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KJTL (channel 18) 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 earth's s ...
licensed to
Wichita Falls, Texas Wichita Falls ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Wichita County, Texas, United States. It is the principal city of the Wichita Falls metropolitan area, Wichita Falls metropolitan statistical area, which encompasses all of Archer County, Tex ...
, United States, serving as the
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 ("brush"). Twelve species ...
affiliate for the western Texoma area. It is owned by locally based
Mission Broadcasting Mission Broadcasting, Inc. is a television station group that owns 29 full-power television stations in 26 markets in the United States. The group's chair is Nancie Smith, the widow of David S. Smith, who founded the company in 1996 and died in 2 ...
as its
flagship station In broadcasting, a flagship (also known as a flagship station or key station) is the broadcast station which originates a television network, or a particular radio or television program that plays a key role in the branding of and consumer loyal ...
; Mission maintains joint sales and
shared services Shared services is the provision of a service by one part of an organization or group where that service had previously been found in more than one part of the organization or group. Thus the funding and resourcing of the service is shared and the ...
agreements (JSA/SSA) with
Nexstar Media Group Nexstar Media Group, Inc. is an American publicly traded media company with headquarters in Irving, Texas, Midtown Manhattan, and Chicago. The company is the largest television station owner in the United States, owning 197 television station ...
, owner of
NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...
affiliate KFDX-TV (channel 3) and low-power
MyNetworkTV MyNetworkTV (stylized as mynetworkTV; unofficially abbreviated MNT or MNTV) is an American commercial broadcast television syndication service and former television network owned by Fox Corporation, operated by its Fox Television Stations ...
affiliate KJBO-LD (channel 35), for the provision of certain services. The three stations share studios near Seymour Highway (US 277) and Turtle Creek Road in Wichita Falls; KJTL's transmitter is located near East 1940 and North 2380 Roads in rural southwestern
Tillman County, Oklahoma Tillman County is a county located in the southwestern part of Oklahoma, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 6,968. The county seat is Frederick. History The Medicine Lodge Treaty of 1867 established a reservation in ...
(near Grandfield).


History


Early history

The
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 ...
channel 18 allocation in the Wichita Falls–Lawton market was contested between two groups that competed for the
Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, internet, wi-fi, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains j ...
(FCC)'s approval of a
construction permit Planning permission or building permit refers to the approval needed for construction or expansion (including significant renovation), and sometimes for demolition, in some jurisdictions. House building permits, for example, are subject to bu ...
to build and
license A license (American English) or licence (Commonwealth English) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit). A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another part ...
to operate a new commercial
independent television station An independent station is a broadcast station, usually a television station, not affiliated with a larger broadcast network. As such, it only broadcasts syndicated programs it has purchased; brokered programming, for which a third party pays t ...
on the frequency. On March 17, 1982, First City Media, Inc.—a locally based company co-founded by Max Andrews and Peter D'Acosta—filed the initial application for the channel 18 license. Just under months later, on April 30, Thornberry TV Ltd.—an
Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Georgia (U.S. state), most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It is the county seat, seat of Fulton County, Georg ...
-based company owned by William J. Barbin (who owned 36% of the company), Bert Wallace and Janet T. Lee (who each owned 18%), and David Vaughan (who owned the remaining 28%)—filed a separate application. The FCC granted the permit to Thornberry on November 28, 1983. In August 1984, Thornberry was granted use of KJTL as the planned station's callsign, named for minority owner Janet T. Lee. The station first signed on the air on May 14, 1985, as the fourth commercial television station—after
CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS (an abbreviation of its original name, Columbia Broadcasting System), is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...
affiliate
KAUZ-TV KAUZ-TV (channel 6) is a television station licensed to Wichita Falls, Texas, United States, serving as the CBS affiliate for the western Texoma area. It is owned by American Spirit Media, which maintains a shared services agreement (SSA) wit ...
(channel 6, which signed on as KWFT-TV on March 1, 1953),
ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Broadcasting * Aliw Broadcasting Corporation, Philippine broadcast company * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial American ...
affiliate
KSWO-TV KSWO-TV (channel 7) is a television station licensed to Lawton, Oklahoma, United States, serving the western Texoma area as an affiliate of ABC and Telemundo. It is owned by Gray Media, which maintains a shared services agreement (SSA) with ...
(channel 7, which signed on the air on March 8, 1953), and KFDX-TV (channel 3, which signed on April 12, 1953)—and the first commercial UHF outlet to sign on in the Wichita Falls–Lawton market. KJTL originally operated from studio facilities located on Call Field Road in Wichita Falls; the station based its transmitter facilities near Grandfield, Oklahoma, adjacent to the tower operated by KSWO-TV, to provide a signal that could adequately reach most of southwestern Oklahoma and western north Texas. Channel 18 initially maintained a programming inventory typical of an independent station, consisting of first-run and off-network
sitcom A sitcom (short for situation comedy or situational comedy) is a genre of comedy produced for radio and television, that centers on a recurring cast of character (arts), characters as they navigate humorous situations within a consistent settin ...
s and
drama series In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular su ...
, classic off-network
westerns The Western is a genre of fiction typically set in the American frontier (commonly referred to as the "Old West" or the "Wild West") between the California Gold Rush of 1849 and the closing of the frontier in 1890, and commonly associated wit ...
,
feature film A feature film or feature-length film (often abbreviated to feature), also called a theatrical film, is a film (Film, motion picture, "movie" or simply “picture”) with a running time long enough to be considered the principal or sole present ...
s and
cartoons A cartoon is a type of visual art that is typically drawn, frequently Animation, animated, in an realism (arts), unrealistic or semi-realistic style. The specific meaning has evolved, but the modern usage usually refers to either: an image or s ...
. In August 1986, Thornberry TV Ltd. transferred ownership of KJTL to Wichita Falls Television, a locally based company owned by D'Acosta, who also served as
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 ...
of channel 18. KJTL became a charter affiliate of the
Fox Broadcasting Company Fox Broadcasting Company, LLC (commonly known as Fox; stylized in all caps) is an Television in the United States, American commercial broadcasting, commercial broadcast television broadcaster, television network serving as the flagship proper ...
when the network inaugurated programming on October 9, 1986. Though it was technically a network affiliate, KJTL continued to be programmed as a ''de facto'' independent station as Fox's initial programming lineup consisted solely of a
late-night talk show A late-night talk show is a genre of talk show, originating in the American Media, United States. It is generally structured around humorous monologues about the day's news, guest interviews, comedy sketches and music performances. It is charact ...
, ''
The Late Show The Late Show may refer to: Film * ''The Late Show'' (film), a 1977 film * ''Late Show'', a 1999 German film by director Helmut Dietl Music * ''The Late Show'' (Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis album), a 1961 live album by jazz saxophonists Eddie "Loc ...
Starring
Joan Rivers Joan Alexandra Molinsky (June 8, 1933 – September 4, 2014), known professionally as Joan Rivers, was an American comedienne, actress, producer, writer and television host. She was noted for her blunt, often controversial comedic persona that w ...
''. Even after its programming expanded with the launch of a three-hour Sunday night lineup in April 1987, Fox aired its prime time programming exclusively on weekends until September 1989, when it began a five-year expansion towards a nightly prime time schedule. Until Fox began airing prime time programs on all seven nights of the week in January 1993, KJTL continued to air a movie at 7 p.m. on nights when the network did not offer any programming. On May 11, 1989, Wichita Falls Television announced it would sell the station to Wichita Falls-based BSP Broadcasting (which was principally owned by local businessman and eventual Texas House Representative
Lanham Lyne Fritz Lanham Lyne Jr. (born June 20, 1955), is a businessman from Wichita Falls, Texas, who was from 2011 to 2013 a Republican member of the Texas House of Representatives from District 69 in Wichita and Archer counties in North Texas. From ...
) for $1.587 million; the sale was approved by the FCC on June 29 of that year. (The group—which was later renamed Epic Broadcasting Corporation in 1992—would acquire an additional television property in January 1991, when it purchased fellow Fox affiliate
KCIT KCIT (channel 14) is a television station in Amarillo, Texas, United States, affiliated with the Fox Broadcasting Company, Fox network. It is owned by Mission Broadcasting, which maintains local marketing agreement, joint sales and shared serv ...
in
Amarillo, Texas Amarillo ( ; Spanish language, Spanish for "yellow") is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the county seat of Potter County, Texas, Potter County, though most of the southern half of the city extends into Randall County, Texas, Randall County ...
from Ralph C. Wilson Industries for $2.4 million.) D'Acosta was subsequently appointed as Epic Broadcasting president, a role he would retain after Epic sold its television stations to Wicks Broadcast Group. In the fall of 1993, channel 18 gained a sister station when Epic Broadcasting acquired low-power independent station K35BO (channel 35, now
MyNetworkTV MyNetworkTV (stylized as mynetworkTV; unofficially abbreviated MNT or MNTV) is an American commercial broadcast television syndication service and former television network owned by Fox Corporation, operated by its Fox Television Stations ...
affiliate KJBO-LD). KJTL switched to a 24-hour programming schedule in September 1994, after previously having signed off during the overnight hours each day; a simulcast of now-defunct cable channel MOR Music TV initially filled the former downtime until September 1997, when channel 18 switched to offering
home shopping Home shopping is the electronic retailing and home shopping channels industry, which includes such billion dollar television-based and e-commerce companies as Shop LC, HSN, Gemporia, TJC, QVC, eBay, ShopHQ, Rakuten.com and Amazon.com, ...
programming from the America's Collectibles Network (now
Jewelry Television Jewelry Television is an American television network specializing in the sale of jewelry. On-air and online, the network is mainly branded by its jtv initials in small caps, lower-case letters. It has an estimated reach of more than 80 million ...
) during the early morning hours. In May 1995, Epic announced it would sell KJTL and K35BO as well as the Amarillo duopoly of fellow Fox affiliate KCIT and low-powered K65GD (now MyNetworkTV affiliate
KCPN-LD KCPN-LD (channel 33) is a low-power television station in Amarillo, Texas, United States, affiliated with MyNetworkTV. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group alongside NBC affiliate KAMR-TV (channel 4); Nexstar also provides certain services to Fox ...
) to
New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
–based Wicks Broadcast Group—then a primarily radio-based broadcasting division of
private equity firm A private equity firm or private equity company (often described as a financial sponsor) is an investment management company that provides financial backing and makes investments in the private equity of a Startup company, startup or of an existin ...
The Wicks Group, which intended the purchases to be a stepping stone to build a group of middle-market television stations complementary to its nine existing radio properties—for $14 million; the sale was finalized on August 31, 1995.


JSA/SSA with KFDX

On January 6, 1999, Wicks sold the station to
Bexley, Ohio Bexley is a city in Franklin County, Ohio, United States. The population was 13,928 at the 2020 census. The city is a suburban enclave of Columbus, situated on the banks of Alum Creek east of Columbus's Near East Side. It was founded in 1908 ...
–based
Mission Broadcasting Mission Broadcasting, Inc. is a television station group that owns 29 full-power television stations in 26 markets in the United States. The group's chair is Nancie Smith, the widow of David S. Smith, who founded the company in 1996 and died in 2 ...
for $15.5 million. The acquisition of KJTL and KJBO was among the first station acquisitions for Mission (part of a four-station transaction that also involved the purchases of KCIT and KCPN-LP); developed as an arm of its creditor Bastet Broadcasting, the group had formed partnerships with the
Nexstar Broadcasting Group Nexstar Media Group, Inc. is an American publicly traded media company with headquarters in Irving, Texas, Midtown Manhattan, and Chicago. The company is the largest television station owner in the United States, owning 197 television stations ...
and Quorum Broadcasting to operate many of Mission's stations in markets that did not have enough television stations to allow a legal
duopoly A duopoly (from Greek , ; and , ) is a type of oligopoly where two firms have dominant or exclusive control over a market, and most (if not all) of the competition within that market occurs directly between them. Duopoly is the most commonly ...
between two commercial outlets. In the Wichita Falls–Lawton market, Nexstar had been the owner of KFDX-TV since January 1998, when the
Irving, Texas Irving is a city in Dallas County, Texas, United States. It is part of the Mid-Cities region of the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex and is an Inner suburb, inner city suburb of Dallas. Irving is noted for its #Demographics, racial and ethnic diver ...
–based company acquired the NBC affiliate from U.S. Broadcast Group as part of a $64 million, three-station deal. Nexstar took over the operations of KJTL and KJBO on June 1, 1999, under joint sales and shared services agreements with Mission, under which KFDX would handle news production, engineering, security and certain other services as well as handling advertising sales for the two stations. KJTL and KJBO subsequently vacated their shared facility on Call Field Road and relocated its operations southeast to KFDX's studio facility on Seymour Highway and Turtle Creek Road. In September 2002, KJTL changed its on-air branding to "Fox Texoma", in an effort to de-emphasize its Channel 18 broadcast allocation in part because many Texoma area residents viewed the station on
cable television Cable television is a system of delivering television programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This contrasts with bro ...
(most area cable providers, including Fidelity Communications in Lawton and Charter Spectrum in Wichita Falls, carry KJTL on channel 11). The station's branding was modified to "Texoma's Fox" in September 2011.


Subchannel history

On June 15, 2016, Nexstar Broadcasting Group announced that it had entered into an agreement with
Katz Broadcasting Scripps Networks, LLC, formerly known as Katz Broadcasting, is an American specialized digital multicasting network media company and a division of the E. W. Scripps Company. The company owns (as of 2024) eight broadcast television networks, ...
to affiliate 81 stations owned and/or operated by the group—including KJTL and KFDX-TV—with one or more of Katz's four digital multicast networks, Escape (now
Ion Mystery Ion Mystery (formerly Escape and Court TV Mystery, stylized as ESCAPE and MYSTERY; formerly branded on-air as Mystery) is an American free-to-air television network owned by the Scripps Networks subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company. It focu ...
), Laff, Grit and
Bounce TV Bounce TV is an American digital terrestrial television, digital broadcast television network owned by Scripps Networks, a subsidiary of E. W. Scripps Company. It launched on September 26, 2011, and was promoted as "the first 24/7 digital multic ...
(the latter of which is owned by Bounce Media LLC, whose COO Jonathan Katz serves as president/CEO of Katz Broadcasting). As part of the agreement, on September 1 of that year, KJTL launched three digital subchannels to serve as affiliates of three of the Katz networks: the station began carrying Grit on virtual channel 18.2, Bounce TV on channel 18.3 and Escape on channel 18.4 (the Laff affiliation rights for the Wichita Falls-Lawton market instead went to KFDX, which launched a tertiary subchannel on the same date).


Programming


Sports programming

Since September
1994 The year 1994 was designated as the " International Year of the Family" and the "International Year of Sport and the Olympic Ideal" by the United Nations. In the Line Islands and Phoenix Islands of Kiribati, 1994 had only 364 days, omitti ...
, KJTL has served as the television partner of the
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 of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC East, East division. T ...
for the Wichita Falls-Lawton market. Channel 18 currently holds the local rights to air various team-related programs during the regular season (including the ''Cowboys Postgame Show'', ''Special Edition with
Jerry Jones Jerral Wayne Jones Sr. (born October 13, 1942) is an American billionaire businessman who is the owner, president, and General manager (American football), general manager of the Dallas Cowboys of the National Football League (NFL). He bought t ...
'' and the head coach's weekly analysis program ''The
Jason Garrett Jason Calvin Garrett (born March 28, 1966) is an American former professional football player and coach in the National Football League (NFL). He was most notably the head coach of the Dallas Cowboys from 2010 to 2019. Garrett played college f ...
Show'', along with specials such as the ''Making of the
Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders (sometimes initialized as DCC, and officially nicknamed "America's Sweethearts") are the National Football League Cheerleading, National Football League cheerleading squad representing the Dallas Cowboys team. The ...
Calendar'' and postseason team reviews). Most Cowboys telecasts carried on KJTL are those carried by
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 ("brush"). Twelve species ...
, which through the network's contract with the
National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a Professional gridiron football, professional American football league in the United States. Composed of 32 teams, it is divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National ...
(NFL), holds primary broadcast rights to the
National Football Conference The National Football Conference (NFC) is a conference of the National Football League (NFL), the highest level of professional American football in the United States. The NFC and its counterpart, the American Football Conference (AFC), each h ...
(NFC). In addition to carrying Fox-televised games involving in-conference opponents, since 2014, Cowboys games carried on the station also include certain cross-flexed games against opponents in the
American Football Conference The American Football Conference (AFC) is one of the two conferences of the National Football League (NFL), the highest level of professional American football in the United States. The AFC and its counterpart, the National Football Conference ...
(AFC) that were originally scheduled to air on
CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS (an abbreviation of its original name, Columbia Broadcasting System), is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...
. Most Cowboys preseason games not televised by Fox or by other broadcast or cable networks are carried over-the-air locally on sister station KJBO-LP through the Mission Broadcasting duopoly's agreement with the team's syndication service.


Newscasts

, KFDX-TV produces five hours of locally produced newscasts each week for KJTL (with one hour on weekdays); KJTL does not carry any local news programming on Saturday and Sunday evenings, opting to air syndicated programming following the Fox prime time lineup on those nights. As the duopoly partner of KFDX-TV, the station may also simulcast long-form severe weather coverage in the event that a
tornado warning A tornado warning ( SAME code: TOR) is a public warning that is issued by weather forecasting agencies to an area in the direct path of a tornado, or a severe thunderstorm capable of producing one, and advises individuals in that area to take c ...
is issued for any county in its viewing area of southwestern Oklahoma and western north Texas. Following its sale to Mission Broadcasting and the formation of the SSA between the two stations, in the summer of 1999, KJTL entered into a news share agreement with NBC affiliate KFDX-TV to produce a local newscast for channel 18. On September 20, 1999, KFDX began producing a half-hour newscast at 9 p.m. for KJTL, titled ''Fox 18 News at 9:00'', which became the first local prime time newscast to debut in the market. The program originated from a secondary news set at the KFDX/KJTL/KJBO studios on Seymour Highway in Wichita Falls. The broadcast was eventually canceled due to poor ratings, with the last edition airing on
December 31 It is known by a collection of names including: Saint Sylvester's Day, New Year's Eve or Old Year's Day/Night, as the following day is New Year's Day. It is the last day of the year; the following day is January 1, the first day of the followi ...
, 2001. After a four-year sabbatical, KFDX resumed production of a prime time newscast for channel 18, which made its debut on September 17, 2007. Originally titled ''Fox: Texoma's News at 9:00'' (later retitled ''Texoma's Fox News at 9:00'' in September 2011), the half-hour show—which also originates from a secondary set at KFDX/KJTL/KJBO's facility—has aired only on Monday through Friday evenings since its debut. (Syndicated programs air in the 9 p.m. timeslot on Saturday and Sunday nights.) The KFDX-produced program originally competed against a prime time newscast produced by CBS affiliate KAUZ-TV for its CW-affiliated DT2 feed that debuted in September 2006; it gained an additional competitor when ABC affiliate KSWO-TV debuted a newscast for its Live Well Network–affiliated DT3 subchannel (now a
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 progra ...
affiliate) in September 2012. Both newscasts were eventually discontinued, with KSWO cancelling its 9 p.m. show in December 2014 and KAUZ discontinuing the newscast it produced for its "Texoma CW" subchannel on July 21, 2017. In July 2012, KFDX began broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition, becoming the market's second Big Three network affiliate (after KSWO-TV) to upgrade its newscasts to the format; KJTL's prime time show was included in the upgrade. In September 2014, KJTL launched a half-hour weekday morning newscast at 8 a.m. (airing one hour later than morning newscasts that air on other Fox stations that do not maintain autonomous news departments). Debuting under the title ''Texoma's Fox: Morning Edition'', the program features the same team that anchors KFDX's conventional morning newscast, ''KFDX 3 News Today''. At that time, the station also began airing a rebroadcast of KFDX's agricultural news and cultural affairs program ''Texoma Country Morning'' as a lead-in to the morning newscast.


Technical information


Subchannels

The station's 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— ...
:


Translators

KJTL operates four UHF digital
translators 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 ...
, which relay the station's signal to portions of southwestern Oklahoma and western north Texas that are not covered by the main channel 18 signal. * Hollis, OK *
Altus, OK Altus () is a city in and the county seat of Jackson County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 18,729 at the 2020 census. Altus is home to Altus Air Force Base, the United States Air Force training base for C-17, KC-46 and KC-135 ...
* Quanah, TX * Quanah, TX


Analog-to-digital conversion

KJTL shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 18, on February 17, 2009, the original target date on which full-power television stations in the United States were 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 channel 15, using
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 as digits on a receiver's ...
18.


Notes


References


External links

* – Official website for KJTL, KFDX-TV and KJBO-LD {{NXST TV 1985 establishments in Texas Bounce TV affiliates Fox Broadcasting Company affiliates Grit (TV network) affiliates Ion Mystery affiliates Nexstar Media Group Television channels and stations established in 1985
JTL JTL (제이티엘) were a South Korean dance music group, consisting of the former H.O.T. members who left SM Entertainment – Jang Woo-hyuk, Tony Ahn and Lee Jae-won (singer), Lee Jae-won. The group was named after the initials of the members' ...