KGTO-TV was a television station on channel 36 in Fayetteville, Arkansas, that broadcast between 1969 and 1973. The station was owned by Noark Broadcasting and maintained studios at 200 West Center Street in Fayetteville. After going silent, the license was sold to George T. Hernreich, owner of Fort Smith's KFPW-TV, and modified for channel 29. The station re-emerged on December 5, 1977, as KTVP.
History
On May 8, 1968, the Federal Communications Commission issued Noark a construction permit for channel 36, which would broadcast with an effective radiated power of 1,450 kW from Robinson Mountain. The construction of the station featured a delay due to a short circuit in the station's transmission line and a dramatic situation in January 1969, when a 19-year-old engineer suffered frostbite and had to be rescued from atop the tower, then hospitalized. Channel 36 began telecasts as an NBC affiliate on February 8, though its NBC affiliation agreement stipulated no compensation for carrying network programs. By July, one of the partners in Noark, Weldon Stamps, pulled out, leaving the station owned by Paul Milam Sr. and Jr., E.J. Ball, and Tom Cowan. Noark also contended with a lease for faulty equipment that it had assumed from Oklahoma City's defunct KLPR-TV. Not long after signing on, KGTO found that the equipment from Visual Electronics Corporation was deficient and ceased making lease payments; in March 1971, a federal judge found that Visual knew the equipment was defective, a judgment reaffirmed the next year in appeals court in KLPR-TV, Inc., vs. Visual Electronics Corporation. As a non-interconnected station, KGTO was dependent on receiving the signal of other affiliates over-the-air for its own broadcasts. When KGTO invoked network non-duplication of other network affiliates on the Trans-Video cable system in Fayetteville in February 1971, viewers complained that the network feed from KGTO, now replacing other network affiliates on the cable system, was of poor quality. The next month, the NBC affiliate in Little Rock, KARK-TV, sued KGTO for $7,805 in unpaid fees for using KARK as a source of NBC programming, pursuant to an agreement between the stations. Another lawsuit followed in May, when film distributorScreen Gems sued Noark for over $25,000 over a reorganization into an investment company that affected contracts for movies and cartoons. After carrying some CBS programs previously, 1972 saw KGTO fully change affiliations from NBC to CBS, with Little Rock's KTHV-TV as its primary program source. The station continued to demonstrate further financial troubles by cutting back its schedule; on January 22, 1973, the station began signing on the air at 5:30 pm on weekdays. That May, Noark filed to sell the station to George T. Hernreich, who would convert it to a satellite of Fort Smith's KFPW-TV, which he owned. With the sale to Hernreich languishing at the FCC due to concerns over conduct at his KAIT-TV in Jonesboro, KGTO-TV went off the airDecember 23, 1973, with Hernreich stating he would have the station back on within 24 hours of receiving approval. In the meantime, equipment was stolen from the KGTO transmitter site on Robinson Mountain. The sale was consummated in 1975, and the FCC cleared Hernreich of character issues in February 1976. While Hernreich finally owned KGTO, he soon found other issues. An entirely new transmission facility had to be built at Robinson Mountain due to damage and further theft. An application was made on February 21, 1976 for a new facility. However, Hernreich procured equipment designed for channel 29, not 36; stating that a change would "permit restoration of service quickly and save approximately $100,000 in additional capital", Hernreich requested channel 29 to be substituted for 36 at Fayetteville, requiring modifications to three other allotments regionally. On December 5, 1977, KTVP signed on the air on channel 29 as a satellite of Hernreich's KFPW-TV in Fort Smith. The two stations are today KHOG-TV and KHBS, respectively.
