KOVR (channel 13) is a television station licensed to Stockton, California, United States, serving as the CBS outlet for the Sacramento area. It is owned and operated by the network's CBS News and Stations division alongside CW affiliate KMAX-TV (channel 31). Both stations share studios on KOVR Drive in West Sacramento, while KOVR's transmitter is located in Walnut Grove, California. KOVR began broadcasting in September 1954 from studios in Stockton and a transmitter atop Mount Diablo. This facility provided wide coverage from San Francisco to Sacramento and beyond, but KOVR could not obtain a network affiliation in the San Francisco market, whereas its move completely into the Stockton/Sacramento area in 1957 resulted in an affiliation with ABC. After moving, the station was sold twice before being acquired by newspaper publisher McClatchy in 1963. McClatchy would sell the station in 1980 under intense pressure on owners of newspaper-broadcast combinations, and it changed hands another six times from 1983 to 1996. The station became a CBS affiliate in 1995 as the result of an affiliation switch and was purchased by CBS in 2005; uniquely, it broadcasts prime time programming one hour ahead of other West Coast stations. Traditionally a third-rated station in local news, ratings have gradually improved for its newscasts since the 1990s. History The Mount Diablo years On March 5, 1948, Radio Diablo, Inc. (later Television Diablo) filed an application for a new television station to broadcast on channel 13, first assigned to San Francisco and then to San Jose, from Mount Diablo in Contra Costa County. From Mount Diablo, the principals in Radio Diablo operated FM station KSBR, which had an effective radiated power of 250,000 watts and, having just moved to the mountaintop, claimed it was heard from the Oregon state line to Bakersfield. Two other groups applied for the channel by late 1948, but they would all have to wait after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) imposed a freeze on new television station awards that would last nearly four years. When the freeze ended, channel 13 had been removed from San Jose to Stockton, where it could still cover the city of license from Mount Diablo. In addition to Radio Diablo, another Stockton broadcasting station applied for the channel: radio station KXOB. Radio Diablo, headed by O. H. Brown, estimated it could serve 3.5 million people in San Francisco, Stockton, and Sacramento from its mountaintop site. The