KVOS-TV (channel 12) is a television station in Bellingham, Washington, United States, broadcasting the digital multicast network Heroes & Icons. It is owned and operated by Weigel Broadcasting alongside Seattle-licensed MeTV station KFFV, channel 44 (which KVOS simulcasts on its third digital subchannel). While KVOS-TV is nominally part of the Seattle–Tacoma market, it can be characterized as a border blaster, as it primarily serves an audience in southwestern British Columbia, Canada, including Vancouver and Victoria. KVOS-TV's transmitter is situated atop Mount Constitution on Orcas Island in the San Juan Islands, at an altitude of above the adjacent terrain. The station's signal is very well received throughout the British Columbia Lower Mainland, southern Vancouver Island, and much of northwest Washington. KVOS-TV original studios were located on Ellis Street in Bellingham. However, with the sale of KVOS-TV to OTA Broadcasting in 2010, the Bellingham facility was closed and the station currently shares studios with KFFV on Third Avenue South in Seattle. KVOS-TV previously maintained offices in Burnaby, British Columbia; before that, its Vancouver offices were located on West 7th Avenue; it now has no physical presence in the Vancouver area. As KVOS serves both sides of the border, at one time the station decided to use both Canadian and American TV ratings at the start of each program, after they were established during the late 1990s— it was the only station on either side of the border to do so. Since early 2007, only U.S. ratings have been shown. History Early years KVOS signed on June 3, 1953; owned by Bellingham businessman Rogan Jones along with KVOS radio (AM 790, now KGMI). Jones had owned the radio station since 1928, and was best known for being the focus of a case that established broadcasters' right to the same news reports as newspapers. Its first broadcast was a kinescope of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation. Since Canada had no television stations operating west of Ontario at that point (it wasn't until that December that Vancouver would get a locally-operated TV station of their own in CBC outlet CBUT), the British government flew film of the BBC's coverage to Vancouver, where the Mounties escorted it to the border. The Washington State Patrol then drove the film to Bellingham. The station's original slogan was "Your Peace Arch Station, serving Northwest Washington and British Columbia." KVOS initially experienced financial trouble, despite Jones thinking that he could successfully