NBC Owned Television Stations

NBC Owned Television Stations

Company type	Division
Industry	Broadcasting
Predecessor	NBC Local Media, NBC Television Stations Division (TVSD)
Founded	1941
Headquarters	New York City , United States
Key people	Valari Staab (president)
Products	Television stations, Cozi TV network, LXTV, Skycastle Entertainment
Parent	NBCUniversal (Comcast subsidiary)

NBC Owned Television Stations (previously known as NBC Local Media and NBC Television Stations Division (TVSD)) represents the branch of NBCUniversal Owned TV Stations (NBCUniversal), a Comcast subsidiary, responsible for overseeing NBC's owned-and-operated television stations, the Cozi TV network, LXTV, and Skycastle Entertainment, its internal marketing and promotional entity. The Telemundo owned-and-operated stations under NBCUniversal are administered independently through the Telemundo Station Group.

NBC Television Stations Division

The NBC Television Stations Division (TVSD) administers the network’s owned-and-operated broadcast outlets. WNBT (currently WNBC) in New York City, recognized as the longest-running commercial television station in the United States, commenced operations on July 1, 1941.

NBC broadened its owned-and-operated station holdings with WNBW (now WRC-TV) in Washington, D.C. (1947), followed by WNBQ (WMAQ-TV) in Chicago and WNBK (WKYC) in Cleveland (1948), and KNBH (KNBC) in Los Angeles (1949). In a significant 1955 exchange, NBC traded WNBK and WTAM-AM-FM to Westinghouse in return for KYW radio and WPTZ TV in Philadelphia, marking NBC’s entry into its largest unowned market. The transaction concluded in 1956, resulting in NBC relocating its operations to Philadelphia while Westinghouse took control of the Cleveland stations as KYW-AM-FM-TV. NBC reacquired the Cleveland properties in 1965, rebranding them as WKYC-AM-FM-TV. The company divested WKYC radio by 1972 and gradually sold majority interests in WKYC-TV by 1999.

To venture into UHF broadcasting, NBC purchased WBUF-TV (Buffalo) in 1955 and WKNB (now WVIT) in New Britain, Connecticut, in 1956, renaming the latter to WNBC. However, due to UHF’s limited success at that time, NBC ceased operations at WBUF in 1958 and sold the New Britain outlet in 1959, later reacquiring it as WVIT in 1997.

The acquisition of NBC by General Electric in 1986 incorporated GE’s KCNC-TV (Denver) into NBC’s lineup of owned stations. In 1987, NBC successfully acquired Miami’s WTVJ from CBS affiliation amid CBS’s dissatisfaction with longtime affiliate WSVN. This acquisition sparked a series of affiliation realignments involving CBS and Fox. That same year, GE transferred ownership of KCNC-TV and WTVJ to NBC.

In 1994, NBC gained majority ownership of KUTV (Salt Lake City). The Fox-New World affiliation agreement initiated a nationwide reshuffling from 1994 to 1996. In Philadelphia, Westinghouse’s switch from NBC to CBS led to a complex three-way exchange: CBS transferred WCAU-TV (Philadelphia) to NBC in exchange for KCNC and KUTV; concurrently, KUSA and KSL-TV entered into affiliations with NBC.

NBC expanded further by acquiring The Outlet Company's broadcast assets in 1996, which included WCMH-TV (Columbus), WJAR (Providence), and WNCN (Goldsboro). Additionally, it secured KNSD (San Diego) and WVTM-TV (Birmingham) through agreements with New World Communications.

In 1997, NBC collaborated with LIN Television Corporation via Station Venture Holdings to merge LIN's KXAS (Dallas–Fort Worth) with NBC's KNSD.

NBC attempted to acquire KRON-TV in the San Francisco Bay Area but was outbid by Young Broadcasting during the deYoung family's asset sale in 1999. After imposing reverse compensation demands that Young Broadcasting did not meet, KRON lost its NBC affiliation by early 2002. Subsequently, KNTV offered $37 million annually for affiliation rights and was fully acquired by NBC in December 2001.

In 2004, General Electric purchased an 80% interest in Vivendi Universal Entertainment and combined it with NBC to establish NBC Universal—80% owned by GE and 20% by Vivendi—consolidating NBC’s television divisions with Universal Television under the NBCUniversal Television Group umbrella.

By 2006, as part of strategic portfolio optimization, NBC Universal sold four smaller-market owned-and-operated stations—WVTM, WNCN, WCMH, and WJAR—to Media General.

NBC Local Media

In November 2007, TVSD underwent a rebranding to become NBC Local Media.

By March 2008, the division shifted its focus toward expanding its digital presence and strengthening its holdings in top-ten markets, leading to the decision to put Miami’s WTVJ and Hartford’s WVIT up for sale. Post-Newsweek Stations intended to acquire WTVJ with plans to establish a duopoly alongside their existing station WPLG. However, FCC regulations preventing ownership of two of the four highest-rated stations within a single market prevented this transaction from moving forward. Due to these regulatory constraints and unfavorable economic conditions, the sale of WTVJ was ultimately abandoned, while WVIT remained on the market.

In early 2008, Local Media expanded its portfolio by acquiring LXTV in January and subsequently purchasing Skycastle Entertainment, its former external sales and marketing agency, in March. Following the discontinuation of NBC Weather Plus at the end of 2008, WNBC launched NBC New York Nonstop in March 2009, featuring LXTV-produced content centered on local lifestyle and information.

January 2009 marked the beginning of a local news sharing collaboration between Local Media and Fox Television Stations, initially involving Philadelphia-based stations to facilitate shared video content across their media platforms. On July 29, 2009, NBC Local Integrated Media replaced traditional station websites with city-focused platforms utilizing nbccity.com URLs.

In February 2010, theFeast.com was introduced as a website dedicated to restaurant news and blogging. Additional niche verticals such as The Goods—a group buying site—and The 20—offering specialized articles—were launched to encourage stations to develop targeted digital properties.

Between late 2010 and early 2011, eight additional NBC owned-and-operated stations adopted the Nonstop digital subchannel format. This included three California stations that formed a localized network. Each Nonstop subchannel combined eight hours of locally produced programming with core content from LXTV shows like Talk Stoop, First Look, and Open House.

NBC Owned Television Stations

During the summer of 2011, the company began managing national advertising sales for New England Cable News (NECN), an affiliated cable channel. In June of that year, Local Media’s president Valari Staab renamed the division NBC Owned Television Stations (NBCOTS).

On November 3, 2011, NBCOTS announced that its seven local Nonstop subchannels would consolidate into a unified national network called Nonstop Network, extending availability to stations without a Nonstop subchannel. The programming lineup included daytime reruns of classic shows and lifestyle content during evenings, with local stations retaining the option to pre-empt network broadcasts. By July 2012, NBC was exploring alternative names for the network such as "Bob TV."

Following Comcast’s acquisition of a controlling stake in NBCUniversal in 2011, FCC mandates required NBC stations to collaborate with nonprofit journalism organizations. Consequently, theFeast website was transferred to DailyCandy.com—an NBCUniversal affiliate—in November. By December, four NBC stations had announced partnerships with nonprofit news entities modeled after KNSD’s collaboration with Voice of San Diego.

Building on NECN’s successful advertising model established earlier that year, NBCOTS and Comcast Sports Group expanded this partnership nationwide in April 2012 across regions including New England, Mid-Atlantic, Northwest, and Philadelphia markets. On October 24, 2012, NBCOTS rebranded the Nonstop network as Cozi TV, focusing on classic television series, films, and original shows.

In February 2013, LIN Media exited its joint venture with NBCUniversal’s Station Venture Operations, transferring full ownership of KNSD and KXAS-TV to NBCUniversal.

By July 2013, NBCOTS merged with Telemundo Station Group under the newly formed division NBCUniversal Owned Television Stations led by Valari Staab; NECN was also integrated into this structure. In 2014, Telemundo-owned WKAQ-TV in San Juan began simulcasting WNBC under the brand NBC Puerto Rico, effectively bringing it into NBCUniversal’s owned station portfolio.

By May 2016, four NBC-owned stations—WNBC, KNBC, WTVJ, and WVIT—had introduced newscasts at 4 p.m.; as of 2020 only KNTV lacked a newscast at that hour but launched one at 4:30 p.m. in September 2022.

On January 7, 2016, NBCOTS announced plans for an NBC-owned station serving Boston called NBC Boston, which officially launched on January 1, 2017 as a replacement for affiliate WHDH. Instead of using WNEU as its primary outlet, NBC utilized Boston-area translator WBTS-LD (acquired from ZGS Communications), while WNEU carried NBC Boston on its DT2 channel catering to New Hampshire viewers. Following the FCC’s 2016 spectrum auction, NBCOTS acquired the former WYCN-CD license along with channel-sharing rights alongside WGBX to improve coverage within Boston. Programming was realigned across NBCOTS and Telemundo assets in eastern New England—NBC content moved to WBTS-CD while WNEU and WYCN-LD focused on Spanish-language programming.

Stations

• Stations are organized alphabetically by state and their city of license.
• Stations that were both constructed and launched by NBC are denoted with two bold asterisks (**) following their call signs.

Current

<section begin="NBCO&O"/>

NBC-owned stations

Media market	State/Dist./Terr.	Station	Channel	Year affiliated	Acquired	Digital subchannels
Los Angeles	California	KNBC**	4	1949	1949	Cozi Am. Crimes Oxygen
San Diego		KNSD	39	1977	1996	Cozi Am. Crimes Oxygen
San Francisco		KNTV	11	2001	2002	Cozi Am. Crimes
Hartford–New Haven	Connecticut	WVIT	30	1953	1997	Cozi Am. Crimes Oxygen
Washington, D.C.	District of Columbia	WRC-TV**	4	1947	1947	Cozi Am. Crimes Oxygen
Miami–Fort Lauderdale	Florida	WTVJ	6	1989	1987	Cozi Am. Crimes Oxygen
Chicago	Illinois	WMAQ-TV**	5	1948	1948	Cozi Am. Crimes Oxygen
Boston	Massachusetts	WBTS-CD**	15	2018	2018	Cozi Am. Crimes Oxygen
New York City	New York	WNBC**	4	1941	1941	Cozi Am. Crimes Oxygen
Philadelphia	Pennsylvania	WCAU	10	1995	1995	Cozi Am. Crimes Oxygen
San Juan	Puerto Rico	WKAQ-DT3Template:Efn-ua	2.3	2014	2014	Telemundo (main) Punto 2
Fort Worth–Dallas	Texas	KXAS-TV	5	1948	1998	Cozi Am. Crimes Oxygen

<section end="NBCO&O"/>

Former

 Raleigh, North Carolina–Durham, North Carolina||North Carolina   rowspan=2  | Cleveland || rowspan=3  | Ohio  Columbus, OhioPhiladelphiaProvidence, Rhode IslandSalt Lake City

Media market	State	Station	Channel	Acquired	Sold
Birmingham, Alabama	Alabama	WVTM-TV	13	1996	2006
Denver	Colorado	KCNC-TV	4	1986	1995
Buffalo, New York	New York (state)	WBUF-TV	17	1956	1958
WNCN  17 || 1996 || 2006
WNBK**  3 || 1948 || 1956
WKYC-TV 1965 || 1990
WCMH-TV 4 || 1996 || 2006
Pennsylvania	(WRCV-TV) 3||1956||1965
Rhode Island	WJAR 10||1996||2006
Utah	KUTV 2||1994||1995

Station Venture Holdings

Station Venture Holdings, LLC was a collaborative enterprise formed by NBC, holding a 79.62% share, and LIN Television Corporation, which owned 20.38%. This partnership managed the NBC-affiliated stations KNSD and KXAS-TV. Although it was a joint venture, NBC's dominant ownership classified these stations as owned-and-operated. In November 2016, the licensee group expanded to include WBTS-LD (currently the Telemundo outlet WYCN-LD).

History

The venture originated in 1997 when LIN sold a controlling interest in KXAS to NBC, which contributed KNSD to the joint operation. Given NBC’s majority share, it assumed operational management. During a corporate restructuring in February 2013, LIN withdrew from the partnership, transferring complete ownership of both KXAS and KNSD to NBCUniversal. This transaction was valued at around $100 million. The Station Venture Holdings name continues to be used for FCC licensing purposes, including for WYCN-LD.

External links

• www.lx.com - Local X