KCTV

KCTV is a television station in Kansas City, Missouri, United States, affiliated with CBS. It is owned by Gray Media alongside KSMO-TV, an independent station with MyNetworkTV. The two stations share studios on Shawnee Mission Parkway in Fairway, Kansas; KCTV's transmitter facility, the KCTV Broadcast Tower, is located in the Union Hill section of Kansas City, Missouri. Channel 5 was the fourth television channel to go on the air in Kansas City; KCMO-TV began broadcasting on September 27, 1953, as the television adjunct of KCMO radio. Originally an ABC affiliate, it switched to CBS in 1955 as part of a group affiliation agreement negotiated by the Meredith Corporation, which agreed to buy KCMO radio and television less than a week after KCMO-TV began broadcasting. In 1956, the present tower, a Kansas City landmark, was completed to broadcast the station. Despite protests from Kansas City civic leaders, KCMO-TV moved its studio facilities to Fairway, Kansas, at the end of 1977. Meredith sold the KCMO radio stations in 1983; as this required the television station to change its call sign, it paid a Texas station $25,000 to release the call sign KCTV for use in Kansas City.