KYUR

KYUR (channel 13) is a television station in Anchorage, Alaska, United States, affiliated with ABC and The CW Plus. It is owned by Vision Alaska LLC, which maintains joint sales and shared services agreements (JSA/SSA) with Coastal Television Broadcasting Company LLC, owner of Fox affiliate KTBY (channel 4), for the provision of advertising sales and other services. The two stations share studios on East Tudor Road in Anchorage; KYUR's transmitter is located in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough. KYUR and KTBY, alongside KATN in Fairbanks and KJUD in Juneau, provide ABC, Fox, and CW programming throughout Alaska. Channel 13 went on the air on October 31, 1967, as KHAR-TV, the third TV station in Anchorage. It was owned alongside radio station KHAR by Bill Harpel, who died three months later. As an independent station without network affiliation and reliant on movies, KHAR-TV struggled, and it left the air in May 1970. It signed back on four months later after Central Alaska Broadcasting agreed to buy the station. After the sale closed in 1971, the call sign changed to KIMO, and a federal rule change spurred ABC to affiliate with channel 13. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, KIMO enjoyed a run as the leading news station in Anchorage and was credited with raising the quality of television newscasting in the local market. Its owners acquired KJUD and KATN in 1983 and 1984, respectively, creating a statewide broadcaster known as the Alaska Television Network. After lead anchor John Vallentine departed in 1985, the station's news ratings declined, and KTUU-TV (channel 2) established itself as the market leader. The owners took out an $11 million loan in 1988 to buy out other shareholders and make capital improvements; when the national television advertising market and the Alaskan economy contracted simultaneously, a receiver was appointed to run the Alaska Television Network stations. Smith Broadcasting Group bought the stations in 1995 and consolidated news and programming functions in Anchorage, integrating the three ABC affiliates into a statewide setup known as "Alaska's SuperStation". Vision Alaska bought the stations in 2010, bringing them under common management with Coastal's KTBY. News ratings remained low, and in 2020 the entire news staff was fired, with much of the station's news output outsourced.