Top Qs
Timeline
Chat
Perspective
KYUS-TV
Television station in Miles City, Montana From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Remove ads
KYUS-TV (channel 3) is a television station in Miles City, Montana, United States, which is currently silent. It broadcasts to eastern Montana from a transmitter northwest of the city. The station is owned by The Marks Group, which also owns KXGN-TV in Glendive, with a sale to Montana State University pending.
At one point known as the smallest network affiliate in the country, KYUS has largely served as a satellite of other stations since 1984. Purchased in 1995 by Marks Radio Group, which also owned several radio stations in Montana, the station became a standalone primary Fox affiliate, later supplemented with UPN and The WB. KYUS-TV became a full-time satellite of NBC affiliate KULR-TV in Billings in 1998 via a brokerage agreement with the Cowles Company; this later evolved into an informal agreement with no exchange of money, while Marks continued to operate the station as a public service. This agreement concluded at the end of 2024, at which point KYUS went silent.
Remove ads
History
Summarize
Perspective
KYUS-TV went on the air on August 29, 1969,[5] under the ownership of Custer Broadcasting Corporation.[6] Originally an independent station, it joined NBC in 1970.[7] In its early years, KYUS was known as the smallest network affiliate in America.[8][2] The station's principal owner, David Rivenes, did the news, sports, weather and reporting himself[8] — he was also featured in the late-1970s on NBC's Real People and in TV Guide for his career. He also hosted much of the station's other local programming (which comprised up to five hours of the KYUS schedule) along with his wife, Ella;[8] in a 1980 interview with Sports Illustrated, Rivenes said that the local programs, which were broadcast in lieu of acquiring syndicated programming, were "what the FCC wants: real public service television".[2] During the station's early years, KYUS did not turn a profit and was supported by Rivenes's title insurance business;[2] Rivenes told a reporter from The Washington Star in 1978, "I don't know exactly what cash flow is, but I know we don't have it."[9] Low local advertising rates, approximately $10 a minute in 1977, caused the station to lose money, and many ads were often bartered out for services from meals to propane to malted milk.[10]
In 1984, the Rivenes family sold KYUS to the owners of KOUS-TV for $200,000;[8][a] at that point, channel 3 became a satellite of KOUS, and the station's local programming was discontinued.[8][12] KYUS, along with KOUS, switched to ABC in 1987.[13] After KOUS moved its programming to KSVI (channel 6) in 1993, KYUS became a satellite of KSVI.[14]
As a satellite of KOUS-TV and KSVI, KYUS-TV was on the verge of closure several times, as the station generated insufficient revenue to cover its costs. In addition, the station's owner, Big Horn Communications, had difficulties listing KYUS for sale due to the size and location of Miles City; one media brokerage company, Blackburn & Company, said it was "economically impossible" for KYUS to operate as a standalone station. Ultimately, Big Horn sold the station to Stephen A. Marks in 1995. Marks originally proposed to operate KYUS as a satellite of KXGN-TV, his CBS and NBC affiliate in Glendive.[15] However, shortly after, KYUS-TV announced it would become a Fox affiliate.[16] By 1997, channel 3 had also added secondary affiliations with UPN and The WB.[17] After two years with Fox, KYUS-TV became a satellite of KULR-TV under a time brokerage agreement on May 1, 1998.[18] The original agreement expired after ten years; KYUS-TV then broadcast KULR-TV's programming under a series of informal agreements, receiving no payment and keeping no advertising income. Although the station generated no revenue of its own, Marks continued to operate it as a public service.[18][19]
In 2006, Stephen Marks added radio stations KMTA and KKRY to his Miles City holdings.[20] Marks died on May 11, 2022;[21] in early 2024, his estate sold Marks' Montana and North Dakota radio stations, including KMTA and KYUS-FM (the former KKRY), to Andrew Sturlaugson's P&A Media, while retaining KYUS-TV and KXGN-TV.[22] KYUS-TV ceased operations on December 31, 2024,[23] the same date KXGN-TV dropped their NBC subchannel (itself largely a KULR simulcast) and ceased all in-studio production,[24][25] but a special temporary authority request to remain silent was not filed until June 27, 2025, due to an "inadvertent oversight". In the request, Mary Marks—the executor of Marks' estate—stated KYUS was in the process of being sold and was considering airing "alternate programming sources" in the interregnum.[23] On July 8, 2025, the Marks Group filed to sell KYUS-TV and KXGN-TV to Montana State University—owner of Montana PBS, the state's public television broadcaster—for $375,000;[1] the remainder of the stations' value will be credited as a donation. KYUS-TV and KXGN-TV, which were the Marks Group's final broadcast properties, will bring over-the-air public television service to far eastern Montana for the first time; except for translators in the northeastern and southeastern parts of the state, Montana PBS did not previously own transmitters east of Billings.[26]
Remove ads
Subchannels
KYUS-TV broadcast the same channels as KULR-TV, using virtual channel 3 instead of 8:
Notes
- Rivenes had been a minority owner of KOUS-TV when it began in 1980.[11]
References
Wikiwand - on
Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.
Remove ads