KREG-TV (channel 3) is a

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 ...

Glenwood Springs, Colorado Glenwood Springs is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Home rule municipality, home rule municipality that is the county seat of Garfield County, Colorado, Garfield County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 9,963 at the 2020 Uni ...

, United States, broadcasting the classic television network

MeTV MeTV, an acronym for Memorable Entertainment Television, is an American broadcast television network owned by Weigel Broadcasting. Marketed as "The Definitive Destination for Classic TV", the network airs a variety of classic television program ...

. It is owned and operated by

Weigel Broadcasting Weigel Broadcasting Co. is an American television broadcasting company based in Chicago, Illinois, alongside its flagship station WCIU-TV (Channel 26), at 26 North Halsted Street in the Greektown neighborhood. It currently owns 25 television ...

, and has a transmitter atop Sunlight Peak. Since its purchase in 2020 by Weigel, and given KREG-TV has no signal penetration into the

Denver metropolitan area Denver is the central city of a conurbation region in the U.S. state of Colorado. The conurbation includes one continuous region consisting of the six central counties of Adams, Arapahoe, Broomfield, Denver, Douglas, and Jefferson. The Denver r ...

, KREG-TV has been positioned as a station serving the entire

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 ...

media market A media market, broadcast market, media region, designated market area (DMA), television market area, or simply market is a region where the population can receive the same (or similar) television and radio station offerings, and may also incl ...

via cable and

satellite A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioiso ...

, rather than its history as a

repeater In telecommunications, a repeater is an electronic device that receives a signal and retransmits it. Repeaters are used to extend transmissions so that the signal can cover longer distances or be received on the other side of an obstruction. Som ...

of stations based in Grand Junction.

History

KCWS

KREG-TV was launched January 28, 1984, by Western Slope Communications, a group of investors, as

independent station An independent station is an independent radio or terrestrial television station which is independent in some way from broadcast networks. The definition of "independence" varies from country to country, reflecting governmental regulations, marke ...

KCWS on

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 3. It promised the best selection of off-network and first-run syndicated programming available; plus an aggressive regional news operation that pioneered the first long-form morning newscast on Western Slope television. At its launch, KCWS stated it had "one of the highest shares ever received by an independent station at sign-on". However, the station's construction was hindered by what it said was "one of the worst winters in Colorado history", as well as equipment that was either delayed or damaged; in addition, the station fought with commissioners in Garfield County to locate its transmitter at the Sunlight Peak transmitter site used by its

translator Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''transl ...

system. Mesa County's commissioners refused to allow KCWS to be carried on its translators; this prevented the station from being seen in Grand Junction, the largest community in the Western Slope, until the station was added to United Cable's lineup. In addition, the small size of the Glenwood Springs area meant that advertising dollars were scarce; it didn't help matters that

KWGN-TV KWGN-TV (channel 2) is a television station in Denver, Colorado, United States, airing programming from The CW. It is owned and operated by network majority owner Nexstar Media Group alongside Fox affiliate KDVR, channel 31 (and its Fort Collins ...

in Denver had been available on cable for decades in the area. The station underwent three rounds of

layoff A layoff or downsizing is the temporary suspension or permanent termination of employment of an employee or, more commonly, a group of employees (collective layoff) for business reasons, such as personnel management or downsizing (reducing the ...

s, and filed for

chapter 11 bankruptcy Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code ( Title 11 of the United States Code) permits reorganization under the bankruptcy laws of the United States. Such reorganization, known as Chapter 11 bankruptcy, is available to every business, whe ...

on June 27, 1984. News was eventually eliminated, and after only five months, KCWS went dark on July 2, 1984, following a ''

Taxi A taxi, also known as a taxicab or simply a cab, is a type of vehicle for hire with a driver, used by a single passenger or small group of passengers, often for a non-shared ride. A taxicab conveys passengers between locations of their choic ...

'' rerun.

Satellite of KREX-TV

In 1987, W. Russell Withers, Jr., owner of KREX-TV, the CBS and

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

affiliate in Grand Junction, bought KCWS; it returned to the air September 16, 1987, as KREG-TV, a

of KREX. As a satellite of KREX, KREG had no local news inserts but did have a small office in Carbondale, near Glenwood Springs. Withers sold KREG-TV, along with KREX-TV, to

Hoak Media Hoak Media Corporation was a broadcast media company based in Dallas, Texas. Hoak once owned eighteen television stations (including satellites), all in medium and small-markets, mostly in the Great Plains states and Colorado. Hoak Media was e ...

in 2003. On December 19, 2013,

Gray Television Gray Television, Inc. is an American publicly traded television broadcasting company based in Atlanta, Georgia. Founded in 1946 by James Harrison Gray as Gray Communications Systems, the company owns or operates 180 stations across the United St ...

, who a month earlier announced its purchase of Hoak Media, sold KREG and its sister stations in Grand Junction (as part of Gray's divestment to comply with FCC rules because it was the owner of KKCO and operator of KJCT in the Grand Junction market) to Nexstar Broadcasting Group for $33.5 million. The sale was completed on June 13, 2014.

Sale to Marquee Broadcasting

On May 10, 2016, Nexstar agreed to sell KREG-TV to Marquee Broadcasting for $350,000; the sale is part of a series of divestitures required following Nexstar's acquisition of

Media General Media General was an American media company based in Richmond, Virginia. The company's origins can be traced back to 1887 when Richmond attorney Joseph Bryan acquired ''The Richmond Daily Times'', which later became ''The Richmond Times-Dispatch ...

due to

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) ownership caps. Following the sale, KREG, which is considered to be part of the Denver market, ceased to be a satellite of KREX. KREG went dark on January 5, 2017, saying that ice and snow accumulation and the risk of avalanches had rendered the station's transmitter inaccessible, preventing repairs. On July 1, 2017, KREG-TV returned to the air broadcasting

Heroes & Icons Heroes & Icons (H&I) is an American digital broadcast television network owned by Weigel Broadcasting. Usually carried on the digital subchannels of its affiliated television station in most markets, the network airs classic television series fr ...

programming.

Sale to Weigel Broadcasting

Marquee Broadcasting agreed to sell KREG-TV to

for $2 million on May 30, 2019. The sale was completed on January 2, 2020, making KREG an H&I

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 ...

."Consummation Notice"
''CDBS Public Access'',

, January 3, 2020, Retrieved January 3, 2020. Later in 2020, MeTV was added on DT1, pushing Heroes & Icons to DT2.

Subchannels

The station's digital signal is

multiplexed In telecommunications and computer networking, multiplexing (sometimes contracted to muxing) is a method by which multiple analog or digital signals are combined into one signal over a shared medium. The aim is to share a scarce resource - a ...

: As of 2021, Movies! and Decades on DT4 and DT5 have switched their subchannel locations, with the networks on DT5 and DT4, respectively.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kreg-TV Weigel Broadcasting Television channels and stations established in 1984 1984 establishments in Colorado REG-TV MeTV affiliates Heroes & Icons affiliates Start TV affiliates Decades (TV network) affiliates Movies! affiliates Story Television affiliates Glenwood Springs, Colorado