KHBS

KHBS (channel 40) and KHOG-TV (channel 29) are television stations licensed respectively to Fort Smith and Fayetteville, Arkansas, United States, serving as the ABC and CW Plus affiliates for the Arkansas River Valley and Northwest Arkansas. Owned by Hearst Television and jointly branded as "40/29", the two stations maintain studios on Ajax Avenue in Rogers. KHBS' transmitter is located on Cavanal Hill in northwestern Le Flore County, Oklahoma (northwest of Poteau), while KHOG-TV's transmitter is based near Ed Edwards Road in rural northeastern Washington County, Arkansas, just southeast of the Fayetteville city limits.

KHOG-TV relays KHBS' programming to areas of far northwestern Arkansas and southwestern Missouri that are not covered by the primary station's signal. During the analog era, the Fort Smith–Fayetteville market's size and terrain precluded stations with transmitters closer to Fort Smith from reaching northern portions of the market.

History

Channel 40 began as KFPW-TV on July 28, 1971. It was owned by local businessman Bob Hernreich along with KFPW radio (1230 AM). The station was a primary CBS affiliate with a secondary ABC affiliation. Before channel 40's arrival, all three networks had been shoehorned on primary NBC affiliate KFSA-TV (channel 5, now CBS affiliate KFSM-TV).

KFPW-TV found the going difficult against channel 5 largely because of the difficulties experienced by UHF stations operating in rugged terrain. Most seriously, it was all but unviewable in Fayetteville and the surrounding area. Its transmitter in Fort Smith provided secondary coverage of Fayetteville's southern suburbs but just missed Fayetteville itself. Many viewers in the northern part of the market watched CBS on KTVJ in Joplin, Missouri (now NBC affiliate KSNF).

Although Fort Smith and Fayetteville have been treated as a single market since the 1950s, it soon became apparent that the rugged terrain would make it impossible to cover it from a single UHF transmitter. A solution came in the form of the license for KGTO-TV, which had served Fayetteville on channel 36 from February 8, 1969, to December 23, 1973, originally as a primary NBC affiliate before becoming a primary CBS affiliate. Hernreich's father, George, had actually bought KGTO in 1973 with the intent of turning it into a satellite of KFPW-TV, but Federal Communications Commission (FCC) concerns about Heinreich's operation of KAIT in Jonesboro delayed final FCC approval for the purchase until 1976. Further delays came when severe damage to KGTO's transmitter, as well as a series of thefts, required building a completely new transmitter. However, when Heinreich acquired equipment designed for channel 29, not channel 36, he moved the station's license to channel 29 in order to save money and return the station to the air. The station finally went on the air on December 8, 1977, as KTVP, a full-time satellite of KPFW-TV. A little over a year later, when KLMN-TV (channel 24, now Fox affiliate KFTA-TV) signed on as the market's third station, KPFW/KTVP became a full-time ABC affiliate, with channel 24 taking all CBS programming.

In 1983, the Hernreich family sold off its radio stations, KFPW and KXXI-FM. The Hernreichs changed channel 40's call letters to KHBS (for Hernreich Broadcasting System) on March 21. Two years later, in 1985, Bob Hernreich bought a stake in Sigma Broadcasting (becoming its chairman and CEO in 1989), merging KHBS and KTVP into Sigma. On September 1, 1987, KTVP became KHOG-TV—a nod to the Arkansas Razorbacks, who are often called "the Hogs". Argyle Television bought the stations in 1996. A year later, Argyle merged with Hearst. For numerous years, split-anchor newscasts were broadcast from studios located in Fort Smith and Fayetteville. However, in October 2007, KHBS and KHOG-TV moved their operations to new state of the art studios in Rogers.

Subchannel history

KHBS-DT2/KHOG-DT2

KHBS-DT2/KHOG-DT2 (branded as Arkansas CW) is the CW-affiliated second digital subchannel of KHBS and KHOG, broadcasting in high definition on channel 40.2 in Fort Smith and channel 29.2 in Fayetteville. All programming on KHBS-DT2/KHOG-DT2 is received through The CW's programming feed for smaller media markets, The CW Plus, which provides a set schedule of syndicated programming acquired by The CW during time periods without network programs; however, Hearst Television handles local advertising and promotional services for the subchannel.

KHBS-DT2's history traces back to the September 18, 2006, launch of a cable-only affiliate of The CW—a network created as a joint venture between CBS Corporation and the Warner Bros. Entertainment division of Time Warner, as a ''de facto'' consolidation of UPN and The WB that initially featured programs from its two predecessor networks as well as new series specifically produced for The CW.—that was managed, promoted and had its advertising sales handled by local cable provider Cox Communications, alongside the launch of The CW Plus, a national service that was created to provide broad coverage of The CW to smaller areas with a Nielsen Media Research market ranking above #100 and was affiliated via local origination channels managed by cable providers or local television stations and primary or subchannel-only affiliations with broadcast stations. The channel—which was branded on-air as "KCWA" (for "The CW Arkansas"), an unofficial callsign assigned by Cox as it was a cable-exclusive outlet not licensed by the FCC—was one of the few cable-only CW Plus affiliates to have signed on at the network's launch. (The predecessor service operated by The WB, The WB 100+ Station Group, was affiliated with Harrison-licensed KWBM Daystar owned-and-operated station">Daystar_(TV_network).html" ;"title="hannel 31, now a Daystar (TV network)">Daystar owned-and-operated station since 2001; in most markets where The CW Plus was initially available via cable, the successor cable-only CW Plus outlet usually was a former affiliate of The WB 100+.)

On April 9, 2008, in a joint announcement by the network and KHBS/KHOG's parent company, Hearst-Argyle Television announced that it would launch a CW-affiliated digital subchannel on the DT2 feeds of KHBS and KHOG to relay the network's programming throughout the Fort Smith–Fayetteville market. Hearst-Argyle assumed promotional and advertising control of "KCWA"—which had its former "CW Arkansas" branding retained in the over-the-air transition—from Cox Communications with the subsequent sign-on of KHBS/KHOG's CW subchannels, and converted the cable-only affiliate into an over-the-air digital feed on KHBS-DT 40.2 and KHOG-DT 29.2 to provide The CW's programming to viewers throughout Northwest Arkansas who do not subscribe to cable television. KHBS-DT2/KHOG-DT2 signed on as an affiliate of The CW (via The CW Plus) on April 28, 2008, assuming "KCWA"s former channel slot on Cox basic cable channel 4 (a high definition feed of the channel was also provided to Cox subscribers on digital cable">digital