The station began on March 1, 1954, as WDSM-TV, and was affiliated with
CBS. It was owned by Ridder Newspapers, owner of the
Duluth Herald (now part of the
Duluth News Tribune), along with
WDSM radio (710 AM). WDSM was the first
VHF television station in Duluth, signing on days before KDAL-TV (now KDLH). In October 1955, the station switched affiliations with KDAL and became an NBC affiliate. It began local color broadcasts in November 1965. It also aired some
ABC programs, sharing them with KDAL, until
WDIO-TV signed-on in 1966. Ridder merged with Knight Newspapers in 1974 to form
Knight Ridder. However, the merged company was not allowed to keep the WDSM stations. It was grandfathered under
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules forbidding common ownership of newspapers and broadcasting outlets. The FCC considered the Knight-Ridder merger to be an ownership change, and as a result, the WDSM stations lost their grandfathered protection. The television station was spun off to RJR Communications, a locally based group, in the fall of that year. On November 13, the call letters were changed to the current KBJR-TV. as a semi-satellite of KBJR. It was originally licensed to
International Falls but was changed to Chisholm, which is closer to Duluth, before signing on. It was granted an original construction permit after the FCC finalized the
DTV allotment plan on April 21, 1997. As a result, it did not receive a companion channel for a digital television station. Instead on January 6, 2009, over a month before the end of the digital television conversion period for full-service stations, KRII turned off its analog signal and turned on its digital signal (an action called a "
flash-cut"). After shutting off analog broadcasts, KRII began multi-casting programming on
digital subchannels. Its news bureau is home to a reporter who contributes Iron Range coverage to the KBJR and KDLH newscasts.
Sale to Quincy, then Gray On February 11, 2014,
Quincy Media announced that it would purchase KBJR-TV and its satellite KRII, along with
WEEK-TV in
Peoria, Illinois, and
WBNG-TV in
Binghamton, New York, from Granite (the deal at the time also included the outright purchase of
WPTA in
Fort Wayne, Indiana, from the Malara Broadcast Group). The license for Malara-owned KDLH was originally planned to be sold to
SagamoreHill Broadcasting, with KBJR continuing to operate KDLH through a shared services agreement; that November, SagamoreHill was dropped from the deal, and KDLH would remain with Malara, though Quincy and KBJR would continue to provide services. In July 2015, the deal was reworked yet again; it returned to its previous structure, with SagamoreHill acquiring KDLH, but with the SSA wound down within nine months of the deal's closure—after which CBS programming would be moved to a subchannel of KBJR, and KDLH would operate independently of KBJR and solely carry CW programming. In this form, the deal was completed on November 2, 2015. These changes took effect on-air on August 1, 2016, with the launch of KBJR's new "CBS 3" subchannel (named in reference to its continued carriage on Charter cable channel 3) and re-launched news programming. Quincy acquired KDLH in 2018, asserting that the station was 5th in the market in November 2017 sweeps numbers (thus satisfying the requirement for duopolies to not involve two of the top four stations in a market). On February 1, 2021,
Gray Television announced its intent to purchase Quincy Media for $925 million. The acquisition was completed on August 2, making KBJR and KDLH
sisters to Gray stations in nearby markets, including CBS/Fox affiliates
KEYC-TV in
Mankato and
WSAW-TV/
WZAW-LD in
Wausau, and NBC affiliates
WLUC-TV in
Marquette and
WEAU in
Eau Claire, while separating from their former Wisconsin sister stations which were divested in order to complete the purchase.
Christmas City of the North Parade Each November on the Friday before
Thanksgiving, KBJR puts on a parade in downtown Duluth called the
Christmas City of the North Parade. It is broadcast live on KBJR and streamed live on its website. In recent years, the parade also has been replayed numerous times in the weeks and days before
Christmas. According to this station, the parade dates back to 1958 when KBJR (then WDSM) started the event as a way to kick off the holiday shopping season in the area. It has been held every year since except in 1963 when the event was canceled following the
assassination of
President John F. Kennedy; the 2020 edition was held as a no-spectator event due to the
COVID-19 pandemic. In the early 1960s, the station commissioned
Merv Griffin to produce a song especially for the parade. The "Christmas City Song" has been used for the parade every year and also has been the closing music for all KBJR newscasts from Thanksgiving until Christmas. ==News operation==