KMTV-TV (channel 3) is a television station in Omaha, Nebraska, United States, affiliated with CBS. Owned by the E. W. Scripps Company, the station has studios on Mockingbird Drive in southwest Omaha, and its transmitter is located on a "tower farm" near North 72nd Street and Crown Point Avenue in north-central Omaha. It also doubles as a secondary CBS station in the Platte Purchase area (northern portions of the St. Joseph, Missouri television market) alongside local affiliate KCJO-LD. History KMTV began broadcasting on September 1, 1949, as the second oldest television station in Nebraska. It operated as a CBS affiliate, but carried secondary affiliations with ABC and the DuMont Television Network. The station's call letters were originally intended to be KMA-TV, reflecting its first owner, Shenandoah, Iowa-based May Broadcasting, which owned KMA (960 AM) in that community. However, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) refused to authorize those calls, as Shenandoah was not considered to be part of the Omaha market at the time. FCC regulations of the era did not allow television and radio stations to share the same base call sign if they were located in separate markets. May requested the alternate KMTV calls instead. The station originally operated from studios located at 2615 Farnam Street in downtown Omaha, seven blocks east of WOW-TV (channel 6, now WOWT, at 3501 Farnam). KMTV briefly dropped ABC programming when KFOR-TV signed on from Lincoln in 1953. The network returned to KMTV when the FCC separated Lincoln to form its own market a year later. In 1956, KMTV switched affiliations with WOW-TV and became an NBC affiliate. This was part of CBS' multi-year, five-station affiliation deal with Meredith Corporation, as a compensation for Phoenix sister station KPHO to lose affiliation with network (KCMO-AM-FM-TV also switched to the network several months earlier). It also lost DuMont programming that same year when that network ceased operations. In September 1957, KMTV dropped its secondary ABC affiliation when KETV signed on as an exclusive affiliate of the network, from studios on Douglas Street just north of channel 3's facility. In 1978, KMTV relocated to its current studio facilities near 108th and Mockingbird Drive; the station's auxiliary transmitter remains at the station's former studio location. In 1986, KMTV and WOWT entered into an agreement which allowed them to return to their original affiliations; as a result, KMTV rejoined CBS after 30 years with NBC on June 29,