KMNF-LD (channel 7) is a

low-power television station Low-power broadcasting is broadcasting by a Radio broadcasting#Station, broadcast station at a low transmitter power output to a smaller service area than "full power" stations within the same region. It is often distinguished from "micropower ...

Mankato, Minnesota Mankato ( ) is a city in Blue Earth County, Minnesota, Blue Earth, Nicollet County, Minnesota, Nicollet, and Le Sueur County, Minnesota, Le Sueur counties in the U.S. state of Minnesota. It is the county seat of Blue Earth County, Minnesota. The ...

, United States, affiliated with

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 ...

and

The CW Plus The CW Plus is a secondary national broadcast television broadcast syndication, syndication service feed of The CW, whose controlling stake of 75% is owned by Nexstar Media Group, with Paramount Global and Warner Bros. Discovery holding their ow ...

. It is owned by

Gray Media Gray Media, Inc., doing business as Gray Television, is an American publicly traded television broadcasting company based in Atlanta. Founded in 1946 by James Harrison Gray as Gray Communications Systems, the company owns or operates 180 statio ...

alongside dual

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 ...

and

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

KEYC-TV KEYC-TV (channel 12) is a television station licensed to Mankato, Minnesota, United States, affiliated with CBS and Fox. It is owned by Gray Media alongside low-power, dual NBC/ CW+ affiliate KMNF-LD (channel 7). The two stations share stud ...

(channel 12). The two stations share studios on Lookout Drive in North Mankato; KMNF-LD's transmitter is located near

Lewisville, Minnesota Lewisville is a city in Watonwan County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 250 at the 2010 census. History Lewisville was platted in 1899. The city was named for the Lewis family, original owners of the town site. A post office has ...

History

The KMNF-LD license originated as K38MY-D in St. James, Minnesota, 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 ''trans ...

for KEYC-TV (then owned by

United Communications United Communications Corporation (UCC) was a privately owned operator of three television stations in the U.S. states of Minnesota and New York. The company was the publisher of the '' Kenosha News'' of Kenosha, Wisconsin and two other daily ne ...

) on

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 38 that signed on in March 2012. K38MY-D went off the air on December 21, 2017, after the expiration of its tower lease agreement with BENCO/CTV; KEYC had operated UHF translators from Cooperative TV's Godahl tower since 1993. On September 14, 2018, K38MY-D was granted 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 move to channel 13 from KEYC-TV's tower as K13AAR-D; the channel change was required following 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 spectrum incentive auction and the subsequent repacking of the television band. To maintain its license, the station operated under

special temporary authority Special Temporary Authority (STA) in U.S. broadcast law is a type of broadcast license which temporarily allows a broadcast station to operate outside of its normal technical or legal parameters. In the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) st ...

at reduced power from this facility from November 29 to December 6, 2018. K13AAR-D was included in Gray Television's 2019 purchase of United Communications' television stations. On May 23, 2019, the station was granted a construction permit to move to channel 7 as K07AAH-D; on June 3, 2019, the call letters were changed to KMNF-LD, a close match for thos
originally proposed
for sister station KEYC-TV in 1958. On June 24, 2019, Gray announced that KMNF-LD would launch as early as September as an NBC affiliate, with The CW on its second subchannel. KEYC-TV itself had launched in 1960 as an NBC affiliate, switching to CBS in 1961. For the next 58 years after that, NBC programming was not available over-the-air in the Mankato market. Since 1981, Minneapolis affiliate KARE and Rochester affiliate

KTTC KTTC (channel 10) is a television station licensed to Rochester, Minnesota, United States, serving Southeast Minnesota and Northern Iowa as an affiliate of NBC and The CW Plus. It is owned by Gray Media alongside Fox affiliate KXLT-TV (chann ...

had served as the default NBC affiliates for southwestern Minnesota via cable. KMNF-LD's sign-on leaves ABC and PBS as the only networks to not have over-the-air affiliates in Mankato; ABC programming is carried on cable via

KSTP-TV KSTP-TV (channel 5) is a television station licensed to Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States, serving the Twin Cities area as an affiliate of ABC. It is the flagship television property of locally based Hubbard Broadcasting, which has owned th ...

and KAAL, and PBS programming carried via KTCA-TV; with KSTP and KTCA being carried on CTV translators K30FN-D (KSTP) and K26CS-D (KTCA) in St. James. Testing on KMNF-LD began on October 28, 2019. The station officially

signed on A sign-on (or start-up in Commonwealth countries except Canada) is the beginning of operations for a radio broadcasting, radio or television station, generally at the start of each day. It is the opposite of a sign-off (or closedown in Commonw ...

December 1, 2019. On January 17, 2023, KMNF-LD began broadcasting translator K33MW-D from the KEYC-TV studio tower.

Newscasts

KMNF-LD began simulcasting some KEYC newscasts on December 2, 2019. ''Kato Mornings'' airs weekdays from 6 to 7 a.m. on both KEYC-TV and KMNF-LD. The stations also simulcast the 10 p.m. news on weeknights, with each station airing separate commercials during each simulcast. On February 21, 2022, KMNF-LD began simulcasting KEYC's 6 p.m. newscast. On September 3, 2023, KMNF-LD began airing a 5 p.m. newscast on Sunday evenings.

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— ...

Notes

References

{{Gray TV 2012 establishments in Minnesota The CW affiliates Gray Media Low-power television stations in Minnesota NBC affiliates Television channels and stations established in 2012 MNF-LD Watonwan County, Minnesota