNewsNightaired.

The station decided to cancel the late newscast on January 3, 2006, and laid off the remaining staff of the news department that day. The move left KVTV as one of the few CBS affiliates to not have a local newscast; in its last decade on the air, the only news programming on the station came fromCBS News,including theCBS Evening News,CBS Morning News,andCBS This Morningwith national weather and additional news updates given by a CBS News anchor during the:25 and:55 local news breaks. From 2006 until the end of broadcasting in 2015, the station largely served as a pass-through for automated network, syndicated and localpaid programmingin bothEnglishandSpanish.

On July 23, 2008, Eagle Creek Broadcasting sold KVTV's Corpus Christi sister station, KZTV, toSagamoreHill Broadcasting.KVTV was not included in that deal, as SagamoreHill already owned KGNS-TV; thus, KVTV became the only television station remaining in the Eagle Creek group,though co-owner Brian Brady also owns a number of other television stations, mostly throughNorthwest Broadcasting.

Due to a part failure on its analog transmitter, KVTV ceased broadcasting in analog on November 29, 2008. The station initially broadcast only on digital channel 31, mapped tovirtual channel13. Digital broadcasts shifted to channel 13 on May 7, 2009.

Gray Television, which over a year prior had purchased KGNS-TV from SagamoreHill, bought the non-license assets of KVTV in 2015. The sale closed on July 1, at which time KVTV signed off andKYLX-LPbegan broadcasting (inheriting its CBS affiliation from KVTV) with KVTV going off the air on that day.

The KVTV license was surrendered by Eagle Creek on September 19, 2016.

Subchannels

The station's signal wasmultiplexed:

Subchannels of KVTV

Channel	Res.	Aspect	Short name	Programming
13.1	1080i	16:9	KVTV-DT	CBS
13.2	480i	4:3	KVTVDT2

On December 7, 2011, KVTV began broadcasting CBS programming inHDon channel 13.1, and carriedstandard definitionCBS programming on sub-channel 13.2.