KUIL-LD (channel 12.5) 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 ...

Beaumont, Texas Beaumont is a city in the U.S. state of Texas. It is the county seat of Jefferson County, Texas, Jefferson County, within the Beaumont–Port Arthur metropolitan area, located in Southeast Texas on the Neches River about east of Houston (city ...

, United States, 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 is owned by

Tegna Inc. Tegna Inc. (stylized in all caps as TEGNA) is an American publicly traded broadcast, digital media and marketing services company headquartered in Tysons, Virginia. It was created on June 29, 2015, when the Gannett Company split into two publ ...

alongside dual

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 ...

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

KBMT KBMT (channel 12) is a television station in Beaumont, Texas, United States, affiliated with ABC and NBC. It is owned by Tegna Inc. alongside low-power MyNetworkTV affiliate KUIL-LD (channel 12.5). The two stations share studios along I-10/ ...

(channel 12). The two stations share studios along

I-10 Interstate 10 (I-10) is the southernmost transcontinental highway in the Interstate Highway System of the United States. It is the fourth-longest Interstate in the country at , following I-90, I-80, and I-40. It was part of the originall ...

US 69 U.S. Route 69 (US 69) is a major north–south United States highway in the central United States. When it was first created, it was only long, but it has since been expanded into a Minnesota to Texas cross-country route. The highway's ...

US 96 U.S. Highway 96 (US 96) is a north–south United States Numbered Highway that runs for about entirely in the U.S state of Texas. Its number is a violation of the standard numbering convention, as even-numbered two-digit highways are eas ...

US 287 U.S. Route 287 (US 287) is a north–south (physically northwest–southeast) United States highway. At long, it is the second longest three-digit U.S. Route, behind U.S. Route 281, US 281. The highway is broken into two segments by Ye ...

in Beaumont; KUIL-LD's transmitter is located in

Mauriceville, Texas Mauriceville is a census-designated place (CDP) in Orange County, Texas, United States. The population was 2,983 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Beaumont– Port Arthur Metropolitan Statistical Area. Historical development The site ...

. KUIL-LD formerly had 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 ...

, K27JJ-D, in

Warren Warren most commonly refers to: * Warren (burrow), a network dug by rabbits * Warren (name), a given name and a surname, including lists of persons so named Warren may also refer to: Places Australia * Warren (biogeographic region) * War ...

History

The station went on the air as KUIL-LD (the former KUIL) on analog channel 64 in 2003 as the market's first

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. The station was originally owned by National Communications, owner of

KVHP KVHP (channel 29) is a television station in Lake Charles, Louisiana, United States, affiliated with Fox and ABC. It is owned by American Spirit Media, which maintains a shared services agreement (SSA) with Gray Media, owner of dual NBC/ C ...

Lake Charles, Louisiana Lake Charles is the List of municipalities in Louisiana, fifth-most populous city in the U.S. state of Louisiana, and the county seat, parish seat of Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana, Calcasieu Parish, located on Lake Charles (Louisiana), Lake Char ...

. Prior to 2003, KVHP served Beaumont and Port Arthur as the local Fox affiliate, in addition to Lake Charles (due to its transmitter being located halfway between Beaumont and Lake Charles); KUIL was established as a way to provide local programming just for that region, plus alternate coverage of sports that are more relevant to the Beaumont market (such as

Houston Texans The Houston Texans are a professional American football team based in Houston. The Texans compete in the National Football League as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC South, South division. The team plays its home games at N ...

and

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 ...

football). At the outset, KUIL also held a secondary affiliation with

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, ...

; when UPN and

The WB The WB Television Network (shortened to The WB, stylized as "THE WB", and nicknamed the "Frog Network" and/or "The Frog" for its former mascot Michigan J. Frog) was an American television network that ran from 1995 to 2006. It launched on ter ...

merged into

The CW The CW Network, LLC (commonly referred to as The CW or simply CW) is an American commercial broadcast television network which is controlled by Nexstar Media Group through a 75% ownership interest. The network's name is derived from the firs ...

KFDM KFDM (channel 6) is a television station in Beaumont, Texas, United States, affiliated with CBS, The CW Plus, and Fox Broadcasting Company, Fox. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, which provides certain services to Port Arthur, Texas, Por ...

added The CW to its digital subcarrier channel, leaving KUIL as solely a Fox affiliate. In November 2007, KUIL signed on a digital signal on channel 36 (K36ID-D, now KUIL-LD) near

Orange, Texas Orange is a city in and the county seat of Orange County, Texas, United States. The population was 19,324 at the 2020 census. It is the easternmost city in Texas, located on the Sabine River at the border with Louisiana, and is from Houston. ...

, to help cover the Orange area where the analog 64 signal could not reach. On October 24, 2008, it was announced that then-

affiliate

KBTV-TV KBTV-TV (channel 4) is a television station licensed to Port Arthur, Texas, United States, serving the Beaumont area as an affiliate of the digital multicast network Dabl. It is owned by Deerfield Media, which maintains joint sales and ...

would become a Fox affiliate on January 1, 2009, indicating that KUIL lost the affiliation at that time. Despite early reports of KUIL pursuing the NBC affiliation, competing station

would broadcast NBC programming on a digital subchannel. As a result, after the Fox affiliation ceased, KUIL became an

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 ...

. To address the 10% of the schedule previously provided by Fox, the station began to add some local programming, some of which would be produced by

Lamar University Lamar University (Lamar or LU) is a public university in Beaumont, Texas, United States. Lamar has been a member of the Texas State University System since 1995. It was the flagship institution of the former Lamar University System. As of the ...

and additional sitcoms like ''

Scrubs Scrub(s) may refer to: * Scrub, low shrub and grass characteristic of scrubland * Scrubs (clothing), worn by medical staff * ''Scrubs'' (TV series), an American television program * Scrubs (occupation), also called "scrub tech," "scrub nurse," ...

''. The station adopted "The U" as its identity, using the same moniker and logo as unrelated station

WCIU-TV WCIU-TV (channel 26) is an independent television station in Chicago, Illinois, United States. It is the flagship television property of locally based Weigel Broadcasting, which has owned the station since its inception, and is sister to two ...

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

. On August 3, 2010, the station launched

Azteca América Azteca América (, sometimes shortened to Azteca) was an American Spanish-language free-to-air television network owned by INNOVATE Corp., which acquired the network from the Azteca International Corporation subsidiary of TV Azteca. Headquar ...

on a new 4th digital subchannel, becoming the first

Spanish-language Spanish () or Castilian () is a Romance languages, Romance language of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin spoken on the Iberian Peninsula of Europe. Today, it is a world language, gl ...

television station offered in the Golden Triangle. In May 2010, London Broadcasting revealed that the company was developing a state network, MYTX, using subchannels like KUIL's .2 (now KBMT-LD .2) operated by KBMT. MYTX would share Texas news and sports and productions from

41 Entertainment 41 Entertainment LLC (41E) is a privately held American animation company that develops, produces, and distributes popular television shows. Allen Bohbot is the founder and managing director of 41E. History Allen Bohbot founded Bohbot Entertain ...

, which was owned by London. By April 2012, KBMT assumed operations of KUIL through a local service agreement with owner Blue Bonnet. The station at the time was a

affiliate. Earlier in the year, KUIL had added

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 ...

. In May 2013, KBMT added another hour of ''12News Daybreak'' to KUIL at 7 AM continuing the show from KBMT and KJAC. The call letters were changed to KBMT-LD on February 28, 2018; the KUIL-LD call sign was concurrently moved to K36ID-D. The license for KBMT-LD was canceled on August 10, 2018.

Technical information

Subchannels

The station's digital channel 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— ...

: On January 9, 2012, KUIL replaced

with classic television programming from

on 12.4. As of February 2013, MeTV moved to KBMT-DT4. In 2016, MundoMax signed off and was replaced with Light TV. On May 1, 2017, Light TV was replaced by

Ion Television Ion Television (referred to on-air as simply Ion) is an American broadcast television network and FAST television channel owned by the Scripps Networks subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company. The network first began broadcasting on August ...

Analog-to-digital conversion

KUIL shut down its analog signal, over

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 64, on November 27, 2009.

References

{{Tegna 2003 establishments in Texas Court TV affiliates Grit (TV network) affiliates Heroes & Icons affiliates Ion Mystery affiliates Laff (TV network) affiliates UIL MyNetworkTV affiliates Spanish-language television stations in Texas Tegna Inc. Television channels and stations established in 2003 UIL-LD

History

Technical information

Subchannels

Analog-to-digital conversion

See also

References