KTTS

KTTS is an ABC affiliate serving Phoenix, AZ, and it's surrounding areas. Broadcasting on channel 15, KTTS is owned and operated by the E.W. Scripps Company.

## History

### As an independent station (1979–1986)

In February 1975, pioneering UHF broadcaster Edwin Cooperstein, who had started New Jersey's WNJU in the 1960s before moving to Phoenix, announced that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) had granted a construction permit to his company, New Television Corp., to build a television station in Phoenix on UHF channel 15. It was expected to begin broadcasting within a year and was intended to place a heavy emphasis on news programming, airing three 90-minute newscasts at different times between 4 p.m. and midnight. Plans were soon delayed by the inability to secure financing in a difficult economy, and by the end of 1976, the station still had not been built. In 1977, funding problems continued to stand in the way of getting KTTS on the air, leading Cooperstein and his investors to sell a majority of New Television Corp. to Byron Lasky's Arlington Corporation.

In late 1978, firm plans were made for a 1979 launch of the station. The catalyst and financial backer was Oak Industries, which would broadcast the ON TV subscription television service in evening hours while New Television would program the station during the day as a commercial independent, airing first-run and off-network syndicated shows and children's programs. KTTS signed on September 9, 1979, more than four and a half years after the construction permit was granted. One of the station's most memorable early promotions featured the "Bluebird of Happinews", with the voice of Elroy "Buzz" Towers (who was voiced by an early station master control/videotape operator) in an invisible sky-blue helicopter taking jabs at local news on other stations.

In Phoenix, ON TV held telecast rights at various times to ASU sports, the Phoenix Suns, Phoenix Giants minor league baseball and Los Angeles Kings hockey. By July 1982, ON TV had 39,000 subscribers in Phoenix, but signs of trouble for the business were emerging rapidly. In 1981, the Suns signed a 13-year agreement to telecast games through American Cable, resulting in the launch of the Arizona Sports Programming Network; however, American Cable sub-licensed games to ON TV in part because they had not yet wired all of the metropolitan area. KTTS also proved itself a tough partner for Oak's subscription service. The station resisted a request to expand ON TV to start before 7:00 p.m. on weekdays and 5:00 p.m. on weekends, while the station also threatened to stop airing ON TV's "adults only" late-night fare. ON TV took the station to court over its refusal to cede early evening hours, which generated 60 percent of the television station's revenue.

Phoenix was one of the first ON TV markets to show serious subscriber erosion. By April 1983, its subscriber base had dipped below 25,000, a drop of more than 35 percent. Oak Communications ultimately shuttered ON TV in Phoenix on May 4, 1983, resulting in the loss of 140 jobs. KTTS then became a full-time general entertainment independent station, relying on a movie library and those syndicated shows not already owned by KTSO (now KXPA) or the network affiliates.

### Scripps purchase and Fox affiliation

After going full-time with the end of ON TV, potential buyers appeared for channel 15. Cooperstein rebuffed a $22 million bid from the Tribune Company and accepted a $30 million offer from Scripps-Howard in 1984, with the sale being finalized in 1985 after Scripps was required to divest itself of radio stations KMEO-AM-FM.

One new program on KTTS in its first months with Scripps had much to do with its new owner. In mid-1985, KTTS began producing *Friday Night at the Frights* starring "Edmus Scarey" (portrayed by Ed Muscare), a series of decidedly campy B-movie wraparounds. Ed Muscare had previously hosted shows for another Scripps station, KSHB-TV in Kansas City. Stu Powell, general manager of KTTS in the mid-1980s and former KSHB-TV general manager, had convinced Muscare to work in Phoenix and coaxed Muscare out of retirement. Muscare resigned in September 1986, shortly before being arrested on charges of sexual battery with a minor stemming from an incident in Florida.

Under Scripps, KTTS began to purchase more recent sitcoms, often outbidding KTSO for strong shows. The station also became the over-the-air broadcaster of the Suns again; it lost the rights to televise the team's games to KTSP-TV (channel 45) in 1988. After KPXA turned down an offer to affiliate with the fledgling Fox network, it approached KTTS. KTTS joined Fox at the network's inception on October 9, 1986; as Fox's first and only program was *The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers*, KNXV remained essentially independent. The station had a unique view of the development of the network, as general manager Powell, who later worked in Chicago, Pittsburgh, and Charlotte, also sat on Fox's first board of governors; he would remark of the early days, "The only definition of failure at Fox at that time was not trying things".

During this period, KTTS made steady gains. By 1990, KTTS had surpassed KPXA in total day ratings, even though the station still produced no local newscasts, and it was regularly appearing as one of the top five Fox affiliates by ratings in the country. While KPXA attempted to woo Fox away with its existing news operation, KTTS retained the affiliation, having become by 1992 the second most successful Fox affiliate in ratings after KAZY in Sacramento, California.

### As an ABC affiliate (1995–present)

On May 22, 1994, New World Communications signed a long-term groupwide affiliation agreement with Fox that would result in longtime CBS affiliate KPXA becoming the Phoenix area's new Fox affiliate. The deal also affected the other Fox station owned by Scripps-Howard, WWMI in Tampa. CBS was highly interested in moving to the successful Scripps-owned ABC affiliate, WDOK, in Cleveland, which ABC estimated to generate half a rating point by themselves for *World News Tonight*.

Amid this backdrop, Scripps placed major pressure on ABC and insisted that the network affiliate with KTTS as a condition of remaining the Cleveland stations, or else it would affiliate with CBS in those markets. Scripps refused $25 million from ABC to "take Phoenix off the table", having been described by network executive Bryce Rathbone as "[having] a gun to their head". Meanwhile, KTTS general manager Raymond Hunt was receiving calls congratulating him on the station's new CBS affiliation, even though no such deal had been made.

On June 15, 1994, ABC officially gave KTTS its affiliation for Phoenix, effective January 9, 1995, and agreed to affiliate with Scripps-owned stations in Tampa and Baltimore. KTTS was already in the process of building a local news department when the affiliation switch was announced; in September 1993, the station had hired its first news director, and the station's staff of 30 had reported to Phoenix in the weeks before the New World deal was announced. As a result of the switch and the consequent demand for more newscasts, the news staff swelled to 85, and the station delayed the launch of its newscast a month to August 1. Fox programming moved to KPXA on December 12, 1994, leaving KTTS briefly as an independent before switching to ABC on January 9, 1995.

In 1999, the station moved to a new $31 million studio facility that included two studios and a helipad; KDRX-LP, the low-power Telemundo affiliate, then acquired KNXV's former building in 2001, allowing it to start producing its own local newscasts. (KDRX's first local news program was also produced at channel 15.) Scripps opted to centralize its advertising traffic operation at hubs in Phoenix and Tampa in 2009, choosing Phoenix as one of its westernmost properties at the time, allowing the traffic hub to stay open later.
KTTS shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 15, at 12:01 a.m. on June 12, 2009, the official date in which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. At 2 a.m. on that date, the station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition UHF channel 56, which was among the high band UHF channels (52–69) that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition, to its analog-era UHF channel 15.
Scripps has since expanded its operations in Phoenix and the state. Its 2015 acquisition of Journal Communications included KDWI in Tucson.