As KXJB-TV Channel 4 signed on August 1, 1954, as KXJB-TV, owned by John Boler, with studios in Valley City and a tall transmitter tower near
Pillsbury ( northeast of Valley City). KXJB was co-owned with the
KX Television network in western North Dakota until 1971. KXJB moved its main studios to Fargo in 1963, and completed construction of its current tall
tower site near Galesburg in 1966. The station was a
CBS affiliate, and up until its sale in 2014 was the only major station in Fargo that has never changed its primary affiliation, although it shared
ABC programming with
WDAY-TV (channel 6) until KXGO-TV (channel 11, later KTHI-TV and now
KVLY-TV) signed on in 1959. It was also an affiliate of the
NTA Film Network. When
West Acres Shopping Center opened in 1972, KXJB-TV had a studio in the mall, located roughly where the food court is today. The station broadcast its daytime local-origination programs from the mall and also its early evening newscast. The West Acres studio was closed in less than two years. The station was the first to broadcast live color programs in the state on June 11, 1968. KXJB was one of only four CBS stations not to carry the
Late Show with David Letterman when it premiered; the program aired instead on
Fox affiliate
KVRR (channel 15).
Sioux City, Iowa, affiliate
KMEG also declined to alter its syndicated lineup, along with lame duck CBS affiliates
WITI in
Milwaukee (which would switch to Fox a year after) and
WBAL-TV in
Baltimore (which switched to NBC 1½ years later due to the deal between CBS and Group W). This led Sioux City to become known as the "home office" on
Late Show; both KXJB and KMEG began airing the show in 1994.
KXJC (CBS 35) Grand Forks KXJB-TV's tower location (along with KVLY) was intended to provide a strong over-the-air signal to both the Fargo–
Moorhead and Grand Forks metro areas. All of eastern North Dakota and northwestern Minnesota is considered one giant television market. The other three network affiliates (WDAY,
KFME, and KVRR) do not have the reach of KVLY or KXJB/KRDK, and use full-power
satellite stations to provide both their signal to the market and advertising specific to Grand Forks. In July 2000, Catamount Broadcasting purchased the
construction permit for KXJC-
LP, channel 35, from Central Plains Media. KXJC signed on for the first time on December 11, 2000, as a locally focused CBS affiliate for Grand Forks. The station was known as "CBS 35" and was carried on Midcontinent cable channel 21 in Grand Forks. KXJB was still carried on Midcontinent cable channel 4 in Grand Forks while KXJC was on the air. Although the main KXJB signal covered Grand Forks very well (city-grade), KXJC was launched to compete against Grand Forks ABC affiliate
WDAZ-TV (channel 8), a semi-satellite of WDAY-TV (channel 6) in
Fargo. WDAZ had long been the only station airing a full schedule of local news for the Grand Forks area. The combination of WDAY-TV and WDAZ had long been the market's ratings leader. Although KXJC was considered a separate station in its own right, it was a
semi-satellite of KXJB. It simulcast most of KXJB's network and syndicated programming (although it had some shows not seen on KXJB such as
Jerry Springer and
Jenny Jones), but produced separate weeknight newscasts and aired its own commercials and station identifications. KXJC also had an FCC construction permit to increase power from 10,000 watts to 60,000 watts, which would have expanded the coverage area for its over-the-air signal to reach
Grafton, North Dakota and
Thief River Falls, Minnesota. On April 30, 2003, KXJC went
silent; its license was canceled that July. The move came several months after an agreement for
NBC affiliate KVLY-TV to manage KXJB was announced.
KXJB's LMA with KVLY In April 2003, Catamount entered into a
local marketing agreement with KVLY-TV's then owner, Wicks Group. In 2004, the station was consolidated into KVLY's facilities. In November 2005, KXJB became the second major network affiliate in Fargo (after KVLY-TV) to broadcast in
high definition. In 2006, KXJB and KVLY were each sold to different owners: KXJB to Parker Broadcasting and KVLY-TV to
Hoak Media. Hoak's acquisition of KVLY was approved by the FCC on November 17, 2006, while the sale of KXJB was approved in January 2007. In April 2007, KVLY-TV and KXJB-TV began
simulcasting weekend newscasts, and in November, the stations began simulcasting news during weekdays under the name
Valley News Live.
Sale to Major Market Broadcasting and relaunch as KRDK On November 20, 2013, Parker Broadcasting announced the sale of its stations, including KXJB-TV, to Excalibur Broadcasting. The deal was concurrent with the sale of most Hoak Media stations (including KVLY-TV) to
Gray Television; Excalibur's other stations are operated by Gray under local marketing agreements. However, in response to heightened scrutiny by the FCC over LMAs and similar agreements, Gray announced that it would acquire the non-license assets of six stations from the Hoak and Parker deal, including KXJB, move their programming to digital subchannels of existing Gray stations in the affected markets (in this case, KVLY) and divest their licenses to minority-owned broadcasters who would operate them independently and not enter into any LMAs or similar agreements with Gray. The station was eventually sold to Major Market Broadcasting (MMB), a minority-owned company whose operations include
San Francisco Bay Area station
KAXT-CD and the
South Asian television network Diya TV. On November 12, 2014, a simulcast of KXJB's programming was added to KVLY-DT2; on November 30, 2014, at 11:05 p.m.
CT during its 10 p.m. newscast (which was
delayed along with CBS' prime time schedule due to a long-running
NFL game), KXJB went dark, with its CBS programming continuing on the KVLY subchannel. The purchase by Major Market Broadcasting was completed on December 18, 2014. On December 24, MMB changed the station's call letters to KNDF-TV; a few weeks later, on January 13, 2015, the call letters became KRDK-TV. The station began carrying
Cozi TV,
Grit and
Escape networks upon returning to the air in January 2015. The main channel carried
paid programming and required
public affairs and
E/I programming in the interim. KRDK rearranged its channel lineup and added
Movies! and
Decades networks to new subchannels in March 2015. In April 2015, KRDK-TV added
Heroes & Icons to subchannel 4.1 and the comedy-oriented
Laff to subchannel 4.8. The station officially launched on September 25, 2015, rearranged its channel lineup, and added Bek Sports (area high school sports in collaboration with
KNDB channel 26 in
Bismarck and
KNDM channel 24 in
Minot),
Comet, and
Buzzr to its channel lineup. H&I, Decades, and Movies! were removed in August 2016, and replaced by
Bounce TV. KRDK took the
MyNetworkTV schedule as a late-night 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. offering in May 2021. In August of that year, the station picked up rights to preseason games of the
Green Bay Packers. ==Technical information==