KXNW (channel 34) 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 ear ...

licensed to

Eureka Springs, Arkansas Eureka Springs is a city in Carroll County, Arkansas, United States, and one of two county seats for the county. It is located in the Ozark Mountains of northwest Arkansas, near the border with Missouri. As of the 2020 census, the city populat ...

, United States, serving

Northwest Arkansas Northwest Arkansas (NWA) is a metropolitan area and region in Arkansas within the Ozark Mountains. It includes four of the ten largest cities in the state: Fayetteville, Arkansas, Fayetteville, Springdale, Arkansas, Springdale, Rogers, Arkansas, ...

and the

Arkansas River The Arkansas River is a major tributary of the Mississippi River. It generally flows to the east and southeast as it traverses the U.S. states of Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. The river's source basin lies in the western United S ...

Valley as an affiliate of

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 ...

. (While Eureka Springs is located in the

Springfield, Missouri Springfield is the third largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and the county seat of Greene County. The city's population was 169,176 at the 2020 census. It is the principal city of the Springfield metropolitan area, which had an estima ...

market,

Nielsen Nielsen may refer to: Business * Nielsen Gallery, an American commercial art gallery * Nielsen Holdings, global information, data, and measurement company ** Nielsen Corporation, a marketing research firm ** Nielsen Audio, formerly Arbitron, whic ...

considers this station to be part of the Fort Smith–

Fayetteville Fayetteville may refer to: *Fayetteville, Alabama * Fayetteville, Arkansas ** The Fayetteville Formation *Fayetteville, Georgia * Fayetteville, Illinois * Fayetteville, Indiana *Fayetteville, Washington County, Indiana *Fayetteville, Missouri *Fay ...

market.) The station 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 tele ...

alongside

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 ...

-licensed

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 ...

affiliate

KNWA-TV KNWA-TV (channel 51) is a television station licensed to Rogers, Arkansas, United States, serving as the NBC affiliate for Northwest Arkansas and the Arkansas River Valley. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group alongside Fort Smith–licensed Fox ...

(channel 51) and Fort Smith–licensed

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''). Twelv ...

affiliate

KFTA-TV KFTA-TV (channel 24) is a television station licensed to Fort Smith, Arkansas, United States, serving as the Fox affiliate for the Arkansas River Valley and Northwest Arkansas. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group alongside Rogers-licensed NBC a ...

(channel 24). The three stations share studios on

Dickson Street The West Dickson Street Commercial Historic District, known as Dickson Street (historically spelled incorrectly as Dixon Street), is an area in downtown Fayetteville, Arkansas just off the University of Arkansas campus. It is lined with multiple b ...

in downtown Fayetteville, with a satellite studio in Rogers and a

news bureau A news bureau is an office for gathering or distributing news. Similar terms are used for specialized bureaus, often to indicate a geographic location or scope of coverage: a ‘Tokyo bureau’ refers to a given news operation's office in Tokyo; ...

and sales office on Kelley Highway in Fort Smith. KXNW's transmitter is located on Humphrey Mountain near

Garfield ''Garfield'' is an American comic strip created by Jim Davis (cartoonist), Jim Davis. Originally published locally as ''Jon'' in 1976, then in nationwide Print syndication, syndication from 1978 as ''Garfield'', it chronicles the life of the t ...

. Even though KXNW broadcasts a digital signal of its own, its broadcasting radius does not reach Fort Smith. Therefore, the station is

simulcast Simulcast (a portmanteau of simultaneous broadcast) is the broadcasting of programmes/programs or events across more than one resolution, bitrate or medium, or more than one service on the same medium, at exactly the same time (that is, simult ...

high definition High definition or HD may refer to: Visual technologies *HD DVD, discontinued optical disc format *HD Photo, former name for the JPEG XR image file format *HDV, format for recording high-definition video onto magnetic tape * HiDef, 24 frames-pe ...

on KFTA-TV's fifth

digital subchannel In broadcasting, digital subchannels are a method of transmitting more than one independent program stream simultaneously from the same digital radio or television station on the same radio frequency channel. This is done by using data compressi ...

from a transmitter in

unincorporated Unincorporated may refer to: * Unincorporated area, land not governed by a local municipality * Unincorporated entity, a type of organization * Unincorporated territories of the United States, territories under U.S. jurisdiction, to which Congress ...

northeastern

Crawford County Crawford County is the name of eleven counties in the United States: * Crawford County, Arkansas * Crawford County, Georgia * Crawford County, Illinois * Crawford County, Indiana * Crawford County, Iowa * Crawford County, Kansas * Crawford County ...

(south of

Artist Point Artist Point is an overlook point on the edge of a cliff on the south rim of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. The point is located east-northeast of Yellowstone Falls on the Yellowstone River. Artist Poin ...

). Instead of channel 24.5, KFTA-DT5 maps to channel 34.1.

History

Channel 34 began operations on June 19, 2000 as KWBS-TV, which stood for " WB Springfield"; however, original station owner

Equity Broadcasting 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 ...

decided to make another new station,

KWBM KWBM (channel 31) is a religious television station licensed to Harrison, Arkansas, United States, serving the Springfield, Missouri area as an owned-and-operated station of the Daystar Television Network. It is the only full-power television sta ...

(channel 31), as the WB affiliate for Springfield, and KWBS instead affiliated with Pax (now

Ion Television Ion Television is an American broadcast television network owned by the Katz Broadcasting subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company. The network first began broadcasting on August 31, 1998, as Pax TV, focusing primarily on family-oriented ent ...

). KWBS dropped the Pax-affiliation in 2003 in favor of the Equity-owned Lick TV, which was a short-lived network that broadcast

professional wrestling Professional wrestling is a form of theater that revolves around staged wrestling matches. The mock combat is performed in a ring similar to the kind used in boxing, and the dramatic aspects of pro wrestling may be performed both in the ring or ...

events. One year later, the station dropped that network and finally affiliated with The WB as its Northwest Arkansas affiliate. This was accompanied by a call-letter change to KWFT. After it was announced in January 2006 that The WB and

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 ...

would close down to form

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

in September, KWFT changed its call letters to KBBL-TV on July 6, 2006. However, its Fort Smith repeater retained the KWFT-LP call sign, which to this day it still uses. The KBBL-TV call letters were almost certainly not inspired by the KBBL-TV of ''

The Simpsons ''The Simpsons'' is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical depiction of American life, epitomized by the Simpson family, which consists of Homer Simpson, Homer, Marge ...

'', even though both stations are located in a DMA with the same name as the Simpsons' fictional hometown. Equity likes to use former radio call letters from its hometown of

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 ...

as TV call letters, and the KBBL call sign was once used by a Little Rock radio station. Around the same time as the call-letters change, KBBL-TV was announced as joining the

Retro Television Network Retro TV (stylized as retrotv), formerly known as Retro Television Network, is an American broadcast television network owned by Get After It Media. The network mainly airs classic television sitcoms and drama series from the 1950s through t ...

(then owned by Equity) after The WB ceased operations, but as a result of

KPBI-CA KPBI-CA, UHF analog channel 46, was a low-powered, Class A MyNetworkTV-affiliated television station licensed to Fort Smith, Arkansas. The station was owned by Equity Media Holdings and, like many of Equity's stations, KPBI-CA was controll ...

(channel 46) losing its

affiliation to then-NBC affiliate

(channel 24) and joining

, channel 34 changed its call letters to KPBI on September 22, 2006 and began to carry KPBI-CA's programming schedule ( KFDF-CA, the station that was originally scheduled to join MNTV, ended up becoming the RTV affiliate). After failing to find a buyer at a bankruptcy auction, KPBI was sold to Pinnacle Media in August 2009 (after having initially been included in Silver Point Finance's acquisition on June 2 of several Equity stations) with Pinnacle assuming control under a

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 ...

with soon-to-be-former owner Equity on August 5 that same year. Pinnacle Media officially took ownership on November 3, 2009 and was restructured into Riverside Media in August 2010 with a change in the minority (40%) ownership in the company. It was announced on August 12, 2009 that KPBI would switch to RTV, which had been dropped from KFDF in January after the network severed its ties with Equity. As of October 30, 2011, KPBI has dropped from RTV in favor of the MeTV programming. In 2010,

KFSM-TV KFSM-TV (channel 5) is a television station licensed to Fort Smith, Arkansas, United States, serving the Arkansas River Valley and Northwest Arkansas as an affiliate of CBS. Owned by Tegna Inc., the station has studios on South 48th Street ...

launched a second digital subchannel affiliated with MyNetworkTV.

Purchase by Local TV and then by Tribune

On September 1, 2011, Local TV, the owners of the CBS-affiliate KFSM, filed papers with 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 jurisd ...

to purchase KPBI for $784,000 through a "failing station" waiver. This is necessary because the Fort Smith-Fayetteville DMA has only seven "unique" full-power television stations (though the ABC affiliate KHOG-TV is a satellite of Fort Smith-based parent KHBS, the FCC considers the parent and its satellite together as all one unit). That number of unique full-power stations is normally not enough to legally support a duopoly. The sale to Local TV was completed on January 5, 2012; on that day, the station's callsign was changed to KXNW. Immediately upon consummation, all remaining

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 ...

and RTV programming was dropped in favor of a simulcast of KFSM digital subchannel 5.2, which carries MyNetworkTV programming (also on KFSM-DT2) during primetime hours on weeknights, syndicated programming during the daytime hours and at select time periods on weekend mornings and afternoons and a part-time affiliation with

Antenna TV Antenna TV is an American digital television network owned by Nexstar Media Group. The network's programming consists of classic television series, primarily sitcoms, from the 1950s to the 1990s. Antenna TV's programming and advertising operatio ...

on weekdays from 1–7 a.m., Saturdays from 1–8 a.m., and 6 p.m.–6 a.m. and Sundays from 6–8 and 9–10 a.m., and 12–6 a.m. In addition, KXNW's digital subchannel 34.2 dropped Univision and began simulcasting KFSM's CBS-affiliated main channel 5.1. As of 2016, KXNW added a simulcast of KFSM-DT3 on 34.2, resulting in the KFSM-DT1 simulcast moving to a new 34.3 subchannel. On July 1, 2013, Local TV announced that its stations would be acquired by the

Tribune Broadcasting Tribune Broadcasting Company, LLC was an American media company which operated as a subsidiary of Tribune Media, a media conglomerate based in Chicago, Illinois. The group owned and operated television and radio stations throughout the United S ...

. The sale was completed on December 27. With the completion of the deal, KFSM and KXNW became Tribune's smallest stations by market size (previously, the company's

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

WGNO WGNO (channel 26) is a television station in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States, affiliated with ABC. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group alongside CW owned-and-operated station WNOL-TV (channel 38). Both stations share studios at The Gal ...

and

WNOL-TV WNOL-TV (channel 38) is a television station in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States, airing programming from The CW. It is owned and operated by network majority owner Nexstar Media Group alongside ABC affiliate WGNO (channel 26). Both statio ...

held this distinction).

Aborted sale to Sinclair Broadcast Group

On May 8, 2017,

Hunt Valley, Maryland Hunt Valley is an unincorporated community in Baltimore County, Maryland, United States, near the site of the Maryland Hunt Cup Steeplechase. It lies just north of the city of Baltimore, along York Road ( Maryland Route 45), parallel to Inters ...

-based

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, ...

announced that it would acquire Tribune Media for $3.9 billion, plus the assumption of $2.7 billion in debt held by Tribune. Had the deal received regulatory approval, the transaction would have given KFSM and KXNW new sister stations in the company's ABC affiliates in bordering markets,

KTUL KTUL (channel 8) is a television station in Tulsa, Oklahoma Tulsa () is the second-largest city in the U.S. state, state of Oklahoma and List of United States cities by population, 47th-most populous city in the United States. The populat ...

in Tulsa and

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 ...

in Little Rock. Three weeks after the FCC's July 18 vote to have the deal reviewed by an

administrative law judge An administrative law judge (ALJ) in the United States is a judge and trier of fact who both presides over trials and adjudicates claims or disputes involving administrative law. ALJs can administer oaths, take testimony, rule on questions of evi ...

amid "serious concerns" about Sinclair's forthrightness in its applications to sell certain conflict properties, on August 9, 2018, Tribune announced it would terminate the Sinclair deal, intending to seek other M&A opportunities. Tribune also filed a

breach of contract Breach of contract is a legal cause of action and a type of civil wrong, in which a binding agreement or bargained-for exchange is not honored by one or more of the parties to the contract by non-performance or interference with the other par ...

lawsuit in the

Delaware Chancery Court The Delaware Court of Chancery is a court of equity in the American state of Delaware. It is one of Delaware's three constitutional courts, along with the Supreme Court and Superior Court. Since 2018, the court consists of seven judges. The chi ...

, alleging that Sinclair engaged in protracted negotiations with the FCC and the U.S. Department of Justice's Antitrust Division over regulatory issues, refused to sell stations in markets where it already had properties, and proposed divestitures to parties with ties to Sinclair executive chair David D. Smith that were rejected or highly subject to rejection to maintain control over stations it was required to sell.

Sale to Nexstar Media Group

On December 3, 2018,

Irving, Texas Irving is a city in the U.S. state of Texas. Located in Dallas County, it is also an inner ring suburb of Dallas. The city of Irving is part of the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. According to a 2019 estimate from the United States Census Bur ...

–based

—which owns NBC affiliate

(channel 51) and Fox affiliate KFTA-TV—announced it would acquire the assets of Tribune Media for $6.4 billion in cash and debt. Nexstar was precluded from acquiring KFSM and KXNW directly or indirectly, as KFSM and KNWA both fall within FCC criteria prohibiting common ownership of two of the four highest-rated television stations in any market nor does it allow ownership of more than two stations in the same media market. Therefore, Nexstar was required to sell either KNWA/KFTA or KFSM/KXNW to a separate, unrelated company to address the ownership conflict. On March 20, 2019,

McLean, Virginia McLean ( ) is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Fairfax County in Northern Virginia. McLean is home to many diplomats, military, members of Congress, and high-ranking government officials partially due to its proxi ...

–based

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 ...

announced it would purchase KFSM-TV from Nexstar upon consummation of the merger, as part of the company's sale of nineteen Nexstar- and Tribune-operated stations to Tegna and the

E. W. Scripps Company The E. W. Scripps Company is an American broadcasting company founded in 1878 as a chain of daily newspapers by Edward Willis "E. W." Scripps and his sister, Ellen Browning Scripps. It was also formerly a media conglomerate. The company is he ...

in separate deals worth $1.32 billion. KXNW was not named in the sale, which opens the possibility of either the formation of a ''de facto'' triopoly between KFTA and KNWA (which Nexstar retained through an existing satellite station waiver that predated KFTA's conversion into a separately programmed Fox affiliate in 2006) or the retention of its existing duopoly partnership with KFSM, pending disclosures by Nexstar in subsequent paperwork concerning the deal. Ultimately, Nexstar opted to retain KXNW. This was allowed since KXNW's city of license is in the Springfield market, though for all intents and purposes it is a Fort Smith–Fayetteville station.

Newscasts

On March 12, 2012, KXNW began airing a weekday morning newscast at 7 a.m. and a nightly newscast at 9 p.m. that are produced by KFSM. The latter newscast competes with the primetime newscast which airs seven days a week on KFTA-TV (one hour on weekdays, and a half-hour on weekends). As of September 19, 2019, KXNW no longer broadcasts newscasts from KFSM due to KXNW being bought by Nexstar Media Group and KFSM's acquisition by Tegna.

Technical information

Subchannel

Analog-to-digital conversion

Because it was granted an original

construction permit Planning permission or developmental approval refers to the approval needed for construction or expansion (including significant renovation), and sometimes for demolition, in some jurisdictions. It is usually given in the form of a building per ...

after the

FCC 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 jurisdictio ...

finalized the DTV allotment plan on April 21, 1997, the station did not receive a companion channel for a digital television station. Instead, at the end of the digital TV conversion period for full-service stations, KPBI was required to turn off its

analog signal An analog signal or analogue signal (see spelling differences) is any continuous signal representing some other quantity, i.e., ''analogous'' to another quantity. For example, in an analog audio signal, the instantaneous signal voltage vari ...

and turn on its digital signal (called a "

flash cut A flash cut, also called a flash cutover, is an immediate change in a complex system, with no phase-in period. In the United States, some telephone area codes were split or overlaid immediately, rather than being phased in with a permissive d ...

"). , this station was scheduled to go

dark Darkness, the direct opposite of lightness, is defined as a lack of illumination, an absence of visible light, or a surface that absorbs light, such as black or brown. Human vision is unable to distinguish colors in conditions of very low l ...

in 2009. According to the station's DTV status report, "On December 8, 2008, the licensee's parent corporation filed a petition for bankruptcy relief under

Chapter 11 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, whet ...

of the federal bankruptcy code... This station must obtain post-petition financing and court approval before digital facilities may be constructed. The station ceased analogue broadcasting on

February 17 Events Pre-1600 * 1370 – Northern Crusades: Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Teutonic Knights meet in the Battle of Rudau. * 1411 – Following the successful campaigns during the Ottoman Interregnum, Musa Çelebi, one of the sons ...

2009 File:2009 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The vertical stabilizer of Air France Flight 447 is pulled out from the Atlantic Ocean; Barack Obama becomes the first African American to become President of the United States; 2009 Iran ...

, regardless of whether digital facilities are operational by that date. The station filed authority to remain

silent Silent may mean any of the following: People with the name * Silent George, George Stone (outfielder) (1876–1945), American Major League Baseball outfielder and batting champion * Brandon Silent (born 1973), South African former footballer * C ...

if so required by the

." While the

DTV Delay Act The digital transition in the United States was the switchover from analog to exclusively digital broadcasting of terrestrial television programming. According to David Rehr, then president and CEO of the National Association of Broadcasters, th ...

extended this deadline to June 12, 2009, Equity applied for an extension of the digital

in order to retain the

broadcast license A broadcast license is a type of spectrum license granting the licensee permission to use a portion of the radio frequency spectrum in a given geographical area for broadcasting purposes. The licenses generally include restrictions, which vary ...

after the station goes dark.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kxnw MyNetworkTV affiliates Rewind TV affiliates XNW Nexstar Media Group Television channels and stations established in 2000 2000 establishments in Arkansas