KSTW

KSTW (channel 11), branded as Seattle 11, is an independent television station licensed to Tacoma, Washington, United States, serving the Seattle area. Owned by the CBS News and Stations group, the station maintains its transmitter on East Madison Street in Seattle's Cherry Hill neighborhood, and its offices are located in the Westlake neighborhood, just north of downtown. As the first station to sign on in Tacoma (and second in the Seattle metropolitan area overall), KSTW initially signed on in March 1953 as KTNT-TV, the area's CBS affiliate under the ownership of the Tacoma News Tribune. The station lost the affiliation when Seattle-licensed KIRO-TV signed on in 1958; both stations shared the affiliation for two years after their owners agreed to settle an antitrust lawsuit over the switch. The station became KSTW in 1974 when it was acquired by a forerunner of Gaylord Broadcasting; it subsequently became one of the strongest independent stations in the country over two decades, reaching regional superstation status with widespread carriage on cable television systems in Washington and neighboring states/provinces. KSTW rejoined CBS in 1995 during a nationwide affiliation shuffle; two years later, the station became a UPN affiliate via a three-way deal involving it and KIRO-TV, which led it to join The CW when UPN shut down in 2006, carrying the network's programming until 2023, when CBS withdrew its eight affiliates from the network after selling its ownership stake to Nexstar Media Group. KSTW is available on Canadian cable systems in southwestern British Columbia and Vancouver Island, on providers such as Rogers Cable and Telus Optik TV in Vancouver, Victoria, Nanaimo, Kamloops, Kelowna and Penticton.