I always wondered why Glendive and Miles City, 70 miles apart, didn't become a single market. KYUS isn't around anymore.
I vaguely recall an article in TV Guide about KYUS.
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TV Guide editions and online resources
- Thread starter IM42A
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I vaguely recall an article in TV Guide about KYUS.
KYUS is silent but not gone. Just yesterday (7/9/2025), current owner The Marks Group filed to sell both KYUS and KXGN to Montana State University for $375,000. Stay tuned.
Once upon a time in the mid-1970s, I picked up KYUS, Channel 3, via e-skip here in the southwest suburbs of Chicago. It was a Monday night, and NBC was running Monday Night Baseball, so it was in pattern with WMAQ and the ET/CT feed. Caught an ID and a local ad or two for a supermarket. A few years later, there was not only a story on this mom-and-pop station in TV Guide, but it was the last story one night on NBC Nightly News. John Chancellor signed off that night with, "Over to you, Miles City."
Once upon a time in the mid-1970s, I picked up KYUS, Channel 3, via e-skip here in the southwest suburbs of Chicago. It was a Monday night, and NBC was running Monday Night Baseball, so it was in pattern with WMAQ and the ET/CT feed. Caught an ID and a local ad or two for a supermarket. A few years later, there was not only a story on this mom-and-pop station in TV Guide, but it was the last story one night on NBC Nightly News. John Chancellor signed off that night with, "Over to you, Miles City."
I didn't see this coming. Talk about the end of an era.
Marks Estate Sells Montana TV Pair To University | Radio & Television Business Report
For one thing, that will mean the end of the smallest TV market in the US. It will inevitably be absorbed into either the Billings or Minot/Bismarck/Dickinson/Williston market. One of the Williston stations had a translator in Glendive and may still.
I did some digging, and actually, in the 1970s and 1980s, Glendive and Miles City were a single market.
It will move to billings dma. The old nbc translator (Williston station) in Glendive left years ago (2013)
There was no need for it after KXGN went with NBC on 5.2, but I'm pretty sure it stuck around for a few years after that. I don't have exact dates.
It was 2013 as I posted. (Per wiki). That was the OTA station. It was carried on cable for longer than that but the cable company shut down a year or so ago.
OK, thanks, I was going by cable carriage and just assuming it was picked up from a translator, even though, as you well note, I had the 2013 date staring me right in the face. I would think that Glendive viewers would rather watch Billings stations than something from out-of-state such as Williston. Up to now, the Glendive market's default ABC affiliate on Dish Network has been KOTA Rapid City (this per tvtv.us, admittedly not always the best resource), which makes little sense.
KUMV Williston has translators all throughout eastern Montana, and KXMD has one in Poplar as well.
Dish Network gives them the missing 3 network stations from Rapid City (per the dish site). PBS is the national feed of PBS. The reason is due to spotbeams (satellite reuses transponders for various areas of locals). Dish made some transponder changes a couple years ago so my memory is on the old setups. The spotbeam that covered Glendive was the one that covered Rapid City area. Dish is notorious for not remapping locals to multiple spotbeams and the Billings one didn't cover the whole Glendive market.
Also Dish is cheap and probably got Rapid City to allow them to put the locals on there cheaper than Western ND.
Normally satellite gives you the missing local just like what cable gives you. the Northeastern part of Montana is part of that market so the translator stations carry ND stations and KXGN (for now
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correct. In the late 70s they were one market then Glendive moved mid 80s after KYUS was sold to KOUS (Now KHMT Billings) to its own market then in the 90s (91-94) combined with the Western ND area. 1995 it went back to its own market (I have maps of all those times to verify)
Dish Network gives them the missing 3 network stations from Rapid City (per the dish site). PBS is the national feed of PBS. The reason is due to spotbeams (satellite reuses transponders for various areas of locals). Dish made some transponder changes a couple years ago so my memory is on the old setups. The spotbeam that covered Glendive was the one that covered Rapid City area. Dish is notorious for not remapping locals to multiple spotbeams and the Billings one didn't cover the whole Glendive market.
Also Dish is cheap and probably got Rapid City to allow them to put the locals on there cheaper than Western ND.
The Rapid City stations also probably wouldn't mind snagging a couple of counties in Montana for their DMA, if they could swing it once KXGN goes away. For that, they could likely afford to make their satellite feeds available at a discount. They have all of the moving parts that apparently Billings doesn't have.
I think those 2 counties will go to Billings since Montana PBS bought KXGN and KYUS.
If they move the 2 KXGN counties to the Billings market then they (Dish) will have to switch the locals to Billings locals The reason they are getting Rapid City locals is just due to the spotbeams on the old Dish satellites (they've switched them since then). Also were dealing with Gray (for FOX & ABC) and Forum (for NBC) and we know Gray has fought for $$ from providers.
I didn't realize that. Billings would make the most sense (in-state locals).
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Boy, if this thread hasn't gone way off-topic ... up into space, it seems ... 😜
Well, yes, that is true, but that said, it is a worthwhile subject, the demise of the smallest TV market in the US.
If the moderators have any way to move the posts from #469 onwards into their own thread, possibly under "Television States - Montana", that would be good.
Am I correct, then, in understanding that OTT services such as YouTube TV can provide the major networks in any way they see fit? That they are not bound to must-carry and market exclusivity restrictions?
I'm assuming that they can't get a signal from KXGN, so they just deliver a national feed.
These two editions (El Paso and New Mexico) are almost identical in their channel lineups:
http://www.matthewsittel.com/tvg/cl/19790908_elp_cl.jpg
http://www.matthewsittel.com/tvg/cl/19750906_nm_cl.jpg
It's also worth noting that in both editions, El Paso stations are in black bullets and Albuquerque has white bullets. Four years apart (1975 and 1979) was the closest together that I could find.
Though there are exceptions, black bullets are usually for in-market (or rather, in-circulation area) stations, and white bullets are for out-of-market stations. In some cases, they seem to act as a kind of mnemonic (such as in the Washington-Baltimore edition), so that viewers can readily distinguish which stations are from which markets without having to think too much about it. And in the case of editions such as Montana, they are jumbled together, even within cities, with no clear pattern, sometimes seeming to have been a case of a new station going on the air and needing a bullet to distinguish it from a station on the same channel.
http://www.matthewsittel.com/tvg/cl/19790908_elp_cl.jpg
http://www.matthewsittel.com/tvg/cl/19750906_nm_cl.jpg
It's also worth noting that in both editions, El Paso stations are in black bullets and Albuquerque has white bullets. Four years apart (1975 and 1979) was the closest together that I could find.
Though there are exceptions, black bullets are usually for in-market (or rather, in-circulation area) stations, and white bullets are for out-of-market stations. In some cases, they seem to act as a kind of mnemonic (such as in the Washington-Baltimore edition), so that viewers can readily distinguish which stations are from which markets without having to think too much about it. And in the case of editions such as Montana, they are jumbled together, even within cities, with no clear pattern, sometimes seeming to have been a case of a new station going on the air and needing a bullet to distinguish it from a station on the same channel.
Since Glendive is the only market with no local NBC YTTV just gives them one
Looking at a market with no CBS (Zanesville, OH) they get Columbus CBS.
ABC is interesting because when I had YTTV they gave us what is basically the National feed (there is no licensed ABC in my market) and when there wasn’t National programming they gave us ABC News 24/7 or reruns of the View, etc. weekends were reruns of what would you do? During those open times.
edit: found what I use to get a few years ago on ABC via YTTV
6-8 Good Morning America (normally its on from 7-9 Central)
8-10 ABC News Live
10-11 View
11-12 GMA3
12-1 GMA3
1-2 General Hospital
2-3 General Hospital
3-4 GMA3
4-5 View
5-5:30 GMA3 (half hour?)
5:30-6 ABC Nat'l News
6-6:30 ABC Nat'l News
6:30-7 simulcast from ABC News Live channel
7-10 Prime Time
10-10:35 simulcast from ABC News Live channel
10:35-12:07 Kimmel and Nightline
overnight its national ABC programming (ABC news)
Noticed on the weekend its alot of simulcast from ABC News Live as I see "What would you do?"
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