KPEJ-TV (channel 24) 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 ea ...

licensed to

Odessa, Texas Odessa is a city in and the county seat of Ector County, Texas, United States. It is located primarily in Ector County, although a small section of the city extends into Midland County. Odessa's population was 114,428 at the 2020 census, ma ...

, United States, serving as the Fox affiliate for the Permian Basin area. It is owned by

Mission Broadcasting Mission Broadcasting, Inc. is a television station group that owns 20 television stations in 17 markets in the United States. The group's Chair is Nancie Smith, the widow of David S. Smith, who founded the company in 1996 and died in 2011. All but ...

, which maintains a

shared services Shared services is the provision of a service by one part of an organization or group, where that service had previously been found, in more than one part of the organization or group. Thus the funding and resourcing of the service is shared and th ...

agreement (SSA) with

Nexstar Media Group Nexstar Media Group, Inc. is an American publicly traded media company with headquarter offices in Irving, Texas; Midtown Manhattan; and Chicago, Illinois. The company is the largest television station owner in the United States, owning 197 te ...

, owner of Midland-licensed ABC affiliate KMID (channel 2), for the provision of certain services. Both stations share studios on Windview Street (along

I-20 Interstate 20 (I‑20) is a major east–west Interstate Highway in the Southern United States. I-20 runs beginning at an interchange with I-10 in Scroggins Draw, Texas, and ending at an interchange with I-95 in Florence, South Carolina. Betwe ...

) in southwestern Odessa, while KPEJ-TV's transmitter is located on FM 1788 in rural southeastern Andrews County.

History

The station first signed on the air on June 16, 1986; it originally operated as an

independent station An independent station is an independent radio or terrestrial television station which is independent in some way from broadcast networks. The definition of "independence" varies from country to country, reflecting governmental regulations, marke ...

. However, despite not officially identifying as a Fox affiliate, it did carry the few Fox prime time programs that aired in the network's early years. In 1990, KPEJ became the Midland–Odessa market's Fox affiliate. In 1998, the station began carrying programming from the United Paramount Network ( UPN) as a secondary affiliation; UPN programming moved to CBS affiliate

KOSA-TV KOSA-TV (channel 7) is a television station licensed to Odessa, Texas, United States, serving as the CBS affiliate for the Permian Basin area. It is owned by Gray Television alongside MyNetworkTV affiliate KWWT (channel 30, also licensed to Od ...

(channel 7) in 2003, when that station launched a second digital subchannel (later affiliated with

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 ...

and now with The CW+ as a

satellite A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioiso ...

KCWO-TV KCWO-TV (channel 4) is a television station licensed to Big Spring, Texas, United States, serving the Permian Basin area as an affiliate of The CW Plus. It is owned by Gray Television alongside CBS affiliate KOSA-TV (channel 7), MyNetworkTV affi ...

(channel 4)). In August 2007, KPEJ changed its on-air branding from "Fox 24" to "Fox West Texas"; the following year, it reverted to the "Fox 24" brand, but continued to use the "Fox West Texas" brand for its website and other special promotions. On April 24, 2013, the Communications Corporation of America announced the sale of its television stations to the Nexstar Broadcasting Group, owner of ABC affiliate KMID (channel 2). Since the Odessa–Midland market has only eight full-power stations, Nexstar could not legally purchase KPEJ (

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 jurisdicti ...

rules require a market to have eight remaining unique station owners after a

duopoly A duopoly (from Greek δύο, ''duo'' "two" and πωλεῖν, ''polein'' "to sell") is a type of oligopoly where two firms have dominant or exclusive control over a market. It is the most commonly studied form of oligopoly due to its simplicit ...

is formed). In addition, KMID and KPEJ are two of the four highest-rated stations in the market in monthly total-day viewership, respectively ranking at third and fourth place. As a result, Nexstar planned to sell KPEJ's license assets to

, with Nexstar assuming the station's operation under a shared services agreement, which would have formed a virtual duopoly with KMID. However, on June 6, 2014, Nexstar announced that it would instead sell KPEJ-TV, along with two other Fox affiliates—sister station KMSS-TV in

Shreveport, Louisiana Shreveport ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is the third most populous city in Louisiana after New Orleans and Baton Rouge, respectively. The Shreveport–Bossier City metropolitan area, with a population of 393,406 in 2020, is ...

and KLJB in

Davenport, Iowa Davenport is a city in and the county seat of Scott County, Iowa, United States. Located along the Mississippi River on the eastern border of the state, it is the largest of the Quad Cities, a metropolitan area with a population of 384,324 and ...

—to the

Marshall Broadcasting Group Marshall Broadcasting Group, Inc. was an American television broadcasting company that owned three full power television stations in Iowa, Louisiana and Texas. The company was founded on December 1, 2014 by Pluria Marshall, Jr. All three of its tel ...

(marking the company's first television station acquisitions) for $58.5 million. The minority-owned Marshall intends to fund the acquisitions through borrowings guaranteed by Nexstar, and are subject to FCC approval of the other stations Nexstar plans to acquire from ComCorp, White Knight Broadcasting and

Grant Broadcasting Grant Broadcasting System II (also referred to as Grant Communications and Grant Company) was an owner of various television stations in the United States, Based in Roanoke, Virginia. Grant Broadcasting was founded in 1990 by Milton Grant (May 1 ...

; Marshall plans to launch news operations and provide sports and minority-oriented public affairs programming to KMSS and the other two stations, with Nexstar providing sales and certain non-programming services (including engineering,

master control Master control is the technical hub of a broadcast operation common among most over-the-air television stations and television networks. It is distinct from a production control room (PCR) in television studios where the activities such as swi ...

and other administrative functions). The sale was completed on January 1, 2015. On December 3, 2019, Marshall Broadcasting Group filed for

Chapter 11 Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code (Title 11 of the United States Code) permits reorganization under the bankruptcy laws of the United States. Such reorganization, known as Chapter 11 bankruptcy, is available to every business, wheth ...

bankruptcy protection. Mission Broadcasting, another company associated with Nexstar Media Group, agreed to purchase Marshall Broadcasting's stations for $49 million on March 30, 2020. The transaction was completed on September 1, 2020.

Programming

After Fox acquired the rights to the NFL's

National Football Conference The National Football Conference (NFC) is one of the two conferences of the National Football League (NFL), the highest professional level of American football in the United States. The NFC and its counterpart, the American Football Conference ( ...

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which sank in the Baltic Sea; Nels ...

, KPEJ has carried preseason football games from the

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 club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East divis ...

, along with team owner

Jerry Jones Jerral Wayne Jones (born October 13, 1942) is an American businessman who has been the owner, president, and general manager of the Dallas Cowboys of the National Football League (NFL) since February 1989. Early life Jones was born in Los Ange ...

' weekly game discussion program. In

2010 File:2010 Events Collage New.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2010 Chile earthquake was one of the strongest recorded in history; The Eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland disrupts air travel in Europe; A scene from the opening ceremony of ...

, KPEJ also acquired the rights to

Houston Texans The Houston Texans are a professional American football team based in Houston. The Texans compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference (AFC) South division, and play their home games at NR ...

preseason games, which aired on tape delay if the game started while a Cowboys pre-game broadcast or preseason game telecast was ongoing. KPEJ lost the Dallas Cowboys preseason games to

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

affiliate KWES-TV in

2011 File:2011 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: a protester partaking in Occupy Wall Street heralds the beginning of the Occupy movement; protests against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed that October; a young man celebrates ...

, resulting in KPEJ broadcasting Texans preseason games live. In

2014 File:2014 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Stocking up supplies and personal protective equipment (PPE) for the Western African Ebola virus epidemic; Citizens examining the ruins after the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping; Bundles of wa ...

, KMID acquired the rights to the Dallas Cowboys preseason games. When conflicts exist that won't allow KMID to air the games, KPEJ has been given the rights to air the Dallas Cowboys preseason games. When Dallas plays Houston in the preseason, KMID airs the Dallas broadcast while KPEJ airs the Texans broadcast.

Technical information

Subchannels

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

Analog-to-digital conversion

KPEJ-TV shut down its analog signal, over

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

channel 24, on June 12, 2009, the official date in which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 23. Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's

virtual channel In most telecommunications organizations, a virtual channel is a method of remapping the ''program number'' as used in H.222 Program Association Tables and Program Mapping Tables to a channel number that can be entered via digits on a receiver's ...

as its former UHF analog channel 24.

References

External links

* (shared with KMID) {{DEFAULTSORT:Kpej-Tv Fox network affiliates Estrella TV affiliates Rewind TV affiliates Television channels and stations established in 1986 PEJ-TV 1986 establishments in Texas Nexstar Media Group