The market-leading information provider we now know as Today's THV is Central Arkansas’ on-air, online and mobile source for local news, weather and information.  Digital news on demand was not how it always was.  The KTHV story actually began with a radio station in Hot Springs.  In the 1920s, the Arlington Hotel converted its top floor into a radio station called KTHS, which stood for "Come to Hot Springs".  The hotel would host big bands in the ballroom and transmit the music live to their listeners.  In the early 1940s, the radio station was purchased by the Hot Springs Chamber of Commerce and relocated from the Arlington Hotel to downtown Hot Springs.

 

The owners of radio station KWKH in Shreveport, Louisiana, the owners of the Arkansas Democrat newspaper in Little Rock, and businessman C.E. Lowery, along with other investors, purchased KTHS, moving it to the upper floors of a department store in downtown Little Rock.  The transmitter site was moved to nearby Wrightsville and a new 50,000-watt transmitter was installed.

In the early 1950s, a television studio was built and the TV call letters set as KTHV.  In 1954 a new building was constructed and the radio and television stations were moved to 720 Izard Street, KTHV's present location.  This was the first building in the state constructed for both radio and television with KTHV-TV on the first floor and KTHS radio on the second floor.  In the early 1960s, the radio station was sold to Lin Broadcasting, relocated downtown and its call letters changed to KAAY.

In the early days of broadcasting, the equipment used was crude compared to today's digital standards.  Large and heavy RCA cameras, telecasting black and white images, were used in the studio, and most of the news footage was shot on negative film needing a special projector to invert images in order to be seen.  As time and technology moved on, KTHV was the first Little Rock station to have a video tape machine, a TV remote truck and other tools of that era.