KIVA
Encyclopedia
KIVA was a full-service television station
Television station
A television station is a business, organisation or other such as an amateur television operator that transmits content over terrestrial television. A television transmission can be by analog television signals or, more recently, by digital television. Broadcast television systems standards are...

 in Yuma, Arizona
Yuma, Arizona
Yuma is a city in and the county seat of Yuma County, Arizona, United States. It is located in the southwestern corner of the state, and the population of the city was 77,515 at the 2000 census, with a 2008 Census Bureau estimated population of 90,041....

, broadcasting locally on VHF
Very high frequency
Very high frequency is the radio frequency range from 30 MHz to 300 MHz. Frequencies immediately below VHF are denoted High frequency , and the next higher frequencies are known as Ultra high frequency...

 channel 11. It was a primary NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

 affiliate for its entire existence, though it also carried other networks' programming for much of its history. It was the first local television station in Yuma, and for more than half of its existence, the only local station. It signed on October 8, 1953 and signed off January 31, 1970. For most of its existence, KIVA was licensed to Valley Telecasting under control of several owners until 1967, and was licensed to Merrill Telecasting from 1967 until sign-off.

History

The Imperial Valley gained its first television station on March 25, 1953, when the FCC
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, created, Congressional statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the...

 awarded a permit to Valley Telecasting to construct a television station on VHF channel 11. The original studios and transmitter would be located at Pilot Knob
Pilot Knob (Imperial County, California)
Pilot Knob is a peak in Imperial County, California.Pilot Knob is located southeast of Ogilby, It rises to an elevation of...

 in California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

 about ten miles west of Yuma.

On October 6, 1953, the station, which had by that time acquired the call letters KIVA, sent out a very faint test pattern by accident, but it was received by several people. Two days later, the station was broadcasting a full-strength test signal, and began regularly scheduled service on October 18. It was the first television station in Arizona
Arizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...

 outside of Phoenix
Phoenix, Arizona
Phoenix is the capital, and largest city, of the U.S. state of Arizona, as well as the sixth most populated city in the United States. Phoenix is home to 1,445,632 people according to the official 2010 U.S. Census Bureau data...

 or Tucson
Tucson, Arizona
Tucson is a city in and the county seat of Pima County, Arizona, United States. The city is located 118 miles southeast of Phoenix and 60 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border. The 2010 United States Census puts the city's population at 520,116 with a metropolitan area population at 1,020,200...

. As the only local television station in the market, it carried select programming from NBC, ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...

, CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...

, and DuMont
DuMont Television Network
The DuMont Television Network, also known as the DuMont Network, DuMont, Du Mont, or Dumont was one of the world's pioneer commercial television networks, rivalling NBC for the distinction of being first overall. It began operation in the United States in 1946. It was owned by DuMont...

. It operated on Pacific Time
Pacific Time Zone
The Pacific Time Zone observes standard time by subtracting eight hours from Coordinated Universal Time . The clock time in this zone is based on the mean solar time of the 120th meridian west of the Greenwich Observatory. During daylight saving time, its time offset is UTC-7.In the United States...

, so the program start times in Yuma were an hour later than typical, as Yuma was on Mountain Time
Mountain Time Zone
The Mountain Time Zone of North America keeps time by subtracting seven hours from Coordinated Universal Time, also known as Greenwich Mean Time, during the shortest days of autumn and winter , and by subtracting six hours during daylight saving time in the spring, summer, and early autumn...

. At first, KIVA broadcast eight hours a day, from test pattern sign-on at 3 PM until sign-off at 11 PM, then slowly expanded the broadcast day until reaching a full daily schedule in August 1956.

One of the station's notable owners was Bruce Merrill, a cable television pioneer who had come to the Imperial Valley in the late 1950s, intending to build a cable television system to bring Phoenix and Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...

 signals into the market. KIVA was losing money, and its owner, Harry C. Butcher
Harry C. Butcher
Harry C. Butcher was a radio broadcaster who served during World War II as the Naval Aide to General Dwight D. Eisenhower from 1942 to 1945.-Early Life:...

, believing Merrill's venture would compete with his, put up strong opposition. Not able to convince Butcher otherwise, Merrill bought him out and built the cable television system. Just as Merrill had anticipated, KIVA began to prosper as well. The station built new studios in Yuma at the site of the current KSWT
KSWT
KSWT is a television station serving the Yuma, Yuma/El Centro, California market. Licensed to Yuma, it serves as a CBS affiliate. It broadcasts locally in digital on VHF channel 13, and is owned by the Pappas Telecasting Companies of Visalia, California under the name Pappas Telecasting of...

 facilities. It served Yuma with its primary signal, and El Centro, California
El Centro, California
El Centro is a city in and county seat of Imperial County, the largest city in the Imperial Valley and the east anchor of the Southern California Border Region, and the core urban area and principal city of the El Centro metropolitan area which encompasses all of Imperial County. El Centro is also...

 and Mexicali, Mexico
Mexicali
Mexicali is the capital of the State of Baja California, seat of the Municipality of Mexicali, and 2nd largest city in Baja California. The City of Mexicali has a population of 689,775, according to the 2010 census, while the population of the entire metropolitan area reaches 936,826.The city...

 on a repeater via microwave, but its success became a two-edged sword, as it attracted competition. The FCC
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, created, Congressional statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the...

 approved three additional construction permits for the market, one for KBLU-TV (now KSWT) in July 1962 and two others for stations to serve El Centro on channels 7 and 9 in April 1963. Merrill, who believed that the market could not support multiple local television stations, fought KBLU-TV and the El Centro stations. He claimed that KIVA "would probably go out of business within a year if KBLU-TV were allowed to open." While the competition did hurt KIVA's profits, conditions were not quite as bleak as Merrill predicted, and the station continued to operate well after KBLU-TV's sign-on in December 1963. In 1967, Merrill spun off the cable television business and became sole proprietor of KIVA as Merrill Telecasting. A third television station, KECC-TV (now KECY-TV
KECY-TV
KECY-TV is the primary Fox and secondary MyNetworkTV-affiliated television station for El Centro, California and Yuma, Arizona. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on VHF channel 9 from a transmitter between the two cities in the Chocolate Mountains in Imperial County, California. Owned...

) entered the market in December 1968, and KIVA eventually became unable to sustain business. On January 14, 1970, Merrill announced that KIVA would leave the air at the end of the month. Its NBC affiliation passed to KBLU-TV. There would not be another television station in Yuma on channel 11 until 1988, when KYMA
KYMA
KYMA-DT is an NBC-affiliated television station in Yuma, Arizona/El Centro, California, USA, broadcasting locally in digital on VHF channel 11. KYMA can be received over the air in Blythe, California in the Palo Verde Valley, and in the southeastern end of the Coachella Valley, and it transmits a...

 took to the air.

The KIVA call letters would be obtained in Farmington, New Mexico on Channel 12 by 1972. The call sign is once again defunct, as that station changed its call sign to KOBF
KOB-TV
KOB, virtual channel 4 , is an NBC-affiliate television station based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, owned by Hubbard Broadcasting. Its transmitter is located on Sandia Crest, east of Albuquerque...

 in 1984.

Programming

For its first ten years in existence, KIVA was the only television station in the market and was able to select programming from all of the networks. After KBLU-TV took the CBS affiliation upon sign-on, KIVA retained the NBC and ABC affiliations; after KECC-TV signed on as the ABC affiliate, KIVA was left with the NBC affiliation.

By the late 1950s, KIVA had its own children's show, called The S.S. KIVA. Set aboard a ship that sailed on sand because the sight of water made the crew seasick, it was first hosted by "Commodore" Don Kenny with his sidekick, "Binnacle Bill", played by Elmore Eaton. In 1964, while Kenny was on vacation, then-operations director Bob Hardy filled in, taking the name "Captain Almost" in an ad lib remark, because he was "almost a seaman". Shortly afterward, Kenny departed the station and Hardy, who had previously been a popular entertainer in Indiana
Indiana
Indiana is a US state, admitted to the United States as the 19th on December 11, 1816. It is located in the Midwestern United States and Great Lakes Region. With 6,483,802 residents, the state is ranked 15th in population and 16th in population density. Indiana is ranked 38th in land area and is...

 as "Uncle Bob", stepped in full-time as Captain Almost. Captain Almost, Binnacle Bill and The S.S. KIVA were quite popular with the children, and had a successful run until 1968, when KIVA temporarily suspended the show for coverage of the Summer Olympic Games
Summer Olympic Games
The Summer Olympic Games or the Games of the Olympiad are an international multi-sport event, occurring every four years, organized by the International Olympic Committee. Medals are awarded in each event, with gold medals for first place, silver for second and bronze for third, a tradition that...

 in Mexico City
Mexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...

, but then did not pick it up again after the games were completed.
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