KTVU

KTVU, channel 2, is a Fox owned-and-operated television station licensed to Oakland, California, USA and serving the San Francisco Bay Area. KTVU is owned by the Fox Television Stations subsidiary of 21st Century Fox, and operates as part of a duopoly with independent station KICU-TV (channel 36). The two stations share studio facilities at Jack London Square in Oakland; KTVU maintains transmitter facilities at Sutro Tower in San Francisco.

In the few areas of the western United States where a Fox station is not receivable over-the-air or through cable television, KTVU is carried on the Dish Network satellite service as part of All American Direct's distant network package to qualifying subscribers (All American Direct began to lease space from Dish Network to distribute distant network signals following a court ruling that said Dish itself could not distribute the programming).

History

As an independent station

The station first signed on the air as on March 3, 1958, originally operating as an independent station. Interestingly, it was the second television outlet to take the KTVU call letters which were previously used by a short-lived television station in Stockton, on UHF channel 36 that operated from 1955 to 1956. KTVU's operations were inaugurated with a special live telecast from its Oakland studios. The station was originally owned by a group of local investors under the licensee San Francisco-Oakland Television, Inc. During its first 15 years on the air, KTVU's transmitter facilities were originally based from a tower on San Bruno Mountain. In July 1963, KTVU was sold to the Miami Valley Broadcasting Company, a subsidiary of Atlanta-based Cox Enterprises, for $12 million; the sale was finalized in mid-October of that year. KTVU moved its transmitter facilities to the Sutro Tower, after the structure was completed in 1973.