| abstract
| - The station went on the air as KLRJ-TV on channel 2 on January 23, 1955, licensed to Henderson and owned by the Donrey Media Group (now Stephens Media LLC) along with the Las Vegas Review-Journal and KORK radio (920 AM; now KBAD). Soon after, the station changed its calls to KORK-TV, matching its radio sister, and moved its license and studios to Las Vegas. The station became a primary affiliate of NBC, but carried other networks as well. During the late 1950s, the station was also briefly affiliated with the NTA Film Network. In 1967, KORK-TV moved to channel 3 to avoid interference with newly signed-on KTVN in Reno.[citation needed] From 1971 onward, a group of local residents led by Las Vegas attorney James E. (Jim) Rogers made an effort to take control of KORK. The group gained further momentum in the late 1970s, after Donrey began heavily preempting NBC programming in order to sell more local advertising, though NBC was far less tolerant of this than the other networks at the time. The most notable of these preemptions was the 1978 World Series, angering both NBC and several Las Vegas area viewers, some of whom complained to the Federal Communications Commission. Facing pressure from both NBC and the FCC, Donrey was forced to sell the station to the Rogers group's holding company, Valley Broadcasting Company, in 1979. Donrey retained KORK radio, and as a result on October 1, 1979 the station became KVBC, reflecting the new ownership. Since then, the station has more or less cleared the whole NBC lineup. Channel 3's newscasts were called Eyewitness News for many years. That name was changed to the current News 3 in 1982, and Eyewitness News was picked up shortly thereafter by KLAS-TV. It was the first station to report the deadly Las Vegas Hilton fire in February 1981, interrupting regularly-scheduled programming to provide live coverage.[citation needed] For a few years, KVBC used a portion of Styx's 1978 hit "Come Sail Away" and Steve Winwood's "While You See A Chance" before going to a commercial break.[citation needed] In the late 1980s, KVBC-TV's sign-on to sign-off ratings climbed to an all-time high, thanks in part to a strong primetime line-up by NBC, in the late 1980s. News anchors Dave Courvoisier, Gwen Castaldi, and Rikki Cheese, weatherman Mike Bradley, and the sports team of Scott Reynolds and Colin Cowherd, supported by a strong team of reporters that included Scott Andrus, Debra Brada, Dan Burns, Jamie Garcia, Rick Kirkham, Lonni Leavitt, Dan Monson, Darwin Morgan, Denise Rosch, and Laura Stephenson lead News 3 when it surpassed KLAS-TV as the market leader. Template:Las Vegas Review-Journal, Dec 1989 Two major "events" aided KVBC's rise to the top. In May, 1988 an explosion and fire rocked the Pacific Engineering and Production Company (Pepcon) in Henderson. KVBC was knocked off the air for a few minutes, because its TV tower atop Black Mountain was positioned just above the blast site. Once News 3 was back on the air it was the first local station to continuously broadcast its breaking news coverage. Later that year, CBS's produced "48 Hours in Las Vegas," a feature about Las Vegas that portrayed the city as full of gamblers and riddled by crime. In response, KVBC produced a one-hour documentary entitled, "Las Vegas, Beyond 48 Hours," which painted a more realistic picture of "Sin City" and its residents. KVBC premiered "News 3 at Sunrise," its morning newscast, in 1989 with overnight team coverage by reporter/anchors Steve Eagar (former Detroit Tigers catcher now with KDFW FOX-4, Dallas, TX), Sarah Hoeveler, traffic reporter Tom Hawley and news photographer/editor Mike Dixon. KVBC was first to document the Mirage volcano explosion during its initial test in front of an unsuspecting nighttime audience. Hoeveler and photographer Jeff Lonetree won a regional Emmy award for coverage of breaking news overnight. Businessman Mike Moody later joined the anchor team to report on business news in southern Nevada. Overnight coverage of multi-story structure fires with an inside view, high-speed vehicle chases, and international drug busts that recruited the infamous "Nasty Boys" (Ninja/elite S.W.A.T.) helped to establish the newscast as #1 in the mornings from the beginning. America's Most Wanted (FOX), through reciprocal station agreement, also recruited Mike Dixon to cover covert operations and international arrests in Las Vegas.[citation needed] Channel 3 created and hosted a community "EarthFair" in the summer of 1990. The Arts and Environmental Science Expo featured science fair projects, pine tree giveaway, and booths by up to 120 exhibitors. !5,000 people showed up for that first EarthFair at the Sunset Park. The Fair continued annually for several years. In June 1991, News 3 at Noon premiered. It later expanded to one hour. From October 25, 1996 to June 6, 2000, KVBC had their own radio station, KVBC-FM on 105.1 FM dial. One of the shows on the air was called "Nate at Night", and was hosted by KVBC Chief Meteorogist Nathan Tannenbaum.[citation needed] On April 4, 2006, KVBC began a local 10 o'clock newscast on KVWB (now KVMY). The newscast moved to KVCW until September 2009 when it was cancelled and revived on KTUD on October 26, 2009.[citation needed] On July 9, 2007, KVBC changed their morning newscast name to News 3 Today, phasing out the long-standing News 3 at Sunrise. With the promotion of Sue Manteris to evenings, and the reduction of Mitch Truswell to just the noon newscast. The morning team consists of husband-and-wife co-anchors Kim and Dana Wagner, chief meteorologist John Fredericks, and traffic reporter Tom Hawley.[citation needed] On August 11, 2007 KVBC became the second TV station in the Las Vegas market to broadcast its local news programming in High Definition.[citation needed] On January 5, 2009, longtime meteorologist John Fredericks retired from the station after 12½ years at KVBC. According to the anchors, John felt it was hard to say goodbye on the air, therefore he left an audio message for the viewers and the station, as it does with any person that leaves after a long tenure, showed a montage of clips of John's career at KVBC. Dana Wagner was posted as replacing John during the morning and noon newscasts.[citation needed] With the digital transition completed, the station officially added the -DT suffix to its legal call sign on June 23, 2009. News Directors: On August 11, 2009 Longtime journalist Bob Stoldal became KVBC's News Director and Sunbelt Communications Company's Vice-President of News, overseeing all news operations for the Sunbelt Stations. Stoldal is the former Vice-President of News for Landmark's KLAS-TV Channel 8 in Las Vegas, Nevada before retiring in 2008. Stoldal replaced Deborah Clayton who was removed from her position in July 2009. Clayton replaced Dick Tuiniga in 2007, whose tenure was only six months. Tuiniga had replaced Jamie Ioos.[citation needed] Ioos replaced Mike George in 2001, George replaced Roger Bell Bell replaced Mike Cutler in 1994, Cutler replaced Doug Ballin in 1987. On June 18, 2010 KVBC announced a call letter change to KSNV, reflecting the renaming of Valley Broadcasting Company (by this time the subsidiary of Sunbelt that held the station's license) to Southern Nevada Communications, as well as better reflecting the station's relationship with sister stations KRNV-DT in Reno and KENV-DT in Elko via the "Nevada Information Network". The change to KSNV-DT became official on July 9, 2010.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)