KFYR-TV signed on December 19, 1953 as the third television station in North Dakota (after KCJB-TV, now KXMC-TV, in Minot and WDAY-TV in Fargo) and the first in Bismarck. It was owned by Marietta Meyer Ekberg along with KFYR radio (550 AM). Marietta's parents, Phillip Meyer and Etta Hoskins Meyer, had founded KFYR radio in 1925. It carried programming from all four networks of the time—NBC, CBS, ABC and DuMont, but has always been a primary NBC affiliate owing to KFYR radio's long affiliation with NBC radio. Marietta Ekberg was one of three female station owners in the NBC network, along with Dorothy Bullitt of KING-TV in Seattle and Georgia Davidson of KIDO-TV (now KTVB) in Boise, Idaho. The station dropped CBS when KBMB-TV (now KXMB-TV) signed on in 1955, and lost DuMont when that network shut down a few months later. It shared ABC with KXMB until full-time ABC affiliate KBMY signed on in 1985, making KFYR-TV an exclusive NBC affiliate, which it has held since.