KMCS

KMCS is a CBS-affiliated station in Lewistown, Montana. The station's transmitter is located in Midtown Lewistown.

History
KMCS debuted on August 9, 1978 as KMCS-TV on channel 26. It was the second television station in Central Montana, signing on just a few hours after KLWS-TV in Lewistown (channel 48, now KCMT-TV). The station was a CBS affiliate, but also shared ABC programming with KLWS-TV.

Channel 36 found the going difficult at first, since television manufacturers weren't required to build in UHF tuning capability at the time. Viewers needed an expensive converter to watch KMCS, and even then the picture quality was marginal at best. In addition, most of Central Montana is very mountainous due to the presence of the Judith Mountains as well as both the North and South Moccasin Mountains, and UHF signals at the time usually did not carry very well over rugged terrain. In 1980, the station's original local owners, Moccasin Television, sold the station to Northwest Television, a television company in Eugene, Oregon.

When KTGS (now KTSU) signed on in 1979 and took the ABC affiliation, KMCS became a full-time CBS affiliate. However, it spent most of the next 20 years as a very distant third in the ratings. While this was due in part to ABC being an emerging network at the time, another problem was the terrain issue. Many viewers didn't get a clear signal from channel 36 until cable arrived in Lewistown in the latter part of the 1970s. In fact, many viewers got a better signal from KFBB-TV (channel 5) in Great Falls; KFBB's transmitter is located 104 miles (167 km) west of Lewistown. In 1982, Northwest Television sold the 70% of the station to Multimedia, Inc. of Greenville, South Carolina under a joint ownership called the "Channel 36 Limited Partnership", which lasted until 1995 when it was sold to Meredith Corporation of Des Moines, Iowa, who remained the owner until its sale to Newport Television in 2010. Newport agreed to sell KMCS in Christmas Day 2012. The sale was completed on February 19, 2013, marking Nexstar's first television property in the state of Montana.

On December 3, 2018, Irving, Texas-based Nexstar Media Group announced it would acquire the assets of Tribune Media for $6.4 billion in cash and debt.

Logo History
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