MINOT, N.D. (AP) - In the 60 years since Chester Reiten first came to Minot to run a television station, the Reiten family established a solid presence in the broadcasting industry in western North Dakota.
The recently announced sale of Reiten Television’s KX network and other television interests to Nexstar Broadcasting Group of Irving, Texas, signals that chapter in broadcasting history in Minot is about to close.
David Reiten, chairman of the board, said the sale, announced Sept. 17, should be final in late December or early January. The transaction is awaiting approval from the Federal Communications Commission. Until then, the Reiten family will continue to run the four stations in Minot, Bismarck, Williston and Dickinson.
David Reiten, and his brother, company president Tim Reiten of Bismarck, as well as their sister, Kathleen Hruby of Bismarck, actively manage the company. They and their two other siblings assumed the company from their father, Chester, a number of years ago.
David Reiten told the Minot Daily News (https://bit.ly/1Vrok7X ) that he plans to remain in Minot, continuing in his father’s footsteps as president of Norsk Hstfest. Tim Reiten also plans to eventually move back to Minot, he said.
Broadcasting pioneer Chester Reiten, who died in 2013 at age 89, had served as Minot’s mayor for 14 years, as a state senator for 16 years and was founder of Norsk Hostfest. In 2002, he received the Theodore Roosevelt Rough Rider Award, North Dakota’s highest honor. His wife, Joy, died at age 91 on June 23.
Chester Reiten began his career in radio and television as farm director for KSJB in Jamestown in 1951. He was sales manager at KXJB-TV in Fargo before coming to Minot in 1955 to become station manager at KCJB-TV, which later became KXMC-TV. He bought the station in 1958. He started KXMD in Williston in 1969 and bought out a partner to acquire KXMB in Bismarck in 1971. He bought a Dickinson station, now KXMA, in 1984. He also acquired several radio stations in the region, including three in Minot, which were sold in 2000.
“It was a very, very difficult decision,” David Reiten said of selling Reiten Television. “We felt, with the consolidation in the television business and the media in America in general, that we either had to grow bigger or sell.”
He said the family had been looking to sell to a company interested in more than just an investment purchase. They believe Nexstar is the right choice. Nexstar is in the process of increasing its market share to 114 television stations serving 59 markets in 24 states, but a significant share of those markets are small ones.
“They know television. They have it in their blood, and they just love the television business,” Reiten said. “Local television is going to be around for decades. They know it. That’s why they are getting into this market.”
Reiten said local news is the “front door to the community,” and Nexstar understands that as well. Local news and other activities of the KX stations that have made them successful are expected to continue under Nexstar, he said.
“They love buying successful television stations, and they are going to continue to make this successful,” he said.
Reiten, who had been a practicing attorney before joining the family business in 1984, said he experienced firsthand the value of the local station during the 2002 train derailment and anhydrous ammonia spill in Minot. He was alerted to the incident by a phone call from KCJB at 1:30 a.m. His first phone calls were to the station’s news director, already alert to the city sirens, and engineer, who immediately came down to get the station live on the air. Fielding phone calls and gathering and broadcasting information into the morning, the station gave the public the knowledge needed in the face of a serious danger. Reiten said he realized what the station’s efforts meant when a grateful caller phoned to say the news anchor saved his family’s life.
When the Souris River flooded in 2011, KXMC in Minot stayed on the air live for about eight days to keep the public updated. The station streamed its programming online, gaining viewers across the Midwest and even around the world.
Back in 1995 when the FCC decided that television stations needed to switch to digital high definition by 2009, Reiten Television found itself needing to gut its analog system for the new digital system. Unlike many broadcasters with large markets and one station to convert, Reiten Television was a small market with four stations, which put it at a financial disadvantage.
With careful financial planning and the technical guidance of its engineers, the KX network brought digital service to the Bismarck station by September 2001. Minot followed in 2003 and Williston and Dickinson in 2006.
“That we did it, and we did it early, was a credit to everybody that was employed at Reiten Television,” Reiten said. “It was a credit to our engineers and the employees of all of Reiten Television because they all contributed to the switchover to digital. That’s one of the reasons we were successful is because of our people.”
Employees stepped up again in April 2008 when the Minot station made the move from its former station on South Broadway to its current location at 2121-2nd St. Street SE. Given the infrastructure involved in the transition, Reiten called it the most complex move of a Minot business in 50 years, and it was accomplished with only about an eight-hour shutdown, during which the station took the Bismarck feed.
Reiten said his entire family takes pride in the history of the company over the past 60 years.
“We have taken this job and our responsibility very, very seriously,” he said. “I think we were good stewards, and it’s been a great ride. For the people that will stay here after the new owners take over, it’s going to continue to be a great ride.”
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Information from: Minot Daily News, https://www.minotdailynews.com
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