KCWX,
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's ...
2 (
VHF digital
Digital usually refers to something using discrete digits, often binary digits.
Technology and computing Hardware
*Digital electronics, electronic circuits which operate using digital signals
**Digital camera, which captures and stores digital i ...
channel 5), is 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 ...
-
affiliated 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 ...
licensed
A license (or licence) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit).
A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another party (licensee) as an element of an agreeme ...
to
Fredericksburg, Texas
Fredericksburg (german: Friedrichsberg) is the seat of Gillespie County, in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2010 Census, this city had a population of 10,530.
Fredericksburg was founded in 1846 and named after Prince Frederick of Prussia. O ...
, United States. Although Fredericksburg is within the
Austin
Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the seat and largest city of Travis County, with portions extending into Hays and Williamson counties. Incorporated on December 27, 1839, it is the 11th-most-populous city ...
DMA, the station is officially assigned by
Nielsen to the larger
San Antonio
("Cradle of Freedom")
, image_map =
, mapsize = 220px
, map_caption = Interactive map of San Antonio
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name = United States
, subdivision_type1= U.S. state, State
, subdivision_name1 = Texas
, s ...
market, and its signal covers the San Antonio and
Bexar County
Bexar County ( or ; es, Béxar ) is a county in the U.S. state of Texas. It is in South Texas and its county seat is San Antonio.
As of the 2020 census, the population was 2,009,324. Bexar County is included in the San Antonio–New Bra ...
area. The station is owned by Austin-based Corridor Television and maintains main studios in Austin on West Avenue. Its main transmitter is located on the
Gillespie–
Kendall county line.
Since its sign-on in 2000, KCWX's history has straddled the San Antonio and Austin markets; since 2006, it has only held a network affiliation in the San Antonio market.
History
The long road to construction
In 1986, 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 jurisdiction ...
added a channel 2 assignment to Fredericksburg, located from Austin and from San Antonio; the allotment was possible without interfering with channel 2 stations in
Nuevo Laredo
Nuevo Laredo () is a city in the Municipality of Nuevo Laredo in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas. The city lies on the banks of the Rio Grande, across from Laredo, United States. The 2010 census population of the city was 373,725. Nuevo Lare ...
to the south,
Midland to the west,
Denton to the north, and
Houston
Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...
to the east.
The availability of a VHF station that could potentially serve two media markets attracted attention. In June 1987, the FCC designated twelve applicants for comparative hearing.
Some of the applicants, notably the
Telemundo
Telemundo (; formerly NetSpan) is an American Spanish-language Terrestrial television, terrestrial television network owned by NBCUniversal Television and Streaming#NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises, NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises, a divi ...
network, dropped out in the months following the hearing designation order. Administrative law judge Edward Luton made his initial decision on who should be granted the channel out of six contenders in June 1989; he selected Stonewall Television, owned by Marquis Whittington and Robert Simmons. The FCC's review board, however, overturned this decision in 1993 and gave the nod to Fredericksburg Channel 2, an applicant whose principal stakeholders were former
San Antonio Spurs
The San Antonio Spurs are an American professional basketball team based in San Antonio. The Spurs compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Western Conference (NBA), Western Conference Southwest Division ( ...
owner
Red McCombs
Billy Joe "Red" McCombs (born October 19, 1927) is an American businessman. He is the founder of the Red McCombs Automotive Group in San Antonio, Texas, a co-founder of Clear Channel Communications, former chairman of Constellis Group, a form ...
and Bob Roth, a former manager and son of the owner of
KONO-TV channel 12 in San Antonio in the 1950s and 1960s.
As appeals continued on the 1993 decision, tragedy struck. On October 20, 1995, Roth took two executives from the
Hearst Corporation
Hearst Communications, Inc., often referred to simply as Hearst, is an American multinational mass media and business information conglomerate based in Hearst Tower in Midtown Manhattan, New York City.
Hearst owns newspapers, magazines, televis ...
to scout the area and view the proposed transmitter site. The car they were traveling in was involved in a head-on collision south of
Stonewall; Roth died at the age of 73. No one was wearing seat belts at the time of the accident.
In 1996, Fredericksburg Channel 2 merged with one of its five competing applicants: Global Information Technologies of Austin, a company owned by Carmen and Saleem Tawil. The Tawils had previously built and sold a low-power independent TV station in Austin,
K13VC
K13VC, VHF analog channel 13, was a low-powered independent television station licensed to Austin, Texas, United States, which operated from November 30, 1989 until March 29, 2003. Branded on-air as "KVC 13", it was a sister station of KTBC (ch ...
.
In August 1997, the FCC approved the combined application of Fredericksburg Channel 2 and Global and dismissed the other applicants, one of which, Frontier Broadcasting, challenged the dismissal in federal appeals court; Frontier had its application dismissed over transmitter site issues in 1989. With a construction permit in hand, the partnership, taking the name of Corridor Television, began building channel 2 in 1998. The call letters KBEJ, a sequential assignment, were given to the construction permit in May 1998.
As a UPN affiliate
As early as 1997,
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 ...
was seen as the most likely affiliation for KBEJ to pursue. By 2000, the network had already experienced problems keeping an affiliate in both San Antonio and Austin. When it launched in 1995, the network was affiliated with
KRRT channel 35 for the San Antonio market and
the Hill Country Paramount Network, a chain of low-power TV stations, serving Austin. Both had been lost.
Sinclair Broadcast Group
Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. (SBG) is a publicly traded American telecommunications conglomerate that is controlled by the descendants of company founder Julian Sinclair Smith. Headquartered in the Baltimore suburb of Cockeysville, Maryland, t ...
, owner of KRRT, switched its UPN affiliates to
The WB
The WB Television Network (for Warner Bros., or the "Frog Network", for its former mascot, Michigan J. Frog) was an American television network launched on broadcast television on January 11, 1995, as a joint venture between the Warner Bros. ...
in a group deal announced in 1997, and UPN did not have a San Antonio affiliate after that time;
KMOL-TV, the NBC affiliate that was co-owned with UPN itself by
United Television
BHC Communications, Inc. was the holding company for the broadcast property of Chris-Craft Industries. BHC stands for "broadcasting holding company".
History
The firm was originally incorporated in 1977 as BHC, Incorporated by Chris-Craft Ind ...
, was airing the network in late-night hours. In 1998, UPN had dropped the Hill Country Paramount Network for K13VC on six days' notice because K13VC, unlike the previous affiliate, had cable carriage.
In addition to a UPN affiliation, Corridor contracted with
Belo, which owned Austin's
KVUE
KVUE (channel 24) is a television station in Austin, Texas, United States, affiliated with ABC and owned by Tegna Inc. The station's studios are located on Steck Avenue just east of Loop 1 in northwest Austin, and its transmitter is located ...
and San Antonio's
KENS
KENS (channel 5) is a television station in San Antonio, Texas, United States, affiliated with CBS and owned by Tegna Inc. The station's studios are located on Fredericksburg Road in northwest San Antonio, near the South Texas Medical Center, wh ...
, to operate channel 2, which began broadcasting August 3, 2000.
Belo provided management services from KENS and technical services from its headquarters in
Dallas
Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...
. In addition to UPN and syndicated programming, the star attraction of the new KBEJ was a package of 31 San Antonio Spurs games; that year, KENS and KBEJ had won the rights to the Spurs from their previous carriers, KSAT and KRRT.
Cable carriage proved to be a difficulty at the outset for KBEJ. Before launch, and even as transmitter tests were being conducted, the FCC had yet to rule on which market the new station, equidistant from San Antonio and Austin, was to be placed in. The original designation was Austin, but it would take the new channel longer to find cable carriage there than in San Antonio, where it was added by
Time Warner Cable
Time Warner Cable, Inc. (TWC) was an American cable television company. Before it was acquired by Charter Communications on May 18, 2016, it was ranked the second largest cable company in the United States by revenue behind only Comcast, operat ...
on October 28, right before the start of the NBA season. It was not until August 2, 2001, that KBEJ made an appearance on Time Warner Cable's Austin system after pressure from viewers and an agreement with Belo.
By the time Austin cable viewers could get KBEJ, however, the Spurs had soured on channel 2. Residents of the south side of San Antonio, further away from Fredericksburg, complained of signal difficulties. The transmitter was located to the north of the city, whereas the other stations were to its south.
The Spurs had averaged an 8.5 rating on KRRT in the 1999–2000 season; by February 2001, they were pulling a 5.5 on KBEJ, whereas ratings for KENS games held steady. Before the 2001–2002 season, the Spurs moved back to KRRT, even though KBEJ had held a multi-year contract for the games.
As a CW affiliate
![KCWX Logo](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/35/KCWX_Logo.png)
On January 24, 2006, the
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. D ...
unit of
Time Warner
Warner Media, LLC ( traded as WarnerMedia) was an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate. It was headquartered at the 30 Hudson Yards complex in New York City, United States.
It was originally established in 1972 by ...
and
CBS Corporation
The second incarnation of CBS Corporation (the first being a short-lived rename of the Westinghouse Electric Corporation) was an American multinational media conglomerate with interests primarily in commercial broadcasting, publishing, and t ...
announced that the two companies would shut down The WB and UPN and combine the networks' respective programming to create a new fifth network,
The CW
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
. On March 28, Corridor Television signed an agreement to make KBEJ San Antonio's CW affiliate. Three weeks later, on April 18, The CW announced it had affiliated with Austin's WB affiliate,
KNVA
KNVA (channel 54) is a television station in Austin, Texas, United States, serving as a ''de facto'' owned-and-operated station of The CW. It is owned by Vaughan Media and operated under a local marketing agreement (LMA) by The CW's majority ow ...
. On April 7, 2006, KBEJ changed to KCWX, reflecting its new affiliation.
With The CW boasting affiliates for both San Antonio and Austin, KCWX became a San Antonio-market station exclusively. Soon after The CW launched on September 18, 2006, Time Warner Cable began blacking out CW programming on KCWX in the Austin market, as KNVA owner
LIN TV Corporation claimed syndication exclusivity for KNVA on October 2. Time Warner continued to carry KCWX's non-network programming until April 3, 2007, when Time Warner Cable officially dropped KCWX from its Austin channel lineup.
Switch to MyNetworkTV
In Sinclair Broadcast Group's
annual report
An annual report is a comprehensive report on a company's activities throughout the preceding year. Annual reports are intended to give shareholders and other interested people information about the company's activities and financial performance. ...
for 2009, released in March 2010, the company disclosed that it had signed the month before an affiliation agreement to move the CW affiliation to its San Antonio
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 KMYS on September 1, 2010. The affiliation switch was eventually moved up two days to August 30; on that date, the MyNetworkTV affiliation moved to KCWX.
With the then-pending loss of its CW affiliation, Belo terminated its LMA with Corridor Television on April 24, 2010, forcing Corridor to operate KCWX on its own.
In addition to the MyNetworkTV schedule,
syndicated programs currently broadcast by KCWX include ''
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.
In ...
'', ''
25 Words or Less'', ''
The Goldbergs'', ''
Friends
''Friends'' is an American television sitcom created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman, which aired on NBC from September 22, 1994, to May 6, 2004, lasting ten seasons. With an ensemble cast starring Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa ...
'', and ''
Murdoch Mysteries
''Murdoch Mysteries'' is a Canadian television drama series that premiered on Citytv on January 20, 2008, and currently airs on CBC. The series is based on characters from the ''Detective Murdoch'' novels by Maureen Jennings and stars Yannick B ...
'', among others. KCWX also airs movies sourced from the
This TV
This TV (also known as This TV Network and alternately stylized as thisTV) is an American free-to-air television network owned by Allen Media
Broadcast Networks, LLC, part of the Allen Media Group division of Entertainment Studios. Originally fo ...
lineup.
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
Because it was granted an original
construction permit
Planning permission or developmental approval refers to the approval needed for construction or expansion (including significant renovation), and sometimes for demolition, in some jurisdictions. It is usually given in the form of a building perm ...
after the FCC finalized the
DTV allotment plan on April 21, 1997, the station did not receive a companion channel for a digital television station. Instead, on June 12, 2009, which was the end of the digital television conversion period for full-service stations, KCWX was required to turn off its
analog
Analog or analogue may refer to:
Computing and electronics
* Analog signal, in which information is encoded in a continuous variable
** Analog device, an apparatus that operates on analog signals
*** Analog electronics, circuits which use analog ...
signal and turn on its digital signal. The station
flash-cut its digital signal into operation on VHF channel 5; as it chose that allocation as its final digital channel selection, it had to wait for CBS affiliate KENS to shut down its analog signal before KCWX could bring its digital signal online, using
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 AT ...
to 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's ...
as its former VHF analog channel 2.
In late May 2009, in a filing with the FCC, Belo/Corridor stated that it would not have KCWX's digital signal ready to sign-on on June 12, instead expecting it to be ready on July 10 due to weather delays. Cable subscribers continued to view the station via a direct fiber connection of KCWX from KENS to the Time Warner Cable
headend. Corridor/Belo was able to negotiate with the tower installer to finish the construction of the tower earlier than expected; KCWX's digital signal finally signed on the air on July 1, 2009. The signal reaches south of San Antonio and southeast to
Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...
, north to
Lampasas
Lampasas ( ) is a city in Lampasas County, Texas, United States. Its population was 7,291 at the 2020 census. It is the seat of Lampasas County.
Lampasas is part of the Killeen–Temple–Fort Hood metropolitan statistical area.
History ...
and west to
Junction
Junction may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Junction'' (film), a 2012 American film
* Jjunction, a 2002 Indian film
* Junction (album), a 1976 album by Andrew Cyrille
* Junction (EP), by Basement Jaxx, 2002
* Junction (manga), or ''Hot ...
.
Since KCWX operates on a low-band VHF channel, an application has been filed with the FCC to increase the station's
effective radiated power
Effective radiated power (ERP), synonymous with equivalent radiated power, is an IEEE standardized definition of directional radio frequency (RF) power, such as that emitted by a radio transmitter. It is the total power in watts that would hav ...
from 23.7 kW to 82.9 kW as well as an application to launch a fill-in digital translator that would broadcast on VHF channel 8 in the immediate part of San Antonio. KCWX also re-broadcasts on a digital translator in Austin on VHF channel 8.
APPLICATION FOR AUTHORITY TO CONSTRUCT OR MAKE CHANGES IN A LOW POWER TV, TV TRANSLATOR OR TV BOOSTER STATION
/ref>
References
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kcwx
MyNetworkTV affiliates
This TV affiliates
Bounce TV affiliates
Decades (TV network) affiliates
Television channels and stations established in 2000
Television stations in San Antonio
2000 establishments in Texas