KRTV is celebrating as 2018 marks our 60th anniversary serving the communities of north-central Montana. In 1960, KRTV pioneered the first remote live shot in north-central Montana – reported live at the state fair. In 1961 we announced we would soon begin broadcasting in color.
And in 1962, we launched ‘Today In Montana.’ – hosted by long-time co-anchor Norma Ashby Smith.
“Our show was on the air twenty-six years until 1988 and it’s been interesting to see the evolution of broadcasting. It’s changed so much and so many capacities. I mean the digital age is here and there’s so many other areas and avenues for people to get their information now. Social media didn’t exist when I started. There was no satellites. There were two stations in town.”
“A lot of women were home when I was on the air. They were home and now women work a lot. Many, many, many women are outside the home, but when we were on, we had lots of wonderful audiences. We tried to bring a lot of shows that benefited their work at home.”
“To this day, I get comments from women who watched when I was on the air that, ‘You helped me survive at home because you were out there working and I wasn’t and thank you for helping make me feel it was okay,’ because I really raised the level of women that were doing the main job of raising a family and being good wives and mothers. It was a real joy for me and I was single when I first started and then after I got married, then I brought the whole dimension of marriage into my life and had my children on television with me and that was a joy for me as well.”
