KTXD-TV

Not to be confused with KTXD-LP.
KTXD-TV
Greenville/Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas
United States
City Greenville, Texas
Branding Texas 47
Slogan We Are Everywhere.
Channels Digital: 46 (UHF)
Virtual: 47 (PSIP)
Subchannels (see article)
Affiliations Independent
Owner London Broadcasting Company
(KTXD License Company, LLC)
First air date April 1, 1994 (1994-04-01)
Call letters' meaning TeXas Dallas
Former callsigns KTAQ (1994–2011)
Former channel number(s) Analog:
47 (UHF, 1994–2009)
Former affiliations DT1:
ACN (2000–2004)
ShopNBC (2004–2006)
Promiseland Television Network (2006–2010)
Infomercials (2010–2012)
MeTV (2012–2013; both primary affiliation and DT4)
DT3: Mexicanal (2012–2013)
Transmitter power 600 kW
Height 496 meters (1,627 ft)
Facility ID 42359
Transmitter coordinates 32°32′35.4″N 96°57′32.9″W / 32.543167°N 96.959139°W / 32.543167; -96.959139Coordinates: 32°32′35.4″N 96°57′32.9″W / 32.543167°N 96.959139°W / 32.543167; -96.959139
Licensing authority FCC
Public license information: Profile
CDBS
Website www.texas47.com

KTXD-TV, virtual channel 47 (UHF digital channel 47-1), is an independent television station serving the Dallas–Fort Worth Metroplex that is licensed to Greenville, Texas, United States. It serves as the flagship station of the London Broadcasting Company. KTXD maintains studio facilities and offices located on Dallas Parkway (west of the Dallas North Tollway) in Addison, and its transmitter is located south of Belt Line Road in Cedar Hill. On cable, the station is available on Time Warner Cable channel 24 and in high definition on HD channels 24 and 1289, Charter Communications channel 22 and Verizon FiOS channels 18 and 518.

History

Early Years

This station first signed on the air on April 1, 1994 as KTAQ. During its early years, the station carried programming from shopping networks such as The Jewelry Network and Shop at Home. In 2000, the station affiliated with the America's Collectibles Network, though most of the shopping programming was relegated to the nighttime hours. In 2004, the station switched to ShopNBC. In late 2006, KTAQ switched to a 24-hour religious programming format as the flagship station of the Promiseland Television Network after being acquired by Promiseland founder Mike Simons (through Simons Broadcasting, LP).

It was reported in February 2007 that KTAQ was fined $10,000 for failing to place its 2005 Biennial Ownership Report, all required TV issues/programs lists, and Children’s Television Programming Reports in the station’s public inspection file. The station admitted in its license renewal application that during the previous term, it had failed to timely place all of the documentation required by Section 73.3526 of the rules in its public inspection file.[1]

In November 2008, Simons Broadcasting, LP filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Texas in Waco,[2] Simons Broadcasting, LP debtor-in-possession sold the station to Platinum Equity, LLC in mid-2010.[3] In early November 2010, KTAQ switched to an infomercial format.

Platinum Equity later sold the station to the Addison-based London Broadcasting Company, which changed the station's call sign to KTXD-TV. London Broadcasting retained Continental Television to act as "national and local [advertising] sales" for the station, which suggested that KTXD would adopt a general entertainment format rather than a brokered, or foreign language format. The purchase was completed on January 19, 2012.[4]

Recent Years

On March 16, 2012, KTXD (under the verbal K-Tex branding at the time) became an affiliate of MeTV (a digital broadcast network specializing in classic television series, which is nominally carried as a multicast channel in most markets, but is optionally carried as a main channel affiliation in a few cities), carrying its programming part-time on its main channel and MeTV's complete schedule on digital subchannel 47.4. Under London, the station also began to place an emphasis on locally produced lifestyle and entertainment programs.

On October 31, 2013, KTXD declined to renew its affiliation contract with MeTV and dropped the network's programming, which by association, resulted in the 47.4 subchannel going dark.[5] Channel 47 converted to a general entertainment independent station, effectively competing with KTXA (channel 21), featuring local programs as well as a mix of recent and classic television series (including some that have been carried in recent years on MeTV and one of its chief rivals, Antenna TV). The station also acquired the local rights to a Dallas Cowboys regular season road game against the Chicago Bears on December 9, which is part of the ESPN Monday Night Football package.[6] MeTV would return to the Dallas-Fort Worth area on KTXA in December 2013 over a new second digital subchannel.[7]

On May 14, 2014, the Gannett Company announced the purchase of six of London Broadcasting's Texas television stations for $215 million. London exempted KTXD and Longview sister station KCEB from the deal; in the case of KTXD, the company's retention of KTXD was decided by management; Gannett's existing ownership of ABC affiliate WFAA (channel 8; which was acquired in 2013 as part of the company's merger with Belo),[8][9] however, did not play a factor as the Dallas-Fort Worth market has enough full-power television stations to allow a fourth duopoly and neither did the FCC's newspaper-television crossownership restrictions as the company does not own a newspaper within the market.[10][11]

Digital television

Digital channels

Since June 2011, the station's digital channel has been multiplexed:

Channel Video Aspect PSIP Short Name Programming[12]
47.1 1080i 16:9 KTXD-DT Main KTXD programming
47.2 480i 4:3 UAN Universal Affiliates Network
47.3 LATV LATV
47.4 KTXD-4 Tele Vida Abundante
47.5 SBN SonLife

Analog-to-digital conversion

KTXD-TV shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 47, on June 12, 2009, as part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television.[13] The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 30, using PSIP to display KTXD-TV's virtual channel as 47 on digital television receivers.

KTXD's original analog transmitter was located in Greenville. After the digital transition, the station's transmitter moved to the Cedar Hill antenna farm. Because the digital transmitter site is over 63 miles from the Greenville site, over 90,000 viewers in that area[14] no longer receive the station. However, the new digital signal covers the entire Dallas Fort Worth metro area, resulting in a net change in population covered from 1,364,801 persons (for its analog signal) to 5,306,750 (for its digital signal).[14]

KUVN-DT operates a low-power station (KUVN-CA) on channel 47 in Fort Worth . Some viewers in the Ft. Worth area may receive KUVN-CA on channel 47 and KTXD on "virtual" channel 47.1.

Programming

Encore Programming

Syndicated programs broadcast by KTXD include Community, Cougar Town, Mad About You, America's Funniest Home Videos, All in the Family and Married... with Children. Upon adopting an entertainment-based schedule, the station began carrying MeTV programming on its main channel from 9:00 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. weekdays, and from 1:00 p.m. to midnight on weekends. The network was later expanded to 7:30 a.m. to 12:30 a.m. on weekdays and noon to 11:00 p.m. on Sundays, and reduced to 5:00 to 10:00 p.m. on Saturdays.

After MeTV programming was dropped, classic television series were added to the schedule, alongside some more recent and barter syndicated programs, giving the station a format mildly similar to KFWD (channel 52, now a SonLife Broadcasting Network affiliate)'s format during its years as an English language independent station. The remainder of KTXD's schedule consists of locally produced programs on weekdays; syndicated E/I programming on Saturday mornings as well as local interest programming, college sporting events in the afternoon hours on Saturdays; along with religious programming, infomercials. The overnight hours from 2AM to 5AM are occupied by programs from AMGTV.[15]

Local programming

On July 20, 2012, KTXD announced that it would launch an hour-long news and commentary program called The Texas Daily;[16][17] the program featured several veteran news anchors and reporters formerly seen on KDFW (channel 4), KXAS-TV (channel 5), WFAA (channel 8) and KTVT (channel 11) – including John Criswell, Troy Dungan, Iola Johnson and Tracy Rowlett. The Texas Daily debuted on October 1, 2012, and featured stories relevant to Dallas-Fort Worth and Texas as well as national and international news reports from CNN's affiliate news service CNN Newssource.

Originally airing at 8:00 a.m., the program moved to 6:00 p.m. the following year with a rebroadcast airing at 9:30 p.m. being added. The station canceled The Texas Daily on March 19, 2014, citing low viewership (registering ratings that were marginal or at times, too low to register a measurable ratings point) and that the program "has been difficult to sell advertising into".[18] The last edition of the program aired two days later, and was replaced with syndicated reruns of America's Funniest Home Videos. The station also produced the weekend sports program DFW Sports Beat, hosted by Brady Tinker and Everson Walls, which featured interviews and discussions on area sports; the program was also cancelled in early 2014.

In September 2012, KTXD debuted a talk and lifestyle program titled The Broadcast (originally titled D: The Broadcast until D Magazine dropped their sponsorship of the program in September 2013), which originally aired at noon; the program, which features a panel format similar to the network daytime talk shows The View and The Talk, was moved to 9:00 a.m. and expanded to two hours upon the cancellation of The Texas Daily in March 2014; the program, which like most of KTXD's local programs has experienced low ratings locally, received national attention in May 2014 after co-host Amy Kushnir walked off the set during a heated discussion about controversial remarks from some football players regarding a moment televised on ESPN during the 2014 NFL Draft in which openly gay player Michael Sam was kissed his boyfriend on-camera after being selected by the St. Louis Rams.[19][20] The Broadcast was finally canceled in March 2015. [21] On May 6, 2013, the station began carrying a television simulcast of The Mark Davis Morning Show, from KSKY (660 AM), on weekday mornings from 7:00 to 9:00 a.m. It was canceled in December 2014.

Notable former on-air staff

References

  1. ↑ FCC fines KTAQ-TV for public file violations - TABulletin (accessed December 16, 2010)
  2. ↑ Dallas Religious Station in Bankruptcy | TVNewsCheck.com
  3. ↑ Distressed Dallas-Ft. Worth television station sold
  4. ↑ London Broadcasting Completes Dallas Buy
  5. ↑ KTXD Dallas Splits With Me-TV
  6. ↑ Malone, Michael (31 October 2013). "Dallas Splits With Me-TV; London Broadcasting will rely on homegrown shows, other syndicated hits". Broadcasting & Cable. Retrieved 1 November 2013.
  7. ↑ Me-TV Adds New Dallas Affiliate, KTXA, TVNewsCheck.
  8. ↑ Brown, Lisa (June 13, 2013). "Gannett to buy TV station owner Belo for $1.5 billion". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Retrieved June 13, 2013.
  9. ↑ "Gannett announces purchase of CBS 19, 5 others for $215M". Tyler Morning Telegraph. May 14, 2014. Retrieved May 15, 2014.
  10. ↑ "Gannett Buys 6 London Broadcasting Stations". TVNewsCheck. Retrieved 14 May 2014.
  11. ↑ "Gannett adds to TV holdings with six Texas stations but London Broadcasting holds onto the big one in Dallas". Uncle Barky's Bytes. Ed Bark. May 14, 2014. Archived from the original on May 15, 2014. Retrieved May 17, 2014.
  12. ↑ RabbitEars TV Query for KTXD
  13. ↑ List of Digital Full-Power Stations
  14. 1 2 FCC Service Contour Maps for the Dallas-Fort Worth Market
  15. ↑ Weekly Schedule - Texas47.com (accessed November 29, 2015)
  16. ↑ Everything old is new again as Tracy Rowlett, Troy Dungan, Iola Johnson and other very familiar faces return to TV, The Dallas Morning News, September 13, 2012.
  17. ↑ KTXD Launches The Texas Daily News Program With Jeff Brady, D Magazine, July 20, 2012.
  18. ↑ End of days for KTXD's The Texas Daily (accessed April 26, 2014)
  19. ↑ Taibi, Catherine (May 14, 2014). "TV Host Storms Off Set Over Michael Sam Kiss (VIDEO)". The Huffington Post. Retrieved May 17, 2014.
  20. ↑ Borennewspaper=The Washington Post, Cindy (May 15, 2014). "Watch Dallas TV host walk off set during debate on Michael Sam kiss". Retrieved May 17, 2014.
  21. ↑ KTXD/Channel 47 cancels The Broadcast
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