KCMT-TV

Not to be confused with KCMT, an NBC affiliate in Marnoson, Texas.

KCMT-TV (Digital channel 20, virtual channel 48) is an NBC-affiliated station in Lewistown, Montana. The station's transmitter is located near King Colony Ranch in the geographic center of Montana.

History
KLWS-TV (as the station was known back then) went on-the-air January 4, 1976. It was started by Lewis G. Boucher, who will then be the future owner of KXLO Broadcast, Incorporated. The station has always been an NBC affiliate but also began to carry CBS and ABC programming on a secondary basis. The station lost CBS when KMCS signed on the air in 1978 and ABC in KTGS (then KFBP, now KTSU) signed on in 1979. Efforts to carve out Fergus and Judith Basin Counties from the Great Falls television market, as well as Petroleum County from the Billings television market, began in 1980, with Wheatland County also of the Billings market following suit a few months later. By fall 1983, Nielsen formed the newly created Lewistown DMA. Fred Lark, Beulah G. Lark, and Luann T. Lark, all of Boone, Iowa, purchased controlling interest in KXLO Broadcast, Incorporated (and with it, KLWS) in 1973. Beulah Lark’s interest reverted to the corporation following her death a year later. Boucher sold his interest to Fred Lark and Luann Lark in 1982. The pair then changed the station's call letters to the current KCMT-TV (standing for C entral M ontana T elevision) in the Fall of 1988. The call letters were previously used by a television station in Alexandria, Minnesota, which was known as KCCO-TV, from its first air date in October 1958 to 1987. That station last signed off on December 30, 2017. In February 2007, Bethany Lark and Melody Lark were brought into ownership by Luann Fortenbery (née Lark). Fred, Luann, Bethany and Melody continue their ownership and operation through 2009. Now owned by the Larks, Montana Broadcast Communications sold the station's operations to Cox Media Group subsidiary of Cox Enterprises in 1988 based in Atlanta, Georgia. In 2001, the station swapped affiliates with cross-town rival KBAO (channel 13) and became a Fox affiliate. However, a mere seven years later, it returned to NBC in 2008.

Possible sale
On July 24, 2018, KCMT-TV parent Cox Enterprises announced that it was "exploring strategic options" for Cox Media Group's television stations, which the company said could involve "partnering or merging these stations into a larger TV company." Cox Media Group's president, Kim Guthrie, subsequently clarified to trade publication Radio & Television Business Report that the company was solely seeking "a merger or partnership" and not an outright sale of the television stations. Any deal involving the television stations would not include Cox's radio stations or newspapers.

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