KUIL-LD (channel 12.5) is a low-power television station in Beaumont, Texas, United States, affiliated with

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 ...

. It is owned by

Tegna Inc. Tegna Inc. (stylized in all caps as TEGNA) is an American publicly traded broadcast, digital media and marketing services company headquartered in Tysons Corner, Virginia. It was created on June 29, 2015, when the Gannett Company split into tw ...

alongside dual ABC/

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

KBMT KBMT (channel 12) is a television station in Beaumont, Texas, United States, affiliated with ABC and NBC. It is owned by Tegna Inc. alongside low-power MyNetworkTV affiliate KUIL-LD (channel 12.5). Both stations share studios along I-10/US 6 ...

(channel 12). Both stations share studios along I-10/

US 69 U.S. Route 69 (US 69) is a major north–south United States highway. When it was first created, it was only long, but it has since been expanded into a Minnesota to Texas cross-country route. The highway's southern terminus (as well as ...

US 96 U.S. Highway 96 (US 96) is a north–south United States Numbered Highway that runs for about entirely in the U.S state of Texas. Its number is a violation of the standard numbering convention, as even-numbered two-digit highways are east– ...

US 287 U.S. Route 287 (US 287) is a north–south (physically northwest–southeast) United States highway. At long, it is the second longest three-digit U.S. Route, behind US 281. It serves as the major truck route between Fort Worth and A ...

in Beaumont, while KUIL-LD's transmitter is located in

Mauriceville, Texas Mauriceville is a census-designated place (CDP) in Orange County, Texas, United States. The population was 2,983 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Beaumont– Port Arthur Metropolitan Statistical Area. Geography Mauriceville is located a ...

. KUIL-LD formerly had a

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 ...

, K27JJ-D, in

Warren A warren is a network of wild rodent or lagomorph, typically rabbit burrows. Domestic warrens are artificial, enclosed establishment of animal husbandry dedicated to the raising of rabbits for meat and fur. The term evolved from the medieval A ...

History

The station went on the air as KUIL-LD (the former KUIL) on analog channel 64 in 2003 as the market's first

Fox Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush''). Twelve sp ...

affiliate. The station was originally owned by National Communications, owner of

KVHP KVHP (channel 29) is a television station in Lake Charles, Louisiana, United States, affiliated with Fox and ABC. It is owned by American Spirit Media, which maintains a shared services agreement (SSA) with Gray Television, owner of dual NBC/ ...

Lake Charles, Louisiana Lake Charles (French: ''Lac Charles'') is the fifth-largest incorporated city in the U.S. state of Louisiana, and the parish seat of Calcasieu Parish, located on Lake Charles, Prien Lake, and the Calcasieu River. Founded in 1861 in Calcas ...

. Prior to 2003, KVHP served Beaumont and Port Arthur as the local Fox affiliate, in addition to Lake Charles (due to its transmitter being located halfway between Beaumont and Lake Charles); KUIL was established as a way to provide local programming just for that region, plus alternate coverage of sports that are more relevant to the Beaumont market (such as Houston Texans and

Dallas Cowboys The Dallas Cowboys are a professional American football team based in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. The Cowboys compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East divi ...

football). At the outset, KUIL also held a secondary affiliation with

UPN The United Paramount Network (UPN) was an American broadcast television network that launched on January 16, 1995. It was originally owned by Chris-Craft Industries' United Television. Viacom (through its Paramount Television unit, which pr ...

; when UPN and

The WB The WB Television Network (for Warner Bros., or the "Frog Network", for its former mascot, Michigan J. Frog) was an American television network launched on terrestrial television, broadcast television on January 11, 1995, as a joint venture be ...

merged into

The CW ''The'' () is a grammatical Article (grammar), article in English language, English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite ...

KFDM KFDM (channel 6) is a television station in Beaumont, Texas, United States, affiliated with CBS, The CW Plus, and Fox. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, which provides certain services to Port Arthur–licensed Dabl affiliate KBTV-TV ...

added The CW to its digital subcarrier channel, leaving KUIL as solely a Fox affiliate. In November 2007, KUIL signed on a digital signal on channel 36 (K36ID-D, now KUIL-LD) near

Orange, Texas Orange is a city and the county seat of Orange County, Texas, United States. As of the 2020 census, the city population was 19,324. It is the easternmost city in Texas, located on the Sabine River at the border with Louisiana, and is from Hous ...

, to help cover the Orange area where the analog 64 signal could not reach. On October 24, 2008, it was announced that then-

affiliate

KBTV-TV KBTV-TV (channel 4) is a television station licensed to Port Arthur, Texas, United States, serving the Beaumont area as an affiliate of the digital multicast network Dabl. It is owned by Deerfield Media, which maintains joint sales and shared ...

would become a Fox affiliate on January 1, 2009, indicating that KUIL lost the affiliation at that time. Despite early reports of KUIL pursuing the NBC affiliation, competing station

would broadcast NBC programming on a digital subchannel. As a result, after the Fox affiliation ceased, KUIL became an independent station. To address the 10% of the schedule previously provided by Fox, the station began to add some local programming, some of which would be produced by

Lamar University Lamar University (Lamar or LU) is a public university in Beaumont, Texas. Lamar has been a member of the Texas State University System since 1995. It was the flagship institution of the former Lamar University System. As of the fall of 2021, t ...

and additional sitcoms like Scrubs. The station adopted ''The U'' as its identity, using the same moniker and logo as unrelated station

WCIU-TV WCIU-TV (channel 26) is a television station in Chicago, Illinois, United States, affiliated with The CW. It is the flagship television property of locally based Weigel Broadcasting, which has owned the station since its inception, and is siste ...

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

. On August 3, 2010, the station launched

Azteca América Azteca América (, sometimes shortened to Azteca) is an American Spanish-language free-to-air television network owned by INNOVATE Corp., which acquired the network from the Azteca International Corporation subsidiary of TV Azteca. Headquartere ...

on a new 4th digital subchannel, becoming the first Spanish-language television station offered in the Golden Triangle. In May 2010, London Broadcasting revealed that the company was developing a state network, MYTX, using subchannels like KUIL's .2 (now KBMT-LD .2) operated by KBMT. MYTX would share Texas news and sports and productions from 41 Entertainment, which was owned by London. By April 2012, KBMT assumed operations of KUIL through a local service agreement with owner Blue Bonnet. The station at the time was a

affiliate. Earlier in the year, KUIL had added

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 ...

. In May 2013, KBMT added another hour of ''12News Daybreak'' to KUIL at 7 AM continuing the show from KBMT and KJAC. The call letters were changed to KBMT-LD on February 28, 2018; the KUIL-LD call sign was concurrently moved to K36ID-D. The license for KBMT-LD was cancelled on August 10, 2018.

Technical information

Subchannels

The station's digital channel 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 ...

: On January 9, 2012, KUIL replaced

with classic television programming from

on 12.4. As of February 2013, MeTV moved to KBMT-DT4. In 2016, MundoMax signed off and was replaced with Light TV. On May 1, 2017, Light TV was replaced by Ion Television.

Analog-to-digital conversion

KUIL shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 64, on November 27, 2009.

References

{{Tegna UIL-LD MyNetworkTV affiliates Ion Television affiliates Court TV affiliates Ion Mystery affiliates Grit (TV network) affiliates Laff (TV network) affiliates Heroes & Icons affiliates Low-power television stations in the United States Television channels and stations established in 2003 2003 establishments in Texas Spanish-language television stations in Texas Tegna Inc.

History

Technical information

Subchannels

Analog-to-digital conversion

See also

References