KXLF-TV
CBS television affiliate in Butte, Montana, United States
KXLF-TV (channel 4) is a television station in Butte, Montana, United States, affiliated with CBS. Owned by the E. W. Scripps Company, it is part of the Montana Television Network (MTN), a statewide network of CBS-affiliated stations. KXLF-TV's studios are located on South Montana Street in downtown Butte, and its transmitter is located on XL Heights east of the city. KXLF-TV and KBZK (channel 7) in Bozeman split the media market, and local news for the Butte area is produced from KBZK's Bozeman studios.
KXLF-TV is Montana's first and oldest television station. It began broadcasting on August 14, 1953, as an affiliate of NBC and the DuMont Television Network. It was an extension of KXLF radio, part of Ed Craney's regional Z-Bar Network. Originally on channel 6, it relocated to channel 4 in 1956 when it moved its transmitter to XL Heights, atop the Continental Divide, and increased its coverage area. That same year, it moved its studios into a former Milwaukee Road depot. Joe Sample purchased KXLF radio and television in 1960; the station switched primary network affiliations to CBS, and in 1969, it was one of the original three stations in MTN. In 1970, KXLF-TV spawned KPAX-TV in Missoula, which originally was a full-time satellite station but began producing local programming in 1977.
MTN was sold to SJL, Inc.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “KXLF-TV” is cBS television affiliate in Butte, Montana, United States. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through KXLF-TV, television and affiliate, not as a finished interpretation.
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Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q14704620. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1953, 1956, 1960 and 1969.
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This entry incorporates text from “KXLF-TV” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.