KJZZ-TV (channel 14) is an independent television station in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group alongside CBS affiliate KUTV (channel 2) and fellow independent KMYU (channel 12 or 2.2) in St. George, which also airs MyNetworkTV programming. The stations share studios on South Main Street in downtown Salt Lake City; KJZZ-TV's transmitter is located on Farnsworth Peak in the Oquirrh Mountains, southwest of Salt Lake City. KJZZ-TV is the ATSC 3.0 (Next Gen TV) host station for the Salt Lake City market; in turn, other stations broadcast its subchannels on its behalf. The station went on the air as KXIV in 1989. It was the second successful attempt at an independent station for the Salt Lake City area. In 1993, Larry H. Miller, the then-owner of the Utah Jazz of the NBA, purchased the station and renamed it KJZZ-TV; it also became the new TV home of the basketball team for 16 seasons. During Miller's ownership, the station affiliated for five years with UPN, with the station's decision not to renew leading to accusations of racism against management; in the latter years, operations and programming were outsourced in turn to two other Salt Lake stations. Sinclair purchased KJZZ-TV from the Miller family in 2016; the station airs syndicated programming and local newscasts from KUTV. In 2023, pre-season and regular season Jazz games returned to the station under a new rights agreement between current Jazz owner Ryan Smith and Sinclair.
History
"Real TV" An original construction permit was granted by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on December 6, 1984, to American Television of Utah, Inc., a subsidiary of Salt Lake City–based American Stores Company, for a full-power television station on UHF channel 14 to serve Salt Lake City and the surrounding area. American Stores had filed for the construction permit in 1979; its original intention for the station was to broadcast subscription television (STV) programming, as it would eventually do on a microwave distribution system known as American Home Theatre. In 1981, Skaggs Telecommunications Services, a division of American Stores, had built a studio facility to house its various divisions, including the planned television station. The construction permit took the call letters KAHT. By the time the construction permit was awarded, however, STV had fallen out of favor. Instead, in late 1986, American reached a deal with the Grant Broadcasting System, which had started new independent television stations in Chicago, Miami, and Philadelphia, to form a joint venture which would run channel 14. The construction permit took the call letters KGBS in November 1986, the same month that the general manager of the Miami station mentioned the agreement in an interview with The Miami News. Grant, however, was headed for its own problems, filing not long after for bankruptcy reorganization. The joint venture never came to fruition; channel 14 was renamed again on February 29, 1988, to KXIV (representing the Roman numeral for 14); and American Television took up the task of building the station. Transmission tests began in January 1989 from a transmitter on Little Farnsworth Peak, and KXIV began broadcasting programming on February 14 as "Real TV", broadcasting a general entertainment lineup. "Real TV" cast itself as an alternative to the programming offered by Salt Lake's existing television stations, emphasizing classic shows.
K-Jazz Changes elsewhere in the Salt Lake television landscape would change the future—and the name—of KXIV. KSTU, which had recently been purchased by Fox itself, was on its last season of a multi-year deal to broadcast 25 games of the NBA's Utah Jazz. Motivated by Fox's expanding offerings and the network's impending move to programming all seven nights of the week, KSTU and the Fox Television Stations Group had telegraphed to Jazz owner Larry H. Miller that it would not renew its deal, leaving the Jazz without a broadcast television partner for the 1993–94 season. As a result, Miller bought KXIV in a transaction totaling nearly $9 million, with $1.725 million going toward the license. Miller set about making channel 14 a higher-profile station centered on sports coverage, with the Jazz, the high-level minor league hockey Salt Lake Golden Eagles (which Miller also owned and who already had several games a year on channel 14), and syndicated coverage of the expansion Colorado Rockies as the nuclei. The call letters changed to KJZZ (promoted as K-Jazz 14, after the team) on June 14, after KJZZ, a radio station in Phoenix that used the base call sign, agreed to share it and after the conclusion of the NBA playoffs. Miller financed the construction of new translators to bring KJZZ's signal to outlying communities in Utah and eastern Nevada.
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