This section needs expansion with: further information on the history of KTVN. You can help by adding to it. (November 2011)
A group of nine Reno residents, headlined by KBET (1340 AM) station manager Robert Stoddard and former KOLO-TV vice president Lee Hirshland, filed on December 22, 1965, for a new channel 2 television station in the city.[2][3] A construction permit was granted on July 27, 1966.[4] After a delay induced by an unsuccessful legal action from KOLO-TV, which sought to block the grant of the permit,[5][6] then an objection by radio station KNEV to the location of its transmitter site,[7] KTVN signed on the air on June 4, 1967, as an ABC affiliate.[8] It took over the CBS affiliation on May 10, 1972, replacing previous affiliate KOLO-TV.[9]
During the 1970s, the station operated a satellite station, KEKO-TV (channel 10) in Elko.[9] KEKO signed on April 18, 1973; it was off-the-air from January 24, 1974, to June 27, 1975.[10] On December 23, 1975, Washoe Empire informed the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that KEKO's transmitter and equipment had been destroyed in a fire; on April 14, 1976, the FCC granted special temporary authority (STA) to Washoe Empire to operate a KTVN translator on channel 10 (at the time, Washoe Empire had made no decision about returning KEKO to the air).[11] On April 8, 1977, at the station's request, the FCC canceled the KEKO license effective March 18.[12] Channel 10 in Elko is currently used by KENV-DT, which formerly operated as a satellite of KRNV-DT until its disaffiliation from NBC on January 1, 2018; it is now a TBD-operated station.
Sarkes Tarzian bought KTVN from Washoe Empire for $12.5 million in 1980.[13]
KTVN is the only station in the Reno market to not have a midday newscast. KTVN airs the CBS Evening News at 6 p.m. and KOLO-TV also airs their national newscast at 6 p.m. while KRNV is the only station to air their national newscast at 5:30 p.m. KOLO-TV began competing with KTVN on the 4:30 a.m. newscast which debuted on October 13, 2014.
KTVN ended regular programming on its analog signal, over VHF channel 2, on June 12, 2009, the official date on which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition VHF channel 13,[15] using virtual channel 2.
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