television station
A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity, such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the ea ...
in
Little Rock, Arkansas
( The "Little Rock")
, government_type = Council-manager
, leader_title = Mayor
, leader_name = Frank Scott Jr.
, leader_party = D
, leader_title2 = Council
, leader_name2 ...
, United States, affiliated with NBC. It is owned by
Nexstar Media Group
Nexstar Media Group, Inc. is an American publicly traded media company with headquarter offices in Irving, Texas; Midtown Manhattan; and Chicago, Illinois. The company is the largest television station owner in the United States, owning 197 te ...
alongside
MyNetworkTV
MyNetworkTV (unofficially abbreviated MyTV, MyNet, MNT or MNTV, and sometimes referred to as My Network) is an American commercial broadcast television syndication service and former television network owned by Fox Corporation, operated by its ...
affiliate
KARZ-TV
KARZ-TV (channel 42) is a television station in Little Rock, Arkansas, United States, affiliated with MyNetworkTV. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group alongside NBC affiliate KARK-TV (channel 4); Nexstar also provides certain services to Fox affil ...
(channel 42); Nexstar also provides certain services to Fox affiliate KLRT-TV (channel 16) and Pine Bluff–licensed ''de facto'' CW
owned-and-operated station
In the broadcasting industry, an owned-and-operated station (frequently abbreviated as an O&O) usually refers to a television or radio station owned by the network with which it is associated. This distinguishes such a station from an affiliate ...
local marketing agreement
In North American broadcasting, a local marketing agreement (LMA), or local management agreement, is a contract in which one company agrees to operate a radio or television station owned by another party. In essence, it is a sort of lease or tim ...
(LMA) with Mission Broadcasting. The stations share studios at the Victory Building on West Capitol Avenue and South Victory Street (near the
Arkansas State Capitol
The Arkansas State Capitol, often called the Capitol Building, is the home of the Arkansas General Assembly, and the seat of the Arkansas state government that sits atop Capitol Hill at the eastern end of the Capitol Mall in Little Rock, Arkan ...
) in downtown Little Rock, while KARK-TV's transmitter is located on Shinall Mountain.
KARK-TV serves as a master hub for Nexstar and Mission stations in Little Rock and
Fayetteville, Arkansas
Fayetteville () is the second-largest city in Arkansas, the county seat of Washington County, and the biggest city in Northwest Arkansas. The city is on the outskirts of the Boston Mountains, deep within the Ozarks. Known as Washington unt ...
Shreveport, Louisiana
Shreveport ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is the third most populous city in Louisiana after New Orleans and Baton Rouge, respectively. The Shreveport–Bossier City metropolitan area, with a population of 393,406 in 2020, is ...
.
History
The station first signed on the air on April 15, 1954; KARK is Little Rock's second-oldest continuously operating television station, after
KATV
KATV (channel 7) is a television station in Little Rock, Arkansas, United States, affiliated with ABC and owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group. The station's studios are located at the former Worthen Bank Building on East 4th and Main Streets in ...
(channel 7), which beat KARK to the air by almost five months. It was owned by oil magnate Thomas Harry Barton, and was first operated from studios located on Spring Street in Little Rock.
Barton died in 1960 and in 1966 his family sold the station to Mullins Broadcasting, then-owner of KBTV (now KUSA) in
Denver
Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...
in 1966. After the company's owner John C. Mullins died in 1969, the Mullins estate sold both KBTV and KARK to Combined Communications in 1972. In 1976, the station moved to a new facility located on West 3rd Street in downtown Little Rock. Combined's television station properties would eventually be acquired by the
Gannett Company
Gannett Co., Inc. () is an American mass media holding company headquartered in McLean, Virginia, in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area.WMUR-TV in Manchester, New Hampshire, and also the owner of KDBC-TV in
El Paso, Texas
El Paso (; "the pass") is a city in and the seat of El Paso County in the western corner of the U.S. state of Texas. The 2020 population of the city from the U.S. Census Bureau was 678,815, making it the 23rd-largest city in the U.S., the ...
Meridian, Mississippi
Meridian is the seventh largest city in the U.S. state of Mississippi, with a population of 41,148 at the 2010 census and an estimated population in 2018 of 36,347. It is the county seat of Lauderdale County and the principal city of the Merid ...
; Gannett would re-enter the Little Rock-Pine Bluff market when it acquired rival CBS affiliate KTHV (channel 11) from the Arkansas Television Company in December 1994.
United Broadcasting sold off its television station properties in 1988, KARK was then sold to
Morris Multimedia
Morris may refer to:
Places
Australia
*St Morris, South Australia, place in South Australia
Canada
* Morris Township, Ontario, now part of the municipality of Morris-Turnberry
* Rural Municipality of Morris, Manitoba
** Morris, Mani ...
. In April 2002, KARK relocated its operations from its longtime studios on 3rd Street to its current location on West Capitol Avenue. In 2003, Morris Multimedia sold KARK as well as WDHN in
Dothan, Alabama
Dothan () is a city in Dale, Henry, and Houston counties and the Houston county seat in the U.S. state of Alabama. It is Alabama's eighth-largest city, with a population of 71,072 at the 2020 census. It is near the state's southeastern corner ...
, to the Nexstar Broadcasting Group, which eventually consolidated most of KARK's sports operations with those of its sister stations in Northwest Arkansas, NBC affiliate KNWA-TV and Fox affiliate KFTA-TV.
In October 2008, Nexstar Broadcasting announced that it would purchase
MyNetworkTV
MyNetworkTV (unofficially abbreviated MyTV, MyNet, MNT or MNTV, and sometimes referred to as My Network) is an American commercial broadcast television syndication service and former television network owned by Fox Corporation, operated by its ...
affiliate KWBF (channel 42) from
Equity Media Holdings
Equity Media Holdings Corporation was a broadcasting company based in Little Rock, Arkansas that owned and operated television stations across the United States. Prior to March 30, 2007, the company was known as Equity Broadcasting, a name later ...
for $4 million. The
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdicti ...
(FCC) approved the purchase on December 23 of that year. However, although the purchase was slated to be finalized at the end of January 2009, its consummation was ultimately delayed nearly a month and a half until March 12. In the interim, Nexstar took over the operations of KWBF through a time brokerage agreement; that station's call letters were changed to KARZ-TV on February 1, 2009.
On July 19, 2012,
Newport Television
Newport Television, LLC was a television station holding company founded by Providence Equity Partners and Sandy DiPasquale in 2007 to acquire the television stations owned by Clear Channel Communications.
History
In September 2007, Newport agre ...
reached a deal to sell 22 of its 27 stations to Nexstar,
Sinclair Broadcast Group
Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. (SBG) is a publicly traded American telecommunications conglomerate that is controlled by the descendants of company founder Julian Sinclair Smith. Headquartered in the Baltimore suburb of Cockeysville, Maryland, ...
and
Cox Media Group
CMG Media Corporation ( doing business as Cox Media Group) is an American media conglomerate principally owned by Apollo Global Management in conjunction with Cox Enterprises, which maintains a 29% minority stake in the company. The company pri ...
. KLRT-TV and KASN were among the twelve that were acquired by Nexstar. However, since Nexstar already owned KARK and KARZ and in order to comply with FCC regulations prohibiting common ownership between two of the four highest-rated stations in a single market, KLRT and KASN were instead transferred to Mission Broadcasting, a company which is involved in several local marketing and joint sales agreements with Nexstar-owned stations in other markets where Nexstar itself is legally prohibited from owning multiple television stations. The deal was consummated on January 3, 2013. On
February 2
Events Pre-1600
* 506 – Alaric II, eighth king of the Visigoths, promulgates the Breviary of Alaric (''Breviarium Alaricianum'' or ''Lex Romana Visigothorum''), a collection of "Roman law".
* 880 – Battle of Lüneburg Heath: ...
, the operations of KLRT and KASN were migrated from facilities on Colonel Glenn Road and consolidated with KARK and KARZ at the downtown Little Rock studios that already house the two stations, making it the first instance in which four full-power television stations in one market, carrying affiliations with four of the six major
English-language
English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the i ...
networks (NBC, Fox,
The CW
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the ...
and MyNetworkTV) were controlled by one company; and all four having been housed out of one facility. Around 30 positions between the KARK/KARZ and KLRT/KASN duopolies (mainly among management – including KLRT-KASN
general manager
A general manager (GM) is an executive who has overall responsibility for managing both the revenue and cost elements of a company's income statement, known as profit & loss (P&L) responsibility. A general manager usually oversees most or all of ...
Chuck Spohn – and news department staff) were eliminated in the consolidation.
Programming
Outside of the NBC network schedule, syndicated programs broadcast by KARK-TV include ''
Live with Kelly and Ryan
''Live with Kelly and Ryan'' (or simply ''Live'') is an American syndicated morning talk show hosted by Kelly Ripa and Ryan Seacrest. Executive produced by Michael Gelman, the ''Live with...'' show formula has aired under various hosts since ...
'' (which airs on a tape-delayed basis at 11 a.m., two hours later than most stations that carry the program), '' The Doctors'', '' Rachael Ray'', ''
Judge Judy
''Judge Judy'' is an American arbitration-based reality court show presided over by former Manhattan Family Court Judge Judith Sheindlin. The show featured Sheindlin as she adjudicated real-life small-claims disputes within a simulated courtr ...
'' and ''
Entertainment Tonight
''Entertainment Tonight'' (or simply ''ET'') is an American first-run syndicated news broadcasting newsmagazine program that is distributed by CBS Media Ventures throughout the United States and owned by Paramount Streaming. ET also airs in Aus ...
''. Outside of local newscasts, the station produces ''Talkin' Outdoors at the Corner Café'', a special interest program showcasing outdoor recreation that is produced in cooperation with the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission which airs on Saturday mornings immediately after ''
Today
Today (archaically to-day) may refer to:
* Day of the present, the time that is perceived directly, often called ''now''
* Current era, present
* The current calendar date
Arts, entertainment, and media Films
* ''Today'' (1930 film), a 1930 ...
''. Occasionally as time permits, KARZ-TV may air NBC network programs whenever KARK-TV is unable to in the event of extended breaking news or severe weather coverage.
Programming history and controversies
Unlike most NBC stations in the 1980s, KARK did not have a complete NBC weekend morning lineup. During the 1970s and 1980s, KARK produced multiple locally-produced shows including ''Matter of Conscience'', ''First Saturday'', ''Kids Like You'', and ''
Bozo's Big Top
Bozo the Clown, sometimes billed as "Bozo, The World's Most Famous Clown", is a clown character created for children's entertainment, widely popular in the second half of the 20th century. He was introduced in the United States in 1946, and to te ...
'' (a revival of a series that previously aired on KATV). At the time, the shows aired in NBC's
Saturday Morning cartoon
"Saturday-morning cartoon" is a colloquial term for the original animated series programming that was typically scheduled on Saturday and Sunday mornings in the United States on the "Big Three" television networks. The genre's popularity had a br ...
slots, replacing multiple cartoon programs that normally aired on NBC, such as '' Foofur'', ''
Mister T
Mr. T (born Laurence Tureaud, May 21, 1952), is an American actor. He is known for his roles as B. A. Baracus in the 1980s television series ''The A-Team'' and as boxer Clubber Lang in the 1982 film ''Rocky III''. He is also known for his di ...
'', and ''
Alvin and the Chipmunks
Alvin and the Chipmunks, originally David Seville and the Chipmunks or simply The Chipmunks, are an American animated virtual band and media franchise first created by Ross Bagdasarian for novelty records in 1958. The group consists of three ...
'' among others.
KARK made national news in early 2006 when it decided not to air the NBC dramedy series '' The Book of Daniel''. General manager Rick Rogala at the time issued two statements regarding the issue. The first issued on January 4, 2006, stated: "Our relationship with NBC always provided for the right to reject programming. I am reaffirming that right to let them know I will not allow them to make unilateral decisions affecting our viewers. .If my action causes people in our community to pay more attention to what they watch on television, I have accomplished my mission."
A second statement was released two days later citing concerns about FCC rules regarding obscenity: "My first obligation to my station is to protect the license granted by the FCC. Current regulations could subject this station to severe punishment, up to and including revocation of our license if even a single person's objection to the FCC found material broadcast by our station to be indecent or obscene. Subsequent viewing of the material within ''The Book of Daniel'' leaves me no choice but to do my job and uphold the standards of our community." The program instead aired in its regular network timeslot on KWBF (now KARZ-TV) on Fridays following WB prime time programming. In part because of preemption of the series by KARK and select other affiliates, as well as low ratings overall, ''The Book of Daniel'' was canceled after three episodes with its remaining episodes being released online o NBC's website
News operation
KARK presently broadcasts over 34 hours of locally produced newscasts and sports programming each week. The station also produces 19½ hours of weekly news programming for Fox-affiliated sister station KLRT-TV. Between the two stations, the news operation produces about 53½ hours of news programming each week. KARK also produces a Sunday morning political discussion program, ''Capitol View'', as well as a weekly sports program ''Razorback Nation Pig Trail'' (which is produced in conjunction with Fort Smith– Fayetteville sister station KNWA), which airs Sundays after the 10:00 p.m. newscast.
For many years, KARK had the top-rated newscasts in the Little Rock market. However, its ratings plummeted in the mid-1990s when the newscasts were changed to follow a tabloid format (which was toned down considerably compared to other television stations); as a result, ABC affiliate KATV took the news ratings lead in the market. Even with the decrease, KARK remained in second place through most of the latter half of the 1990s, before falling to third for a brief period in the early 2000s. KARK has since increased viewership for its newscasts and is now very competitive in the market. A significant aspect of its broadcasts presently is an emphasis of Arkansas-oriented content over national stories. In recent years, due to NBC's prime time struggles in the
Nielsen ratings
Nielsen Media Research (NMR) is an American firm that measures media audiences, including television, radio, theatre, films (via the AMC Theatres MAP program), and newspapers. Headquartered in New York City, it is best known for the Nielsen rat ...
, KARK's newscasts have remained in third place for the most part although close enough to remain competitive with KATV, KLRT, and KTHV.
Since the latter station was acquired by Nexstar in 2004 (one year after Nexstar acquired KARK), KARK and NBC-affiliated sister station KNWA-TV in
Rogers Rogers may refer to:
Places
Canada
*Rogers Pass (British Columbia)
* Rogers Island (Nunavut)
United States
* Rogers, Arkansas, a city
* Rogers, alternate name of Muroc, California, a former settlement
* Rogers, Indiana, an unincorporated communit ...
have shared certain news resources; some reports filed by KNWA personnel are occasionally used during KARK's news broadcasts. In 2007, the two stations began co-producing a daily newscast titled ''Arkansas at Noon'', with news anchors based in both Little Rock and Fayetteville. In September 2008, KARK began producing an hour-long prime-time newscast at 7 p.m. for sister station KARZ-TV (this resulted in that station airing MyNetworkTV programming one hour later (from 8 to 10 p.m.) than most other affiliates in the
Central Time Zone
The North American Central Time Zone (CT) is a time zone in parts of Canada, the United States, Mexico, Central America, some Caribbean Islands, and part of the Eastern Pacific Ocean.
Central Standard Time (CST) is six hours behind Coordin ...
). This expanded to include an hour-long extension of its weekday morning newscast (airing from 7 to 9 a.m., later cut to 7 to 8 a.m.), which debuted in August 2010. All KARK-produced news programming on KARZ was dropped in January 2013, shortly before Nexstar consolidated the news departments of KARK and KLRT-TV.
At the beginning of the 2010–11 television season, Nexstar took the initial steps in upgrading the station's newscasts to high definition through the purchase of
JVC
JVC (short for Japan Victor Company) is a Japanese brand owned by JVCKenwood corporation. Founded in 1927 as the Victor Talking Machine Company of Japan and later as , the company is best known for introducing Japan's first televisions and for ...
HD cameras for in-studio segments, followed by the start of construction of a new news set in early April. On April 20, 2011, KARK became the third television station in the Little Rock market, and the first Nexstar-owned station to begin broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition. The station's former logo, which was reminiscent of that used by fellow NBC affiliate WSMV in
Nashville
Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and th ...
since 1994, was also changed at the same time.
On April 2, 2012, KARK debuted a half-hour weekday noon newscast titled ''Arkansas Today'' (formerly the name of a now-defunct midday interview program of the same name on KTHV); the statewide newscast features news stories filed by reporters from all four Nexstar-owned NBC stations serving Arkansas as well as a sports segment produced by KNWA-TV, focusing on University of Arkansas athletics, called ''Razorback Nation''. KNWA, along with KTAL-TV/
Shreveport
Shreveport ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is the third most populous city in Louisiana after New Orleans and Baton Rouge, respectively. The Shreveport–Bossier City metropolitan area, with a population of 393,406 in 2020, is ...
KTVE
KTVE (channel 10) is a television station licensed to El Dorado, Arkansas, United States, serving as the NBC affiliate for the Monroe, Louisiana–El Dorado, Arkansas market. It is owned by Mission Broadcasting, which maintains a local market ...
El Dorado
El Dorado (, ; Spanish for "the golden"), originally ''El Hombre Dorado'' ("The Golden Man") or ''El Rey Dorado'' ("The Golden King"), was the term used by the Spanish in the 16th century to describe a mythical tribal chief (''zipa'') or king ...
simulcast the program and utilize their own on-air weather staff to provide local weather inserts during the broadcast that target their specific viewing areas (the coverage areas of KTVE and KTAL include several counties in southern Arkansas (ten in KTAL's viewing area, fourteen in KTVE's), though both stations primarily serve parts of northern Louisiana and KTAL also serves parts of northeast Texas).
On February 5, 2018, KARK premiered an hour-long 4 p.m. newscast.
The station's digital signal is multiplexed:
On June 15, 2016, Nexstar announced that it has entered into an affiliation agreement with Katz Broadcasting for the
Escape
Escape or Escaping may refer to:
Computing
* Escape character, in computing and telecommunication, a character which signifies that what follows takes an alternative interpretation
** Escape sequence, a series of characters used to trigger some s ...
,
Laff
Laff (legal name: Laff Media, LLC) is an American digital multicast television network headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia and is owned by the Katz Broadcasting subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company. The network specializes in comedy program ...
Bounce TV
Bounce TV is an American digital multicast television network owned by Katz Broadcasting, a subsidiary of E. W. Scripps Company. Promoted as "the first 24/7 digital multicast broadcast network created to target African Americans", the channel fe ...
networks (the last one of which is owned by Bounce Media LLC, whose COO Jonathan Katz is president/CEO of Katz Broadcasting), bringing one or more of the four networks to 81 stations owned and/or operated by Nexstar, including KARK-TV and KLRT-TV (sister station KARZ-TV already airs Bounce TV).
Analog-to-digital conversion
KARK-TV shut down its analog signal, over
VHF
Very high frequency (VHF) is the ITU designation for the range of radio frequency electromagnetic waves (radio waves) from 30 to 300 megahertz (MHz), with corresponding wavelengths of ten meters to one meter.
Frequencies immediately below VHF ...
channel 4, on February 17, 2009, the original target date for full-power television stations in the United States to transition from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate (which was later pushed back to June 12, 2009). The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition
UHF
Ultra high frequency (UHF) is the ITU designation for radio frequencies in the range between 300 megahertz (MHz) and 3 gigahertz (GHz), also known as the decimetre band as the wavelengths range from one meter to one tenth of a meter (on ...
channel 32. Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's
virtual channel
In most telecommunications organizations, a virtual channel is a method of remapping the ''program number'' as used in H.222 Program Association Tables and Program Mapping Tables to a channel number that can be entered via digits on a receiver's ...