History
KMIZ went on the air for the first time on December 5, 1971 as KCBJ-TV. Before then, ABC had been relegated to limited clearances on NBC affiliate KOMU-TV and CBS affiliate KRCG.
In 1982, KCBJ and KOMU swapped affiliations. ABC had become the nation's highest-rated network and had been looking to get its programming on higher-rated stations. It found the chance to align with long-dominant KOMU too much to resist. By 1985, however, NBC regained the ratings lead, and the two stations returned to their original networks on New Year's Day 1986. Along with the switch, channel 17 changed its call letters to the current KMIZ. In the late 1990s, KMIZ owner Benedek Broadcasting launched two low-powered stations, K02NQ in Columbia and K11TB in Jefferson City, to bring Fox to Mid-Missouri. It also operated cable-only WB 100+ affiliate "KJWB" (known on-air as "WB 5" from its cable channel location) from its launch in 1998 until 2002. Benedek went bankrupt later in 2002, and most of its stations, including KMIZ, were sold to Gray Television. "KJWB" transferred ownership to the University of Missouri (owners of KOMU), and KMIZ was divested to Chelsey Broadcasting. Chesley in turn sold the station to JW Broadcasting in May 2003.
In late 2003, JW Broadcasting moved the Fox affiliation for the Columbia-Jefferson City market to a new low-power station K38II. The company also launched "KZOU" as a cable-only UPN affiliate in Mid-Missouri. Additionally, the station launched the country's first 24-hour local weather channel, known as Show-Me Weather. In 2006, UPN merged with The WB and KZOU was awarded the MyNetworkTV affiliation. In 2007, Show-Me Weather was re-branded as ABC 17 Stormtrack 24/7, taking on an increased focus on local weather.
On June 12, 2009, analog transmissions ceased all over the United States and KMIZ became a strictly digital broadcaster. JW Broadcasting LLC was also awarded a new low-power digital license for its Fox affiliate on UHF channel 22 (under the callsign KQFX-LD).
On July 26, 2012, JW Broadcasting announced the sale of KMIZ and KQFX-LD to News-Press & Gazette Company for $16 million. The sale would make the two stations the second and third in Missouri to be owned by News-Press & Gazette Company (which owns Fox affiliate and television flagship KNPN-LD in Saint Joseph, where NPG's corporate headquarters are based). As NPG chief executive officer David Bradley currently serves as chairman of the board of curators that runs the University of Missouri, there is question as to whether Bradley's chairmanship at the university might result in the deal violating FCC rules that prohibit common ownership of two of the four highest-rated stations in a single media market. In the FCC purchase filing, News-Press & Gazette argues that Bradley has had no personal involvement in KOMU's operations. On November 1, the sale was consummated.
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“History, as an entirety, could only exist in the eyes of an observer outside it and outside the world. History only exists, in the final analysis, for God.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“In history the great moment is, when the savage is just ceasing to be a savage, with all his hairy Pelasgic strength directed on his opening sense of beauty;—and you have Pericles and Phidias,—and not yet passed over into the Corinthian civility. Everything good in nature and in the world is in that moment of transition, when the swarthy juices still flow plentifully from nature, but their astrigency or acridity is got out by ethics and humanity.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
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This book or that, come to this hallowed place
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Ireland’s history in their lineaments trace;
Think where man’s glory most begins and ends
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—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)