KPBI-CA (channel 46) was a low-power,

Class A television station The class A television service is a system for regulating some low-power television (LPTV) stations in the United States. Class A stations are denoted by the broadcast callsign suffix "-CA" (analog) or "-CD" (digital), although very many analog - ...

Fort Smith, Arkansas Fort Smith is the List of municipalities in Arkansas, third-most populous city in Arkansas, United States, and one of the two county seats of Sebastian County, Arkansas, Sebastian County. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the pop ...

, United States, which was last affiliated with

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 ...

. It was owned by

Equity Media Holdings 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 ...

and, like many of the company's stations, was controlled remotely via satellite from Equity's headquarters 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 ...

, and was relayed via the satellite

Galaxy 18 Galaxy 18 is a Space Systems/Loral (SS/L) 1300-series hybrid communications satellite owned by Intelsat and located in geosynchronous orbit at 123° W longitude, serving the continental United States, Alaska, Hawaii, Mexico, and Canada with ...

(K_u band transponder 21). The station's programming was also available on channel 34 from Eureka Springs, which shared the KPBI

call sign In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign (also known as a call name or call letters—and historically as a call signal—or abbreviated as a call) is a unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be formally as ...

and was attainable over the air in Fort Smith.

History

KPBI signed on as

independent station An independent station is a broadcast station, usually a television station, not affiliated with a larger broadcast television network, network. As such, it only broadcasts broadcast syndication, syndicated programs it has purchased; brokered pr ...

K32ED on channel 32 in May 1995. It switched to

UPN The United Paramount Network (UPN) was an American broadcast television network that operated from 1995 to 2006. It was originally a joint venture between Chris-Craft Industries (later sold to News Corporation)'s subsidiary, United Television, ...

in September, and changed its callsign to KFDF-LP in December. It also had

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 ...

on channel 32 covering Fort Smith and surrounding areas and channel 36, which covered Springdale and its associated area. In October 2001, KFDF-LP moved to channel 46 and changed its callsign to KPBI-LP, as well as changing its affiliation to

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 ...

. This resulted in the original KPBI, which served as

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

's Fox affiliate since 1991 on channel 46, moving to channel 10 and obtaining the KFDF calls.

Tulsa Tulsa ( ) is the second-most-populous city in the state of Oklahoma, after Oklahoma City, and the 48th-most-populous city in the United States. The population was 413,066 as of the 2020 census. It is the principal municipality of the Tul ...

KOKI-TV KOKI-TV (channel 23) is a television station in Tulsa, Oklahoma, United States, affiliated with the Fox Broadcasting Company, Fox network. It is owned by Imagicomm Communications alongside MyNetworkTV affiliate KMYT-TV (channel 41). The two sta ...

previously served as the Fox outlet for Northwest Arkansas before the original KPBI's launch. KPBI was the

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 ...

for a network of low-power television stations owned and operated by Bill and Karen Pharis. This station served the Fort Smith area, and its transmitter was located at Mt. Vista in

Van Buren, Arkansas Van Buren ( ) is the second-largest city in the Fort Smith metropolitan area, Fort Smith, Arkansas–Oklahoma Metropolitan Statistical Area and the county seat of Crawford County, Arkansas, Crawford County, Arkansas, United States. The city is lo ...

. It was followed by channel 15, which served Springdale, Arkansas, and its surrounding areas. KPBI eventually added several other low-power translators that extended the coverage area to Mt. Magazine in the east, Poteau Mountain to the west and south (located in

Poteau, Oklahoma Poteau ( ) is a city in, and county seat of, LeFlore County, Oklahoma, United States. Its population was 8,520 as of the 2010 census. History In 1719, Bernard de la Harpe led a group of French explorers through this area, and gave the river it ...

) and

Rogers, Arkansas Rogers is a city in Benton County, Arkansas, United States. Located in the Ozarks, it is part of the Northwest Arkansas region, one of the fastest growing metro areas in the country. Rogers was the location of the first Walmart store, whose cor ...

, to the north. This gave an equal coverage area to that of the other local high-power stations. KPBI carried Fox programming in the evening and various syndicated offerings during the daytime hours. It also made an inroad in coverage of college sports events that were not otherwise made available to the public–for example Westark Lions basketball and baseball, and Lady Razorbacks basketball. During its Fox heyday, KPBI was the operating station for the "Foxstar" satellite truck. KPBI was known locally as a more "unstructured" station in on-air operations. This was demonstrated by various events such as off-the-path programming, strange video effects (i.e. the "dropping of sheep", which was a

Video Toaster The NewTek Video Toaster is a combination of hardware and software for the editing and production of NTSC standard-definition video. The plug-in expansion card initially worked with the Amiga 2000 computer and provides a number of BNC connect ...

effect that would make sheep fall down into the video signal) and the use of substantially all employees as either on-air talent or as voices for commercials and tags. Also of interest is that KPBI used devices such as the Video Toaster and cable spot insertion equipment as primary switchers, commercial production gear and the like, proving that a working television station could be operated without high-dollar equipment. KPBI and KFDF operated from the same location in the Ward-Garrison Building, located at the corner of 6th Street and Garrison Avenue in Fort Smith. This was also the location for the AM radio stations of KFDF (1580

kHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), often described as being equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose formal expression in terms of SI base uni ...

; now KAGE) and KPBI (1510 kHz; later became KSSP; now defunct). These two AM stations were originally programmed to carry Southern Gospel (featuring the on-air talent of Chuck Buckner, Jason Collier, Nancy Rowland a.k.a. Tonia Trelaine, Mike Vaughn and a few others) and local programming, but around 1994 they were changed to carry

sports talk radio Sports radio (or sports talk radio) is a radio format devoted entirely to discussion and broadcasting of sporting events. A widespread programming genre that has a narrow audience appeal, sports radio is characterized by an often- boisterous on-a ...

(via a satellite feed) and local programming (i.e. ''The Huddle'', which featured Marty Houston Jr., John Wilhelm and later Ernie Witt Jr.). The AM stations were transitioned to fully automated by the Chief Engineer for the TV and AM stations, Stuart Rowland, using a

Packard Bell Packard Bell is a personal computer hardware brand which originated as Packard Bell Electronics, Inc., an independent American computer company. Packard Bell Electronics was founded in Los Angeles in 1986 by Israeli-American investors who bough ...

PC, a tone detector and a joystick. One area that brought notice to KPBI was the use of locally produced computer animations for commercials and promotional spots. This area was pioneered in the local market by Earl Green. His productions won awards both locally and nationally. KPBI led the area in the technical field of digital spot insertion. KPBI was the first station in the DMA to use computer spot playback in the form of the "Virtual Recorder" from ASC Audio Video. Many of the features currently used in the Virtual Recorder (now sold and supported by Leitch) were originated and/or tested by KPBI. KPBI and KFDF ended operations as standard television stations when they were sold to

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 ...

, at which time they became automated satellite-fed stations. KPBI-CA remained the Fox affiliate for the market, under the branding of "Fox Arkansas", until August 28, 2006. On that date, the station lost the Fox affiliation to KFTA-TV, forcing KPBI to be independent, even though Equity Broadcasting challenged the sale of KFTA-TV with 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 ...

. KPBI-CA then joined Fox's new sister network,

when it launched on September 5, 2006. There is no known website for KPBI-CA. KFDF, the original MNTV affiliate, joined 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 ...

. KPBI-CA signed off March 28, 2008, after losing its transmitter site. Two of the station's repeaters, KJBW-CA in Springdale and KRBF-CA in Hindsville, also lost their sites, and left the air two days earlier. After failing to find a buyer at a bankruptcy auction, KPBI-CA's repeaters were 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 corporation, company agrees to operate a radio station, radio or television station owned by another party. In essence, it ...

on August 5. KPBI-CA itself, as well as KJBW and KRBF, were not named in either sale. The licenses for KJBW and KRBF were deleted in 2010; however, the license for KPBI-CA remained active until the FCC canceled the license on October 24, 2011.

Repeaters

KPBI-CA extended its coverage area with six repeater stations. * KJBW-CA (channel 4) Springdale, AR * KRBF-CA (channel 12) Hindsville, AR * KHMF-CA (channel 14) Bentonville, AR * KKAF-CD (channel 33) Siloam Springs, AR * KRAH-CD (channel 35) Paris, AR * KSJF-CA (channel 50) Poteau, OK

References

External links

Galaxy 18 channel listing (Lyngsat)
* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Kpbi-Ca Equity Media Holdings PBI-CA Television channels and stations established in 1991 Television channels and stations disestablished in 2011 1991 establishments in Arkansas 2011 disestablishments in Arkansas PBI-CA