KTVK
KTVK (known on-air as
3TV) is an independent television station in
Phoenix, Arizona. Its transmitter is located on South Mountain in Phoenix. It broadcasts on Channel 3 in Phoenix and has numerous translators across Northern Arizona.
As an ABC affiliate
Former
Senator Ernest McFarland, author of the
GI Bill, was awed by the new medium of television. With a few friends, he formed the Arizona Television Company and applied for a television license.
On
March 1,
1955—shortly after McFarland was elected
governor of Arizona—KTVK signed on as Phoenix' fourth television station. It immediately became an
ABC affiliate. McFarland chose the calls "because TV will be our middle name."
KTVK cleared most of ABC's network schedule except lower-rated daytime shows, as well as an occasional show during prime time. Despite the pre-emptions, ABC was generally satisfied with KTVK, one of its strongest affiliates.
KTVK's news department was a very distant second to longtime leader KTSP-TV (now
KSAZ) for many years, even when KTAR-TV's 1979 sale to
Gannett (and call letter change to
KPNX) made it the only locally-owned network affiliate in the market. When McFarland died in 1984, the station's ownership was taken over by his daughter Jewell and her husband Delbert Lewis.
The station's fortunes began to improve significantly after several news managers from KTSP defected to KTVK in 1986. An aggressive marketing campaign, a new brand ("NewsChannel 3"), and a popular new anchor team finally helped make KTVK a truly competitive player in news. By the late 1980s, KTVK was the top-rated station in Arizona. A Saturday morning newscast (from 7–9am) was launched in 1993.
KTVK's atmosphere was somewhat different from what was typical for a Big Three-affiliated major-market station. McFarland ran his station as a "mom and pop" business, and had an open-door policy which the Lewises continued when they took over the station. Employee turnover was very low, and hugs were very common in the newsroom. This was an outgrowth of the station's longtime slogan, "Arizona's Family."
In the spring of 1994,
New World Communications announced an affiliation deal with
Fox in which most of its stations became Fox affiliates. One of the stations to switch was KSAZ, Phoenix' longtime CBS affiliate. CBS, not wanting to affiliate with
KNXV (which was to lose its Fox affiliation), approached KTVK for an affiliation. KTVK turned it down in anticipation of having its affiliation agreement with ABC renewed.
However, much to the Lewises' surprise, KNXV's owner,
Scripps, forced ABC to switch its affiliation to KNXV as a condition of keeping ABC on Scripps' two biggest stations,
WEWS-TV in
Cleveland and
WXYZ-TV in
Detroit. The Lewises were very upset at how they had been treated after so many years of loyalty. (A similar situation occurred in
Baltimore, where longtime ABC affiliate
WJZ-TV lost the affiliation to one of KNXV's sister stations,
WMAR-TV.) KTVK immediately began purchasing more programming and increasing local news production. In August, they dropped "
Good Morning America," which KNXV would immediately add, and launched "Good Morning Arizona" in the 6–9 AM slot (later starting at 5 AM). The 6–7 AM slot had previously been occupied by a more traditional newscast.
By December 1994, KTVK also dropped
Mike & Matty,
World News Now, and
Nightline, which were also picked up by KNXV. At that point, ABC's cartoons also moved to KNXV, with KTVK dropping its Saturday morning newscasts and running Fox Kids (which had been turned down by KSAZ) instead. By then KTVK was only running prime time programming, sports, and the major soaps from ABC.
KTVK renewed
Oprah and
Inside Edition, and purchased all the available King World shows such as
Wheel Of Fortune and
Jeopardy! (which was not renewed by KSAZ), American Journal (not renewed by KPNX), Rolanda, Branded (for weekends), and The Little Rascals (for weekends). KTVK also affiliated with the
WB Network.
As an Independent Station
KNXV officially became Phoenix's ABC affiliate in January 1995, and KTVK nominally became the market's WB affiliate. However, it only showed WB programming on Saturday nights, so it was essentially an independent station. It also ran Fox Kids in the early afternoons and weekend mornings for about a year. The station aired
Wheel of Fortune,
Jeopardy!,
Star Trek: The Next Generation, and several off-network sitcoms during prime time.
KTVK owned a huge programming inventory, but lacked enough time in its broadcast day to air it all even after dropping ABC. As such, when the Brooks family launched a new station,
KASW, in September, KTVK immediately entered into a
local marketing agreement with the new station. KASW became a WB affiliate, and KTVK bought the new station's entire broadcast day. KTVK then reinstated Saturday morning newscasts. On the same day KASW took over the WB affiliation, the Arizona Television Company officially changed its name to MAC America Communications, after its founder's nickname, "Mac." By this time, it had grown to include two FM stations, a magazine and two local cable news channels: ¡Más! Arizona (Spanish) and Arizona News Channel (English).
MAC America decided to sell KTVK in 1998, but was very selective about a buyer. It wanted to sell to a company that would continue to keep a local presence at the station (particularly important to the Lewises, as KTVK was the last locally-owned station in the market) and allow the station to continue its growth of the last decade. In the end, it sold KTVK and the
LMA of KASW to the
Belo Corporation in 1999, ending 44 years of McFarland-Lewis ownership. (Belo eventually bought KASW outright in 2001.)
Despite losing its ABC affiliation, the station's newscasts, each with its own name ("Good Evening Arizona," "The News Show," etc.), still receive high ratings. Its evening newscast regularly outperforms the national networks' broadcasts by a large ratings margin. KTVK is one of the nation's most successful independent stations. It was also the first over-the-air home of the
Arizona Diamondbacks when the team joined the
National League in 1998, and has stayed that way since day one.
Former
Later Today anchor
Jodi Applegate,
CNN anchor
Daryn Kagan,
20/20 co-anchor
Elizabeth Vargas, and
CNN Headline News anchor
Christi Paul worked at KTVK before going national.
Weekdays*Good Morning
Arizona - 5 AM-9 AM
*Good Day Arizona - 11 AM-Noon
*Good Evening Arizona - 4:30 PM-6:30 PM
*The Newsroom at Eight - 8 PM-8:30 PM
*The Newsroom at Ten - 10 PM-10:30 PM
Weekends*Good Morning Arizona - 7 AM-10 AM
*Good Evening Arizona - 5 PM-5:30 PM
*The Newsroom at Ten - 10 PM-10:30 PM
Among the station's flagship broadcasts is "Good Morning Arizona," one of the country's original long-format local TV morning newscasts. Running from 5am until 9am weekdays (and also in a different form on weekends), the show has been a long-time ratings winner and the highest-rated program of its kind in the nation. "GMAZ" has its own budget, writers and air staff. It features weathercasts done by a former Chicago standup comedian, Brad Perry (who recognizes that there is very little weathercasting to be done in Phoenix most of the time); live helicopter-based traffic and breaking news reports delivered by Bruce Haffner, a pilot/reporter who learned to fly while working as a station cameraman; and a long-time host, Tara Hitchcock.
Jodi Applegate was the host of Good Morning Arizona from 1994 until 1996, when she joined
NBC as a weekend
Today Show anchor.
*Arizona's News People: NewsChannel 3 (1980s)
*NewsChannel 3, The Place With More Stuff (1994–1996)
*3TV, The Place With More Stuff (1996–2003) NOTE: NewsChannel 3 was still used infrequently for several years after 1996
*News Channel 3, Arizona's Family (2003–2004, still used infrequently at present time)
*3TV, Arizona's Family (2004, present)
KTVK is rebroadcast on the following translator stations:
*
K26FS Blythe, California*
K12OF Bullhead City*
K16EV Bullhead City*
K49HP Camp Verde*
K02PE Carrizo*
K02PF Cibecue*
K27EJ Colorado City*
K38AI Cottonwood*
K47DA Duncan/
Clifton/
Morenci*
K54GI Flagstaff*
K15DX Fredonia*
K48FC Fort Apache*
K57BO Globe/
Miami*
K23FV Kingman*
K29FD Lake Havasu City*
K25DH Meadview*
K11LC Prescott*
K53GM Williams*
KTVK Website
