KMBC-TV (channel 9) is a television station in Kansas City, Missouri, United States, affiliated with ABC. It is owned by Hearst Television alongside CW affiliate KCWE (channel 29). Both stations share studios on Winchester Avenue in the Ridge-Winchester section of Kansas City, Missouri, while KMBC-TV's transmitter is located in the city's Blue Valley section. KMBC-TV also serves as an alternate ABC affiliate for the St. Joseph market, as its transmitter also produces a city-grade signal that reaches St. Joseph proper and rural areas in the market's central and southern counties. The station is also available in that market on select cable providers (including Suddenlink Communications) as a secondary ABC outlet to KQTV (channel 2), which has served as the network's official St. Joseph station since it became a full-time affiliate in June 1967; KMBC-TV's near-ubiquitous cable distribution in St. Joseph dates back to KQTV's former status as a primary CBS affiliate from its September 1953 sign-on until the former KFEQ-TV disaffiliated from that network in 1967, a period in which the station supplemented its CBS offerings with a limited selection of ABC programs. History Early years: from two stations to one The third and last VHF television allocation in the Kansas City market was hotly contested between two locally based companies which had each competed to become the granted holder of the construction permit to build the new station on VHF channel 9. The prospective licensees in question were the Cook Paint and Varnish Company and the Midland Broadcasting Company, which had respectively owned two of the area's AM radio stations – Cook was the operator of WHB (then at 710 AM, now at 810 AM), while Midland owned KMBC (980 AM, now KMBZ). Eventually, the companies reached an agreement to combine their individual inquiries for the permit and jointly bid for the license. Under the proposed deal, Cook Paint and Varnish and Midland Broadcasting agreed to an arrangement in which the two licensees would share the channel 9 allocation as well as a transmitter facility; although each company would structure their common television property as two separate stations, individually maintaining operational stewardship of their respective stations and operating from different studio facilities within the metropolitan area. In June 1953, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) granted the proposal made by the Cook/Midland venture, and awarded the individual licenses for which the two companies had applied. Channel 9 first signed on