page_title: KGET-TV
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: KGET-TV / History
caption_attribution_description: English: KGET building in Bakersfield, California, September 19, 2013 Other information Photo by George Garrigues.
context_page_description: KGET-TV, virtual channel 17, is a dual NBC/CW+-affiliated television station licensed to Bakersfield, California, United States. Owned by Nexstar Media Group, it is a sister station to low-power Telemundo affiliate KKEY-LP, channel 13. The two stations share studios on L Street in Downtown Bakersfield; KGET's transmitter is located atop Mount Adelaide.
context_section_description: Founded by businessman Ed Urner, channel 17 first broadcast on November 8, 1959 as KLYD-TV, an ABC affiliate. The station originally operated from studios located on Eye Street in Bakersfield. It was co-owned with KLYD-AM 1350 (now KLHC), and is one of very few TV stations to be started by a daytime-only radio station. Urner would sold the station to Dellar Broadcasting in 1962. The call letters changed to KJTV in 1969. Also that same year, the Dellars sold the station to Atlantic States Industries. On August 5, 1974, KJTV swapped affiliations with KBAK-TV (channel 29), becoming a CBS affiliate.
  George N. Gillett Jr.'s Gillett Broadcasting bought the station from ASI Communications in 1978. The station's call letters changed again to KPWR-TV on September 27, 1978, when it increased its power to 5,000,000 watts. The Ackerley Group purchased the station in 1983. On February 1, 1984, the station changed its calls to the present day KGET-TV, coinciding with an affiliation swap with KERO-TV (channel 23) to become Bakersfield's NBC affiliate a month later, an affiliation which continues to the present day. It is one of a handful of stations in the United States to have held a primary affiliation with all of the Big Three television networks. In 1997, Channel 17 decided to relocate from their original location on Eye Street to their current studios on L Street (in a building formerly owned by Pacific Bell). It was sold to Clear Channel Communications (now iHeartMedia) in 2001.
  KGET stands for "Kern Golden Empire Television," a moniker coined by the station's longtime vice president and general manager, Ray Watson, who was elected to the Kern County Board of Supervisors in 2002. The current KGET Manager is Derek Jeffery.
  On April 20, 2007, Clear Channel entered into an agreement to sell its entire television stations group to Newport Television, a broadcasting holding company controlled by Providence Equity Partners. However, Providence Equity Partners owns a 19 percent share of the Spanish-language media company Univision, the owner of MyNetworkTV affiliate KUVI-TV (channel 45). In addition, with only five full-power stations, Bakersfield does not have enough to legally support a co-owned duopoly operation. As a result, the Federal Communications Commission granted conditional approval of the sale, provided that Providence Equity Partners divest either KGET or its stake in Univision as soon as the deal was finalized. That happened on March 14, 2008.
  In May 2008, Newport Television agreed to sell KGET and five other stations to High Plains Broadcasting, Inc. due to the aforementioned ownership conflict.  The sale closed on September 15, 2008; Newport continued to operate KGET under a shared services agreement. Newport agreed to sell KGET and sister Telemundo affiliate KKEY-LP, as well as KGPE in Fresno, California, to Nexstar Broadcasting Group on November 5, 2012. The FCC approved the sale on January 23, 2013; and the sale was completed on February 19.
  On December 3, 2018, Nexstar announced it would acquire the assets of Chicago-based Tribune Media for $6.4 billion in cash and debt. The deal—which would make Nexstar the largest television station operator by total number of stations upon its expected closure late in the third quarter of 2019—would result in KGET and KKEY-LP gaining additional sister stations in nearby markets including Los Angeles (CW affiliate KTLA) and San Diego (Fox affiliate KSWB-TV). The station was removed from AT&T U-verse and DirecTV on July 4, 2019 because of an ongoing dispute between AT&T and Nexstar.
caption: KGET building (before repaint)
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