KLTV 7 history

KLTV has been an ABC affiliate since its debut; however, it initially carried the network as a shared primary affiliation with CBS and NBC; the station also aired programming from the DuMont Television Network on a secondary basis until 1955.

In 1964, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) collapsed Lufkin and Nacogdoches into the Tyler market.

KLTV lost the CBS affiliation in September 1984, when Longview-based KLMG-TV (channel 51, now Fox affiliate KFXK-TV) signed on.

Civic merged with Cosmos Broadcasting, a division of the Liberty Corporation in 2000. It retained a secondary affiliation with NBC until KETK-TV (channel 56) signed on in March 1987, resulting in channel 7 becoming an exclusive ABC affiliate.

Buford Television owned KLTV and KTRE until 1989, when it sold the stations to Jackson, Mississippi-based Civic Communications.

Civic merged with Cosmos Broadcasting, a division of the Liberty Corporation in 2000.

In October 2004, KLTV celebrated its 50th anniversary.

Liberty sold itself to Raycom Media in 2006.

In March and April 2007, KLTV ran a "Flip the Switch" promotion to promote the completion of the new Red Springs tower.

In January 2011, KLTV started "KLTV in Your Community," a section of its website serving as a branch for citizen journalism, or community blogging; the blog sites are separated into fifteen East Texas communities with Tyler divided into four quadrants by city section.