Beartooth NBC -- About Beartooth NBC

Beartooth NBC - Great Falls, Havre, Helena, Lewistown Montana

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History

About Beartooth NBC

We are Celebrating 50 years of broadcasting in Helena.

Join us in the celebration. Click below for the complete story from Sign on in 1958 through the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and Today.

Meet some of the people we worked with over the past 50 years. Find out where they went and where they are now and finally remember the shows from the past 50 years. Watch for more throughout the year for Bloopers, extras and more.

Learn More about Helena History.

Visit Kennon Baird's fantastic website HELENA AS SHE WAS.

The short history. Click on the image at the top of the page for more of our History

Local television in Helena signed on the air on January 1, 1958. KXLJ was part of the XL Radio Network. The “XL” Network included KXLF in Butte, KXXL in Bozeman, KXLY in Spokane, Washington as well as stations in Great Falls, Missoula and Livingston.

Bob Magnus, who later started the TCI Cable dynasty and became a multi-billionaire, and two partners purchased KXLJ and changed the call letters to KBLL. They pushed the cable television they had started in Helena by tying it with radio “Kable (KBLL) Radio” The Radio portion of KBLL moved to the mezzanine of the Colonial Inn while the TV Station remained in the Quonset Hut on Montana Avenue.

Montana Governor Tim Babcock purchased the station in 1969 and changed the call letters to KTCM, Television for the Capitol of Montana. Sometime during his 10 KTVG

years of ownership he sold the radio portion of the business. 1979 Governor Babcock sold his remaining portion of the Broadcast business to Lynn Koch who changed the call letters to KTVG on July 28th 1980.

August 19th 1985, Don Bradley was the next owner of the Television Station and his call letters, KTVH have remained to this date. The call letters K-T-V-H, stand or TeleVision for Helena.

Big Sky Broadcasting Limited Partnership purchased KTVH in 1988 from Don Bradlys KTVH Inc. John Raddeck, In nine years brought KTVH Television from bankruptcy to a profitable and respected television station. John and his partners with Big Sky Broadcasting later purchased sister station KSWT in Yuma, Arizona in 1991.

Beartooth Communications Company, a sunsidiary of Sunbelt Communications Company, prchased KTVH television from Big Sky Broadcasting on July 9, 1997. At that time, Sunbelt operated stations in Arizona (KYMA), Nevada (KVBC, KRNV, KENV), Idaho (KPVI) and Wyoming (KJWY).

On August 14, 1998 KTVH moved to a new state-of-the art Beartooth Mountain north of Helena

Broadcast Facility on the campus of Carroll College. The subsidiary was named for Beartooth Mountain, also known as the “nose” on the “Sleeping Giant” mountain seen north of Helena off Interstate-15.

In 2001 Sunbelts Beartooth Communications Company expanded further into Montana when satellite stations of Helenas KTVH went on air in Havre and Lewistown. On July 18, 2001, KBAO-NBC13 in Lewistown went on the air.
KBBJ TV Havre, MT

Then on December 5, 2001, KBBJ-NBC9 in Havre began broadcasting to the Montana highline from the campus of MSU Northern.

Sunbelt Communications Company had further plans to include Great Falls as a new member to the Beartooth Communications family. On July 1, 2005, KBGF-LP was awarded the NBC affiliation to Great Falls, Montana and became the newest member of the Beartooth Comunications Company Stations.

At the time KBGF went on the air in Great Falls, the family launched a new name to represent all of the Beartooth Communications Company stations in Montana. Beartooth NBC was the new name, and a commitment to local news coverage for Helena, Great Falls, Havre and Lewistown was the goal.

2008 marks the 50th Anniversary Brodacasting to the Helena community. Through several ownerships and call letter changes, this station has always broadcast the NBC network for the Helena Area. Continue watching throughout the year and visiting BeartoothNBC.com to see the special guest appearences of people from the past. Join us in celebrating 50 Years.

First to switch to all digital in Montana

The next step will be the transition to High Definition (HDTV) in the studio. This will give KTVH the ability to produce news, commercials and community affairs programming in High Definition.

In the 50th year of broadcasting, KTVH is taking a step into the next phase of broadcasting, Digital Television. Although KTVH has been broadcasting in digital for some time now in preparation of the switch to digital in February 2009, KTVH will jump ahead of many other stations and switch to all digital by turning off their analog signal early. KTVH made a successfull switch to all digital at noon on November 10, 2008. The FCC granted Beartooth Communications Company and KTVH the right to make the swithch early because their engineers may not be able to safely reach the transmitter atop of Hogback mountain in February of 2009.

DTV.gov banner

The nation wide digital transition was ultimately changed by the FCC to June 12, 2009. By that time KTVH had already been broadcasting in all digital and passing through NBC network HD programming for seven months.

KBGF, however, is a low power station and was not required to make the switch to digital at this point. The Great Falls station is broadcasting in standard definition/analog.