KTXA

KTXA
Fort Worth/Dallas, Texas
United States
City Fort Worth, Texas
Branding TXA 21
Slogan Courts, Cash, Comedy
Channels Digital: 29 (UHF)
Virtual: 21 (PSIP)
Subchannels 21.1 Main programming
21.2 MeTV
Affiliations Independent (1980–1995 and since 2006)
CBS (alternate)
MeTV (DT2)
Owner CBS Corporation
(Television Station KTXA Inc.)
First air date October 6, 1980
Call letters' meaning TeXas Arlington
TeXAs
TeXas America
Sister station(s) KTVT
Former channel number(s) Analog:
21 (UHF, 1980–2009)
Digital:
18 (UHF, 2000–June 2009 and August 2009–2011)
19 (UHF, June–August 2009)
Former affiliations UPN (1995–2006)
Transmitter power 1000 kW
Height 534 meters (1,752 ft)
Facility ID 51517
Transmitter coordinates 32°34′43.00″N 96°57′12.00″W / 32.5786111°N 96.9533333°W / 32.5786111; -96.9533333
Licensing authority FCC
Public license information: Profile
CDBS
Website cbsdfw.com

KTXA, virtual channel 21 (UHF digital channel 29), is an independent television station serving the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex that is licensed to Fort Worth, Texas, United States. The station is owned by the CBS Television Stations subsidiary of CBS Corporation, as part of a duopoly with CBS owned-and-operated station KTVT (channel 11). The two stations share primary studio facilities located on Bridge Street (off of I-30), east of downtown Fort Worth; KTXA's advertising sales offices are located at CBS Tower on North Central Expressway (north of NorthPark Mall) in Dallas; KTXA maintains transmitter facilities located south of Belt Line Road in Cedar Hill.

History

Prior history of UHF channel 21 in Dallas-Fort Worth

The UHF channel 21 allocation in the Dallas-Fort Worth market was originally occupied by KFWT, an independent station licensed to Fort Worth that signed on the air on September 19, 1967; the station was owned by W. C. Windson, owner of radio stations KJIM (870 AM, now KFJZ) and KFWT-FM (102.1, now KDGE). KFWT (102.1 FM) featured an Easy Listening format. It was the first UHF television station to sign on in the Dallas-Fort Worth market. Broadcasting nightly from 6:00 to 10:00, the station's programming consisted mostly of public domain movies. KFWT operated from studios located on Broadcast Hill at 3900 Barnett Street in Fort Worth, adjacent to the studios of WBAP-TV (channel 5, now KXAS-TV) in a transmitter building that was later used as the studios for radio station WBAP (820 AM).

KFWT's call letters stood for Fort Worth, Texas. Some of the television station's programming included The Oscar Argumedo Show, TV 21 – Country Style and Green Valley Raceway. Notables included Oscar Argumedo, Durline Dunham, Don Shook, Jim "Shootin’ Newton, Bob Hart (GM) and Bob Weatherford (later GM). Cameramen and production staff included Harold Hardgrave, Tony Mieczynski and Ed Hullum. With the station's quiet, remote location and rolling hills for dune buggy sponsor, Sandman Sales, programs were occasionally shot outdoors with the distant D/FW Turnpike and Ft. Worth skyline as a scenic backdrop. Ironically, on his way home from the station in May 1969, Program Director, Gary Windsor, died shortly after his vehicle was struck in a head-on collision by a drunk driver who was driving on the Turnpike in the wrong direction.

The station was in financial trouble by 1969, Windson then sought a buyer for KFWT. In August of that year, the station went dark for one week due to a power failure. Windson asked the Federal Communications Commission's permission to sign off for three months, a request that the Commission initially denied. KFWT resumed broadcasting for one week before permanently ceasing operations on September 5; when the station failed to find a buyer afterward that would bring the station back on, KFWT's broadcast equipment was repossessed and the license was turned over to the FCC to be cancelled. The station filed for bankruptcy on March 27, 1970. The FM radio station was retained, and the call letters were changed to KFWD.

KTXA station history

KTXA first signed on the air on October 6, 1980; originally operating as an independent station, it was founded by Grant Broadcasting. The station's original studio facilities were located on Randol Mill Road, adjacent to Six Flags Over Texas and Arlington Stadium in Arlington (although Fort Worth has always been the station's city of license). It ran a general entertainment format of cartoons and sitcoms during the daytime hours, while at night it broadcast the over-the-air subscription television service ONTV, which required a set-top decoder and a subscription fee in order to receive the ONTV signal during programming hours. By 1983, it became a general entertainment station full-time, and added classic movies and off-network drama series.

Grant Broadcasting signed on a similarly formatted station, KTXH in Houston, in 1982. In 1984, both KTXA and KTXH were sold to Gulf Broadcasting, which itself was subsequently purchased by the Taft Television and Radio Company that same year.

KTXA logo in 1987.

From 1985 to 1989, KTXA operated the "Channel 21 Kids' Club"; in short promos that aired between cartoons, area children were encouraged to send off for a membership card that would entitle them to discounts at various local businesses and enable them to participate in on-air prize giveaways. They were blue on the front side and white on the back, with a "KTXA Channel 21 Kids' Club" logo appearing on the front in red and white along with the line "I turned 21". The hostess of these shorts, K.D. Fox, was later featured in many other local promotions for various businesses in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

The station was unprofitable throughout the 1980s, but Taft kept strong programming on the station (including Hanna-Barbera cartoons and other programs owned by Taft and distributed by Worldvision Enterprises). In February 1987, Taft sold its independent stations – including KTXA – to the TVX Broadcast Group; the purchase was finalized on April 1, 1987. In 1989, Paramount Pictures purchased a minority stake in TVX; two years later on February 28, 1991, Paramount acquired the remaining interest in TVX and renamed the company Paramount Stations Group; KTXA adopted the on-air branding "Paramount 21" during this period. Viacom acquired the stations in 1994 as part of its purchase of Paramount Pictures. Around this time, the station moved its operations to the Paramount Building in the West End district of downtown Dallas.

UPN affiliation

UPN 21 logo, used until the shutdown of the network and became independent again in 2006

On January 16, 1995, KTXA became a charter affiliate of the United Paramount Network (UPN); correspondingly, it changed its branding to "UPN 21". After independent station KTVT (channel 11) affiliated with CBS in July 1995, it acquired various syndicated programs that it could not air due to its new network-heavy schedule. It became a UPN owned-and-operated station when Viacom acquired a 50% stake in the network from Chris-Craft Industries in 1996 (up to that point, Paramount maintained only a programming partnership with UPN with Chris-Craft serving as UPN's sole owner).

KTXA logo used from January 1995 to September 2002.

In the late 1990s, KTXA acquired more first-run syndicated talk and reality shows (such as Forgive or Forget and Ricki Lake), while reducing the amount of sitcoms and cartoons on its schedule. Viacom purchased CBS in 2000, making channel 21 a sister station to its former rival KTVT, which CBS had purchased from Gaylord Broadcasting the previous year. KTXA's operations moved from the Paramount Building and were integrated with KTVT at its Bridge Street studios in Fort Worth (both are two of three stations licensed to Fort Worth, the other being NBC-owned KXAS-TV (channel 5)).

For a brief period in the early 2000s, KTXA served as the de facto UPN affiliate for the Waco/Killeen/Temple television market when former affiliate KAKW became a Univision owned-and-operated station for both that market and the nearby Austin market. KTXA, KTVT and the other Viacom Television Stations Group properties were spun off to CBS Corporation after National Amusements decided to split Viacom and CBS into separate companies in December 2005.[1]

Return to independence

TXA 21 logo, used from 2006 to 2012; this variant was used since 2009. It is still in use on the station's promotions.

On January 24, 2006, the Warner Bros. unit of Time Warner and CBS Corporation announced that the two companies would shut down The WB and UPN and combine the networks' respective programming to create a new "fifth" network called The CW.[2][3] Former WB affiliate KDAF (channel 33) was named as the market's CW affiliate by way of owner Tribune Broadcasting's multi-station deal with the network, and independent station KDFI (channel 27) was named as Dallas's MyNetworkTV station through its ownership by that network's original co-parent, Fox Television Stations. By default, CBS opted to run KTXA as an independent station.

The station's new branding was announced in two phases, starting with the introduction of the "TXA 21" name on May 5, 2006. KTXA then launched a promotional ad campaign called "What Could it Mean?", in which a distinctive star-shaped logo appeared on buildings, sidewalks and billboards around the Metroplex. The new KTXA logo (seen above) was unveiled on July 4. The station's website also revealed that the station planned to begin carrying high school football games from North Texas area teams that fall. KTXA became an independent station on September 16, 2006, the day after UPN ceased operations; this made it the third independent station to be owned by CBS, alongside KCAL-TV in Los Angeles and another former UPN outlet, WSBK-TV in Boston (WSBK later joined MyNetworkTV in September 2011, while CBS purchased independent station WLNY-TV in Riverhead, New York in 2012).

KTXA is the only station among the six that were originally owned by Paramount Stations Group that remains owned by CBS; the others were sold off between 1994 and 2001 and are now owned either by 21st Century Fox or the Sinclair Broadcast Group. With KTXA reverting to independent status, the station had automatically gained a competitor in KFWD (channel 52), which had become an English language independent in January 2002 after losing its Telemundo affiliation to newfound O&O KXTX-TV (channel 39); this lasted until August 1, 2012 when channel 52 became an affiliate of the Spanish-language network MundoFox (now MundoMax). It remained the only general entertainment independent station in the Dallas-Fort Worth market until October 31, 2013 when Greenville-licensed KTXD-TV (channel 47) became an full-time independent after dropping its secondary affiliation with classic television network MeTV.

Digital television

Digital channels

The station's digital channel is multiplexed:

Channel Video Aspect PSIP Short Name Programming[4]
21.1 1080i 16:9 KTXA-DT Main KTXA programming
21.2 480i 4:3 MeTV MeTV

On December 18, 2013, KTXA announced that it would begin carrying MeTV on digital subchannel 21.2; the network moved to 21.2 on December 23, replacing original Dallas affiliate KTXD-TV (which had controversially dropped the network two months earlier);[5] this made KTXA the first television station owned by CBS to carry a major subchannel network (sister stations WCBS-TV in New York City and KYW-TV in Philadelphia are the only other CBS-owned stations that maintain subchannel services, both of which operate as locally programmed news channels).

Analog-to-digital conversion

KTXA shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 21, on June 12, 2009, as part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television.[6] The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 18 to UHF channel 19,[7] using PSIP to display KTXA's virtual channel as 21 on digital television receivers. Prior to the shutdown of its analog signal, KTXA ran a sign-off video accompanied by the "Star-Spangled Banner". KTXA was granted permission to move its digital signal from channel 18 to channel 19 in response to its 2008 application. However, to accommodate co-owned KTVT's move back to channel 19 on August 4, 2009, KTXA moved back to channel 18. Prior to August 4, KTXA simulcast KTVT's programming on 21.2.

On September 10, 2009, the FCC issued a Report & Order approving KTXA's channel change from channel 18 to channel 29.[8][9] On October 21, 2009, KTXA filed a minor change application for their new channel 29 allotment, which the FCC granted them a construction permit on November 19, 2009.[10] On January 20, 2011, KTXA commenced operations on channel 29, and it ceased operations on channel 18 the following day.[11]

Programming

Syndicated programs broadcast by KTXA include The People's Court, The Doctors, Hot Bench, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and Jeopardy! (the latter moved to KTXA on August 12, 2013 to allow sister station KTVT to debut a new 11:00 a.m. newscast[12]).

Occasionally as time permits, KTXA may air CBS network programs whenever KTVT is unable to, such as during the NFL preseason whenever KTVT is scheduled to air a Dallas Cowboys preseason game. KTXA may also interrupt regularly scheduled programming to simulcast live breaking news coverage or severe weather coverage from KTVT or special reports from CBS News.

In 2011, KTXA became the Dallas-area Love Network station for the annual MDA Labor Day Telethon for the Muscular Dystrophy Association (KTXA replaced NBC station KXAS-TV, which dropped the telethon, citing issues regarding its new primetime scheduling format that would require it to pre-empt evening network programming). The station's first telethon broadcast aired on September 4, 2011, which was also the first year of the telethon's scaled-down six-hour format (airing locally from 5:00 p.m. to midnight).[13] The telethon aired on the station until 2012, when it was renamed the MDA Show of Strength and shortened once again to four hours (from 6:00 to 10:00 p.m.). The Show of Strength dropped its syndicated format in 2013, being restructured as a network telecast on ABC.[14][15]

Since 2013 from Christmas Eve to Christmas night, KTXA has aired its own localized version of the annual Yule Log special, simulcasting Christmas music from sister station 98.7 KLUV.

Sports programming

The station is the over-the-air broadcast outlet for the NBA's Dallas Mavericks and since 2010, Major League Baseball's Texas Rangers and the NHL's Dallas Stars. KTXA will broadcast 25 Rangers games each season (usually Friday games) through the 2014 season and has aired 17 Dallas Stars games annually since the 2010–11 NHL season; KTXA's Rangers telecasts are produced by Fox Sports Southwest and are syndicated to certain stations in the south-central U.S. (such as KCWX in San Antonio and KSBI in Oklahoma City).

KTXA also serves as the over-the-air broadcaster of Dallas Cowboys regular season games broadcast by either ESPN or NFL Network, in order to satisfy NFL requirements that games be distributed on a broadcast television station in each team's local market for those who do not have access to those networks. KTXA also carried CBS coverage of the 2010 NCAA Basketball Tournament game between Baylor and Sam Houston State, while KTVT aired North Texas and Kansas State (such arrangements are no longer possible due to the NCAA joint tournament contract with CBS Sports and Turner Sports effective with the 2011 NCAA season).

KTXA also broadcast college football games from SEC TV (formerly SEC Network), as well as men's basketball games from the Big 12 Network, both of which are operated by ESPN Regional Television. SEC Football broadcasts ended after the 2013–2014 season due to the national launch of the cable-exclusive SEC Network in August 2014 as part of a 20-year agreement between the Southeastern Conference and ESPN.

In order to replace the SEC football broadcasts due to the SEC Network's national presence, KTXA began broadcasting Atlantic Coast Conference football and basketball from the ACC Network, a Raycom Sports-operated ad hoc syndicated sports package that began syndicating to 84% of all U.S. Households, beginning with the 2014–2015 season.[16]

Newscasts

KTXA newscast title card.

On September 18, 2006, KTVT began producing a nightly primetime newscast for KTXA, titled TXA 21 News: First In Prime, running for two hours from 7:00-9:00 p.m. Similar to the format of Los Angeles sister station KCAL-TV's primetime newscasts, the newscasts were originally structured to feature different types of news stories partitioned within the block: the 7:00 p.m. half-hour focused mainly on local news headlines, the 7:30 half-hour focused on state and national news, and the 8:00 p.m. hour focused on general news stories. As the newscast aired during the first two hours of primetime, KTXA did not have any direct competition; but to an extent, the program could have been considered a competitor to the 9:00 p.m. newscasts on KDFW and KDAF. On September 24, 2007, KTVT began broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition; the KTXA newscasts were included in the upgrade.

Until September 2011, KTXA also carried the syndicated morning news program The Daily Buzz on weekdays (which later moved to KFWD, then on KDFI before it canceled). KTXA formerly produced local cut-ins featuring local news, weather and entertainment stories that appeared during the program, branded as Buzzed into DFW and anchored by Christina McLarty (later a correspondent with omg! Insider).

On September 12, 2011, KTXA reduced the newscast to an hour-long block consisting of a half-hour local newscast at 7:00 p.m. and a half-hour sports program at 7:30 p.m. (syndicated reruns of America's Funniest Home Videos replaced the 8:00 p.m. hour of the newscast).[17][18] The evening newscast was cancelled outright on October 31, 2011, while its sports program was expanded and renamed The Fan Sports Show, which continued to be hosted by then-sports director Gina Miller. That would only last for three years with the final broadcast on Thursday, June 5, 2014. On Monday, June 9, Inside Edition would move into the 6:30 p.m. timeslot, with the Classic Western Hour (starting with reruns of Gunsmoke and Bonanza filling in the 7:00-8:00 p.m. hour, and eventually, other programs would fill the 7:00-9:00 p.m. timeslots, including Law and Order: SVU). Because of this, KTXA is the only CBS-owned independent station without a news/sportscast but still owning rights to air the Texas Rangers, Dallas Stars, and Dallas Mavericks games along with high school and college football coverages.[19]

References

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Thursday, March 03, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.