KSTU

The station first signed on the air on October 24, 1978 under the ownership of Massachusetts-based Springfield Television, which also owned NBC affiliate WWLP in Springfield, Massachusetts, and ABC affiliate WKEF in Dayton, Ohio. It was the first independent station in Utah, as well as the first new commercial station to sign on in Salt Lake City since KUTV (channel 2) hit the airwaves 24 years earlier.

Salt Lake City had a fairly long wait for an independent station compared to other cities of its size. It had enough of a population base to support one since the early 1960s. However, the Salt Lake City market is one of the largest in a geographic area and most mountainous markets in the country, covering all of Utah and large slices of Idaho, Nevada, and Wyoming. The market's three commercial stations, as well as PBS members KUED and KBYU-TV, all needed massive networks of low-power translators to cover it.

Additionally, at the time the only available allocations were on the UHF band, and UHF stations did not cover mountainous territory very well. The expense associated with building a translator network, combined with the limitations of UHF, scared off most prospective investors. By the mid-1970s, however, cable television, a must for acceptable television in much of Utah, even in today's digital era, had gotten enough penetration in the market to lessen the need for translators and make an independent station viable.

The station originally broadcast on UHF channel 20 on a transmitter originally used for WWLP's partial satellite, WRLP-TV in Greenfield, Massachusetts, which closed down and was subsequently disassembled and relocated shortly before KSTU's sign-on. KSTU's programming at the time was typical for an independent station: cartoons, off-network sitcoms, classic movies, and drama series. Springfield Television merged with Adams Communications in 1984. On October 9, 1986, the station became a charter affiliate of the new Fox network. However, like most Fox affiliates early in the network's history, it was still essentially programmed as an independent. Fox initially ran only late-night programming at its launch and when it added primetime programming in April 1987, it only aired such programs on Saturdays and Sundays. It would not air a full week's worth of programming until 1993.

In 1980, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) added a new VHF allocation on channel 13 to the Salt Lake City market. Five groups submitted applications for a permit to build a television station on that allocation in May 1981. In 1984, the FCC held hearings with the competing applicants. And in 1985, it announced the winning applicant. The second-place applicant, locally owned Mountain West Television Company, or MWT Company, appealed the FCC decision but lost the appeal. When that failed, MWT Company proposed a buyout of the other four competing interests, including the winning applicants. The strategy succeeded and was carried out in November 1986. At the same time, Mountain West entered into a limited partnership agreement with Northstar Communications, which was partly owned by Allstate Insurance, and a new company, called MWT, Ltd., was formed. On January 20, 1987, the FCC awarded the original construction permit for a new station on channel 13 to MWT, Ltd., under the call sign KTMW. However, buying equipment for the new station proved difficult.

Meanwhile, Adams Communications was undergoing serious financial difficulties and decided to sell off its stations. There were few takers for channel 20, however. Under the circumstances, it was very receptive to an offer from MWT to buy KSTU's assets for $30 million. Adams was able to make a considerable profit on the deal, while MWT was able to get the equipment it needed at a substantial discount. The two parties reached a sales agreement in July. The sale was approved by the FCC in September and the transaction was finalized on October 23, 1987.

On November 9, 1987, MWT moved the channel 20 intellectual unit (call letters, staff, programming and Fox affiliation) to channel 13. It also returned the channel 20 license to the FCC on the same day. As a result, the FCC reckons the current KSTU as a separate station from the old channel 20. MWT went on the air with the new KSTU on channel 13 under Program Test Authority. It requested a license to cover the CP on November 16, which was duly granted on March 7, 1988.

The purchase of KSTU, however, put a financial strain on MWT, namely on the old Mountain West partners. In May 1988, Mountain West sold its interest in KSTU to Northstar. The station rebranded as Fox 13 by 1989.

Northstar sold KSTU to Fox Television Stations the next year, making it a Fox owned-and-operated station, and the first network-owned station in Utah. Unlike its rival stations, which have changed networks over the years, KSTU was the only VHF commercial station in Salt Lake City that has remained affiliated with the same network since that network's inception. Only KTVX (channel 4), originally an NBC affiliate, has been affiliated with ABC longer than KSTU has been a Fox affiliate.

Incidentally, when Fox Television Stations acquired the television station group owned by KTVX's then-parent Chris-Craft Industries on August 12, 2000[1] KTVX was one of two stations that the company traded to Clear Channel Communications (as part of a swap with WFTC in Minneapolis–Saint Paul). 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 fact that the station was in the middle of a long-term affiliation contract with ABC.

The station replaced most of the classic sitcoms on its weekday lineup with talk shows in the mid-1990s. The station added additional syndicated programming in 2002, once Fox dropped the Fox Kids weekday children's block nationally. In 2006, KSTU migrated its website to Fox Interactive Media's MyFox web platform. It also introduced a new logo, in a style in line with the other Fox O&O stations. However, the Times New Roman "13," which the station has used since 1997, was retained (unlike WHBQ-TV in Memphis, which switched to a "13" resembling that used by its Tampa sister station WTVT). KSTU was one of two network-owned stations in the Salt Lake City market from 1995 to 2007, when CBS sold KUTV to Four Points Media Group, a subsidiary of the private-equity group Cerberus Capital Management.

2008–2016 logo

On June 13, 2007, Fox sold KSTU and seven other owned-and-operated stations[2] to Local TV (a subsidiary of another private equity firm Oak Hill Capital Partners), which had acquired the former broadcasting division of The New York Times Company the previous year. The sale was finalized on July 14, 2008. On July 1, 2013, the Tribune Company acquired Local TV for $2.75 billion;[3] the sale was completed on December 27.[4][5]

Sinclair Broadcast Group entered into an agreement to acquire Tribune Media on May 8, 2017 for $3.9 billion, plus the assumption of $2.7 billion in Tribune-held debt.[6][7] As Sinclair already owned KUTV, KJZZ-TV and KMYU in the market, the company offered to sell KSTU back to Fox Television Stations as part of a $910 million deal;[8] Howard Stirk Holdings concurrently agreed to purchase KMYU.[9] The merger was terminated on August 9, 2018 by Tribune Media, nullifying both transactions;[10] this followed a public rejection of the deal by FCC chairman Ajit Pai and vote by the commission to place the deal in review.[11][12]

Following the collapse of the Sinclair merger, Nexstar Media Group announced their intentions to purchase Tribune Media on December 3, 2018 for $6.4 billion in cash and debt.[13] Due to Nexstar owning KTVX and KUCW,[14] the E. W. Scripps Company agreed to purchase KSTU as part $1.32 billion in overall divestments by Nexstar in order to meet regulatory approval.[15] The sale was completed on September 19, 2019.[16]

• Nick Clooney – anchor (also father of actor George Clooney)
• Brad Giffen – anchor (later at CFTO-DT and CTV News Channel in Toronto; now a full-time voice-over artist)
• Megan Henderson – anchor (now at KTLA in Los Angeles)
• Shauna Parsons – anchor (now at KPTV in Portland)

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

KSTU became a charter affiliate of Tribune Broadcasting's Antenna TV upon its launch on January 1, 2011, it is carried on digital subchannel 13.2.[21]

On December 29, 2017, KSTU added Charge! on digital subchannel 13.4.

On January 12, 2018, KSTU replaced Justice Network with Stadium on digital subchannel 13.3.

On February 1, 2021, KSTU replaced Stadium with Court TV on digital subchannel 13.3 and replaced Charge! with Ion Mystery on digital subchannel 13.4.

On March 1, 2021, KSTU added a simulcast of KUPX 16.5 / QVC on digital subchannel 13.5.

KSTU shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 13, on June 12, 2009, as part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television.[22] The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 28,[23] using PSIP to display KSTU's virtual channel as 13 on digital television receivers.