KWWT (channel 30) 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 eart ...

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 the Permian Basin area as an affiliate of

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 ...

. It is owned by Gray Television alongside

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 Entertainm ...

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 Ode ...

(channel 7, also licensed to Odessa), Big Spring–licensed CW+ affiliate

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 a ...

(channel 4),

Telemundo Telemundo (; formerly NetSpan) is an American Spanish-language terrestrial television network owned by NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises, a division of NBCUniversal, which in turn is owned by Comcast. It provides content nationally with pr ...

affiliate KTLE-LD (channel 7.5) and

Antenna TV Antenna TV is an American digital television network owned by Nexstar Media Group. The network's programming consists of classic television series, primarily sitcoms, from the 1950s to the 1990s. Antenna TV's programming and advertising operati ...

affiliate KMDF-LD (channel 22). The five stations share studios inside the Music City Mall on East 42nd Street in Odessa, with a secondary studio and news bureau in downtown Midland; KWWT's transmitter is located on SH 158 near Gardendale, Texas.

History

KWWT signed on the air on December 5, 2001, as KPXK. It was a

Pax TV 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 ente ...

affiliate until late 2005, when KWWT moved its cable-only

The WB 100+ The WB 100+ Station Group (originally called The WeB from its developmental stages until March 1999) was a national programming service of The WB—owned by the Warner Bros. Entertainment division of Time Warner, the Tribune Company, and group f ...

feed (which was established on September 21, 1998) to UHF channel 30. On January 24, 2006,

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 ...

and 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 ...

announced the shutdown of both

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 ...

and The WB effective that fall. In place of these two networks, a new "fifth" network—"

The CW Television Network ''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 ...

" (its name representing the first initials of parent companies CBS and Warner Bros.), jointly owned by both companies, would launch, with a lineup primarily featuring the most popular programs from both networks. In March 2006 it was announced that KWWT would be a CW affiliate through

The CW Plus The CW Plus is a secondary national programming service feed of The CW that is fully controlled and 75% owned by Nexstar Media Group, with Paramount Global and Warner Bros. Discovery each owning a 12.5% stake in the network. It is intended prima ...

. In 2011, KWWT signed on to carry college football and

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

games from the

Southland Conference Television Network The Southland Conference, abbreviated as SLC, is a collegiate athletic conference which operates in the South Central United States (specifically Texas and Louisiana). It participates in the NCAA's Division I for all sports; for football, it pa ...

. The contract continues today. For the first 3 seasons the games usually aired on 30.2, though they will likely move to 30.1 for the 2014 season. Additionally, KWWT aired ACC Network basketball games during the 2011–12 basketball season. KWWT remained a CW affiliate until December 29, 2013. On that date,

KWES-TV KWES-TV (channel 9) is a television station licensed to Odessa, Texas, United States, serving the Permian Basin area as an affiliate of NBC. The station is owned by Tegna Inc. and maintains studios on West County Road 127 near the Midland Inte ...

(channel 9) took over CW rights and KWWT moved MeTV to 30.1 while adding

Movies! Movies! (also known as simply M!) is an American free-to-air television network, owned by Popcorn Entertainment, LLC, a joint venture between Weigel Broadcasting and the Fox Television Stations subsidiary of Fox Corporation. The network's prog ...

on 30.2. On July 24, 2020, it was announced that Gray Television (owner of

affiliate

and CW affiliate

) would purchase KWWT and sister low-power station KMDF-LD for $1.84 million, pending approval of 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 jurisdicti ...

(FCC). Gray sought a failing station waiver as the Odessa–Midland market would not have at least eight independent voices after the transaction (KCWO-TV is licensed 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 radioi ...

of KOSA-TV despite airing different programming). In addition, Gray also announced that after the sale, KWWT would move its operations to the shared KOSA/KCWO facility in Odessa. The FCC granted the waiver on September 14. The sale was completed on September 30.

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

KWWT shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 30, on June 12, 2009, and " flash-cut" its digital signal into operation on its analog-era UHF channel 30. Because it was granted an original construction permit after the FCC finalized the

digital television transition in the United States The digital transition in the United States was the switchover from analog to exclusively digital broadcasting of terrestrial television programming. According to David Rehr, then president and CEO of the National Association of Broadcasters, t ...

(DTV) allotment plan on April 21, 1997, the station did not receive a companion channel for a digital

References

External links