KTVQ

KTVQ, virtual channel 2, is the CBS-affiliated television station in Billings, Montana, and it is owned by the Evening Post Industries; the station is part of the Montana Television Network, a statewide network of CBS-affiliated stations. It broadcasts its digital signal on VHF channel 10 (remapped to former analog channel 2); on cable, it is carried on Comcast channel 5.

Digital television

Analog-to-digital conversion

In February 2009, KULR, KTVQ and two other stations in the Billings market were refused Federal Communications Commission permission to end analogue broadcasts and operate as digital-only effective on the originally-scheduled February 17, 2009 date.

History

The station began broadcasting on November 9, 1953, as KOOK-TV, Montana's second television station; Butte's KXLF-TV had begun in August. It was owned by Montana broadcasting pioneer Joe Sample and his Garryowen Corporation along with KOOK radio (AM 970, now KBUL). The station carried programming from all four major networks of the time — CBS, NBC, ABC and DuMont Television Network-- but has always been a primary CBS affiliate. It lost DuMont when that network shut down in 1956 and lost NBC when KGHL-TV (now KULR-TV) began in 1958. The station changed its callsign to KTVQ in 1973.

KTVQ (Oklahoma City)

KTVQ, UHF analog channel 25, was an ABC-affiliated television station located in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States. The station operated from 1953 to 1956. Channel 25 currently operates as Fox affiliate KOKH-TV.

History

The station first signed on the air in 1953, and operated as the first full-time ABC affiliate for the Oklahoma City television market, and at the time was one of the relatively few ABC-affiliated stations operating on the UHF dial. KTVQ was the first television station to sign on in Oklahoma City since the Federal Communications Commission-imposed freeze on television broadcast licenses was lifted in 1953; it took the ABC affiliation from primary NBC affiliate WKY-TV (channel 4, now KFOR-TV).

As with many early UHF stations, KTVQ was hampered by low viewership as only a small percentage of television sets in the Oklahoma City area were even capable of receiving UHF stations since set manufacturers were not required to equip televisions with UHF tuners until the Congress passed the All-Channel Receiver Act in 1961, with UHF tuners not included on all newer sets until 1964. The station ceased operations in 1956. ABC programming returned to WKY-TV shortly afterward as a secondary affiliation. The Oklahoma City market would not have a full-time ABC affiliate until 1958, when KGEO-TV (channel 5) – which signed on from the Garfield County city of Enid in July 1954 – moved its operations and city of license to Oklahoma City as KOCO-TV (in a move similar to KTVX – channel 8, also an ABC affiliate – which moved its operations from Muskogee to Tulsa as KTUL-TV in 1957).