The KVLY-TV mast is a 628,8 m (2,063 ft) tall television-transmitting mast in Blanchard, Traill County, North Dakota, United States, used by Fargo station KVLY-TV channel 11. Completed in 1963, it was the tallest structure ever built until succeeded by the Warsaw radio mast in 1974; that mast collapsed in 1991, making the KVLY-TV mast again the tallest structure in the world until the Burj Khalifa overtook it in 2008. It remains the third-tallest structure in the world (since the construction of the Tokyo Sky Tree), and the tallest structure in the United States. It is a guyed mast, not a self-supporting structure, and is therefore not included in lists of tallest buildings. The height of the transmitting antenna itself is 113 feet (34 m) and is included in the height of the tower as the lattice tower itself ends around 1,950 feet (590 m). The tower weighs 864,500 pounds (392.1 t) altogether and takes up 160 acres (0.65 km2) of land with its guy anchors. The 113′ antenna alone weighs 9,000 pounds. In 1989, daredevils climbed the tower and BASE jumped from it.
The tower is located 3 miles (4.8 km) west of Blanchard, North Dakota, halfway between Fargo and Grand Forks. It became the tallest artificial structure, and the first man made structure to exceed 2,000 feet (610 m) in height, upon the completion of its construction on August 13, 1963.The tower was built by Hamilton Electric Company of York, South Carolina and Kline Iron and Steel, and took thirty days to complete, at a cost of US$500,000.
Owned by Hoak Media of Dallas, Texas, the tower broadcasts at 356 kW for television station KVLY-TV (channel 11 PSIP, an NBC affiliate) which is based in Fargo. The tower provides a broadcast area of roughly 9,700 sq mi (25,000 km2) which is a radius of about 55.6 miles (89.5 km).Its height above mean sea level is 3,038 ft (926 m). Some time after its completion, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) imposed a policy that states, “Although there is no absolute height limit for antenna towers, both agencies have established a rebuttable presumption against structures over 2,000 feet above ground level.”The FCC and FAA may approve a taller structure in “exceptional cases.”When the mast was built the call letters of the television station for which it was built were changed to KTHI, the “HI” referring to the height of the mast. The top is reachable by a two-person service elevator or ladder.
The height of the structure allows for a broader range of frequency transmission.