The KONG-TV call sign was first granted by the Federal Communications Commission on April 6, 1984. When it was applied for, it immediately drew a legal complaint from King Broadcasting, then-owner of KING-TV, against Carl Washington's KONG TV, Inc., the first broadcaster to apply for a license for Everett's channel 16. The station had planned to go on the air on June 1 of that year, with studios in Everett and an advertising sales office in Seattle, but kept getting bogged down by years of legal challenges from residents on Cougar Mountain who objected to the electromagnetic radiation from an additional broadcaster. After the legal challenges to the transmitter, KONG lay dormant until broadcasters came up with innovative ways to program additional stations in their area. KONG-TV signed on the air on July 8, 1997. It was locally owned, but managed by KING-TV through a local marketing agreement. The KONG call letters were retained as a tongue-in-cheek reference to King Kong, which made both stations easily marketable together. Belo bought channel 16 outright in 2000, when the FCC began to permit television stationduopolies. On June 13, 2013, the Gannett Company announced that it would acquire Belo. The sale was completed on December 23. On June 29, 2015, the Gannett Company split in two, with one side specializing in print media and the other side specializing in broadcast and digital media. KING and KONG were retained by the latter company, named Tegna.
KONG shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 16, on June 12, 2009, as part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 31, using PSIP to display KONG's virtual channel as 16 on digital television receivers. In 2009, KONG became one of the first four television stations in the country to begin broadcasting mobile DTV signals. The OMVC chose KONG and KOMO-TV in Seattle and WPXA-TV and WATL in Atlanta as the stations to beta test the ATSC-M/H standard, which has since been officially adopted for free-to-airbroadcast television with clear reception on mobile devices, overcoming many of the defects of the original ATSC standard.
Programming
Initially, the station ran a general entertainment format with classic sitcoms, westerns, old movies, cartoons, and a 10 p.m. newscast. Along with the newscast and KING's Evening Magazine, the station now airs KING-TV's syndicated shows during primetime or other time slots, giving viewers a second chance to watch the shows that day. It also carries a few syndicated programs that KING-TV does not air such as Inside Edition, Extra, Access Hollywood, and The Dr. Oz Show. KONG also broadcasts certain NBC network programs in lieu of KING, including a repeat of Meet the Press in its traditional mid-morning time slot, as KING is one of the fewWest Coast NBC affiliates to carry it live from Washington, D.C. at 6:00 a.m. Pacific Time, instead of tape-delaying it to 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time as is custom. Because of its relationship with KING, KONG can air NBC programming that may get displaced by other programming such as local events or extended breaking news coverage. Occasionally, KONG can even air live breaking news events—whether from NBC News or KING 5—when KING 5 airs local programming and situation warrants; although KING 5 and KONG simulcast NBC's breaking news coverage during morning news programs as well as in the middle of regular programming whenever there is breaking news of a national or global matter. An example of this is when in 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009, KONG aired NBC's coverage of the Stanley Cup Finals for games that occurred on the East Coast, with KING airing local programming and news in its place and ceding that more viewers usually watched CBC's NHL coverage on the network's Vancouverowned-and-operated stationCBUT. For the 2008 and 2012 NFL preseasons, Seattle Seahawks preseason football games that are not televised nationally aired on KONG as NBC held the rights to the Summer Olympic Games. KONG also aired Seattle Sounders FC games, and airs the weekly magazine program Sounders FC Weekly on Sunday nights during the Major League Soccer season. In 2018, after KIRO-TV discontinued full-day coverage of the event in 2017, full-day coverage of the H1 UnlimitedSeafair Cup races moved to KONG.
Newscasts
KING-TV produces 22 hours of news programming for KONG. KONG broadcasts a 10 p.m. newscast which competes with an in-house hour-long newscast on Fox affiliate KCPQ; the program airs for one hour on Monday through Friday evenings and a half-hour on weekend evenings. KONG also broadcasts a two-hour extension of KING's weekday morning newscast starting at 7 a.m., which also competes with KCPQ's morning newscast. KONG also broadcasts an hour-delayed rebroadcast of KING's noon newscast at 1 p.m. weekdays. It's the only newscast shown on KONG that comes from the main sister channel, KING. On September 9, 2013, KONG added a weeknight 9 p.m. newscast from KING, becoming the second newscast to air at that timeslot in the Seattle market, resulting in Seattle's first two-hour continuous primetime news block.
