KMMF (channel 17) was 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 ...

Missoula, Montana Missoula ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Missoula County, Montana, United States. It is located along the Clark Fork River near its confluence with the Bitterroot and Blackfoot rivers in western Montana and at the convergence of five ...

, United States, affiliated with 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 ...

network. Founded on April 25, 2000, the station was owned by

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 late ...

. Its signal was repeated in

Kalispell Kalispell (, Montana Salish: Ql̓ispé, Kutenai language: Kqayaqawakⱡuʔnam) is a city in Montana and the county seat of Flathead County, Montana, United States. The 2020 census put Kalispell's population at 24,558. Among cities in Montana, ...

on KMMF-LP (channel 34). KMMF added

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 ...

as a secondary affiliation in September 2006. KMMF was fed from Equity's hub in

Little Rock, Arkansas Little Rock is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Arkansas, most populous city of the U.S. state of Arkansas. The city's population was 202,591 as of the 2020 census. The six-county Central Arkan ...

, by March 2008. Technical issues dramatically increased in number after this was implemented. At auction on April 16, 2009,

Max Media Max Media is a company that owns radio stations throughout the United States. It is based in Virginia Beach, Virginia. History Max Media was founded in 2001. Prior to this, some of the company's management had run the TVX Broadcast Group from 1 ...

bought the Fox affiliations and certain programming assets, but not the broadcasting facilities, of KMMF and the rest of Equity's Montana Fox station system.

Demise

Because it was granted an original

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 ...

after the

FCC 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 ju ...

finalized the DTV allotment plan on April 21, 1997, the station did not receive a companion channel for a digital

. Instead, at the end of the digital TV conversion period for full-service stations, KMMF would have been required to turn off its

analog signal An analog signal (American English) or analogue signal (British and Commonwealth English) is any continuous-time signal representing some other quantity, i.e., ''analogous'' to another quantity. For example, in an analog audio signal, the ins ...

and turn on its

digital signal A digital signal is a signal that represents data as a sequence of discrete values; at any given time it can only take on, at most, one of a finite number of values. This contrasts with an analog signal, which represents continuous values; ...

(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 di ...

"). , this station was scheduled to go

dark Darkness is the condition resulting from a lack of illumination, or an absence of visible light. Human vision is unable to distinguish colors in conditions of very low luminance because the hue-sensitive photoreceptor cells on the retina are ...

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

bankruptcy Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions, bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the deb ...

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, w ...

of the federal bankruptcy code... This station must obtain post-petition financing and court approval before digital facilities may be constructed. The station will cease analogue broadcasting on February 17, 2009, regardless of whether digital facilities are operational by that date. The station will file authority to remain silent if so required by the FCC." While the

DTV Delay Act The digital television transition in the United States was the switchover from analog to exclusively digital broadcasting of terrestrial television programming. It was originally set for December 31, 2006, but was delayed several times due ...

extended this deadline to June 12, 2009, Equity had 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 va ...

after the station goes dark. On July 1,

2009 2009 was designated as the International Year of Astronomy by the United Nations to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Galileo Galilei's first known astronomical studies with a telescope and the publication of Astronomia Nova by Joha ...

, Max Media established a new Fox affiliate on the

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 compress ...

of its

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 ...

affiliates,

KTMF KTMF (channel 23) is a television station in Missoula, Montana, United States, affiliated with ABC and Fox. Owned by the Cowles Company, the station has studios on Stephens Avenue in Missoula, and its transmitter is located on TV Mountain north ...

(channel 23) in Missoula and KTMF-LD in Kalispell. KMMF was shut down on June 12, 2009, when analog broadcasting ended. On that date or shortly thereafter, Equity fully returned the KMMF and KMMF-LP licenses to the FCC, who then deleted both call signs. Earlier, it had been reported that only cable subscribers could watch Fox programming in western Montana.Missoula Fox Affiliate Doesn't Go Digital - at Least Not Yet
/ref> It is unclear from the story what Fox affiliate they received. At the time, there was only one operating Fox station in the state,

KHMT KHMT (channel 4) is a television station licensed to Hardin, Montana, United States, serving as the Fox affiliate for the Billings area. It is owned by Mission Broadcasting, which maintains joint sales and shared services agreements with Ne ...

(channel 4) in the

Billings Billings is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Montana, with a population of 117,116 as of the 2020 census. Located in the south-central portion of the state, it is the seat of Yellowstone County and the principal city of the Billin ...

area (licensed to Hardin). The network could have exported the signal from another city, possibly

Denver Denver ( ) is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Consolidated city and county, consolidated city and county, the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Colorado, most populous city of the U.S. state of ...

(

KDVR KDVR (channel 31) is a television station in Denver, Colorado, United States, affiliated with the Fox network. It is simulcast full-time over satellite station KFCT (channel 22) in Fort Collins. Nexstar Media Group owns KDVR and KFCT alongsi ...

, channel 31) or

Salt Lake City Salt Lake City, often shortened to Salt Lake or SLC, is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Utah. It is the county seat of Salt Lake County, the most populous county in the state. The city is the core of the Salt Lake Ci ...

(

KSTU KSTU (channel 13) is a television station in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States, affiliated with the Fox network. It is owned by the E.W. Scripps Company alongside Provo-licensed KUPX-TV (channel 16), an independent station. KSTU's stud ...

, channel 13); additionally, at least in Great Falls, Equity arranged for

KLMN KLMN (channel 26) was a television station in Great Falls, Montana, United States, affiliated with the Fox network. The station was owned by Equity Media Holdings. History Founded on December 19, 2000, KLMN signed on in mid-2003 as a Fox aff ...

(channel 26), which shut down for similar reasons to KMMF, to remain on cable as that market's Max Media station,

KFBB-TV KFBB-TV (channel 5) is a television station in Great Falls, Montana, United States, affiliated with ABC, Fox and MyNetworkTV. Owned by the Cowles Company, the station maintains studios and transmitter facilities on Old Havre Highway in Black Eagl ...

(channel 5), prepared to launch its Fox subchannel.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kmmf 2002 establishments in Montana 2009 disestablishments in Montana MMF Equity Media Holdings Television channels and stations disestablished in 2009 Television channels and stations established in 2002