KVIA-TV (channel 7) is a television station in El Paso, Texas, United States, affiliated with ABC and The CW.

It was co-owned with radio station KELP (920 AM) and became known as KELP-TV in 1957 when McLendon sold his El Paso broadcast holdings.

El Paso radio station KEPO applied for a channel 13 construction permit in July 1952[2] and received it in October.

[11] However, activity was slowed down when McLendon petitioned the FCC to switch his station to channel 7, which had been reserved for educational use, so as to gain a more competitive dial position; El Paso city schools and Texas Western College supported the proposal.

[20] After six months of negotiations, Harris and Alexander announced the sale of KELP radio and television to John B. Walton in September 1965.

In 1966, he had bought KAVE-TV (channel 6) in Carlsbad, New Mexico,[25] which he originally ran as a satellite station of his KVKM-TV in Monahans, Texas.

[27] In October, Marsh exercised its option to purchase KELP-TV and KAVE-TV from Walton for $3,075,000, separating KELP television from the radio station.

[30][11] Walton and Marsh each supported efforts to establish a public television station in El Paso, KCOS, on the originally assigned educational channel 7.

Marsh invested a reported $1 million to set up a local operation in the city to originate regional news coverage for southeastern New Mexico.

[36] However, Marsh admitted that it had overestimated the regional economy when it conducted a round of layoffs at KAVE-TV the next year, reducing its full-time staff from 22 to 16.

[51] The company sought to replicate the success it had in Amarillo, where KVII-TV had been turned around from a distant third into one of the nation's highest-rated ABC affiliates and commanded 65% of the local news audience.

[53] Shortly after, morale hit a highly visible nadir, as channel 13's ratings gains did not match those of the ABC network.

During a commercial break in the late newscast on December 31, 1977, Pratt and co-anchor Al Hinojos engaged in a fist fight over scriptwriting duties.

[57][58][59] In 1988, KVIA-TV broke through and began a run as the number-one station in early and late evening news,[60] and five years later, KDBC-TV anchor Estela Casas left that station to become the new main female anchor on KVIA's newscasts, joining channel 7 mainstay Gary Warner.

In 1991, several employees defected to channel 9, where they reunited with Richard Pearson, a former KVIA general manager who departed to head up KTSM radio and television.

[65] The Casas–Warner tandem continued on the air until 2008, when Warner retired after a 34-year association with the station dating to 1974 (preceded by a year at KELP radio), only interrupted by a brief stint with CNN.

[76] KVIA later filed a petition to the FCC to permanently operate its digital signal exclusively on UHF channel 17, which the commission approved in 2011.