KNTV (channel 11, cable channel 3), branded NBC Bay Area, is a television station licensed to San Jose, California, United States, serving the San Francisco Bay Area. It is owned and operated by the NBC television network through its NBC Owned Television Stations division. Under common ownership with Telemundo outlet KSTS (channel 48) and regional sports networks NBC Sports Bay Area and NBC Sports California, both KNTV and KSTS share studio facilities on North 1st Street in the North San Jose Innovation District, while KNTV's transmitter is located on San Bruno Mountain, and two of its subchannels are also broadcast from the KSTS tower on Mount Allison.
KNTV was established as an independent station in 1955; in 1960, it became an affiliate of ABC as the affiliate of record for Salinas and Monterey, otherwise a separate market. Even though San Francisco had its own ABC television station, KGO-TV, KNTV focused its news and other programming on the Santa Clara Valley. In 1999, ABC paid KNTV to end its affiliation in 2000 in order to allow KGO-TV to serve as the only source of ABC programming in the San Jose area. The station operated as an independent for a year and a half before securing a 10-year affiliation with NBC and then being sold to the network outright. Local news covering the entire Bay Area is produced from the San Jose studios.
History Early years and ABC affiliation (1955–1999) KNTV"For the record: Actions of the FCC–Existing TV stations–Call letters assigned." Broadcasting – Telecasting, May 2, 1955, pg. 97: Station was originally assigned call letters KQXI; calls were changed to KNTV in May 1955. signed on the air on September 12, 1955, originally operating as an independent station covering the entire north-central California coast from Monterey to San Francisco. It was the first television station in San Jose and was originally operated by Standard Radio and Television Corporation, which was owned by Allen T. Gilliland."KNTV (TV) starts next week." Broadcasting – Telecasting, September 5, 1955, pg. 9. The station's studios and offices were located at 645 Park Avenue, a short distance from the Caltrain railroad tracks and adjacent to the Gilliland-owned Sunlite Baking Company in downtown San Jose. Its antenna was originally located on Loma Prieta, some south of San Francisco. Channel 11 often aired shows from CBS, DuMont and NBC that were respectively turned down by San Francisco's KPIX-TV (channel 5) and KRON-TV (channel 4), as well as some ABC shows that also aired on KGO-TV (channel 7). The station was not viable as an independent, despite the Bay Area's size. The going got even more difficult when Oakland-based KTVU (channel 2) signed on in 1958, and it soon became apparent that the Bay Area was not large enough at the time to support two independent stations.
However, due to KNTV's transmitter and antenna location, its signal could be received fairly well in the nearby areas of Monterey and Salinas; the transmitter was located approximately halfway between San Jose and Monterey. Taking advantage of this, KNTV sought and was granted the ABC affiliation for the Monterey Bay area in 1960, on the condition that the station reduced its transmitter power so as not to overlap with network-owned KGO-TV's signal. Previously, all three networks had been shoehorned onto Salinas-based KSBW-TV (channel 8). KNTV, therefore, became one of the few stations located outside the market it served.
Following the death of Allen T. Gilliland in 1960, ownership of KNTV was held by the executors of his estate, which included son Allen T. Gilliland Jr."For the record: Actions of the FCC–Ownership changes–Applications."Broadcasting, August 15, 1960, pg. 102. The younger Gilliland acquired majority ownership in August 1966"Changing hands–Approved." Broadcasting, August 15, 1966, pg. 64."Gains control of KNTV(TV)." Broadcasting, August 15, 1966, pg. 74. and later operated it as part of Gill Industries, which also controlled San Jose's cable television system. KNTV was highly regarded locally by viewers and seen as a "hometown" station for the South Bay, with news coverage and local commercials reflecting its South Bay roots, rather than focusing almost solely on San Francisco as the other network outlets did. Gill Industries sold KNTV to Norfolk, Virginia–based Landmark Communications in 1978."In brief." Broadcasting, January 9, 1978, pg. 28."Changing hands–Approved" Broadcasting, August 14, 1978, pg. 65. Twelve years later, Landmark sold the station to a minority-owned firm, Granite Broadcasting.Announcement of acquisition of KNTV by Granite Broadcasting Corp. Broadcasting, February 26, 1990, pg. 19.
Transition (1999–2001) In 1999, KGO-TV agreed to pay Granite a substantial fee to stop channel 11 from running ABC programming once the station's affiliation contract expired. ABC's corporate parent, The Walt Disney Company, saw the need to expand KGO-TV's exclusive advertising market share into San Jose for this reason, and it felt that KNTV was taking away from the share.
That same year, the deYoung family, owners of KRON-TV and the San Francisco Chronicle, put all of its media properties up for sale. NBC, which had been in the midst of renewing its affiliation agreement with KRON-TV, jumped into the bidding. It had been one of the bidders for the channel 4 license in the late 1940s when it wanted a sister television station to complement West Coast flagship KNBC (AM 680, now KNBR), but lost out to Chronicle. The deYoungs had built KRON into one of NBC's strongest affiliates, though NBC had long felt chagrin at KRON's frequent preemptions of network programming. NBC was thought to be the favorite to buy KRON-TV, but in a move that shocked the broadcasting industry, lost a bidding war for the station to Young Broadcasting in November 1999.KCAL's Owner Outbids NBC for S.F.'s Leading TV Station, Los Angeles Times, November 17, 1999. Retrieved May 11, 2013. NBC responded by threatening to yank its programming from KRON unless Young agreed to run it under the conventions of an NBC-owned outlet, including disallowing the station from preempting NBC programs outside of breaking news coverage.NBC Tells KRON Bidders Who's Boss, San Francisco Chronicle, October 27, 1999.NBC offers to buy KRON, San Francisco Chronicle, November 3, 1999. The network also made the unprecedented demand that Young pay NBC $10 million annually to carry the network's programming—a form of reverse compensation. Young refused and announced that it would end KRON-TV's 52-year relationship with NBC once its affiliation contract ended in December 2001.
In February 2000, Granite contacted NBC to negotiate an affiliation deal and offered to pay an average of $37 million annually (totaling roughly $362 million over 10 years) for the rights to broadcast NBC programs on KNTV. This agreement was groundbreaking and notable, as KNTV became the first major market affiliate to pay a network for programming, reversing a long-standing model where networks paid affiliates to carry their programming. NBC accepted the deal, which was due to take effect in January 2002. In preparation for this switch, KNTV boosted its signal to reach the entire Bay Area. This increased KNTV's potential audience to more than seven million viewers, including 90% of the Bay Area.
On July 3, 2000, KNTV terminated its ABC affiliation after 40 years with the network; it then temporarily carried programming from The WB in a part-time simulcast with then co-owned KBWB-TV (channel 20, now KOFY-TV), which was the full-time WB affiliate for the Bay Area. The move cost the Monterey Bay area an over-the-air ABC affiliate. To compensate for the loss, KGO-TV was then added on cable providers in that market, with certain syndicated programs carried by the station replaced due to syndication exclusivity rules. This did not pose as much of a problem as it may seem due to the very high penetration of cable and satellite in the Monterey Bay area. ABC would not return over-the-air to the area until KSBW began carrying ABC programming on the station's second digital subchannel on April 18, 2011.
In September 2000, Nielsen Media Research reclassified KNTV to the Bay Area DMA. In March 2001, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) officially recognized KNTV as a Bay Area station, clearing the way for channel 11 to begin identifying as "San Jose–San Francisco–Oakland".
For Granite Broadcasting, the deal with NBC was expensive; the company showed a net loss of $44 million for the first three quarters of 2001, more than double its losses during the same period the previous year. In an attempt to reduce debts, Granite started looking for a buyer for Detroit WB affiliate WDWB (now WMYD) in October 2001;The Story At 11: KNTV is set to become the Bay Area's NBC affiliate—but can it play with the big boys?, Jeff Kearns, Metroactive, December 6, 2001 that station would not be sold until 2014.Scripps Buying Granite TVs in Buffalo, Detroit, TVNewsCheck, Retrieved February 10, 2014.
As an NBC O&O (2001–present) On December 17, 2001, NBC announced another twist on the deal: it bought KNTV from cash-strapped Granite for $230 million, effectively separating itself from KBWB (which remained under Granite ownership; it was sold in 2018). The network was already in the process of acquiring San Jose-based Telemundo station KSTS and wanted to create a duopoly in the Bay Area. KNTV officially joined NBC at 11:35 p.m. Pacific Time on December 31, 2001. Jay Leno officially welcomed NBC's newest station in a ceremony on The Tonight Show (leading an area-wide 10-second countdown, as the show served as KNTV's first NBC program), followed later that morning by a segment on the Today show in which Al Roker introduced KNTV's anchors. With NBC's move to channel 11, it became the only major network in the Bay Area to switch from one station to another. KNTV is the third Bay Area station to affiliate with NBC, as primary CBS affiliate KPIX-TV had carried the network as a secondary affiliation upon its sign-on in 1948 until KRON debuted the following year. NBC formally took control of KNTV in April 2002. This was not NBC's first attempt at purchasing a station in the Bay Area; a plan to purchase KTVU in 1961 was canceled following antitrust objections from KRON-TV, along with an FCC hearing designation surrounding all applications related to NBC's ownership of radio and television stations in Philadelphia.
After the affiliation switch to NBC, Granite switched the station's on-air numerical branding to "NBC 3" to reflect its position on cable channel 3 on nearly every cable provider in the Bay Area. After the sale to NBC, its new ownership addressed issues involving confusion with Sacramento's NBC affiliate, KCRA-TV (which broadcast on channel 3), and rebranded the station as "NBC 11" in September 2002.
Initially as the station built up its newsgathering resources in San Francisco and the East Bay, KNTV newscasts were perceived to be infotainment due to the focus on much more accessible crime and entertainment news, but by late 2002 the newscasts began focusing on Bay Area affairs. The station added on a San Francisco bureau and studio in a facility on Battery Street in San Francisco.
During the 2004 Summer Olympics, the station heavily promoted channel 11 through its "illuminating" marketing campaign (stylized as "I11uminating," with the number "11" used in place of the "L" letters).
New studios and transmitter