KPXB-TV (channel 49) 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 ...

licensed to

Conroe, Texas Conroe is a city in and the county seat of Montgomery County, Texas, United States, about north of Houston. It is a principal city in the metropolitan area. As of 2021, the population was 98,081, up from 56,207 in 2010. Since 2007, the ...

, United States, broadcasting the

Ion Television Ion Television is an American broadcast television network owned by the Katz Broadcasting subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company. The network first began broadcasting on August 31, 1998, as Pax TV, focusing primarily on family-oriented enter ...

network to the

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 ...

area. It is

owned and operated 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 affiliate ...

by the

Ion Media Ion Media (formerly known as Paxson Communications Corporation and Ion Media Networks) was an American broadcasting company that owned and operated over 71 television stations in most major American markets (through its television stations group ...

subsidiary of the

E.W. Scripps Company The E. W. Scripps Company is an American broadcasting company founded in 1878 as a chain of daily newspapers by Edward Willis "E. W." Scripps and his sister, Ellen Browning Scripps. It was also formerly a media conglomerate. The company is he ...

, and maintains a transmitter near

Missouri City Missouri City is a city in the U.S. state of Texas, within the metropolitan area. The city is mostly in Fort Bend County, with a small portion in Harris County. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 74,259, up from 67,35 ...

, in

unincorporated Unincorporated may refer to: * Unincorporated area, land not governed by a local municipality * Unincorporated entity, a type of organization * Unincorporated territories of the United States, territories under U.S. jurisdiction, to which Congress ...

northeastern

Fort Bend County Fort Bend County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. The county was founded in 1837 and organized the next year. It is named for a blockhouse at a bend of the Brazos River. The community developed around the fort in early days. The ...

History

The station first signed on the air on June 16, 1989 as KTFH (not to be confused with present-day

UniMás UniMás (, stylized as ''UNIMÁS'', and originally known as TeleFutura from its launch on January 14, 2002, to January 6, 2013) is an American Spanish free-to-air television network owned by TelevisaUnivision. The network's programming, which is ...

owned-and-operated station

KFTH-DT KFTH-DT (channel 67) is a television station licensed to Alvin, Texas, United States, broadcasting the Spanish-language UniMás network to the Houston area. It is owned and operated by TelevisaUnivision alongside Rosenberg-licensed Univision out ...

, channel 67); mainly airing

home shopping Home shopping is the electronic retailing and home shopping channels industry, which includes such billion dollar television-based and e-commerce companies as Shop LC, HSN, Gemporia, TJC, QVC, eBay, ShopHQ, Buy.com and Amazon.com, as well as tradit ...

programming, before becoming an over-the-air affiliate of

Spanish-language Spanish ( or , Castilian) is a Romance languages, Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from colloquial Latin spoken on the Iberian peninsula. Today, it is a world language, global language with more than 500 millio ...

network

Galavisión Galavisión is an American Spanish-language pay television network owned by TelevisaUnivision. The network is unrelated to the earlier Mexican channel of the same name, though both broadcast Televisa-produced programming. As of February 2015, a ...

(which is primarily distributed through

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 ...

satellite television Satellite television is a service that delivers television programming to viewers by relaying it from a communications satellite orbiting the Earth directly to the viewer's location. The signals are received via an outdoor parabolic antenna comm ...

, and

IPTV Internet Protocol television (IPTV) is the delivery of television content over Internet Protocol (IP) networks. This is in contrast to delivery through traditional terrestrial, satellite, and cable television formats. Unlike downloaded media, ...

) in November of that year. KTFH was sold to Paxson Communications in 1995. Paxson then dropped Galavisión and affiliated it with its Infomall Television Network (inTV)

infomercial An infomercial is a form of television commercial that resembles regular TV programming yet is intended to promote or sell a product, service or idea. It generally includes a toll-free telephone number or website. Most often used as a form of dire ...

service on April 3, 1995; its call letters were later changed to KPXB in early 1998. KPXB, along with other Paxson-owned stations, became a charter station of Pax TV (later i: Independent Television and now Ion Television) when the network launched on August 31, 1998. From 1990 until 2009, KPXB was relayed on low-power

translator Translation is the communication of the Meaning (linguistic), meaning of a #Source and target languages, source-language text by means of an Dynamic and formal equivalence, equivalent #Source and target languages, target-language text. The ...

KBPX-LP (channel 33), which mainly served to improve KPXB's signal coverage in southern portions of Houston since the full-power

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 ...

transmitter site was located in the far northern suburbs. On September 24, 2020, the

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

-based

E. W. Scripps Company The E. W. Scripps Company is an American broadcasting company founded in 1878 as a chain of daily newspapers by Edward Willis "E. W." Scripps and his sister, Ellen Browning Scripps. It was also formerly a media conglomerate. The company is he ...

announced it would purchase KPXB-TV's owner, Ion Media, for $2.65 billion, with financing from

Berkshire Hathaway Berkshire Hathaway Inc. () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate holding company headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, United States. Its main business and source of capital is insurance, from ...

. Part of the deal includes divesting 23 stations nationally to an undisclosed third party maintaining Ion affiliations.

Newscasts

From 2000 to 2005, KPXB aired rebroadcasts of

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainmen ...

affiliate

KHOU KHOU (channel 11) is a television station in Houston, Houston, Texas, United States, affiliated with CBS. It is owned by Tegna Inc. alongside Conroe, Texas, Conroe-licensed Quest (American TV network), Quest station KTBU (channel 55). Both sta ...

(channel 11)'s newscasts at 6:30 and 11:30 p.m. instead of airing newscasts from

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an Television in the United States, American English-language Commercial broadcasting, commercial television network, broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Enterta ...

affiliate

KPRC-TV KPRC-TV (channel 2) is a television station in Houston, Houston, Texas, United States, affiliated with NBC and owned by Graham Media Group. Its studios are located on Southwest Freeway (Interstate 69 in Texas, I-69/U.S. Route 59 in Texas#Inters ...

(channel 2).

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

KPXB-TV discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over

UHF Ultra high frequency (UHF) is the ITU designation for radio frequencies in the range between 300 megahertz (MHz) and 3 gigahertz (GHz), also known as the decimetre band as the wavelengths range from one meter to one tenth of a meter (on ...

channel 49, on June 12, 2009, as part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television.List of Digital Full-Power Stations
The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition

VHF Very high frequency (VHF) is the ITU designation for the range of radio frequency electromagnetic waves (radio waves) from 30 to 300 megahertz (MHz), with corresponding wavelengths of ten meters to one meter. Frequencies immediately below VHF ...

channel 5 to UHF channel 32 due to signal issues common with low-band VHF digital channels, 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 A ...

to display KPXB-TV'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 49 on digital television receivers. After the digital transition, KPXB moved its transmitter from east of

Splendora Splendora was an American all-female alternative rock band from New York City. Formed in 1993 by Janet Wygal (lead vocals, guitar), Tricia Wygal (lead vocals, bass), Delissa Santos (drums), Cindy Brolsma (cello), and Jennifer Richardson (violin ...

to the Houston-area antenna farm near Missouri City. KBPX-LP was shut down on June 30, 2009, two weeks after the digital transition, due to loss of access to the tower site. However, since the main KPXB transmitter provides a signal comparable to the other Houston stations, the translator was redundant in any event. On November 22, 2010, KBPX-LP resumed operations on digital channel 46, as an affiliate of

The Country Network The Country Network is an American cable, streaming and broadcast television network that specializes in broadcasting country music videos and exclusive original music-based content; its playlist of videos extends from the 1990s through the pre ...

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kpxb-Tv Television channels and stations established in 1989 1989 establishments in Texas Ion Television affiliates Bounce TV affiliates Court TV affiliates Defy TV affiliates Laff (TV network) affiliates TrueReal affiliates Newsy affiliates E. W. Scripps Company television stations PXB-TV Conroe, Texas