KFVS-TV

KFVS-TV is the CBS-affiliated television station for Southeastern Missouri, the Purchase area of Western Kentucky, and Southern Illinois. Licensed to Cape Girardeau, Missouri, it broadcasts a high definition digital signal on VHF channel 12 from a transmitter, northwest of Egypt Mills, in unincorporated Cape Girardeau County. Owned by Raycom Media, the station is a sister station to the low-powered CW/Me-TV affiliates WQWQ-LP/WQTV-LP. The outlets share studios, in the Hirsch Tower, on Broadway Avenue in Downtown Cape Girardeau. Syndicated programming on KFVS includes The Middle, The Dr. Oz Show, and Live! with Kelly & Michael among others. KFVS had previously served the Jonesboro media market as the default CBS station on satellite providers. It is not known how much longer that arrangement will continue, after the sign-on of the Jonesboro area's first locally based CBS affiliate August 1, 2015 on a second digital subchannel of Fox affiliate KJNB-LD.

History

KFVS began broadcasting on October 3, 1954 and aired an analog signal on VHF channel 12. It was owned by broadcasting pioneer Oscar C. Hirsch who had signed-on the area's first radio station, KFVS radio (AM 960, now KZIM) in his radio shop in 1925. The KFVS call letters were randomly assigned by Herbert Hoover. At the start, channel 12 did not have any video cameras. Instead, its first broadcast showed slides of its new transmitter tower that was under construction at the time. Channel 12 was housed along with its radio sister until 1968 when it moved to its present location on Broadway Avenue. Hirsch sold the station to Aflac in 1979 earning a handsome return on his investment of 54 years earlier.