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 ear ...
in
Lake Charles, Louisiana
Lake Charles (French: ''Lac Charles'') is the fifth-largest incorporated city in the U.S. state of Louisiana, and the parish seat of Calcasieu Parish, located on Lake Charles, Prien Lake, and the Calcasieu River. Founded in 1861 in Calcasi ...
, United States, affiliated with
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 (or ''brush'').
Twelv ...
and
ABC
ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet.
ABC or abc may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting
* American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster
** Disney–ABC Television ...
. It is owned by
American Spirit Media
American Spirit Media, LLC is a broadcasting company based in Charlotte, North Carolina. Founded by Thomas B. Henson in 2003 as Ottumwa Media Holdings, it owns television stations in several cities in the Southeastern United States.
History
In ...
, which maintains a
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 th ...
agreement (SSA) with
Gray Television
Gray Television, Inc. is an American publicly traded television broadcasting company based in Atlanta, Georgia. Founded in 1946 by James Harrison Gray as Gray Communications Systems, the company owns or operates 180 stations across the United St ...
, owner of dual
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters ...
KPLC
KPLC (channel 7) is a television station in Lake Charles, Louisiana, United States, affiliated with NBC and The CW Plus. It is owned by Gray Television, which provides certain services to dual Fox/ ABC affiliate KVHP (channel 29) under a share ...
(channel 7), for the provision of certain services. Both stations share studios on Division Street in downtown Lake Charles, while KVHP's transmitter is located in rural northwestern
Calcasieu Parish
Calcasieu Parish (; french: Paroisse de Calcasieu) is a parish located on the southwestern border of the U.S. state of Louisiana. As of the 2020 census, the population was 216,785. The parish seat is Lake Charles.
Calcasieu Parish is part of ...
northwest of Edgerly (halfway between Lake Charles and
Beaumont, Texas
Beaumont is a coastal city in the U.S. state of Texas. It is the seat of government of Jefferson County, within the Beaumont– Port Arthur metropolitan statistical area, located in Southeast Texas on the Neches River about east of Houston ( ...
, allowing the station's signal to reach both markets).
History
The station first signed on the air on December 12, 1982 as an
independent station
An independent station is an independent radio or terrestrial television station which is independent in some way from broadcast networks. The definition of "independence" varies from country to country, reflecting governmental regulations, market ...
with the slogan "Make a U-Turn to KVHP, Channel 29," airing a mixture of
religious
Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...
and family programming. It signed on by Dr. Hugh Van Eaton, a local Baptist minister, and he entered a partnership with Dr. J. W. DiGiglia and Herschell Hardesty and Harold E. Protter (also a co-owner of independent station
WNOL
WNOL-TV (channel 38) is a television station in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States, airing programming from The CW. It is owned and operated by network majority owner Nexstar Media Group alongside ABC affiliate WGNO (channel 26). Both station ...
televangelist
Televangelism ( tele- "distance" and " evangelism," meaning " ministry," sometimes called teleministry) is the use of media, specifically radio and television, to communicate Christianity. Televangelists are ministers, whether official or self-p ...
Marvin Gorman purchased the station out of receivership, and he, in turn, sold the station to a group of five businessmen, Gary Hardesty (son of Herschell Hardesty), Michael Dillon, Jon Kurtin, Sol Gerber, and Donald Muckenthaler operating as KVHP-TV Partners. KVHP became a charter affiliate of the upstart Fox Broadcasting Company on October 9, 1986. In 1996, National Communications purchased KVHP from KVHP-TV Partners.
In 2003, KVHP established a low-power repeater station for the Beaumont area, KUIL-LP (channel 64), which served as the Fox affiliate for
southeast Texas
Southeast Texas is a cultural and geographic region in the U.S. state of Texas, bordering Southwest Louisiana and its greater Acadiana region to the east. Being a part of East Texas, the region is geographically centered on the Greater Houston ...
and held a secondary affiliation with
UPN
The United Paramount Network (UPN) was an American broadcast television network that launched on January 16, 1995. It was originally owned by Chris-Craft Industries' United Television. Viacom (through its Paramount Television unit, which pr ...
(KUIL-LP lost its Fox affiliation to
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 shared ...
in January 2009 and became a
MyNetworkTV
MyNetworkTV (unofficially abbreviated MyTV, MyNet, MNT or MNTV, and sometimes referred to as My Network) is an American commercial broadcast television syndication service and former television network owned by Fox Corporation, operated by its ...
affiliate). KVHP also operated another Texas-based repeater, KVHP-LD (channel 44) in
Jasper
Jasper, an aggregate of microgranular quartz and/or cryptocrystalline chalcedony and other mineral phases,Kostov, R. I. 2010. Review on the mineralogical systematics of jasper and related rocks. – Archaeometry Workshop, 7, 3, 209-213PDF/ref> ...
; in March 2011, KVHP-LD ceased to serve as a translator of KVHP and began relaying programming from Beaumont
ABC
ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet.
ABC or abc may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting
* American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster
** Disney–ABC Television ...
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). Both stations share studios along I-10/US 6 ...
.
On July 28, 2009, KVHP began carrying programming from
The CW
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in ...
on digital subchannel 29.2 (which had simulcast the main channel's programming in
standard-definition
Standard-definition television (SDTV, SD, often shortened to standard definition) is a television system which uses a resolution that is not considered to be either high or enhanced definition. "Standard" refers to it being the prevailing sp ...
prior to joining the network), after KVHP owner National Communications assumed promotional and advertising control of cable-only
CW Plus
CW may stand for:
Science and technology
* centiwatt (cW), one hundredth of a watt
* Cω, a programming language
* CW complex, a type of topological space
* Carrier wave, in radio communications
* CodeWarrior, an integrated development environ ...
affiliate "WBLC" from
Suddenlink Communications
Suddenlink was an American telecommunications subsidiary of Altice USA trading in cable television, broadband, IP telephony, home security, and advertising. Prior to its acquisition by Altice, the company was the seventh largest cable operator w ...
. This was moved to KPLC's second subchannel on August 31, 2017, so that KVHP could launch Lake Charles' first standalone ABC affiliate, under the branding SWLA ABC. Prior to this move, Lafayette's KATC served as Lake Charles' default ABC station, although some area cable and satellite providers also carried other nearby ABC affiliates, such as KBMT from Beaumont or KLAX-TV from
Alexandria
Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandr ...
. The new channel returns the network to the market 53 years after KPLC dropped its secondary ABC affiliation.
On March 10, 2016, National Communications, Inc. agreed to sell KVHP to KVHP License Subsidiary, LLC (a subsidiary of
American Spirit Media
American Spirit Media, LLC is a broadcasting company based in Charlotte, North Carolina. Founded by Thomas B. Henson in 2003 as Ottumwa Media Holdings, it owns television stations in several cities in the Southeastern United States.
History
In ...
) for $2 million. American Spirit Media entered into a
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 th ...
agreement and studio lease agreement with
Raycom Media
Raycom Media, Inc. was an American television broadcasting company based in Montgomery, Alabama. Raycom owned and/or provided services for 65 television stations and two radio stations across 44 markets in 20 states. Raycom, through its Commun ...
(owner of local NBC affiliate
KPLC
KPLC (channel 7) is a television station in Lake Charles, Louisiana, United States, affiliated with NBC and The CW Plus. It is owned by Gray Television, which provides certain services to dual Fox/ ABC affiliate KVHP (channel 29) under a share ...
) to operate KVHP when the acquisition was completed. The application was accepted for filing on March 18 by the
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisd ...
; the sale was completed on August 15, 2016.
Effects of Hurricanes Laura and Delta
KPLC and KVHP began airing continuous coverage of Hurricane Laura on August 25, 2020 from their studio facility in Lake Charles. The personnel of both stations evacuated to the facilities of Baton Rouge sister station
WAFB
WAFB (channel 9) is a television station in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, United States, affiliated with CBS. It is owned by Gray Television alongside low-power, Class A MyNetworkTV affiliate WBXH-CD (channel 39). Both stations share studios on Gov ...
in the afternoon hours of August 26, as mandatory evacuations for the city of Lake Charles had been issued ahead of the hurricane's landfall. On August 27, the hurricane made landfall in
Cameron, Louisiana
Cameron is a census-designated place (CDP) in and the parish seat of Cameron Parish, Louisiana, United States. It is part of the Lake Charles Metropolitan Statistical Area. After sustaining extreme damage from Hurricane Rita in 2005 and Hurric ...
; the KPLC/KVHP
studio transmitter link
A studio transmitter link (or STL) sends a radio station's or television station's audio and video from the broadcast studio or origination facility to a radio transmitter, television transmitter or uplink facility in another location. This is ac ...
tower collapsed shortly after landfall, resulting in severe damage to the studio building and taking both stations out of commission. While KPLC was able to resume operations from the facilities of WAFB after the hurricane, KVHP was forced to remain silent due to the lack of an alternate tower; Fox thus provided a
Foxnet
Foxnet was an American cable television channel that was owned by the Fox Entertainment Group division of News Corporation. Serving as a national feed of the Fox Broadcasting Company (known simply as Fox), the service was intended for American ...
-like national feed to local cable providers until KVHP resumed operations at the end of 2020, and KPLC simulcast KVHP's Fox feed on channel 7.5 and ABC feed on channel 7.4.
Programming
Syndicated programming
Syndicated
Syndication may refer to:
* Broadcast syndication, where individual stations buy programs outside the network system
* Print syndication, where individual newspapers or magazines license news articles, columns, or comic strips
* Web syndication, ...
Judge Judy
''Judge Judy'' is an American arbitration-based reality court show presided over by former Manhattan Family Court Judge Judith Sheindlin. The show featured Sheindlin as she adjudicated real-life small-claims disputes within a simulated court ...
'', ''
Hot Bench
''Hot Bench'' is a nontraditional panel-based court show that made its debut in first-run syndication on September 15, 2014. The series is produced by ''Judge Judy''s Judge Judy Sheindlin, who also created the program and concept with executiv ...
'', ''
Jeopardy!
''Jeopardy!'' is an American game show created by Merv Griffin. The show is a quiz competition that reverses the traditional question-and-answer format of many quiz shows. Rather than being given questions, contestants are instead given ge ...
Rachael Ray
Rachael Domenica Ray (born August 25, 1968) is an American cook, television personality, businesswoman, and author. She hosts the syndicated daily talk and lifestyle program '' Rachael Ray'', and the Food Network series ''30 Minute Meals''. ...
'', ''
The Real
In continental philosophy, the Real refers to the remainder of reality that cannot be expressed, and which surpasses reasoning. In Lacanianism, it is an "impossible" category because of its opposition to expression and inconceivability.
...
'', and ''
Modern Family
''Modern Family'' is an American family sitcom television series created by Christopher Lloyd and Steven Levitan for the American Broadcasting Company. It ran for 11 seasons, from September 23, 2009, to April 8, 2020. It follows the lives of t ...
Family Feud
''Family Feud'' is an American television game show created by Mark Goodson. It features two families who compete to name the most popular answers to survey questions in order to win cash and prizes.
The show has had three separate runs, the ...
''. KVHP is one of the ten Fox stations in the United States to air both ''Jeopardy!'' and ''Wheel''; alongside
WBFF
WBFF (channel 45) is a television station in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, affiliated with Fox and MyNetworkTV. It is one of two flagship stations of Sinclair Broadcast Group (based in nearby Hunt Valley), alongside ABC affiliate WJLA-T ...
in
Baltimore
Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...
;
WSYT
WSYT (channel 68) is a television station in Syracuse, New York, United States, affiliated with the Fox network and owned by Imagicomm Communications. The station's studios are located on James Street/ NY 290 in Syracuse's Near Northeast sect ...
WVUE-DT
WVUE-DT (channel 8) is a television station in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States, affiliated with the Fox network. Owned by Gray Television, the station maintains primary studios on Norman C. Francis Parkway in the city's Gert Town sectio ...
in New Orleans;
WLUK-TV
WLUK-TV (channel 11) is a television station in Green Bay, Wisconsin, United States, affiliated with the Fox network. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group alongside Suring-licensed CW affiliate WCWF (channel 14). Both stations share studi ...
in
Green Bay, Wisconsin
Green Bay is a city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. The county seat of Brown County, it is at the head of Green Bay (known locally as "the bay of Green Bay"), a sub-basin of Lake Michigan, at the mouth of the Fox River. It is above sea l ...
;
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. The two stations are owned by Nexstar Media Gro ...
in
Denver
Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the United ...
;
WXIX-TV
WXIX-TV (channel 19) is a television station licensed to Newport, Kentucky, United States, serving the Cincinnati metro as the market's Fox affiliate. It is owned by Gray Television alongside low-power Cozi TV affiliate WBQC-LD (channel 25). ...
in
Cincinnati
Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state lin ...
;
WALA-TV
WALA-TV (channel 10) is a television station licensed to Mobile, Alabama, United States, serving as the Fox Broadcasting Company, Fox affiliate for southwest Alabama and northwest Florida. Owned by Gray Television, the station maintains studio ...
Marquette, Michigan
Marquette ( ) is a city in Marquette County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 20,629 at the 2020 United States Census, which makes it the largest city in the Upper Peninsula. Marquette serves as the seat of government of Marquet ...
; and
WDAF-TV
WDAF-TV (channel 4) is a television station in Kansas City, Missouri, United States, affiliated with the Fox network. The station is owned by Nexstar Media Group, and maintains studios and transmitter facilities on Summit Street in the Signal H ...
in
Kansas City
The Kansas City metropolitan area is a bi-state metropolitan area anchored by Kansas City, Missouri. Its 14 counties straddle the border between the U.S. states of Missouri (9 counties) and Kansas (5 counties). With and a population of more ...
. KVHP is also the only station in the
Central Time Zone
The North American Central Time Zone (CT) is a time zone in parts of Canada, the United States, Mexico, Central America, some Caribbean Islands, and part of the Eastern Pacific Ocean.
Central Standard Time (CST) is six hours behind Coordina ...
to air ''Wheel'' at 6:00 p.m. instead of at 6:30 p.m.
Newscasts and local programming
KVHP aired news capsules and newscasts for a time during the late 1980s and early 1990s, before dropping them for a number of years. The station began airing local newscast once again in 1999, when it established an in-house news department and began producing a prime time newscast at 9 p.m. Within a year of the news department's launch, the station expanded its news programming and began producing a two-hour morning show and an hour-long 5 p.m. newscast. KVHP's newscasts were never considered a serious threat to the ratings dominance of
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters ...
affiliate KPLC and by 2004, KVHP's news department was shut down with local news dropped from the station's lineup entirely.
Soon afterward, the station's only locally produced program consisted of a half-hour public affairs program called ''On the Air with Fox 29'', which aired twice on Sundays and has since been canceled. On April 27, 2009, KVHP began broadcasting a tape-delay of
Baton Rouge
Baton Rouge ( ; ) is a city in and the capital of the U.S. state of Louisiana. Located the eastern bank of the Mississippi River, it is the parish seat of East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana's most populous parish—the equivalent of countie ...
ABC affiliate WBRZ's weeknight 6 p.m. newscast, under the repackaged title ''Fox 29 News from the Capital'' at 9 p.m. on Monday through Friday evenings; the WBRZ rebroadcast was dropped in 2011.
On May 7, 2012, KVHP reinstated an in-house news department with the launch of a half-hour midday newscast at noon on weekdays (currently titled ''Fox 29 News Express''). On February 29, 2016, the station premiered a 30-minute evening newscast, Fox 29 News at 9, following Fox's prime time lineup. The standalone newscast was short lived, as KVHP's news operations were taken over by KPLC after American Spirit Media acquired the station in late 2016.
KVHP-DT2 did not simulcast any newscasts from either KPLC or KVHP during its time as a CW affiliate, but began simulcasting KPLC's morning, 5 p.m., and 10 p.m. newscasts when it joined ABC on August 31, 2017. In October 2017, it began airing a KPLC-produced 6:30 p.m. newscast, which is exclusive to KVHP-DT2.
Technical information
Subchannels
The station's digital 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 - a ...
:
Analog-to-digital conversion
KVHP 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 29, on June 12, 2009, the official date in which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 30. Through the use of
PSIP
The Program and System Information Protocol (PSIP) is the MPEG (a video and audio industry group) and privately defined program-specific information originally defined by General Instrument for the DigiCipher 2 system and later extended for the A ...
, digital television receivers display the station's
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 via digits on a receiver' ...
as its former UHF analog channel 29. Effective December 11, 2018, KVHP was licensed to move from channel 30 to channel 18 for the spectrum reallocation.