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KXAS-TV (channel 5) is 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 ...
licensed to
Fort Worth, Texas Fort Worth is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the county seat of Tarrant County, Texas, Tarrant County, covering nearly into Denton County, Texas, Denton, Johnson County, Texas, Johnson, Parker County, Texas, Parker, and Wise County, Te ...
, United States, serving the
Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex The Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, officially designated Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, is the most populous metropolitan statistical area in the U.S. state of Texas and the Southern United States, ...
. It is owned and operated by the NBC television network through its
NBC Owned Television Stations NBC Owned Television Stations (formerly NBC Local Media and NBC Television Stations Division (TVSD)) is the division of NBCUniversal Media Group#NBCUniversal Owned Television Stations, NBCUniversal Owned TV Stations (NBCUniversal), a subsidiary o ...
division alongside Telemundo outlet KXTX-TV (channel 39). The two stations share studios at the CentrePort Business Park in eastern Fort Worth; KXAS-TV's transmitter is located in Cedar Hill, Texas.


History


Early history under Carter Publications

Amon G. Carter, Sr.—the founding publisher of the ''
Fort Worth Star-Telegram The ''Fort Worth Star-Telegram'' is an American daily newspaper serving Fort Worth and Tarrant County, the western half of the North Texas area known as the Metroplex. It is owned by The McClatchy Company. History In May 1905, Amon G. Car ...
''—first submitted an application to the
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(FCC) for a
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to build and operate a television station on VHF channel 5 in late October 1944, mere days after Karl Hoblitzelle, owner of Interstate Circuit Theatres, filed an application to operate a station on channel 8 on October 23, the first such license application for a television station in the Southern United States. When the FCC awarded the
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 ...
for Channel 5 to Carter on June 21, 1946, he originally requested to assign KCPN (for "Carter Publications News") as the station's call letters; three months before it signed on, however, Carter chose instead to assign the television station the calls that were used by the radio station that he also owned, WBAP (820 AM). The station began test broadcasts on September 15, 1948, which was received from 5 cities. Channel 5 informally signed on the air as WBAP-TV on September 27, to broadcast coverage of President
Harry S. Truman Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. As the 34th vice president in 1945, he assumed the presidency upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt that year. Subsequen ...
's re-election campaign speech at the Texas & Pacific terminal building in downtown Fort Worth. WBAP-TV officially commenced regular programming two days later on September 29, 1948, with two 10-minute specials at 7 p.m. that evening, respectively featuring speeches from Carter and general manager Harold Hough and a film from NBC dedicating the station's launch. Carter owned the television and radio properties through the ''Star-Telegram''s corporate parent, Carter Publications. It was the first television station to sign on in the state of Texas; the second to be located between Los Angeles, St. Louis and
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(after NBC/ DuMont affiliate KDYL-TV – now ABC affiliate KTVX – in
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); and the 25th to sign on in the United States. When the station made its formal debut, its first night of regular broadcasts did not go smoothly. On the date of its sign-on, the station's studio facilities were in the latter stages of construction; at one point, Amon Carter accidentally stepped into an unmarked hole in the studio floor that led to the building's basement, narrowly saved from enduring potential injury by ''Star-Telegram''
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ist Johnny Hay. A
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near the transmitter facility also knocked WBAP-TV off the air for 17 minutes around 8 pm. Angry viewers subsequently called into the station, blaming engineers for an outage that was beyond their control; after the power problems were fixed, another viewer calling into the station complained to a receptionist about not being able to receive WBAP-TV's signal, not realizing that the television station could not be picked up through their radio receiver. Even still, '' Fort Worth Press'' reporter Jack Gordon wrote regarding the station's first night of programming that "part of Fort Worth's inaugural television show ..looked like our first roll of home movie film. But a good deal more of it was excellent – enough so to convince the stubbornest critic that television is here to stay." Channel 5 originally operated from studio facilities located at 3900 Barnett Street in eastern Fort Worth. The building—located in an area known as Broadcast Hill—was the first studio facility in the United States that was designed specifically for television broadcasting; the tower that transmitted its signal (supporting microwave and remote antennas) was also based on the studio grounds. The station originally broadcast for four hours each evening on Wednesday through Saturdays, with test patterns airing during the late morning and late afternoon Monday through Saturdays; the station expanded its programming schedule to all seven days each week within six months, airing a cumulative total of between 35 and 40 hours of programming per week. Originally serving as an affiliate, Channel 5 has carried programming from NBC since its sign-on—having inherited the affiliation through WBAP radio's longtime relationship with the television network's radio predecessor, the NBC Blue Network, with which it had been affiliated since 1927; however, it also maintained a secondary affiliation with ABC by way of a secondary affiliation that WBAP radio had begun maintaining with the ABC Radio Network, the direct successor to NBC Blue, when it and timeshare partner WFAA assumed the 570 AM frequency (taking over the former KGKO) on an alternating basis in April 1947. The following year in 1949, WBAP-TV and WBAP (AM), were joined by a sister station on radio, WBAP-FM (96.3 FM, now KSCS). The WBAP calls reportedly stood for "We Bring a Program"; the call sign and their associated meaning were suggested by
Herbert Hoover Herbert Clark Hoover (August 10, 1874 – October 20, 1964) was the 31st president of the United States, serving from 1929 to 1933. A wealthy mining engineer before his presidency, Hoover led the wartime Commission for Relief in Belgium and ...
during his tenure as chairman of what was then the Federal Radio Commission prior to the radio station's sign-on in 1922; in reality, they were sequentially assigned with no meaning. Among the local programs that aired on Channel 5 in its early years included the Saturday night
country music Country (also called country and western) is a popular music, music genre originating in the southern regions of the United States, both the American South and American southwest, the Southwest. First produced in the 1920s, country music is p ...
/dance program ''Barn Dance'', music series ''Bobby Peters Jamboree'' and the children's programs ''See-Saw Zoo'' and ''Kitty's Playhouse''. When Channel 5 signed on, it was apparent that
Dallas Dallas () is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of Texas metropolitan areas, most populous metropolitan area in Texas and the Metropolitan statistical area, fourth-most ...
and Fort Worth were going to be collapsed into a single television market due to the close proximity of the two cities; despite the fact that
Dallas Dallas () is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of Texas metropolitan areas, most populous metropolitan area in Texas and the Metropolitan statistical area, fourth-most ...
and Tarrant counties bordered one another,
Arbitron Nielsen Audio (formerly Arbitron) is a consumer research company in the United States that collects listener data on radio broadcasting audiences. It was founded as the American Research Bureau by Jim Seiler in 1949 and became national by mergin ...
had initially designated their respective
county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or parish (administrative division), civil parish. The term is in use in five countries: Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, and the United States. An equiva ...
s as separate markets (the counties that surrounded Tarrant County on the western half of the Metroplex were part of the Fort Worth market, while those surrounding Dallas County in the eastern half of the metropolitan region were part of the Dallas market). However, Carter, who had long been a booster for the Fort Worth area, did not care whether Dallas residents could view Channel 5's broadcast signal, which provided rimshot coverage within most of central and eastern Dallas County, including Dallas proper. As a result, in 1950, NBC reached an agreement with A. H. Belo Corporation to switch the primary affiliation of DuMont affiliate WFAA-TV (channel 8) to NBC to serve as its affiliate for the eastern half of the market. On July 1, 1952, WBAP-TV became among the first six television stations in the country (along with fellow NBC stations KPRC-TV in
Houston Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...
, WOAI-TV in
San Antonio San Antonio ( ; Spanish for " Saint Anthony") is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in Greater San Antonio. San Antonio is the third-largest metropolitan area in Texas and the 24th-largest metropolitan area in the ...
, WKY-TV in
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, KOTV in
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 ...
and
WDSU-TV WDSU (channel 6) is a television station in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States, affiliated with NBC and owned by Hearst Television. The station's studios are located on Howard Avenue in the city's New Orleans Central Business District, Centra ...
in
New Orleans New Orleans (commonly known as NOLA or The Big Easy among other nicknames) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 at the 2020 ...
) to begin transmitting network programming over a live microwave feed, inaugurated with a message by ''
Today Show ''Today'' (also called ''The Today Show'') is an American morning television show that airs weekdays from 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. on NBC. The program debuted on January 14, 1952. It was the first of its genre on American television ...
'' host
Dave Garroway David Cunningham Garroway (July 13, 1913 – July 21, 1982) was an American Celebrity, television personality. He was the founding host and anchor of NBC's ''Today (American TV program), Today'' from 1952 to 1961. His easygoing and relaxing style ...
welcoming the stations in commencing live network telecasts. That decade, Channel 5 also became one of the first television stations to convert its local programming to
color Color (or colour in English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English; American and British English spelling differences#-our, -or, see spelling differences) is the visual perception based on the electromagnetic spectrum. Though co ...
; the station's conversion to color broadcasts on May 15, 1954, was preceded by a dedication of its new production and master control facilities—which were upgraded specifically for color telecasting—from Carter and
David Sarnoff David Sarnoff (February 27, 1891 – December 12, 1971) was a Russian and American businessman who played an important role in the American history of radio and television. He led the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) for most of his career in ...
, chairman of then-NBC parent
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, that was broadcast on the station; this was followed by a three-hour block of programs produced in color, the longest broadcast of such programs ever attempted by a television station at that time. By 1955, WBAP-TV—which had earlier ordered RCA color television equipment in the fall of 1949, and became the first television station in Texas to broadcast NBC programs in color on April 9, 1954—had greatly increased the number of programs that it broadcast in color, televising the largest amount of programming produced in the format of any U.S. television station at the time. Ownership of ''Star-Telegram'' and the WBAP stations would transfer to Amon Carter Sr.'s heirs after he succumbed from the last of several
heart attacks A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when blood flow decreases or stops in one of the coronary arteries of the heart, causing infarction (tissue death) to the heart muscle. The most common symptom is retr ...
he had suffered over the previous two years on June 23, 1955. Meanwhile, NBC grew frustrated with having to maintain affiliations with two stations to carry its programming in an otherwise effectively consolidated market. In early 1957, a taller transmission tower was built at the west end of the Broadcast Hill studio property. However, NBC threatened to strip its affiliation from Channel 5 if it did not relocate its transmitter farther eastward to extend the station's signal deeper into the Dallas metropolitan area; reportedly, the network approached the owners of Fort Worth's other station,
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KFJZ-TV (channel 11, now KTVT), which had in 1962 moved its transmitter to the antenna farm in Cedar Hill. Belo also made an attempt to make WFAA-TV the market's exclusive NBC affiliate. To prevent the network from defecting, Carter's heirs—who were reluctant to comply to NBC's demands at first, out of their desire to continue Amon Carter Sr.'s legacy of pro-Fort Worth civic boosterism—agreed to move WBAP-TV's transmitter facilities to Cedar Hill and boost its
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to adequately cover Dallas; in the summer of 1964, it installed a transmitter at the Hill Tower (owned by the Dallas Newspapers) to feed the channel 5 antenna on a candelabra tower that was already shared by WFAA-TV and KRLD-TV (channel 4, now KDFW-TV); sister station WBAP-FM also moved its transmitter to this location. The move to Cedar Hill allowed channel 5 to become the sole NBC affiliate for the entire Dallas–Fort Worth market on September 1, 1957, and subsequently, WFAA-TV became the area's exclusive ABC station. In October 1959, WBAP-TV installed the first color videotape recorder in Texas, allowing it the ability to record a 90-minute segment of programming and replay it in less than five minutes. During NBC's coverage of the
assassination Assassination is the willful killing, by a sudden, secret, or planned attack, of a personespecially if prominent or important. It may be prompted by political, ideological, religious, financial, or military motives. Assassinations are orde ...
of President
John F. Kennedy John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), also known as JFK, was the 35th president of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. He was the first Roman Catholic and youngest person elected p ...
on November 22, 1963, WBAP-TV transmitted news reports conducted from its Broadcast Hill studios on the sniper-range shooting at the Presidential motorcade carrying Kennedy and
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John Connally John Bowden Connally Jr. (February 27, 1917June 15, 1993) was an American politician who served as the 39th governor of Texas from 1963 to 1969 and as the 61st United States secretary of the treasury from 1971 to 1972. He began his career as a Hi ...
(who himself was injured in the shooting) in color; NBC broadcast the station's color feed during its coverage, which was otherwise transmitted in black and white from their New York studios. Charles Murphy, who served as an anchor at the station, relayed word of Kennedy's death during emergency surgery at Parkland Hospital that afternoon. Two days later on November 24, a remote unit that was loaned to WBAP-TV by KTVT management and set up at the Dallas Police Department's downtown headquarters, awaiting the transfer of suspect
Lee Harvey Oswald Lee Harvey Oswald (October 18, 1939 – November 24, 1963) was a U.S. Marine veteran who assassinated John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, on November 22, 1963. Oswald was placed in juvenile detention at age 12 for truan ...
(who shot both men from an upper-floor window at the
Texas School Book Depository The Texas School Book Depository, later known as the Dallas County Administration Building and now "The Sixth Floor Museum", is a seven-floor building facing Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas. The building was Lee Harvey Oswald's vantage point du ...
overlooking Elm Street) to the Dallas County Jail, fed live images of the accused Presidential assassin being gunned down by nightclub owner
Jack Ruby Jack Leon Ruby (born Jacob Leon Rubenstein; March 25, 1911January 3, 1967) was an American nightclub owner who murdered Lee Harvey Oswald on November 24, 1963, two days after Oswald assassinated President John F. Kennedy. Born in Chicago, R ...
to the NBC network; it marked the first time that a murder had been witnessed live on U.S. network television. The station's coverage of the Kennedy assassination and his visit to Texas during which it occurred earned WBAP-TV a national Sigma Delta Chi television news award and a bronze medallion, and honors by the Dallas Press Club and the
Radio-Television News Directors Association The Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA, pronounced the same as "rotunda (disambiguation), rotunda"), formerly the Radio-Television News Directors Association (RTNDA), is a United States-based membership organization of radio, televi ...
(RTNDA) in 1964.


LIN Broadcasting ownership

Channel 5 remained under the ownership of trusts held by the Carter family until 1974 when the FCC passed a measure prohibiting the common ownership of newspapers and broadcast outlets in the same market. Among the combinations that were granted grandfathered protection by the agency were A.H. Belo's combination of ''
The Dallas Morning News ''The Dallas Morning News'' is a daily newspaper serving the Dallas–Fort Worth area of Texas, with an average print circulation in 2022 of 65,369. It was founded on October 1, 1885, by Alfred Horatio Belo as a satellite publication of the ' ...
'' and WFAA- AM- FM-TV; and the
Times Mirror Company The Times Mirror Company was an American newspaper and print media publisher from 1884 until 2000. History It had its roots in the Mirror Printing and Binding House, a commercial printing company founded in 1873, and the ''Los Angeles Times'' ...
's combination of KDFW-TV and the '' Dallas Times Herald''. The Commission, however, declined the same for the ''Star-Telegram'', WBAP-AM-TV, and KSCS (the former WBAP-FM), leaving the Carters with little choice but to break up their media empire. In January 1973, Carter Publications announced it would sell WBAP-TV to
LIN Broadcasting LIN Media was an American holding company founded in 1994 that operated 43 television stations. All except one were affiliates of the television in the United States#Major broadcast networks, six major U.S. television networks. One of the re ...
for $35 million; the ''Star-Telegram'', WBAP and KSCS, meanwhile, were sold to
Capital Cities Communications Capital Cities/ABC Inc. was an American media company. It was founded in 1985 when Capital Cities Communications purchased the much larger American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. It was eventually acquired by The Walt Disney Company and re-branded i ...
. The sales were finalized in early May 1974; due to FCC rules in place then that prohibited separately owned broadcast properties based in the same market from using the same callsign, channel 5's call letters were subsequently changed to the current KXAS-TV on May 16 of that year. In 1985, KXAS became the first television station in the Dallas–Fort Worth market to broadcast programming in stereo, when NBC began transmission in the format. On January 14, 1987, the broadcast tower at the station's transmitter in Cedar Hill was struck by a
Navy A navy, naval force, military maritime fleet, war navy, or maritime force is the military branch, branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval warfare, naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral z ...
F-4 Phantom that was performing training exercises as it was on approach to the Dallas Naval Air Station, clipping several
guy-wire A guy-wire, guy-line, guy-rope, down guy, or stay, also called simply a guy, is a tensioned cable designed to add stability to a freestanding structure. They are used commonly for ship masts, radio masts, wind turbines, utility poles, and ten ...
s; KXAS, WFAA, and KDFW were all briefly knocked off the air for a few seconds immediately following the incident. The jet's two occupants survived as they had ejected themselves from the aircraft and parachuted to the ground before it crashed. KXAS improvised auxiliary transmission facilities at the nearby tower belonging to KXTX-TV (channel 39)—a tower that itself would collapse while undergoing maintenance in October 1996. Rather than continue sharing transmitter facilities shared with KDFW and WFAA (which co-owned the tower site), station management opted to build a new -tall facility to house its transmitter (the first such broadcast transmitter in Texas to use the improved circular, polarized dish to transmit its signal) a to the east of the old tower, on acres of land that had been owned by the station since the 1960s; the tower, which also houses transmitters for former sister radio stations KSCS and KBFB, was completed in 1989. KXAS-TV had claimed themselves as "The Pioneer Television Station of the Great Southwest" (or "The Pioneer Station of the Great Southwest") in its
sign-on and sign-off 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 ...
announcements during its four decades, but admitted to its true roots with WBAP with its 30th anniversary in 1978. In 1993, LIN Broadcasting assumed operational responsibilities for independent station KXTX-TV through 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 ...
with the station's owner at the time, the
Christian Broadcasting Network The Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) is an American Christian media production and distribution organization. Founded in 1960 by Pat Robertson, it produces the long-running TV series ''The 700 Club'', co-produces the ongoing ''Superbook (198 ...
(CBN). Through the consolidation of that station's operations with Channel 5, KXTX began airing rebroadcasts of its 6 and 10 p.m. newscasts each weeknight as well as select first-run syndicated programs seen on KXAS. On May 23, 1994, in an overall deal in which
News Corporation The original incarnation of News Corporation (abbreviated News Corp. and also variously known as News Corporation Limited) was an American Multinational corporation, multinational mass media corporation founded and controlled by media mogul Ru ...
also acquired a 20% equity interest in the company, New World Communications signed a long-term affiliation agreement with Fox, as part of the network's strategy to strengthen its affiliate portfolio (then composed mostly of
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 ...
outlets with limited to no prior history as major network affiliates) after the
National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a Professional gridiron football, professional American football league in the United States. Composed of 32 teams, it is divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National ...
(NFL) awarded it the television rights to the
National Football Conference The National Football Conference (NFC) is a conference of the National Football League (NFL), the highest level of professional American football in the United States. The NFC and its counterpart, the American Football Conference (AFC), each h ...
(NFC), a four-year contract that began with the
1994 NFL season The 1994 NFL season was the 75th regular season of the National Football League (NFL). To honor the NFL's 75th season, a special anniversary logo was designed, and each player wore a patch on their jerseys with this logo throughout the season. ...
, on December 18, 1993. One of the twelve television stations affiliated with either CBS, ABC or NBC that were involved in the deal was KDFW, which had been affiliated with CBS since it signed on in December 1949 and—along with CBS affiliate KTBC in
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and ABC affiliate
KTVI KTVI (channel 2) is a television station in St. Louis, Missouri, United States, affiliated with the Fox network. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group alongside KPLR-TV (channel 11), an owned-and-operated station of The CW. The two stations sh ...
in St. Louis—was added to the agreement as a byproduct of New World's $717 million purchase of four stations owned by Argyle Television Holdings on May 26. With thirteen months left until CBS's contract with KDFW—which, as a result of the agreement with New World, would replace existing
owned-and-operated station In the broadcasting industry, an owned-and-operated station (frequently abbreviated as an O&O) usually refers to a television or radio station owned by the network with which it is associated. This distinguishes such a station from an network af ...
KDAF (channel 33, now a CW affiliate) as the market's Fox station, resulting in
Fox Television Stations Fox Television Stations, LLC (stylized as FOX TV STATIONS; also known as FTS) is a group of television stations in the United States owned-and-operated by Fox Corporation. It owns LiveNOW from Fox, Fox Local, and Fox Soul. It also oversees ...
selling KDAF to Renaissance Broadcasting—was set to expire on July 1, 1995, KXAS was the first station that the network had approached to become its new Dallas-Fort Worth affiliate. LIN Broadcasting turned down the offer, in favor of signing a long-term deal that renewed its affiliation agreements with KXAS and NBC-affiliated sisters
KXAN-TV KXAN-TV (channel 36) is a television station in Austin, Texas, United States, affiliated with NBC. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group alongside Llano, Texas, Llano-licensed MyNetworkTV affiliate KBVO (channel 14); Nexstar also provides certain s ...
in Austin, WAVY-TV in
Norfolk Norfolk ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in England, located in East Anglia and officially part of the East of England region. It borders Lincolnshire and The Wash to the north-west, the North Sea to the north and eas ...
and
WOOD-TV WOOD-TV (channel 8) is a television station licensed to Grand Rapids, Michigan, United States, serving as the NBC affiliate for West Michigan. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group alongside Battle Creek–licensed dual American Broadcasting Compan ...
in
Grand Rapids Grand Rapids is the largest city and county seat of Kent County, Michigan, United States. With a population of 198,917 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census and estimated at 200,117 in 2024, Grand Rapids is the List of municipalities ...
; however as WFAA was already under contract with ABC through a multi-station agreement with Belo, this later prompted CBS to sign a deal with KTVT through an agreement it signed with Gaylord Broadcasting on September 14, 1994, in exchange for also switching its sister independent station in
Tacoma, Washington Tacoma ( ) is the county seat of Pierce County, Washington, United States. A port city, it is situated along Washington's Puget Sound, southwest of Seattle, southwest of Bellevue, Washington, Bellevue, northeast of the state capital, Olympia ...
,
KSTW KSTW (channel 11), branded on-air as Seattle 11, is an independent television station licensed to Tacoma, Washington, United States, serving the Seattle area. Owned by the CBS News and Stations group, the station maintains its transmitter on ...
(now a CW owned-and-operated station), to the network. To this day, KXAS-TV remains the only station in the market to never change its primary affiliation. In June of that year, following the $12.6-billion acquisition of majority owner McCaw Cellular Communications (which acquired a 52% interest in LIN in 1990 for $3.4 billion) by the
AT&T Corporation AT&T Corporation, an abbreviation for its former name, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, was an American telecommunications company that provided voice, video, data, and Internet telecommunications and professional services to busi ...
in 1994, LIN Broadcasting announced that it would spin off seven of its eight television stations (including KXAS-TV) into a separate
publicly traded A public company is a company whose ownership is organized via shares of share capital, stock which are intended to be freely traded on a stock exchange or in over-the-counter (finance), over-the-counter markets. A public (publicly traded) co ...
corporate entity, the LIN Television Corporation. The following year in 1995, KXAS became the first commercial television station in Texas to launch a website, which provided news reports and information on the station's community initiatives and on-air staff members; the station expanded its Internet offerings in 1997, when it became the first television station in the Southwestern United States to deliver news alerts via e-mail. In 1997, KXAS became the first television station in the Dallas–Fort Worth market to commit to launching a digital television signal; the station aired its first high-definition telecast on March 31 of that year, when it aired a
Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (baseball), National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB i ...
game between the Texas Rangers and the
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. Regular digital television transmissions commenced on November 1, 1998, when KXAS began full-time operation of its digital signal on UHF channel 41.


NBC ownership

On October 23, 1997, LIN Television was acquired by Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst (now HM Capital Partners) for $1.9 billion. In conjunction with the Dallas-based investment firm's submitted bid for the company on September 12, LIN contributed KXAS-TV to a joint venture with NBC Inc., in which the former sold a 76% majority equity interest in the station to NBC, which in turn would contribute a 24% share of
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owned-and-operated station
KNSD KNSD (channel 39, cable channel 7), branded on air as NBC 7 San Diego, is a television station in San Diego, California, United States, serving as the market's NBC outlet. It is owned and operated by the network's NBC Owned Television Stations d ...
(which NBC had purchased from New World Communications on May 22, 1996, in a $425 million deal that also included full ownership of existing affiliate
WVTM-TV WVTM-TV (channel 13) is a television station in Birmingham, Alabama, United States, affiliated with NBC. Owned by Hearst Television, the station maintains studios and transmitter facilities atop Red Mountain, between Vulcan Trail and Valley ...
in
Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands, within the wider West Midlands (region), West Midlands region, in England. It is the Lis ...
) to Hicks Muse, predicated on the firm acquiring and closing on its deal with LIN. The takeover and joint venture deals were completed on March 2, 1998, when NBC and LIN formally established Station Venture Holdings, LP to serve as the licensee of KXAS and KNSD. As it held 79.62% controlling equity in the partnership, NBC assumed control of KXAS' operations by way of its NBC Television Stations subsidiary, which continued to control KNSD through its continued majority ownership of that station. Although not a traditional arrangement, NBC's assumption of majority control over KXAS made it a ''de facto'' owned-and-operated station; however as a consequence, the purchase of majority interest in Channel 5 resulted in the termination of its LMA with KXTX. In May 1998, the station changed its on-air branding to "NBC 5" and its newscast branding to ''NBC 5 Texas News'' (adapted from its 1989-1997 ''Texas News 5'' branding, and later simplified to ''NBC 5 News'' in November 1999) in compliance with the branding conventions that the network had adopted for its O&Os, as had been done with sister station
WMAQ-TV WMAQ-TV (channel 5) is a television station in Chicago, Illinois, United States, serving as the market's NBC outlet. It is owned and operated by the network's NBC Owned Television Stations division alongside Telemundo station WSNS-TV (chann ...
's rebranding to "NBC 5 Chicago" in September 1995. On October 11, 2001, NBC Inc. purchased the Telemundo Communications Group from a consortium of
Sony Pictures Entertainment Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. is an American diversified multinational mass media and entertainment studio conglomerate that produces, acquires, and distributes filmed entertainment (theatrical motion pictures, television programs, and rec ...
,
Liberty Media Liberty Media Corporation (commonly referred to as Liberty Media or just Liberty) is an American mass media company founded by John C. Malone in 1991. The company has three divisions, reflecting its ownership stakes in the Formula One Group, S ...
, and private equity firms BV Capital, Bastion Capital and Council Tree Communications for $1.98 billion (increasing to $2.68 billion prior to the sale's closure) and the assumption of $700 million in debt. The acquisition included rights to an existing purchase agreement for KXTX, which Telemundo had bought from Southwest Sports Television for $65 million on June 27. The integration of the Telemundo O&Os into NBC Television Stations caused KXTX and KXAS to become sister stations for the second time, although now under joint ownership as the third television station duopoly in the Dallas–Fort Worth market (after CBS owned-and-operated station KTVT and then- UPN affiliate KTXA (channel 21, now an independent station), and
Univision Univision () is an American Spanish-language terrestrial television, free-to-air television network owned by TelevisaUnivision. It is the United States' largest provider of Spanish-language content. The network's programming is aimed at the L ...
owned-and-operated station KUVN (channel 23) and KSTR-TV (channel 49), the latter of which became a charter affiliate of TeleFutura on January 14, 2002). As a byproduct of the purchase, NBC converted KXTX—which subsequently integrated its operations into KXAS's Broadcast Hill facilities—into a Telemundo owned-and-operated station on
January 1 January 1 is the first day of the calendar year in the Gregorian Calendar; 364 days remain until the end of the year (365 in leap years). This day is also known as New Year's Day since the day marks the beginning of the year. __TOC__ Events ...
, 2002, taking over the local affiliation rights from KFWD (channel 52, now an affiliate of
ShopHQ ShopHQ (formerly ValueVision, ShopNBC, Evine Live, and Evine) was an American cable, satellite and broadcast home shopping television network and multi-channel video retailer owned by iMedia Brands Inc., whose assets were acquired by IV Media on ...
), which had been affiliated with the network since its sign-on in September 1988. KXAS-TV launched a
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 ...
on virtual channel 5.2 in February 2005, which originally served as a charter affiliate of NBC Weather Plus (known as "NBC 5 Weather Plus"), a co-owned 24-hour weather-focused network featuring a mix of local and national current weather observations and forecasts as well as pre-recorded local weather updates conducted by the station's meteorologists. On December 23, 2008, three weeks after the network ceased operations on December 1, the subchannel was reformatted as part of the network's successor service NBC Plus, an automated service featuring local weather information powered using the Weather Plus graphics platform, alongside audio from
NOAA Weather Radio NOAA Weather Radio (NWR), also known as NOAA Weather Radio All Hazards, is an automated 24-hour network of Very high frequency, VHF Frequency modulation, FM weather radio stations in the United States which broadcast weather information direct ...
station KEC55 in Fort Worth, and alternately from KEC56 in Dallas. On January 1, 2009, KXAS launched a tertiary subchannel on virtual channel 5.3, which served as a charter over-the-air affiliate of Universal Sports. Universal Sports converted to a
cable Cable may refer to: Mechanical * Nautical cable, an assembly of three or more ropes woven against the weave of the ropes, rendering it virtually waterproof * Wire rope, a type of rope that consists of several strands of metal wire laid into a hel ...
- and
satellite A satellite or an artificial satellite is an object, typically a spacecraft, placed into orbit around a celestial body. They have a variety of uses, including communication relay, weather forecasting, navigation ( GPS), broadcasting, scient ...
-exclusive service on December 31, 2011, dropping its over-the-air subchannel affiliations and resulting in KXAS removing the 5.3 subchannel from its signal. The station would later re-activate the subchannel as an affiliate of LX in May 2020. KXAS-TV shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 5, on June 12, 2009, as part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television. The station's digital signal remained on its transition period UHF channel 41, using virtual channel 5. Through its participation as a SAFER Act "nightlight" broadcaster, KXAS kept its analog signal on the air starting with a brief test pattern at noon that day, followed by a loop of
public service announcement A public service announcement (PSA) is a message in the public interest disseminated by the media without charge to raise public awareness and change behavior. Oftentimes these messages feature unsettling imagery, ideas or behaviors that are des ...
s from the
National Association of Broadcasters The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) is a Industry trade group, trade association and lobbying, lobby group representing the interests of commercial and non-commercial over-the-air radio and television broadcasting, broadcasters in th ...
(NAB) to inform viewers of the digital transition. The analog signal remained in lame-duck operation until June 26. On November 19, 2009, a fire in the electrical room of the station's Broadcast Hill studios knocked both stations off the air.
Fire alarm A fire alarm system is a building system designed to detect, alert occupants, and alert emergency forces of the presence of fire, smoke, carbon monoxide, or other fire-related emergencies. Fire alarm systems are required in most commercial buil ...
s were activated throughout the facility at 9:30 p.m. that evening, which resulted in staff members being evacuated from the studio; this resulted in the disruption of that evening's scheduled broadcasts of the 10 p.m. newscasts seen respectively on KXAS and KXTX. On February 12, 2013, LIN Media chose to withdraw its interest in the Station Venture Operations joint venture as part of a corporate reorganization. Through the dissolution of the arrangement, NBC gained full ownership of KXAS and regained exclusive ownership in KNSD. On May 4, 2011, KXAS-DT2 became an affiliate of NBC Nonstop (under the branding "NBC DFW Nonstop"), a programming format exclusive to the subchannels of NBC's O&Os that featured a mix of originally-produced news and lifestyle programming and rebroadcasts of KXAS's newscasts; NBC Nonstop was relaunched as the classic television network Cozi TV on December 20, 2012. In June 2012, NBCUniversal announced plans to construct a new facility in Fort Worth (located at the CentrePort Business Park on the former site of Amon Carter Field) to house KXAS, KXTX and NBCUniversal's other Dallas-based operations (including the Dallas news bureau operated by
NBC News NBC News is the news division of the American broadcast television network NBC. The division operates under NBCUniversal Media Group, a division of NBCUniversal, which is itself a subsidiary of Comcast. The news division's various operations r ...
). Construction of the facility began that month, and was completed in September 2013, with the building formally opening on September 30. The facility incorporates four production studios; three control rooms that relay high definition content; a combined media asset management center and newsroom production suite for managing and editing content; and an expanded weather center within the production studio housing KXAS' main news set that contains upgraded software systems, an expert desk and two touchscreen monitors; the station's traffic and sales departments, which were previously in separate areas of the Broadcast Hill studios, were also placed adjacent to the newsroom. The sales and marketing departments of the television stations, and NBC's ArtWorks graphics firm began migrating their operations to the facility in early October of that year; all other operations—including the news departments of KXAS and KXTX—moved to the Carter Boulevard studio by November 1, ending KXAS's 65-year tenure at Broadcast Hill. Three of the conference rooms at the station are each themed to honor pioneers at Channel 5: one for station founder Amon Carter, one for original chief meteorologist Harold Taft, the other for remaining original station employee and on-air talent, Bobbie Wygant. On March 14, 2018, it was announced that the station's parent NBC Owned Television Stations and telecommunications giant
T-Mobile US T-Mobile US, Inc. is an American wireless network operator headquartered in Bellevue, Washington. Its majority shareholder and namesake is the German telecommunications company Deutsche Telekom. T-Mobile is the second largest wireless carrie ...
have entered into an agreement to accelerate of relocating their 600 MHz spectrum of the station to its new frequency at the end of May, instead of the original FCC deadline of June 21, 2019; a year ahead of its original deadline. The station reallocated to UHF channel 24 in phase zero of the repack, rather than the originally scheduled phase three of the repack. KXAS-TV was one of nearly 1,000 television stations that changed their digital signal allocation in the spectrum repack that was finished on July 3, 2020. The station completed its move to UHF channel 24 in the morning of May 30, 2018.


Programming


Sports programming

From
1970 Events January * January 1 – Unix time epoch reached at 00:00:00 UTC. * January 5 – The 7.1 1970 Tonghai earthquake, Tonghai earthquake shakes Tonghai County, Yunnan province, China, with a maximum Mercalli intensity scale, Mercalli ...
to
1997 Events January * January 1 – The Emergency Alert System is introduced in the United States. * January 11 – Turkey threatens Cyprus on account of a deal to buy Russian S-300 missiles, prompting the Cypriot Missile Crisis. * January 1 ...
(with the
AFL–NFL merger The AFL–NFL merger was the merger of the two major professional American football leagues in the United States at the time: the National Football League (NFL) and the American Football League (AFL). It paved the way for the combined league, wh ...
), KXAS aired
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 ...
games in which they played host to an AFC opponent at
Texas Stadium Texas Stadium was an American football stadium located in Irving, Texas, a suburb west of Dallas. Opened on October 24, 1971, it was known for its distinctive hole in the roof, the result of abandoned plans to construct a retractable roof. Th ...
(two games each year for the station ncluding their Thanksgiving games in some years prior to 1970, all Cowboys games were exclusively broadcast on KDFW hen KRLD-TV; during this time, they aired five of the Cowboys'
Super Bowl The Super Bowl is the annual History of the NFL championship, league championship game of the National Football League (NFL) of the United States. It has served as the final game of every NFL season since 1966 NFL season, 1966 (with the excep ...
appearances ( Super Bowls V, XIII, XXVII, XXVIII, and XXX he latter three were won by the Cowboys. Since
2006 2006 was designated as the International Year of Deserts and Desertification. Events January * January 1– 4 – Russia temporarily cuts shipment of natural gas to Ukraine during a price dispute. * January 12 – A stampede during t ...
, the station airs Cowboys games when they play on NBC's '' Sunday Night Football''. The station also aired any
Dallas Stars The Dallas Stars are a professional ice hockey team based in Dallas. The Stars compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Central Division (NHL), Central Division in the Western Conference (NHL), Western Conference. The Stars ...
games as part of NHL on NBC, NBC's NHL broadcast contract from 2006–07 Dallas Stars season, 2006 to 2020–21 Dallas Stars season, 2021; this included the team's appearance in the 2020 Stanley Cup Finals. Channel 5 also aired Texas Rangers (baseball), Texas Rangers games as part of Major League Baseball on NBC, NBC's broadcast contract with Major League Baseball from their arrival in 1972 Texas Rangers season, 1972 until 1989 Texas Rangers season, 1989, and again for the postseason only from 1994 to 2000. The station also carried any Dallas Mavericks games as part of NBA on NBC, NBC's broadcast contract with the NBA from 1990–91 Dallas Mavericks season, 1990 to 2001–02 Dallas Mavericks season, 2002 and since 2025.


News operation

As of September 2020, KXAS presently broadcasts hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with six hours each weekday, four hours on Saturdays, and hours on Sundays). In addition, the station also produces the half-hour political discussion program ''Lone Star Politics'', which debuted in 2014 and airs at 8:30 a.m. after its Sunday morning newscast. Before the move to its current studio and offices on Amon Carter Boulevard, KXAS maintained a Dallas news bureau located on McKinnon Street in central Dallas.


News department history

Channel 5's news department launched with the station on September 29, 1948. Originally titled ''The Texas News'' (a title that was used in varied forms for four decades, later as ''Area Five Texas News'' from 1974 to 1978 and as ''Texas News 5'' from 1991 to 1998), the program maintained a newsreel format for the news department's first 21 years of operation, continuing long after most television stations had switched to a primarily studio-based production structure for their newscasts. ''The Texas News'' was the highest-rated local television program in the United States during the station's early years and earned the first of what would be six RTNDA national awards for "Best Local Newscast" during its first year on the air; however, ratings for the program began to decline in the late 1960s amid competition from Dallas-based KRLD-TV and WFAA, which used a live-on-tape format that mixed filed reports with anchored segments presented in-studio. The station's news broadcasts – which originally aired only in the evening until the launch of a midday newscast in 1972 – began implementing a hosted format in 1967, when Bob Schieffer and Russ Bloxom joined the station as anchors for ''The Texas News'', appearing on camera ahead of and after the newsreel segments. The program officially converted to a live-on-tape broadcast on August 1, 1969. Concurrent with the station's move to The Studios at DFW, KXAS donated its collection of news footage shot for ''The Texas News'' from the 1950s through the 1970s to the University of North Texas Libraries in Denton, Texas, Denton in November 2013; the film reels and accompanying script images were digitized by the university for availability to the public via the library's digital preservation network. The station has long been well known in the Dallas–Fort Worth market for the longevity of its anchors and reporters, with many having worked at Channel 5 for at least ten years. Among them Roberta "Bobbie" Wygant (the longest-tenured television personality in Texas and the first broadcaster in the Southwestern United States to present theater and movie reviews on television, who joined the station in 1948 as an entertainment reporter and later hosted various local programs, including ''Entertainment and the Arts'' and the newsmagazine ''Inside Area 5''), Phil Wygant (who worked as an anchor/reporter from 1948 until he was laid off following LIN Broadcasting's acquisition of the station in 1974), Jack Brown (who served as a reporter from 1958 to 1980), Russ Bloxom (who served a lead news anchor from 1967 to 1979) and Jane McGarry (who served as an anchor and reporter from 1982 until she stepped down in July 2012, following her arrest on a misdemeanor DWI charge). KXAS is known within the Dallas–Fort Worth market for its weather coverage; it claims to be the first television station to have hired only full-time meteorologists, when it hired American Airlines staff meteorologists Harold Taft, Bob Denney and Walter Porter as hosts of ''Weather Telefacts'', a 15-minute nightly series that debuted on Halloween, October 31, 1949, as the first televised weather forecast program in the United States, which in addition to providing forecasts, explained to viewers complicated aspects of meteorological concepts. Taft—the first television meteorologist west of the Mississippi River, who concurrently served as an overnight weathercaster for WBAP (AM), where he was coined as "The World's Greatest Weatherman" by overnight personality Bill Mack (singer), Bill Mack—became the most prominent of the three initial meteorologists. He was known for using self-hand-drawn weather maps incorporating Contour line#Barometric pressure, isobars and upper-level atmospheric diagrams to illustrate his forecasts, which were eventually replaced by computerized graphics in November 1982, and developed the concept of trained "weather watchers", volunteer observationalists from surrounding counties who gathered up-to-date weather data. His popularity among viewers led to a successful grassroots campaign (which included threats of advertising boycotts by area businesses) urging KXAS station management to retain Taft after plans to replace him became public in 1983. Taft held the record as the state's longest-serving television meteorologist, having served as chief meteorologist at WBAP-TV/KXAS for 41 years until his retirement on August 30, 1991, one month prior to his death from stomach cancer. Harold Taft's memorial service was carried live by Channel 5. David Finfrock, who first joined KXAS in 1976 as a meteorologist for its weekend evening newscasts, subsequently took over as chief weather anchor. Finfrock has since eclipsed the length of Taft's tenure as an on-air meteorologist. In 1993, KXAS became the first television station in the United States to implement a Local Weather Station structure, a network of sensors that relayed real-time weather observations. On June 16, 1966, Channel 5 became the first television station in Texas to present all of its news film footage in color. In 1967, Fort Worth native Bob Schieffer began his broadcast career at WBAP-TV as a reporter and anchor of the station's 10 p.m. newscast. After leaving the station in 1971, Schieffer went on to Washington, D.C. to work as a reporter for independent station WTTG (now a Fox owned-and-operated station) and the now-defunct Metromedia news service, then embarked on a long career with CBS News that lasted until his retirement from full-time broadcasting in August 2015 and continued thereafter in a contributing role. In February 1970, WBAP-TV debuted the first locally produced television newsmagazine, ''Texas '70s'', a monthly half-hour program showcasing feature reports focusing on the culture of Texas. On January 11, 1986, a KXAS news crew was assigned to cover a standoff started by 40-year-old Thomas E. Stephens, when he barricaded himself inside an Arlington, Texas, Arlington 7-Eleven store where his estranged wife, Patricia (who filed divorce papers that Thomas was served with the day before), had managed. Believing she had initiated the idea of the divorce to Patricia, Thomas fatally shot her roommate and store clerk, Terry Palmer, and wounded fellow employee Craig Talley; Patricia later snuck out of the store's front door as Thomas talked to a hostage negotiator over the phone. Around 6:40 pm, during an update on the standoff within the extended 6 p.m. newscast as a live shot outside the store was being shown, the videographer on-scene captured Thomas coming out and suicide, killing himself with a .357-caliber pistol, ending the seven-hour standoff. Weekend anchor Mike Snyder, who joined KXAS in 1980 and served as the main anchor of the weeknight newscasts from 1992 until he retired from broadcasting in 2013, issued an on-air apology to viewers for the live broadcast of the suicide. In 1989, KXAS became the first television station in Texas to implement closed captioning for its newscasts. In 1993, KXAS-TV launched the "Public Defenders", an investigative reporting unit (consisting of reporters Sabrina Smith, Mike Androvett, and Marty Griffin) that conducted investigations into businesses that have ripped off local consumers and uncovered various consumer scams as an ongoing segment during the 10 p.m. newscast until 1999. On March 28, 2000, the tower camera based in Sundance Square in Fort Worth caught footage of a multiple-vortex 2000 Fort Worth tornado, F3 tornado that struck the city's downtown area. Master control operators cut to footage of that tornado as it tracked northeastward through central Fort Worth; after a tornado warning was issued for Tarrant County, chief meteorologist David Finfrock—who was in the middle of a weather segment during that evening's 6 p.m. newscast—warned viewers about the damaging tornado through on-air illustration via the live camera footage. The station also became notable for an impromptu moment on August 9, 2002, when during a wildlife segment featured on its late-morning newscast, then-anchor Michael Scott got spooked by a gecko that was to be presented later in the segment, which jumped onto him from a nearby table; the clip eventually became one of the earliest viral videos, when it was circulated on YouTube and other video sharing websites later that decade. On September 7, 2007, KXAS-TV became the second television station in the Dallas–Fort Worth market (after WFAA) to begin broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition. Segments conducted in-studio were initially the only content that was broadcast in the format, with field video footage being transmitted in 16:9 widescreen standard definition, before upgrading to HD in concurrence with the move to The Studios at DFW in September 2013. On January 16, 2009, as part of a Local News Service agreement that had earlier been formed between NBC Owned Television Stations and Fox Television Stations, KXAS began sharing its news helicopter (branded as "Chopper 5") with Fox owned-and-operated station KDFW, with the two stations pooling footage from the helicopter during breaking news coverage. Historically since the 1970s, KXAS has placed second or third overall in local news viewership, behind longtime leader WFAA and KDFW. According to the local Nielsen ratings for the February 2011 sweeps period, KXAS placed second in the 6 a.m. time period among total viewers and adults age 25–54 years old; this in direct comparison to the same time period the year before, when it placed first in that timeslot, aided by NBC's coverage of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. KXAS placed third at 5 p.m. among total viewers and adults 25–54, in last place at 6 p.m. among both total viewers and with adults 25–54, and placed third at 10 p.m. with total viewers and last with 25- to 54-year-olds. For the May 2011 sweeps period, the 10 p.m. newscast placed last among adults 25–54 and in third with total viewers (overall, all four stations showed year-to-year gains in total viewers while only KXAS was down slightly among 25-to-54-year-olds); the station's morning newscast had placed third in both demographics. In total viewers, the 5 and 6 p.m. newscasts also finished in last place among the Metroplex's late newscasts, though the 5 p.m. newscast was in third (behind KTVT) in the 25- to 54-year-old demographic (the 6 p.m. newscast placed last behind KTVT among adults 25–54). The morning newscast was the only local news program on KXAS to rank above third place in total viewership (though it, along with KTVT and WFAA's morning newscasts all lost viewers in both key demos to KDFW, which ranked first). On June 20, 2016, KXAS began to implement the "Look N" graphics package designed for NBC's owned-and-operated stations by NBC ArtWorks, placing the station under the graphical standardizations applied to its fellow O&Os for the first time since 2012 (the "Look G" package used by KXAS from 2012 to 2014 has since been used by Nexstar Broadcasting Group for its NBC affiliates, including those in nearby markets such as KFDX-TV in Wichita Falls and KRBC in Abilene, Texas, Abilene) and makes reference to the trademarking of the "Texas Connects Us" slogan that KXAS has used since 2012 (one of a handful of station slogans to have received trademark approval by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for exclusive and/or licensing use). On July 9, 2016, the station expanded its Saturday 6 p.m. newscast to an hour with a half-hour extension at 6:30 p.m. On May 13, 2017, KXAS-TV added an extra half-hour to its weekend morning newscast at 5:30 a.m. On June 29, 2021, beginning with the 4 p.m. newscast, KXAS officially switched to the new graphics package entitled "Look S", just two days after sister station KNBC in Los Angeles switched to the new graphics package and a week after WMAQ-TV in Chicago debuting it. Meanwhile, the "Texas Connects Us" slogan appears in the opening sequence instead of the usual "NBC" text unlike to the former two. The station has received criticism in recent years for its handling of weather coverage, particularly during sporting events. Channel 5 waited six minutes before cutting into a 2019 Dallas Cowboys season, 2019 Cowboys '' Sunday Night Football'' game with a warning about a tornado that had touched down within the market. Station management admitted that they had erred in not immediately breaking away from the game for a potentially life-threatening situation. Conversely, in 2024, KXAS interrupted the end of a 2023–24 NFL playoffs#NFC: Detroit Lions 24, Los Angeles Rams 23, playoff game between the 2023 Los Angeles Rams season, Los Angeles Rams and 2023 Detroit Lions season, Detroit Lions for a report about light snowfall. According to weather anchor Rick Mitchell, that segment was supposed to air on a subchannel and not the main NBC channel. "It was not our intention to ruin the end of the game," he said in apologizing for the mix-up.


Notable former on-air staff

* Matt Barrie (sportscaster), Matt Barrie – sports anchor * Gretchen Carlson – anchor/reporter * Marc Fein – anchor (2011–2019) * Lillard Hill – anchor (1948–1954) * Calvin Hughes – anchor/reporter (1995–1999) * Karen Hughes (then, Karen Parfitt) – reporter * Jane Jayroe – anchor/reporter (1980–1984) * Boyd Matson – reporter (1970–late 1970s) * David Ono – reporter (1990s) * Scott Pelley – reporter * Charlie Rose – host of ''The Charlie Rose Show'' and ''The Baxters'' (1979–1980) * Bob Schieffer – anchor/reporter * Harold Taft – meteorologist (1949–1991) * Joe Tessitore – sports anchor


Technical information


Subchannels

The station's signal is Multiplex (TV), multiplexed:


References


External links

*
FCC Public Inspection File: KXAS-TV

Technical and ownership information for KXAS-TV
at RabbitEars
DFW Radio/TV History

KXAS virtual tour
on Vimeo
Texas Storm Ranger video tour
on Facebook
WBAP historical marker
from Texas Historical Sites Atlas (Texas Historical Commission)
Tour of Broadcast Hill site and facilities
at Fybush.com
Channel 5 history: Amon and the early years

NBC 5 is turning 75. Here's a look at the history of Channel 5

WBAP promotional video for potential advertisers (early-mid 1960s)

WBAP/KXAS archive and collections
at University of North Texas {{DEFAULTSORT:Kxas-Tv 1948 establishments in Texas Cozi TV affiliates NBC Owned Television Stations Television channels and stations established in 1948 Television stations in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex