KTVX

About KTVX

KTVX is a television station in Salt Lake City, Utah, broadcasting on channel 4 and affiliated with ABC. Owned by Nexstar Media Group alongside Ogden-licensed CW station KUCW, KTVX is the first television station in Utah, having signed on April 19, 1948, and celebrated 75 years of broadcasting in 2023. Branded as ABC 4 Utah, with newscasts as ABC 4 News, the station's call letters stand for "Television Excellence." The two stations share studios on West 1700 South in Salt Lake City, with KTVX's transmitter atop Farnsworth Peak in the Oquirrh Mountains. A large network of broadcast translators extends its coverage throughout Utah and portions of Idaho, Nevada, and Wyoming.

Utah's first television station

KTVX was launched in November 1946 as experimental station W6XIS, the first station to hold an experimental broadcast license in Utah. KDYL-TV began broadcasting on April 19, 1948, owned by the Mountain Broadcasting Corporation, which also owned KDYL 1320 AM radio. The original transmitter was mounted on the Walker Bank Building in downtown Salt Lake City.

An NBC affiliate at the time, the station also shared ABC programming with CBS-affiliated KSL-TV before KUTV took over as the ABC affiliate in September 1954. It is the oldest television station operating in the Mountain Time Zone and the third-oldest west of the Mississippi River, and was the first independently owned television station in the United States.

Call sign changes

In 1953, the call letters were changed to KTVT, and for a brief period in the mid-1950s the station was owned by Time-Life Inc. The call letters became KCPX-TV in 1959 under the ownership of Screen Gems, the television arm of Columbia Pictures. Notable programs of the era included the local children's show Hotel Balderdash.

The call letters were changed once again to KTVX in October 1975 under the ownership of United Television, which merged with Chris-Craft Industries in 1981.

Becoming an ABC affiliate

In 1960, the station exchanged affiliations with KUTV to become an ABC affiliate, a relationship that has now lasted more than six decades. In the mid-1960s, it became the first station to present color programming in Utah.

The ABC affiliation brought the network's news, sports, and entertainment programming to Utah viewers, and the station has been the state's ABC outlet through the network's rise to national prominence.

Nexstar ownership

KTVX is owned by Nexstar Media Group alongside KUCW, channel 30, an owned-and-operated station of The CW licensed to Ogden. The two stations share studios on West 1700 South in Salt Lake City and operate as a combined content production house providing local and national programming, news, and advertising across broadcast and digital platforms.

KUCW carries KTVX's ABC programming when channel 4 cannot do so due to breaking news interruptions or preemptions for programs of local interest, giving the duopoly scheduling flexibility.

ABC 4 News

Branded as ABC 4 News, with the general slogan "Good 4 Utah," KTVX operates a full news department covering the Salt Lake City market and the state of Utah. The station's newscasts cover the issues distinctive to the region, from the Great Salt Lake's decline and winter air quality to the state's rapid growth and outdoor recreation economy.

The station's reporters cover a vast geographic area, supported by the translator network that carries the station's signal to remote communities across four states.

Sports coverage

KTVX focuses its sports coverage on Utah's teams, including the Utah Jazz, Real Salt Lake of Major League Soccer, and collegiate programs such as BYU and Utah State. As the ABC affiliate, the station also carries the network's sports programming, including NBA and college football coverage.

The station's sports department has chronicled the Jazz's NBA Finals runs, Real Salt Lake's MLS Cup championship, and the unique sports culture of a state passionate about both professional and collegiate athletics.

Digital subchannels

KTVX's digital subchannels include MeTV Utah on 4.2, Rewind TV on 4.3, and Heroes & Icons on 4.4, while KUCW's subchannels carry Ion Mystery, Quest, and HSN. The multicast lineup gives viewers a wide range of classic television, movies, and specialty programming.

The station's digital signals extend the reach of its programming across the mountain West through the translator network.

Technical operations

KTVX broadcasts on digital UHF channel 30, displayed as virtual channel 4, with an effective radiated power of 390 kW from its Farnsworth Peak transmitter at a height above average terrain of 1,256 meters, one of the highest transmitter sites in American broadcasting. More than 80 dependent translators carry its signal throughout Utah and neighboring states.

The station ended analog programming on VHF channel 4 in 2009 as part of the digital television transition.

Digital presence

KTVX's digital hub is abc4.com, offering live streaming, on-demand video, and comprehensive coverage of Utah news, weather, and sports. The station maintains mobile apps and active social media accounts under the ABC 4 Utah brand.

As part of Nexstar, the station's digital operations are integrated with the company's digital media platforms. Its official website is https://www.abc4.com.

An ABC affiliate from 1960

The station swapped affiliations with KUTV in 1960 and became an ABC affiliate. KTVX by then had become the first television station in Utah to broadcast in color and was one of the first ABC affiliates to broadcast in color. The station adopted its present-day KTVX call letters in October 1975, previously used by fellow ABC affiliate KTUL-TV in Tulsa, Oklahoma, from 1954 to 1957, when United Television, then the broadcasting division of 20th Century Fox, acquired the station. In 1981, United Television merged with Chris-Craft Industries. In late 1994, CBS and Westinghouse Broadcasting announced a complex ownership trade with NBC, and NBC approached KTVX for an affiliation deal, but the station renewed its affiliation contract with ABC; as a result, NBC signed an affiliation deal with KSL-TV, which took effect on September 10, 1995.

The Fox trade

Chris-Craft's television stations were sold to Fox Television Stations on August 12, 2000, finalized July 31, 2001. Since Fox already owned KSTU channel 13, it was forced to sell KTVX due to FCC regulations prohibiting one company from owning two of the four highest-rated stations in a single market, as well as the station's long-term ABC affiliation contract. The Department of Justice's Antitrust Division filed a lawsuit to block the combination, which would have given News Corporation approximately 40 percent of the broadcast television spot advertising revenue in Salt Lake City; under a consent decree, KTVX was divested. KTVX and KMOL in San Antonio were traded to Clear Channel Communications in exchange for WFTC. KTVX was the only Chris-Craft owned station to have never been affiliated with UPN during the time the company owned a partial stake in the network. In August 2005, KTVX management declined a paid political message from Cindy Sheehan protesting the Iraq War, saying the content could be offensive to Utah, which had contributed more than its fair share of fighting soldiers and suffered significant loss of life.

KTVX is owned by Nexstar Media Group and operates as the market's ABC affiliate, with its programming also reaching viewers across Utah through translators and cable carriage. The station's "Open 4" logo became a recognizable symbol of Utah television.

The station transmits from Farnsworth Peak in the Oquirrh Mountains southwest of Salt Lake City.