KAUU (channel 5) is a television station in Anchorage, Alaska, United States, affiliated with CBS and MyNetworkTV. It is owned by Gray Television alongside NBC affiliate KTUU-TV (channel 2). Both stations share studios on East 40th Avenue in Anchorage, while KAUU's transmitter is located in Knik, Alaska.
KAUU (as KYES-TV) acquired the CBS affiliation for Anchorage on July 31, 2020, when Gray Television purchased the non-license assets of KTVA (channel 11) from Denali Media Holdings, a subsidiary of local cable television operator GCI. KAUU continues to carry its former primary service and schedule, which includes syndicated programming and MyNetworkTV, on its fourth subchannel, and GCI channel 11. Programming from KAUU's main and fourth subchannels is available statewide through the Alaska Rural Communications Service (ARCS) translator network.
As of September 2020, KAUU shares its website and news operation with KTUU, which are both branded under the "Alaska's News Source" moniker.
As of March 3, 2021, CBS programming moved to KYES-LD and KTUU-DT5 (mapped as 5.11) as part of a major transmitter upgrade; the station's other subchannels are still in operation.
History
Channel 5 signed on the air as KYES on January 21, 1990 as an independent before joining UPN in January 1995. It also had a secondary affiliation with The WB until that network launched The WB 100+ Station Group on September 21, 1998 in order to shift to cable-only distribution in smaller markets. In January 2006 it was announced that the WB and UPN were to merge operations in September 2006 to form The CW. The station was expected to become a CW affiliate, but on April 24 it was announced that The CW would be carried on a digital subchannel of ABC's Anchorage affiliate KIMO (channel 13, now KYUR). KYES instead became an affiliate of MyNetworkTV and one of only two in Alaska (former sister station K17HC in Juneau was the other); KFXF, the Fox affiliate in Fairbanks, declined an offer to air it as a secondary affiliation. The "-TV" suffix was added in 2007.
On October 1, 2015, Gray Television announced that it would acquire KYES-TV and four of its five translators from Fireweed Communications for $500,000, and apply for a "failing station" waiver from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) so it could form a duopoly between KYES-TV and NBC affiliate KTUU, which Gray was acquiring as part of a separate transaction with Schurz Communications. Gray stated that it planned to invest in improving the quality of the station's services and programming.
The acquisition was opposed by GCI—the dominant cable provider in Alaska and owner of then-CBS affiliate KTVA (channel 11)–who filed a complaint to the FCC in December 2015. The company argued that the consolidation of KTUU and KYES would harm the ability for other stations to compete. Alaska state Attorney General Craig W. Richards also objected to the purchase, stating that such a consolidation would have the "potential for significant negative effects on competition in the small Anchorage DMA." Gray objected to GCI's claims, arguing that it was ironic for a "monopoly" utility company to "[allege] anti-competitive harms and serious threats to its impressive bottom line from the combination of KTUU, a strong station with an undisputed record of serving local communities, with [KYES], a weak station that has no local news, that hardly registers in ratings, and that GCI concedes has less than 5% of the local broadcast television advertising market," and that "GCI may need to increase its investments in KTVA to prevail in the marketplace over a new competitor in KYES-TV. Investments and competitive responses are precisely the types of benefits that the commission and the public want to see from broadcasters."
On June 17, 2016, the FCC approved the sale of the station to Gray, with the condition that the station would not enter (during two years post-consummation) into an affiliation agreement with a television network that would convert KYES into one of the top-four stations in audience share. The sale was completed on June 27, 2016. Prior to the sale, KYES was one of the few stand-alone, locally owned commercial television stations left in the United States. Immediately after, the station's logo was redesigned, and its MyNetworkTV affiliation was de-emphasized, as has become standard during MyNetworkTV's decline as solely a programming service with limited network imaging. Around the same time, KYES' translator in Juneau, KCBJ-LP (channel 15), took over for K17HC, which was retained by Fireweed, but went dark in 2017.